Breaking down IT and business barriers for effective process orchestration

David Brakoniecki at BP3 Europe argues that every member of staff across the organisation needs to be talking the same language to ensure that process orchestration is successful

 

We now live in an age of dispersion. Increasingly geographically distributed businesses are comprised of large numbers of workers completing tasks in silos. To add to end-to-end value chain problems, expectations for faster change, greater business agility and rapid speed-to-market are growing.

 

Customers filling out a mortgage application today want an early invitation online that’s devised by a quoting engine, instead of waiting six weeks for information to come back.

 

In the mortgage example, the decisions behind how and when the customer is contacted and which employee is dealing with each task sits beneath process orchestration, which more broadly deals with areas such as the discovery, modelling, analysing and automation of processes, such as Intelligent Process Automation (IPA).

 

However, the trend for a siloed way of working presents hurdles when it comes to improving these processes and ultimately ensuring that customers receive their expected service back quickly.

 

Change management is a tricky concept to navigate. Any new system requires collaboration and alignment among every stakeholder, regardless of department, to ensure flexibility as customer needs evolve. A key example of this is the divide between business and IT stakeholders.

 

Bridging the gap

A mortgage application is just one example of the many digital services that customers now expect to access and use effectively. In fact, 84% of consumers are more inclined to do business with organisations that offer self-service options, but fewer (61%) believe that these organisations have actually got to the stage of being able to offer them.

 

Business stakeholders are very much aware of this, and will be striving for continuous innovation. They ultimately want to make processes quicker and more efficient, which will help to bring in more customers and keep the current ones happy.

 

However, in the case of many businesses, 70% of the IT budget is spent primarily on keeping the lights on, meaning the remaining 30% is the portion earmarked for business process innovation to support the business stakeholders and evolve services for consumers.

 

IT stakeholders on the whole are much more likely to be risk averse due to an understanding associated with the complexity of architecture and code reviews. It isn’t as simple as a request coming in and IT staff immediately actioning it, for fear of breaking a critical system that’s already in place.

 

Building business understanding

The key is reaching out to expertise to help bring these departments together and devise the best way to improve processes for enhanced customer service. In the mortgage application example, the automation of tasks can enable a reduction in working hours saved or eradicate any errors in data entry.

 

While this is vital for quickening the pace of tasks and bringing a service to a customer sooner, purely bringing in automated solutions will not account for the flow of work between people in different departments. The orchestration of such processes is vital to bringing everyone on to the same page.

 

The way that this can be visualised is via a business process diagram that clearly spells out the benefit to business and IT stakeholders. There’s little value in handing over a 400 page document that makes perfect sense to IT but is too technical for business minds, as any divide between the two will likely persist.

 

Clearly defined boxes and arrows can detail how processes will play out, such as who or what is responsible for notifying customers of a successful mortgage application. Specific integrations in a business process diagram could include a timer to flag to a manager when a process hasn’t reached a certain point, which could otherwise violate an SLA and lead to customer dissatisfaction.

 

The major benefit of a collaborative approach from the start is that every stakeholder, regardless of department, understands the problem that needs to be solved and how this is going to be achieved.

 

At this stage, the Head of Change Management can be brought into these discussions to decipher whether a number of staff need to be retrained or given greater responsibility to make these new set of processes a reality.

 

Every company is a technology company

The importance of bringing people together has risen in a greater number of industry sectors. Ten years ago, it was largely banks and insurance companies that explored the benefits of orchestration and IPA. Now, as the dispersed workforce becomes widespread and digital services become a mandatory offering, every company is a technology company, from finance to retail.

 

While the introduction of automated technologies is a key aspect of enhancing efficiency and empowering staff, any project simply won’t get off the ground without the alignment of business stakeholders. Collaboration will enable businesses to truly define how these processes add value and agree on what needs to change.

 

Ultimately, every member of staff across the organisation needs to be talking the same language to ensure that process orchestration is a successful undertaking.

 

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David Brakoniecki is Managing Director at BP3 Europe

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com