David Ogren on the difference begtween BPM and SOA - "The difference, fundamentally, is the direction at which SOA and BPM approach the problem. BPM starts with a business process and develops a solution from top down. SOA starts of an existing catalog of services and builds up. As a result, BPM projects tends to be tactical and SOA projects tends to be strategic."
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Innovation through Co-Creation
SandHill.com | Management | Innovation through Co-Creation:
Dr. C.K. Prahalad has identified technology to atomate Business Processes as a key opportunity for IT vendors today and into the future in this article on SandHill.com
"Opportunities for Technology Vendors
At a time when personalization, flexibility and scalability are key considerations for enterprises, the entire IT industry must redirect its focus to the areas which matter most for businesses.
# Interoperability - Much attention is focused on open source. While many consider the greatest value of open source is that it is 'free,' the reality is that the main advantage of open source is its interoperability. Is the industry putting enough energy behind delivering on open source's potential for interoperability and transparency?
# Large Databases - Ten terabytes used to be considered a large database. Today, WalMart is working with approximately 500 terabytes-worth of data. There is a huge opportunity to increase the size and speed with which data is accessed. These systems must go beyond providing decision tools to providing more sophisticated analyses. They must perform data mining and understand behaviors through analytical models - both industry-oriented and strategy-oriented. There is a huge opportunity for application developers to be analytically focused.
# Simple Interfaces - Whether for an on-demand application, a database or a large network, there is a huge opportunity to improve user interfaces. Increasingly, people with less experience or lower-level skills will be using the systems. Software vendors must work to create less-complex user interfaces, ones not dependent on language skills, yet functional enough to deliver productivity to users with higher skill sets as well. Take OnStar. You press a button and hear a human voice. There is no training required.
# Business Processes - Dell can turn over its inventory 100-times during the same time that HP converts 10-15-times. UPS can handle packages so efficiently that it created a new industry called 'logistics.' FedEx invites customers into its operations to gather critical data. The common thread for these competitive advantages is that they are all driven by business processes. These companies have leveraged a deep understanding of their business operations and converted it into a competitive weapon. Technology to automate these areas will be critical in the coming years."
I think that as always Dr. Prahalad is right on the mark here. Processes are the main differentiator in today's economy focused on operational excellence. And software tools that automate, control, monitor and manage these processes are the key enablers for continuous process improvement.
Dr. C.K. Prahalad has identified technology to atomate Business Processes as a key opportunity for IT vendors today and into the future in this article on SandHill.com
"Opportunities for Technology Vendors
At a time when personalization, flexibility and scalability are key considerations for enterprises, the entire IT industry must redirect its focus to the areas which matter most for businesses.
# Interoperability - Much attention is focused on open source. While many consider the greatest value of open source is that it is 'free,' the reality is that the main advantage of open source is its interoperability. Is the industry putting enough energy behind delivering on open source's potential for interoperability and transparency?
# Large Databases - Ten terabytes used to be considered a large database. Today, WalMart is working with approximately 500 terabytes-worth of data. There is a huge opportunity to increase the size and speed with which data is accessed. These systems must go beyond providing decision tools to providing more sophisticated analyses. They must perform data mining and understand behaviors through analytical models - both industry-oriented and strategy-oriented. There is a huge opportunity for application developers to be analytically focused.
# Simple Interfaces - Whether for an on-demand application, a database or a large network, there is a huge opportunity to improve user interfaces. Increasingly, people with less experience or lower-level skills will be using the systems. Software vendors must work to create less-complex user interfaces, ones not dependent on language skills, yet functional enough to deliver productivity to users with higher skill sets as well. Take OnStar. You press a button and hear a human voice. There is no training required.
# Business Processes - Dell can turn over its inventory 100-times during the same time that HP converts 10-15-times. UPS can handle packages so efficiently that it created a new industry called 'logistics.' FedEx invites customers into its operations to gather critical data. The common thread for these competitive advantages is that they are all driven by business processes. These companies have leveraged a deep understanding of their business operations and converted it into a competitive weapon. Technology to automate these areas will be critical in the coming years."
