NSN’s initial foray into Business Process Management was the award-winning “Zeus” project which thoroughly transformed its Consulting & Systems Integration division. Based on that success, NSN has now deployed a sophisticated, pan-organizational BPM Program, leveraging and extending the success of “Zeus” through one of the most mature Center of Excellence organizations in the BPM industry.

The single BPM platform has been leveraged to provide a multitude of BPMS ‘Apps,’ delivering process automation, process governance and consistency across the core areas of the NSN’s business, from its Business Solutions & Operations to its Managed Services and its Global Network Implementation Centers. Ultimately, through the effective use of BPM software, NSN now has enhanced levels of business visibility for managers and executives, supported by dedicated socio-business networking functionality (integrated collaboration within process).

In addition, Appian customer UPS was also selected as an award Finalist in the North America region for a BPM program that has improved operational efficiencies, enhanced customer service excellence, and generated significant cost-savings.

The Global Awards for Excellence in BPM and Workflow 2010 is managed by Future Strategies Inc. and co-sponsored by the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) and BPM.com.

Congratulations to both NSN and UPS for their well-deserved recognition!

-Ben Farrell, Director, Corporate Communications

John’s role is to lead the business process design team and lead the charge in meeting AGF Trust’s mandate to innovate its processes. In the two-part article, he discusses several critical issues for creating and growing a BPM Program, including how to pick your first process, how to build the business case for expansion, and the crucial importance of having a BPM Center of Excellence (CoE).

John will be presenting on this same topic at the IQPC Business Process Excellence in Financial Services conference in London, Spetember 21-22. If you are in the financial services industry, you should check it out.

Ben Farrell, director of Corporare Communications

Not to bring up “Joe the Plumber” again, one month after the election, but I’d like to take a minute to highlight how “Sharing the Wealth” among Appian users has benefitted our Appian customers. 

At the end of October, Appian went live with Appian ShareBase.  Appian ShareBase is a sub-portal on Appian Access (the Appian customer and partner support site) that allows Appian employees, customers and partners to share processes and process components.

Appian Access and Appian ShareBase have become the virtual Center of Excellence for Appian customers.  Sharing questions, best practices, and guidelines, Appian customers have been able to collaborate directly with other customers, partners and Appian employees on the best way to execute and manage their BPM initiative.  Appian ShareBase introduced important new functionality to the Appian Access site, allowing these users to upload processes, and process components they have built in their environments and share them with other users of Appian Enterprise and Appian Anywhere.

Within Appian ShareBase, users can upload process components and services for use in various Appian installations.  Appian’s unique modularity in application components, such as Portlets, Smart Services, Form Inputs, etc.. allows customers to share and download process services and easily deploy them in their environments.

For example, a process component currently available on the Appian ShareBase is the Content Viewer Channel.  This is a new Portlet for the Appian Portal environment that allows a document management folder view to be placed on a dashboard based on a completely dynamic value in a process.   Its found use in a variety of Applications built on Appian.

In one example for a Marketing Review process, the folder location of the marketing images to be reviewed changes once they are approved.  The portal page that allows a manager to track and lookup the images in process includes the Content Viewer Channel.  As the content shifts locations, the portal page is automatically updated to reflect the new location.    The same Content Viewer Channel is being used in a Case Management application where document locations also shift often.

These small additions in process and application components can have a huge impact in usability.  Each component helps our Appian customers create a more easily navigated and simpler end-user experience.

In addition, Appian has begun developing our library of process templates to help jumpstart customers into certain BPM initiatives.  Process templates for incident management, sales and marketing, compliance, purchasing, and others are all in the works and to be shared on Appian ShareBase.  As new customers join Appian, they will immediately benefit from this wealth of knowledge building inside the Appian community.

Appian as well as our customers and partners continue to contribute a variety of template processes and process components to share amongst each other.  Its a great example how communities are building using BPM Center of Excellence principles and SOA object sharing to build new innovative applications.

As Appian ShareBase expands, I’ll be sure to provide updates.

Thanks

Malcolm Ross

If you are pursuing your first project, I highly recommend this quick read on BPM Centers of Excellence.

One of our local services experts, Glenn Smith, recently wrote an article on How to Establish a BPM Center of Excellence for BPM Enterprise.com.   This is a great overview on how to get started with a company’s first foray into a business process management endeavor.   Glenn provides some basic starting steps on what to consider in defining the roles and make-up of the Center of Excellence team.

Malcolm