BPM-EAI

Nice Article.

I totally agree with the article above, however, to understand this further, i have some questions.

1. When should BPM be implemented in any such dynamic system?

2. Should BPM be used after processes have been establised and running...to improve?

3. Can we not implement BPM at early stages of process establisment itself?

4. Does it not increase flexibility right through the Process lifecycle because of BPM?

5. Another point is how do we do ROI calculations for such a BPM implementation?

It would be nice to see a debate happening around similar issues and leading to some concrete understanding.

Hope to see some answers and view points.

Ashish, good to have your view point. Hmmm...let us go forward point by point.

1. When should BPM be implemented in any such dynamic system?
I believe, BPM can be implemented at any stage. From a vendor's perspective, it is important to answer the questions 'Why BPM is being adopted?' and 'What are the returns that are expected?'. This would drive the BPM adoption.

2. Should BPM be used after processes have been establised and running...to improve?
3. Can we not implement BPM at early stages of process establisment itself?
I shall take point #2 and #3 collectively. Yes, BPM could be adopted for
- improving an existing process
- implementing a new process

4. Does it not increase flexibility right through the Process lifecycle because of BPM?
Yes, BPM does provide flexibility. Flexibility could be in terms of enabling processes to be changed (throughout the life-cycle) in real-time. This 'change' takes effect quickly.

5. Another point is how do we do ROI calculations for such a BPM implementation?
Now, this is an important point. BPM projects are usually of a short duration and expectations from such a project are usually high. 'Magic' is expected to happen within a few months! Hence, it is a good idea to select a high-value process where one can expect to see a positive ROI instantly. E.g. select a customer facing process. Why a customer facing process? Because such a process has high visibility. In simple terms, I can monitor & analyse my customer facing process and establish if my customers are a happy lot. Compare this with a back-end process which does not have direct visibility.
After the process has been selected, the following need to be estimated - Project scope, benefits and costs.

Lastly, package and present all of this in a manner and format that senior management would understand.

Telecom, at least in India, is vibrant in nature. Every other day there is some or the other news related to regulatory requirments, technology initiative, customer issues an whole lot of other happenings.
In such a dynamic situation, there is a requirement of solution that is adaptive, flexible, easy to deploy and independent of technology infrastucture. Ideally a plug and play BPM would suffice the requirement.
If a player can offer such an offerings with flexible business model, considering the economic scenario, there is definitely an opportunity to get revolution in this space.

Good to have your view Rupesh. Very true, India really has a vibrant Telecom industry. From a technology perspective, I believe that the Indian Telecom is well poised to reap the next generation telecom technology benefits. Reason: The Indian Telecom operators don't have a large burden of legacy networks to integrate and maintain. Most Indian Telecom operators are well poised to start 3G operations. There have been a few ideas such as "India should directly jump to 4G from the current 2G!". This sure is a very ambitious idea and hence, let us not discuss this.

And yes, regulatory requirements are changing as well. Indian Telecom Industry is a pot of honey, which has become the cynosure of International telecom players. There are new operators entering the market with new products and services. The latest being the 'per second' billing tariff wars. I wonder how operators would maintain their profitability.

This is where BPM solutions can help. A BPM solution would cater to the requirements that you mentioned i.e. adaptive, flexible, easy to deploy and independent of technology infrastructure. Today, we have many BPM product vendors catering to telecom pain areas. I believe, the operators need to identify specific process areas where they would like to implement BPM solutions (and see returns).

Great stuff.I would like to thank you to share the info you have here on your blog.