I think that as always Dr. Prahalad is right on the mark here. Processes are the main differentiator in today's economy focused on operational excellence. And software tools that automate, control, monitor and manage these processes are the key enablers for continuous process improvement.
technorati tags: BPM,, BPMS,, Dr+Prahalad
Thursday, July 06, 2006
ECM - and then there were fewer left
The consolidation in ECM (Enterprise Content Management) industry seems to be unstoppable - no one seems to be able to buck the trend - it's an open question as to how long Filenet will survive as an independent company.
The latest one to bite the dust maybe Hummingbird http://www.hummingbird.com. After reports in May that they were selling out to Symphony Technology Services, OpenText today hiked the offer price by $1 over the Symphony Offer. OpenText and Hummingbird make sense from a geographical standpoint - two Canadian companies in the ECM space. From a product standpoint though, there is a lot of overlap - I guess only one set of products will survive eventually. OpenText does stand to double its installed base though if this merger goes through.
The latest one to bite the dust maybe Hummingbird http://www.hummingbird.com. After reports in May that they were selling out to Symphony Technology Services, OpenText today hiked the offer price by $1 over the Symphony Offer. OpenText and Hummingbird make sense from a geographical standpoint - two Canadian companies in the ECM space. From a product standpoint though, there is a lot of overlap - I guess only one set of products will survive eventually. OpenText does stand to double its installed base though if this merger goes through.
technorati tags: ECM, Enterprise, Content, Management, BPM, Document, Management, Canada, Acquisition, Merger, Consolidation,
Friday, June 30, 2006
Agile Outsourcing
"Communication barriers, time zone and cultural differences all hinder offshore development. But what if offshore titans learn to work with collaborative techniques?" By Scott W. Ambler
Scott has written an article very close to our hearts. My company and I have been involved in many large and small product development outsourcing projects over the last decade. We ourselves have seen the great difference made by collaboration tools over this period. When we started in mid 90's, Internet basically meant email only as far as enabling collaboration between far-flung members of a software development team. Then came Instant Messenger - and that was the first dramatic step. At a time when international telephony costs were astronomical (I remember at one time paying more than $1 per minute between USA and India), instant messengers really enabled team members to be always connected.
At that time online collaboration tools for project management were still not there - eRooms - that Documentum bought out later was one of the first major one. However, my company was building its own workflow and document management products at the time, and we came up with Newgen eWorkStyle - a web-based collaboration suite that provided project spaces, integrated document management, workflow, bulletin boards, messaging, group calendar and other tools. The product may have been a little ahead of time as far as the Asian markets were concerned, but we ourselves have been using it for our Outsourced Product Development business ever since.
Today, we have many projects where teams span 3 or 4 countries - e.g. R&D in Japan, Product Management in USA, Marketing inputs from USA and Europe, etc. Use of Newgen eWorkStyle and other collaborative tools like a secure, within the firewall implementation of Jabber instant messenger, GotoMeeting, GotoMyPC, etc. enables team members to be literally on the same page. Some time back we also started using Web 2.0 and Office 2.0 tools - Google Spreadsheet is an excellent example. Other tools we use are Open Office, Writely, Thumbstacks, Zoho, etc.
If you would like to have more information about Newgen's multi-shore Outsourced Product Development services and how we use collaboration tools to bring teams close together, write me an email at sanjay [at] newgen [dot] net.
You can read Scott's full article at Dr. Dobb's Portal
Scott has written an article very close to our hearts. My company and I have been involved in many large and small product development outsourcing projects over the last decade. We ourselves have seen the great difference made by collaboration tools over this period. When we started in mid 90's, Internet basically meant email only as far as enabling collaboration between far-flung members of a software development team. Then came Instant Messenger - and that was the first dramatic step. At a time when international telephony costs were astronomical (I remember at one time paying more than $1 per minute between USA and India), instant messengers really enabled team members to be always connected.
