It has been well over three weeks since I finished blog 2 in the series. A bout of flu, excess work and some plain old writer’s block are to blame for this. Today let us explore CEBT through the lens of a business process flow. We have over 200 use cases in our repository but I picked a transaction that is simple but effective. The process flow under consideration is an inventory management flow. Many manufacturers work closely with large retailers such as Home Depot, Walmart etc. who are their trade partners. The relationship between the manufacturers and these partners are largely symbiotic. Now let us run through the baseline state of this process flow (prior to CEBT). The trade partner electronically transfers stock balance and demand data to the manufacturer. The partner representative at the manufacturer notices the receipt of this data. Then he or she manually schedules a meeting or calls the production coordinator to analyze this data. The connection with the production coordinator may be made after one or many manual tries. Finally they discuss the production schedule and production complete date. Next the representative will have to manually connect with the shipment coordinator. Again the actual human connection is made after one or many manual tries. He may need to escalate or delegate which may take longer. Finally the human connection is established and the shipment schedule and delivery date discussed. The delivery date is then electronically communicated to the trade partner who prepares for goods receipt. The baseline state as you can see is very manual in its human connection. The outcome of this manual connection could be Delay      in connecting with the production coordinator resulting in delayed      production of goods Delay      in connecting with the shipment coordinator resulting in delayed delivery      of goods. Both these outcomes are not very conducive for the manufacturer and the relationship with the trade partner. Hence most manufacturers in order to provide some buffer for these delays will hold a little more than necessary finished goods inventory which comes with its own associated cost tag of higher warehouse costs, more in-process inventory, etc. Further they typically will also have other expedited delivery costs budgeted such as expedited shipment. Now let us see how we can overcome these issues with a CEBT flow A collaboratively transformed process flow will look as above. Now since the sharing of the stock balance and demand data is mostly a periodic event or an event triggered by stock balance alerts, when such an event occurs, a voice notification is placed to the coordinator of the trade partner. A message is played asking if he or she wants a conference to be placed with the manufacturer. If the coordinator responds saying yes (using DTMF based response set) then a notification is sent to the manufacturer’s coordinator informing him/her of the stock balance conference. Then the two coordinators are brought together in an audio conference where the bridge dials out and connects the two individuals. Once they share the stock balance data, the manufacturer’s coordinator uses a portal to schedule an internal telepresence. Again the production team and the shipment team is notified. Any escalations and delegations are automatically managed. The telepresence or video conference helps to collaboratively determine the production schedule, shipment schedule and delivery date to the trade partner. Once the video conference is completed, the partner coordinator on the manufacturer’s side inputs the decision through the portal that automates a notification and a conference between the manufacturer’s coordinator and the trade partner’s coordinator. In all these the right people or the organizational expert is identified in an automated way, then using the user preferences and Presence and Availability, the right device for the user is identified and the communication session is placed to them. Thus using a collaborative process where the connection elements are automated the      process completes with less variance – the escalations, delegations and      team identification is made as automatic as possible the      delay in finding and assembling the right people is reduced by automating      the human connection, reducing the delay by automating the user and device      identification and then actually connecting to the human user The      collaborative process further reduces or eliminates the serial bottlenecks      further optimizing the process Persistence      in the notifications maintains the team updated in a manner only      achievable through automation Due to the reduction in delays and process variance, the manufacturer also has a huge economic impact as they can reduce the buffer of finished goods inventory, all the associated cost line items and the expedited shipment costs. In this blog we have seen how CEBT really drives tangible business value to a customer using the lens of a process flow.   I wanted to end this blog with a reminder – Please do remember to attend the webcast “Reinventing the Way You Collaborate and Communicate Improving Business Operations with Telepresence” When: July 14, 2009 Time: 8 a.m. Pacific Time/11 a.m. Eastern Time Register now to attend this webcast. Telepresence is a very effective collaboration tool that can help transform your business process and business environment. ... View more

