Help #SME becoming #digital

Help SME becoming #digital

Alexander SAMARIN

SME – Small and Medium Enterprise

Help SME becoming #digital v1 2

• The realities of the new world:

– speed – immediately

– scale – planet-wide

– variations – more opportunities in more locations with more partners and for more customers

– competition – with everyone (any may be attacked by everyone)

– transparency – be ready to justify everything

• Only the digital (neither physical nor analogue) media can handle this unprecedented complexity

• Digital relates to everything:

– products, production, design, organisation of work, customer experience, compliance, security, etc.

© A. Samarin 2015

Why becoming digital?


• Business artefacts are available in digital formats (formal and executable)

• Business artefacts can be moved between digital, analog and physical medias

• Digital is the master media for business artefacts

• Everyone “understands” the digital formats for business

• Enterprise can transmit, protect, validate, enrich, interpret and manipulate digital business artefacts at their whole life-cycle

• Enterprise can generate new knowledge from digital business artefacts

• Enterprise knows all the dependencies between its digital business artefacts

• Enterprise can adapt digital business artefacts for a particular customer

• People can delegate to "things" some routine activities with their artefacts

• With the progress of #IoT, "things" become more capable actors within digital business processes

© A. Samarin 2015

#digital manifesto


• Weak enterprise-wide units

• Lack of free resources & Lack of internal expertise

• Many modern technologies and tools on the market

• In addition to “faster, cheaper, better” is it mandatory to become digital, ecological and societal

• Licences, consultants and external development are very expensive

• In-house development is very slow

• Improbable to start big and risky projects

• A lot of legacy

© A. Samarin 2015

Barriers in SME to become #digital


• Which business artefact is the most important one for becoming #digital?

– products

– services

– capabilities

– functions

– organisation units

– information

– processes

– something else

• Hint: try to derive from your choice all other artefacts

© A. Samarin 2015

Use the points of most leverage to enable such a transformation


• a model and communication tool during the design period

• input for project evaluation (including impact analysis)

• input for project planning and execution

• an executable program for the coordination of work

• documentation for all staff members

• a “single source of truth” for operating control and monitoring

• a framework for internal control and security enhancement

• the basis for management decisions

© A. Samarin 2015

Properly done, a business process serves many purposes


• The goal – how to climb up with the pace of business and without drastically changing diagrams, tools, practices and architecture

Ladder of business process practices

© A. Samarin 2015

Implicit

Illustrative

Explicit

Executable

System-of-processes

Fully digital

Everyone understands common business processes in the same way

If there are separation of labour or separation of work then there are business processes

Each person understands common business processes differently

Coordination via business processes is carried out objectively

Enterprise is a system-of-processes

All business artefacts are digital-first


• Business processes are described somewhere long time ago

• Business processes are embedded into applications

• People understand business processes differently

• Example: To “push” forward a process instance (e.g. my request for procurement), one has to know

– what is the current activity

– who is doing this activity now

– be a friend with this person

– call him/her, re-explain all details and re-send several documents

• Different units see end-to-end processes differently

© A. Samarin 2015

Implicit business processes

Help SME becoming #digital v1 9© A. Samarin 2015

Illustrative are not enough …..

Usage of business processes Illustrative model

As a communication tool Informal

Input for project planning and execution

Expert agreed guess

Coordination of work Subject to personal interpretations

Corporate knowledge Usually disconnected from the reality

Source for operating control Post factum

Framework for internal control Based on willingness

Framework for information security

Usually not connected

Basis for management decisions Subjective and delayed

• Essential techniques:

– common notation

– hierarchy of processes

• Essential concerns:

– Are process diagrams understandable for everyone?

– Quickly understandable?


• Qualitative technique to demonstrate business advantages

• Use of BPM-suite tools to demonstrate IT advantages

• Example of a quick consultancy– Concern: faster + cheaper + better delivery of business solutions– Task: demonstrate agility in prototyping, integration and evolutions– Action: use 4 various tools (BPM-suite) to prototype – Result: BPM was accepted to modernise an in-house ERP

© A. Samarin 2015

How to justify to become better then illustrative processes?



– modern modelling practices

– process patterns

– simulation

© A. Samarin 2015

Why explicit?