At that time online collaboration tools for project management were still not there - eRooms - that Documentum bought out later was one of the first major one. However, my company was building its own workflow and document management products at the time, and we came up with Newgen eWorkStyle - a web-based collaboration suite that provided project spaces, integrated document management, workflow, bulletin boards, messaging, group calendar and other tools. The product may have been a little ahead of time as far as the Asian markets were concerned, but we ourselves have been using it for our Outsourced Product Development business ever since.
Today, we have many projects where teams span 3 or 4 countries - e.g. R&D in Japan, Product Management in USA, Marketing inputs from USA and Europe, etc. Use of Newgen eWorkStyle and other collaborative tools like a secure, within the firewall implementation of Jabber instant messenger, GotoMeeting, GotoMyPC, etc. enables team members to be literally on the same page. Some time back we also started using Web 2.0 and Office 2.0 tools - Google Spreadsheet is an excellent example. Other tools we use are Open Office, Writely, Thumbstacks, Zoho, etc.
If you would like to have more information about Newgen's multi-shore Outsourced Product Development services and how we use collaboration tools to bring teams close together, write me an email at sanjay [at] newgen [dot] net.
You can read Scott's full article at Dr. Dobb's Portal
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
IT Redux - The 10 Flatteners
I attended a very interesting event this morning - arranged by Ismael Ghalimi, CEO of Intalio. Apart from being CEO of Intalio, Ismael is also a leading proponent of Office 2.0 and the convergence of SOA/BPM with simple, next generation front-end interfaces like those provided by Office 2.0 applications. Apart from my interest in the BPM space and outsourcing (both of which are my company's commercial offerings), it was the title of the event that tickled me into attending.
Ever since Tom Friedman's book came out, outsourcing has moved out from being discussed in only technology and business circles to being discussed in every social circle. Indeed, the impact of this book is so great, I sometimes call it the best brochureware for the Indian and other offshore outsourcing vendors. The case Friedman makes is both compelling and self evident. And Ismael did a good job of connecting Friedman's postulates with his own anecdotes and show a way for small technology companies to leverage this macro level global shift.
The event was co-sponsored by an outsourcing company called Lohika ("Logic" in Ukrainian) from Ukraine - seemed like an enthusiastic bunch of people and must be doing a great job for Intalio for Ismael to endorse them so publicly. Of course, Lohika gave a good pitch for why Ukraine and their company is a good outsourcing partner to small to mid-size product companies. However, the larger lesson is that all startups and small to mid-size companies need to have a very active outsourcing strategy as an integral part of their business plan if they want to succeed. And as Lohika's VP of Engineering put it very well, it's not just about cost anymore -of course cost is the key driving factor - we wouldn't be talking outsourcing today if it weren't for cost, but lower cost is a given with any offshore outsourcing plan. However, cost is not a determining factor when it comes to your choice of outsourcing partner. The points that Lohika made were:
- Partnership
- Innovation
- Requirement specification process
I may want to add to that and say that the key to finding a good partner is to find one that has a good track record in onboarding (bringing requisite skills on board), training and retention, ability to handle up and down movement in resource levels, and mature processes and quality standards.
On innovation, I must point out that if you are a product development company, hiring an IT services company will not work - you need a partner with a product development mindset. Commercial software products are developed keeping in mind the requirements of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of customers - very different from a custom application development project. The software engineering processes, the innovation mindset, the quality standards are all very different in case of product development outsourcing.
Of course finding such partners is no easy task - I might want to plug for my company here - apart from providing outsourced product development services to our partners, we are first and foremost a product development company ourselves. My company - Newgen Software (www.newgensoft.com) - is the leading provider of BPMS and ECM suites in India and Asia. We have translated our ability to develop and market software products into a winning service for our partners.
Well, running out of time - gotta rush for my post lunch meeting. However I will post some more later - specially on Ismael's points about the open source model and his company's unique approach to sales and marketing. There are some good pointers there for the way these things would be done in the future - but there are also things to be cautious about - it ain't as easy as it seems.