In my previous blog I had promised to continue this series and to take you through the entire methodology for CEBT. In line with this promise I present to you today the case for CEBT – Why is CEBT important to a key decision maker within an organization? Today in many companies the business processes that run the organization are documented, modeled and automated. These processes run a series of automated tasks and invariably pause at tasks that require human intervention. These tasks require either a single or a team of human participants to collaborate, analyze the data presented, apply analytical thinking and then arrive at a business decision. This decision is then input into the automated process and the process is triggered to continue. It is these tasks that influence lag and also introduce inefficiencies into the overall business process. Now let us look at why this is so. The human intervention tasks have the following requirements in the process context Need      to identify other experts within the organization whose counseling is      required to complete the task or sub-process. Here the lag is caused by      the human user manually trying to locate the expert within the      organization Connecting      with and talking to the experts or team participants and collaborating on      the decision making process. Here the lag is caused by manually trying to      locate and connect with the participants and assembling a quorum decision. Persistence      in getting the process or task participants to arrive at a decision. In      many cases the tasks may have to be delegated or escalated to other      participants or simply needs to be persistently executed by the      participant to completion. In these cases inefficiencies and lag are      influenced by manual escalations and delegations and by what we call the      organizational loop. Consistency      in the communications relayed to multiple layers of process participants.      In many cases the message or business event needs to be relayed in a      consistent manner to multiple process participants. Any deviation could      turn out expensive for the organization. In these cases manually relaying      the information can be inefficient and cause for errors and hence cost Accountability:      In most organizations accountability of the transactions within the      process context is an extremely important consideration. Hence the human      intervention tasks in a business process need to be tuned to provide      higher accountability and auditing capabilities. The above requirements when not addressed adequately give rise to process variance that in turn leads to high costs, low customer satisfaction, low revenue attainment, erosion of competitive value and hence affected organizational performance. With CEBT, the human intervention tasks can be Automated      – both in terms of locating the experts within an organization and also      automating the contact with the single or group participants. Made      Persistent through Timed notifications, automatic escalations and      delegations Made      Consistent through automated messages broadcast to the population of participants      while also enabling responses and acknowledgements, automatic      collaboration sessions that bring the key process participants together,      etc Made      Accountable through enhanced and automated logging and reporting of the      business events, notifications, responses and collaboration sessions. Hence CEBT drives strategic value for an enterprise by Increasing      operational and business efficiency Improving      customer satisfaction Enhancing      competitive advantage Driving      down costs due to process variance Increasing      revenue attainment by increased transactional efficiency Improving      organizational accountability and reducing regulatory pressures The above diagram shows the enterprise key decision maker’s realm of concern. It follows that by being able to positively impact competitive advantage, revenue and cost savings as also process efficiency, CEBT lies high in this realm of concern or priority. In the next blog I will present to you a business process and then describe to you how to change it into a CEBT flow and the value it drives. ... View more

What is Collaboration Enabled Business Transformation and how different is it from CEBP or Communications Enabled Business Process? Communications Enabled Business Process has been an industry term for sometime. Today the market is rife with various acronyms CEBP, BPR etc that all mean niche integration of communication capabilities into different business areas. In this blog I would like to bring out my definition and perspectives around Collaborations Enabled Business Transformation (CEBT). CEBT is the embedding of Communications and Collaboration capabilities into the business fabric of enterprises driving efficiency, optimization and transformation The following diagram depicts what is in scope for a CEBT flow Business events such as Process Excursion, Deviation or Threshold attainment require different enterprise participants to respond or make appropriate decision. CEBT involves the identification of these expert/experts, then utilizing user contextual information such as Presence, availability and preferences routing the business context to these experts. Where the event requires team response, collaborative mechanisms such as video, audio or web conferencing is used to facilitate team conversations. Further escalation and delegation rules are built into the flows. Information repositories and workspaces aid in information sharing to aid in the decision making process. The above in scope flows are then integrated into either existing or transformed process flows. How does CEBT differ from Communications Enabled Business Processes or CEBP? CEBT differs from CEBP in the following ways: CEBT      seamlessly integrates rich collaboration, social enterprise features and      communications into business processes and applications as opposed to CEBP      that includes only communication capabilities notably notifications. CEBT      includes two types of process