Get Smart: IBM BPM BlueWorks Gives Business a Better Path to Business Process Management by Amy Larsen DeCarlo

Relentless recessionary pressures are pushing enterprises to find new ways to trim the fat from their operations. This desire for cost optimization is driving more businesses to business process management (BPM) to slash expenses that are a byproduct of inefficiency and waste. Research findings indicate that more than 80 percent of organizations are investing in BPM initiatives as a means to create more streamlined, automated and efficient environments.

But simply pouring money into BPM projects won’t translate into immediate success. Effective BPM depends on more than just a set of sophisticated modeling and automation tools used by a select group of IT planners and administrators; businesses really must be able to incorporate input from business users and process owners in order to map process changes to both tactical and strategic goals.

However, traditional BPM analysis tools are typically geared toward more technical users. These products can be prohibitively expensive and difficult to use; they may also require extensive training to produce results. Unfortunately, this complexity can keep key stakeholders from participating in the process improvement efforts, and this, plus the exorbitant cost, can slow down real BPM progress.

Therefore, recognizing that true process optimization requires opening up BPM strategy design to business users and analysts, IBM is introducing BlueWorks, a new cloud-based set of business strategy and process-mapping tools supported by prebuilt content and community experiences. These free tools provide organizations with a method of finding areas for operational improvement so they can begin to design the process changes necessary for achieving that improvement.

BlueWorks gives business leaders, business analysts and other business users an environment to outline strategic objectives, correlating these goals with existing business capabilities or competencies, underlying processes and performance metrics in order to isolate inefficiencies and begin to map out improvements. Users can also access expert BPM advice through the integrated community and collaboration features.

The BlueWorks tool supports business leaders and business users in their work as they begin scoping BPM projects and mapping core capabilities and processes that support the business’s strategic goals. Connecting these processes to the underlying business goals and objectives could — and should — produce higher success rates in BPM projects.

BlueWorks promotes rather than impedes productivity. The tools offer sophisticated functionality but yet are easy to use. BlueWorks requires no training. Basically, if you can type, you can start building out strategy and capability process maps that provide the foundation for BPM. Included are pre-built strategy, capability, process maps and business measures to accelerate the build-out process. BlueWorks also incorporates a graphical BPM Notation editor to make it easier to extend process maps.

The collaborative tools take full advantage of the cloud concept. BlueWorks offers users a way to collaborate with others within their own organization on business process analysis and design. This helps expedite the analysis and initial design process, giving organizations a way to capture and develop process designs.

Organizations emerge from this effort with much more concrete and better-developed process models. The next step is to use WebSphere Business Modeler to begin translating these concepts into something that can be deployed to support the process automation that drives greater efficiency, productivity and competitiveness. BlueWorks contributes to a more-effective result by giving organizations an easy and elegant way to tie processes to core business goals, objectives and capabilities.

On a macro level, an organization that is able to optimize its processes is going to run more efficiently, respond more effectively to customers, achieve higher profit margins and capitalize on new market opportunities. Simply put, BlueWorks helps organizations work smarter by capitalizing on their strengths and finding workarounds to challenges.

Find out how IBM BPM BlueWorks can help your organization.

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Archive of Articles by Amy Larsen DeCarlo

2009
Business Intelligence Acquires a Whole New Meaning » Read article
Lean Six Sigma, BPM, and SOA: Accelerating Bottom Line Benefits » Read article
Applying a Role-Based Approach to Business Process Management » Read article