Ever since Tom Friedman's book came out, outsourcing has moved out from being discussed in only technology and business circles to being discussed in every social circle. Indeed, the impact of this book is so great, I sometimes call it the best brochureware for the Indian and other offshore outsourcing vendors. The case Friedman makes is both compelling and self evident. And Ismael did a good job of connecting Friedman's postulates with his own anecdotes and show a way for small technology companies to leverage this macro level global shift.
The event was co-sponsored by an outsourcing company called Lohika ("Logic" in Ukrainian) from Ukraine - seemed like an enthusiastic bunch of people and must be doing a great job for Intalio for Ismael to endorse them so publicly. Of course, Lohika gave a good pitch for why Ukraine and their company is a good outsourcing partner to small to mid-size product companies. However, the larger lesson is that all startups and small to mid-size companies need to have a very active outsourcing strategy as an integral part of their business plan if they want to succeed. And as Lohika's VP of Engineering put it very well, it's not just about cost anymore -of course cost is the key driving factor - we wouldn't be talking outsourcing today if it weren't for cost, but lower cost is a given with any offshore outsourcing plan. However, cost is not a determining factor when it comes to your choice of outsourcing partner. The points that Lohika made were:
- Partnership
- Innovation
- Requirement specification process
I may want to add to that and say that the key to finding a good partner is to find one that has a good track record in onboarding (bringing requisite skills on board), training and retention, ability to handle up and down movement in resource levels, and mature processes and quality standards.
On innovation, I must point out that if you are a product development company, hiring an IT services company will not work - you need a partner with a product development mindset. Commercial software products are developed keeping in mind the requirements of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of customers - very different from a custom application development project. The software engineering processes, the innovation mindset, the quality standards are all very different in case of product development outsourcing.
Of course finding such partners is no easy task - I might want to plug for my company here - apart from providing outsourced product development services to our partners, we are first and foremost a product development company ourselves. My company - Newgen Software (www.newgensoft.com) - is the leading provider of BPMS and ECM suites in India and Asia. We have translated our ability to develop and market software products into a winning service for our partners.
Well, running out of time - gotta rush for my post lunch meeting. However I will post some more later - specially on Ismael's points about the open source model and his company's unique approach to sales and marketing. There are some good pointers there for the way these things would be done in the future - but there are also things to be cautious about - it ain't as easy as it seems.
technorati tags: BPM, friedman, the+world+is+flat, outsourcing, offshore, product, development, software, office+2.0, web+2.0
Monday, April 17, 2006
Words of wisdom from Peter Drucker that BPM practitioners might want to pay heed to
So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.
- Peter Drucker
- Peter Drucker
technorati tags: peter+drucker, BPM, management
Monday, March 20, 2006
Gartner BPM Summit
I'm attending the Gartner BPM Summit for the first time this year. The location is great - Opryland in Nashville. While I have a passing interest in country music, my brother is somewhat of an authority on it - he finished a Master's program in ethno-musicology in another Tennessee university and went on to do a doctorate in the same. Anyway, it's a curious location - high-tech combined with old world tradition.
I hope to be blogging about my experiences at the Gartner summit - I don't know if Gartner is doing anything special for bloggers - if you know anything about it do let me know. Also, I'd like to meet other bloggers who are attending Gartner BPM summit. You can leave me a message on this blog and we can get together at conference venue.
I hope to be blogging about my experiences at the Gartner summit - I don't know if Gartner is doing anything special for bloggers - if you know anything about it do let me know. Also, I'd like to meet other bloggers who are attending Gartner BPM summit. You can leave me a message on this blog and we can get together at conference venue.