integrations Process       transformation – This involves changing or transforming the underlying       business process through the use of communications, collaboration and       social features. This accelerates the business value/business case from       CEBT Process       optimization – This involves just embedding communications and       collaboration into the business process without changing the underlying       process flow. CEBT      is more than a product or offer. It is a full fledged methodology. This      concept is further detailed below What is the CEBT methodology? CEBT is not a single product, solution or integration but is a methodology that involves the following: ·         analyzing the strategic framework of an enterprise ·         identifying the gaps or points of improvement ·         Modeling the process flows that drive these concerns. ·         analyzing the process flows using the deep process analysis methodology ·         drawing up the collaborative process flow changes ·         computing the economic impact from the optimized or transformed process flow ·         And finally implementing these flows using communications and collaboration technology.      Just as any other transformational activity within an enterprise, CEBT is also governed by financial and operational metrics. The deep process analysis of the baseline and transformational state together with financial analysis of the variances and impact on the enterprise help derive the business case justification for these projects In blogs following this we will explore and discuss the various components of this methodology. However before we delve into the details and debate the component structure of this methodology I would like to get feedback from all of you on how relevant do you find CEBT for your enterprise/partner/customer? Look forward to some lively discussion on this topic ... View more

The changing world dynamics and the economic downturn have been felt by Universities world wide. This year most of the Universities have seen erosion in their endowments. The reduced financial ability of students and parents to pay for higher education has further attenuated this issue. On the other hand the Universities can provide temporary research and development staff, bespoke management and leadership consulting and cost effective incubation support that have all turned into valid opportunities for both the Universities and industries to weather the current crisis. This business environment has led many higher educational institutions to re-draft their strategies and priorities. Some of the common strategic priorities across most Universities that I have been consulting with include Internationalization      – This includes the recruitment of foreign students, partnering with      foreign Universities to deliver common classes, faculty coordination      across different Universities and industry connections across the globe Student      retention – This is a high priority amongst most Universities and directly      translates into funding for the school. Industry      association – Industry networks are an extremely important priority for      most educational institutions. These networks result in graduate      employment, research funding, industry sponsored students and multiple      such opportunities for the faculty and students Pedagogical      modernization – Most Universities see the need to strengthen their brand      through modernization of their teaching content and delivery While these strategic priorities require business alignment that most Universities are rightly focusing on, collaboration and communication technologies can act as a catalyst helping these institutions succeed in these activities. Let us see how through a use case: As this use case shows Collaboration technologies can help connect teams of faculty and students across the globe helping them to work together in a seamless manner sharing each other’s expertise and perspective. This helps achieve the institution’s goal for internationalization. In a similar way embedding communications and collaboration into the business fabric of the higher educational institutions can help these organizations achieve their strategic goals in an accelerated fashion. ... View more

A century ago the progressives in Washington sought to create the government in the image of the private sector. This resulted in transforming American government into an organization that tried to keep up with innovation. From this was born the metaphor “government as a machine”. While one can argue that this has not been a homogeneous trend, there are quite a few examples where the public sector has not only readily adopted new technology to transform governance but has even gone beyond the private enterprise. I was particularly very impressed by a group of public sector employees who have formed a community “MuniGov2.0” and hold regular virtual meetings on Second Life; that is right (!) in the gaming virtual world of Second Life, to discuss how the Government should utilize web 2.0 technologies! Real time collaboration embedded in government processes and applications can take this experience to the next level transforming the way the Government connects with its citizens, including them in the governance, obtaining first hand feedback on the effectiveness of its policies and ensuring accessible transparency where possible. Do you agree? What is your experience? Are we ready to make this change possible in our government? Is the public sector ready to bring about this transformation and unleash a whole new citizen experience while at the same time obtaining financial benefits from such collaborative applications? If yes what do you think will be first set of focus areas for such solutions? ... View more