Usage of business processes Explicit modelAs a communication tool Semi-formalInput for project planning and execution

Expert agreed about SOA

Coordination of work Commonly agreed and subject to personal interpretations

Documentation for staff What we see is what you we should do

Source for operating control Post factum

Framework for internal control Based on willingness

Framework for information security Usually not connected

Basis for management decisions Subjective and delayed


• Incremental transformation to #digital (explicit and executable) processes – see http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com/2015/06/incremental-transformation-to-digital.html

• BPM and BPMN training courses

• Proven process modelling procedure

• Many practical process patterns

© A. Samarin 2015

How to advance to explicit business processes?

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com/2015/06/incremental-transformation-to-digital.html





Why executable?

Usage of business processes Executable modelAs a communication tool FormalInput for project planning and execution

SOA ready - services and other artefacts

Coordination of work Commonly agreed and objectively re-inforced

Documentation for staff What we see is what you we must do

Source for operating control Objective and immediate

Framework for internal control Based on obligations

Framework for information security Dynamic and proactive

Basis for management decisions Objective and immediate


– BPM reference model

– BPM suite

– automation

– optimisation loop


• Quantitative technique to demonstrate the effect of automation

• BPM-suite tool selection for your needs

• Proven implementation practices, BPM COE, knowledge transfer, rapid prototyping

• An example

© A. Samarin 2015

How to advance to executable business processes?


• See http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2014/03/enterprise-as-system-of-processes.html

• Five levels of coordination with the system-of-processes

1. business activities

2. process fragments / patterns

3. classic business processes (workflows)

4. cluster of business processes (around functional processes)

5. value-streams (or end-to-end business processes)

© A. Samarin 2015

Why system of processes

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2014/03/enterprise-as-system-of-processes.html




• Manage life-cycle of all enterprise artefacts

• Transform process improvement into business improvement (BPM is already 50 % of EA)

• SOA/ESB/API and microservices-based application architecture – see http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2015/04/architecting-cloud-friendly-application.html

© A. Samarin 2015

How to advance to enterprise-as-a-system-of-processes?

Many practices become process-centric:• Governance • Project management• Risk management• Records management• ECM and knowledge

management• Enterprise architecture

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2015/04/architecting-cloud-friendly-application.html




Iceberg of processes

+Governance as a process


• Each SME has its own way – for example, - http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com/2015/06/an-example-of-architecting-digital.html

© A. Samarin 2015

How to advance to fully digital?

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com/2015/06/an-example-of-architecting-digital.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com/2015/06/an-example-of-architecting-digital.html


• Enterprise functioning can be considered as business activity flows spanning the applications, employees, customers and partners within and beyond the boundaries of the enterprise

• Business activity is a unit of work

• Business process is an explicitly-defined coordination for guiding the purposeful enactment of business activities

– Note: Business process is a plan of work with some variations and its execution with some necessary corrections

© A. Samarin 2015

Business process definitions


• Enterprise functioning can be considered as business activity flows spanning the applications, employees, customers and partners within and beyond the boundaries of the enterprise

• Business activity is a unit of work

• Business process is an explicitly-defined coordination for guiding the purposeful enactment of business activities

– Note: Business process is a plan of work with some variations and its execution with some necessary corrections

© A. Samarin 2015

Business process definitions


• Business Process Management (BPM) is a process-based management discipline involving any logical combination of – modeling/planning, – automation/implementation, – execution, – control, – measurement and – optimization

of business processes

– Process-based management discipline is a management discipline which exploit the concept of “business processes”

– Management discipline is a discipline for the better management of the enterprise functioning in support of the enterprise goals

© A. Samarin 2015

BPM definitions


• QUESTIONS?

• Personal website: http://www.samarin.biz

• Blog http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com

• LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandersamarin

• E-mail: [email protected]

• Twitter: @samarin

• Mobile: +41 76 573 40 61

• Book: www.samarin.biz/book

Thanks

© A. Samarin 2015

http://www.samarin.biz/

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com/

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandersamarin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandersamarin

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.twitter.com/samarin

http://www.samarin.biz/book

Technology

Help #SME becoming #digital