Friday, March 03, 2006
BEA's acquisition of Fuego - and its impact on valuation of other BPM vendors
BEA bought Fuego for $87.5 million, almost 6-8 times Fuego's last year revenues which were in the $11-$14 million range. What does that say about the valuation of other BPM vendors? How about Ultimus - as per Deloitte and Touche Technology Fast 500, Ultimus had revenues of over $18 million in 2004. Given their excellent growth rate, they must have done anywhere between $30-$35 million in 2005. So are we looking at a possible $200 million plus buyout for Ultimus? I'm sure Rashid must be running these figures in his mind right now :-)
As BPM becomes more mainstream, a consolidation is bound to occur and some of these companies make excellent targets for big players like Microsoft and others who are still rounding up their portfolios.
As BPM becomes more mainstream, a consolidation is bound to occur and some of these companies make excellent targets for big players like Microsoft and others who are still rounding up their portfolios.
Compliance and the CIO - Express Computer
Compliance is becoming top priority for CIO's - not only in USA but also in India as Indian companies increasingly become an integral part of the global supply chain. “Compliance is moving away from being seen as a cost-oriented process forced upon organisations to being an absolute imperative for smooth business operations, although limited to large organisations where IT is mission-critical,” says Diwakar Nigam, Chairman and CEO of India's leading provider of BPM and ECM solutions. Newgen's Compliance Manager - built on the class leading Newgen OmniFlow platform is providing Indian companies and excellent tool to get their compliance projects up to speed.
Check out more details here.
Check out more details here.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
BEA Buys Fuego for $87.5M
BPM is headed for prime time - IBM has always been a big player, TIBCO bought Staffware a coupleo years back, last year Oracle made some big moves and bought Collaxa, Microsoft with its BizTalk suite has been dabbling for some time - an now BEA makes a big commitment shelling out almost a 100 million dollars to buy Fuego. I wonder what this would mean for the remaining independent pure plays in the market - Ultimus, Handysoft, Intalio, Savvion, etc.
IT|Redux � The World is Flat
Here's a great piece relating the 10 flatteners from Tom Friedman's "the World is Flat" and the rise of BPM.
IT|Redux � The World is Flat
IT|Redux � The World is Flat
technorati tags: BPM, SAAS, SOA, The+World+is+Flat, Thomas, Friedman, Intalio, Business+Process+Management
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Active Journal of Business Process Management
Here's another good blog on BPM that I came across recently. They have a nice collection of articles on BPM and some product reviews. Look it up at
technorati tags: bpm, business, process, management, him, human, interaction, management
HIM - Human Interaction Management
There's a new buzzword in the BPM space - HIM (Human Interactions Management
Human Interaction Management: "There are a number of collaborative activities that go beyond workflow and knowledge management, which I call human interaction management, and that is going to be the next envelope pushed in the whole BPM space." - Peter Fingar
While I appreciate the new focus on the human side of processes, I am not sure that this is entirely new. Wasn't Workflow and then BPM supposed to be able to take care of both machine to machine and machine to human interactions in a process? Maybe I am missing something here. Please feel free to share your thoughts...
Human Interaction Management: "There are a number of collaborative activities that go beyond workflow and knowledge management, which I call human interaction management, and that is going to be the next envelope pushed in the whole BPM space." - Peter Fingar
While I appreciate the new focus on the human side of processes, I am not sure that this is entirely new. Wasn't Workflow and then BPM supposed to be able to take care of both machine to machine and machine to human interactions in a process? Maybe I am missing something here. Please feel free to share your thoughts...
technorati tags: HIM, human, interaction, management, business, process, management, bpm
Technorati: Favorite Buttons
Technorati has introduced a new Favorites feature - you can add upto 50 blogs to your favorites - and you can share your favorites with the world. Try this feature by clicking on the button below - if you want to add my blog to your favorites.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Get $5 for signing up for this free service
This is a great new service for sending and receiving cash through your cell phone - almost like a Paypal for cell phones :-) And the great news is, they are paying you $5 to sign up for this service. The service itself is absolutely free and there is no contract. This is sure to be a huge thing. It should be great for paying your half of the lunch you had with a friend, or the movie tickets that your friend bought for you or for making and receiving payment on craigslist etc.
