Dynamic Business Processes and IBM BlueWorks

Craig Hayman presented some interesting statistics to kick off – 83% of CEOs expect significant change yet 76% of IT budgets is spent on maintenance. BPM BlueWorks is one of IBM’s new products – very like AlignSpace – and Craig kicked off a demo.

The web environment provides lots of information about process modeling and tools to collaborate with other users. Craig showed how a user could get started creating a strategy map – SWOTs, goals, measures and actions for a new strategy. Easy user interface, cut and paste from presentations etc.

Having created a strategy map he logged in as someone else – someone with a more technical focus. This time he looked for existing content and found an existing process map. One of the steps in this had a BPMN diagram pre-defined for it. Sadly, of course, there was no real rules support in this diagram but otherwise it looked good.

Craig exported the model and loaded it into the SOA Sandbox. Here he was able to add some more technical details – again it still had no rules so he had to use manual approval which is SO five year ago – and generate forms etc to try out the process in a simulated environment. Very slick. Looking forward to seeing this …

The CIO of Mobitel came next to talk about their work with IBM to adapt to change. Mobitel is Slovenia’s largest mobile telco – 1.2M or so customers. Slovenia is very saturated market with lots of technology – >100% mobile penetration!

Mobitel uses Business Services Fabric, the BPM Suite on SOA and the Telecommunications framework and content pack. Together this helped them accelerate time to build a new module by 64% and reduced their TCO by 19% over 5 years.

IBM he says was the perfect partner for this, investing the time they needed to be successful and helping them expand. The real potential of the platform for them was in reuse of existing assets to drive process optimization. They have implemented an expanded mobile payments system and have consolidated their customer interactions to a single WebSphere platform.

Some of their new services have not only helped drive their own growth they are also selling the products to other mobile providers. They have lowered their costs, decreased their time to market and improved their regulatory compliance. They have learned that SOA is a strategy not a project and that change management and skills investment are necessary. Good advice and a great presentation.

IBM Global Business Services came back to introduce some more of their research. To focus on value, exploit opportunities and act with speed you need, they say, dynamic business processes and models. Particularly since 87% of executives say that they plan to change their business model as part of responding. A business architecture takes methods, tools, metrics and models and takes strategy, operating and IT models.

The new IBM Business Analytics and Optimization service was emphasized as were some updated industry frameworks including insurance, retail, healthcare, government and telecommunications. IBM’s customers tell it that they need technology, support, services, industry know-how all packaged up. This is what gives IBM such an edge in some of these areas.

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