Bpm Just Got Better: Mobile, Cloud, Social, And The Future Of Business Process Management

The enterprise Information Technology (IT) landscape is at the dawn of a radical change in response to a new set of business realities. The nature of work (how and where it gets done), the expectations of a new generation of workers (accustomed to an "always-on/always connected" electronic lifestyle), and emerging business models that challenge traditional concepts of IT cost and time-to-value are driving the change. In response, mobile computing, cloud and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery and social business collaboration technologies are rapidly gaining momentum in corporate IT.

Frank Gens, chief analyst at global IT research firm IDC, and author of the December 2010 report "Predictions: Welcome to the New Mainstream," states: "In 2011, we expect to see transformative technologies make the critical transition from early adopter status to early mainstream adoption. We'll see the IT industry revolving around the build-out and adoption of this next dominant platform, characterized by mobility, cloud-based application and service delivery, and value-generating overlays of social business and pervasive analytics."

This prediction is based on incontrovertible demographic data. 269.6 million mobile devices shipped in 2010 - a 55 percent increase over 2009 (source: IDC, 2010). Mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide by 2013 (source: Gartner, "Gartner's Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users, 2010 and Beyond: A New Balance," Dec. 2009). While users are going mobile, Business IT is taking to the cloud, opting for subscription-based IT services over dedicated in-house resources. In fact, by 2012, 20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets at all (source: Gartner, "Gartner Highlights Key Predictions for IT Organizations and Users in 2010 and Beyond," Jan. 2010). Social software, with its familiar interfaces and intuitive functions, has already supplanted email as the communication and collaboration method of choice for the rising generation of corporate workers. According to a recent survey, 48% of respondents indicated they will use social software more than email in 2011 (source: IDC Survey - 2010).

Each of these emerging technologies presents unique opportunities for business. Each presents unique challenges as well. In the case of mobile, increasing the productivity and connectedness of employees on the go and in the field is attractive, but the cost can be prohibitive. Designing and deploying mobilized versions of enterprise applications costs $20,000 for a "no-frills" application and can range to $150,000 for something sophisticated (source: Forrester Research, 2010). Cloud computing promises lowered IT costs and faster time-to-value than traditional on-premise deployments, but the cloud model is still new territory and many questions - particularly around issues of data security - persist. Social technologies are proven facilitators of communication, and can clearly galvanize social groups in coordinated actions. In raw form, however, social platforms create too much "noise and chatter" that offers little or no business value.

The challenge, then, is to find a low-cost, reliable and secure way to harness the obvious value propositions of these three technologies within a business context. The answer comes by integrating these technologies directly into core business processes utilizing an advanced Business Process Management (BPM) software platform.

MOBILE BPM

Mobile BPM allows employees to stay connected, informed and empowered to make important business decisions regardless of where they are. It also extends BPM participation beyond pre-defined process participants to include all levels of the organization. Using Mobile BPM from Appian, the mobile devices people already use can now allow:

Executives to see and engage with the business event information they need to make better, faster decisions in guiding the organization.

Suppliers, distributors and field staff to be linked in real-time to corporate processes and data.

Customers to check account details, request information or see the status of a service request

David Carpenter, director of BPM at leading apartment management firm Archstone, said, "The new mobile capabilities of BPM software will deliver a new level of value for our customer service associates, who would welcome instant mobile access to our key enterprise processes and forms. These associates are locally managing thousands of disparate apartment properties, and can't be tied to their desktops while responding to service requests."

CLOUD BPM

The benefits if BPM "in the cloud" include:

Low up-front investment, instant deployment and fast time-to-value

Reduced risk by enabling customers to easily migrate between cloud and on-premise at any time

Includes VPN access for integration to systems and applications behind a company firewall

Additionally, Cloud BPM deployments provide reliability and security that can be tough to match by even the best internally managed environments. It is designed to meet the needs of enterprise customers with the necessary reliability and security guarantees in place, including:

99.5% uptime guarantee

SAS-70 Type II infrastructure audit reports

SAML or LDAP/AD integration for secure authentication and single sign-on

SSL encryption of all communication between systems

Compliance with national data privacy laws through local hosting

SOCIAL BPM

Social technologies are powerful communication and collaboration platforms, but they must be harnessed in a business context to have business value. This technology provides a seamless integration of familiar social tools with BPM to drive business collaboration - social interactions that are tied to real business events and outcomes. SOcial BPM advantages include:

Personalized, Filtered Views: Users can filter views by relevant application or process areas and subscribe to customized feeds to monitor the key events and information that is meaningful to them

Easy Collaboration: Comment, question and collaborate on business events through real-time message posts and ad-hoc updates to targeted groups within and outside of pre-planned business processes

The Ability to Take Action: Generate actions and complete tasks from inside the event feed or from a mobile device, using optimized web and mobile forms to capture data and route tasks

CONCLUSION

Mobile computing, cloud and SaaS delivery and social technologies are on the rise in corporate IT because they address new and urgent business requirements, while also creating new business opportunities. Marrying these technologies to the vital processes that drive business success extends their value for business growth and innovation.