If you want to make $5 for reading this blog, just sign up by clicking on the TextPayMe banner below.
If you want to make $5 for reading this blog, just sign up by clicking on the TextPayMe banner below.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Five Reasons to Invest in Process Management
Intelligent Enterprise Magazine: Analysis: Five Reasons to Invest in Process Management: "BPM is both a management philosophy and a software tool. As a management philosophy, it calls for organizations to document, analyze and measure their business activities not in terms of discrete functions such as marketing, sales, manufacturing and customer service but in terms of end-to-end business processes that cross functional boundaries."
Very precise article by Bruce Silver - he does a great job of capturing the essence of BPM solutions and articulating the benefits in simple, yet powerful terms.
Very precise article by Bruce Silver - he does a great job of capturing the essence of BPM solutions and articulating the benefits in simple, yet powerful terms.
CIOs strive to improve business processes | InfoWorld | News | 2006-01-23 | By Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service
While the top business priority is improving business processes, top technology priority is business intelligence applications.
Although I can appreciate how business intelligence applications may help in improving business processes, I am kind of surprised that BPM suites do not get a mention in this survey - or maybe I am missing something here. Would appreciate any comments from readers who have access to the full survey.
Survey: CIOs strive to improve business processes | InfoWorld | News | 2006-01-23 | By Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service: "A recent survey of global chief information officers (CIOs) found that using IT to make improvements to a company's business processes is the top priority for them in 2006, according to Gartner Inc."
Although I can appreciate how business intelligence applications may help in improving business processes, I am kind of surprised that BPM suites do not get a mention in this survey - or maybe I am missing something here. Would appreciate any comments from readers who have access to the full survey.
Survey: CIOs strive to improve business processes | InfoWorld | News | 2006-01-23 | By Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service: "A recent survey of global chief information officers (CIOs) found that using IT to make improvements to a company's business processes is the top priority for them in 2006, according to Gartner Inc."
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Business Standard - Serious Developer - Profile of Mr. Diwakar Nigam
Business Standard is profiling some of the luminaries of the Indian IT industry. This one features Mr. Diwakar Nigam - often regarded as the original software product leader in India. While most other Indian IT companies focused on delivering IT services, Diwakar carried the torch in terms of building his own intellectual property and delivering products and solutions that were truly "Made in India".
ICE World
ICE World
Monday, January 09, 2006
Let the Good Times Roll by Guy Kawasaki: The Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs
Let the Good Times Roll by Guy Kawasaki: The Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs: "Blogger. n. Someone with nothing to say writing for someone with nothing to do."
Newgen Software helps SEC, Philippines improve access to company information
Newgen Software - India's leading provider of Business Process Management and Document Management solutions recently assisted Philippines' Securities and Exchange Commission launch an Internet-based service that aims to ease and hasten access to information on companies.
This is just one in a long string of successes that New Delhi based Newgen Software Technologies has achieved in the last few years after it started leveraging its leadership position in BPM and EDMS in the Indian market. Today Newgen is perhaps the leading provider of such solutions in much of Asia, Middle East, even Africa.
Companies like Newgen have a lot to offer to Enterprise and Government customers in Asia - their focus on end-to-end solution delivery, leverage of their own IPR (intellectual property rights), offshore resource base and pricing, understanding of application requirements attained over almost 15 years of experience in these markets give them an edge over US based majors in these areas.
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This is just one in a long string of successes that New Delhi based Newgen Software Technologies has achieved in the last few years after it started leveraging its leadership position in BPM and EDMS in the Indian market. Today Newgen is perhaps the leading provider of such solutions in much of Asia, Middle East, even Africa.
Companies like Newgen have a lot to offer to Enterprise and Government customers in Asia - their focus on end-to-end solution delivery, leverage of their own IPR (intellectual property rights), offshore resource base and pricing, understanding of application requirements attained over almost 15 years of experience in these markets give them an edge over US based majors in these areas.
Newsbreak
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