he responsibility of IT managers to provide solutions that will preserve capability with fewer employees serving the same number of customers as well as remain flexible in changing market conditions requires those managers to consider the processes that drive their businesses. Business Process and Performance Management (BPPM) links the operational enterprise workflow capabilities of products like XMPro to strategic performance management requirements to steer businesses through these though times.
BPPM projects should typically be high priority initiatives in times like this as it supports all the major objectives set by Fiona as major strategic projects. BPPM projects define the required process performance measures upfront and then set out to achieve those through enterprise workflow automation and constant process monitoring. It optimises the use of scarce people resources and reduces process lag time in email inboxes waiting for actions. It notifies and escalates tasks and informs managers when service levels to customers are not met. It actively manages business processes on autopilot with the necessary feedback systems to those in charge.
It is really the only way I can see how organisations can preserve capability, remain agile and work within organisational and regulatory requirements.
Interestingly enough, the same newspaper has an interview with Mr. Barry Simpson, CIO for Coca Cola Amatil in Australia, and he suggested that they are looking to accelerate some of their IT projects that give them strategic advantage in an attempt to turn up the heat on competitors. “When business is though, and the economy is though, that’s when strong companies get stronger. This is when you want to be investing in business to drive that growth and to take advantage of weakened competitors”.
Definitely a strategy that could also benefit from BPPM.