Many projects are initiated with insufficient attention being paid to setting up business processes.
This is according to Juan Le Roex, information management systems manager at Parsons Brinckerhoff Africa, a global consulting firm that assists clients in planning, developing, constructing, operating and maintaining critical infrastructure.
Le Roex says not enough attention is paid to systems and data flows, which can result in unstructured data in spreadsheets, and many spreadsheets with redundant information - which then uses up resources that can be used for more important tasks.
Two years ago, Parsons Brinckerhoff Africa conducted research, in the form of a time and effort assessment, to show the costs of unstructured data and the effect of having too many spreadsheets. One organisation spent R100 million on resources allocated to sifting through this information.
Introducing incomplete, un-integrated and often complex systems into the project delivery process, where the initial start-up process was neglected, is inefficient, wasteful and a risk to the overall project delivery, he says.
Organisations need to be more process-centric, with well-defined, configurable business processes and secure data management, he emphasised.
The technology is simple, Le Roex said; it's user buy-in from business that's the biggest problem.
Le Roex was a speaker at the ITWeb BPM Summit, which ended yesterday.
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