Global workflow leader enters SA market

Workflow company Staffware, which has, according to a Gartner Group report, captured a 25% global market share, is focusing on the South African market. The UK-based company believes its workflow offering will enable SA companies to map, control and radically improve their business processes.

"For companies striving to improve customer service, competitive advantage, and organisational productivity while adhering tightly to regulatory standards, workflow can contribute significantly," says Andrew Lloyd-Skinner, MD for Staffware in the UK and Africa.

"With Staffware, customers typically achieve productivity gains of more than 40% with reduced costs and enhanced customer service. In terms of production workflow worldwide we do not see many competitors."

Lloyd-Skinner, who was recently in South Africa, says: "We are now concentrating our efforts on the South African market, after researching the workflow situation here and identifying the need for such systems."

Staffware and local partner SPL have already implemented workflow solutions at a major bank and an insurance group in South Africa. The pilot system at the bank performs call handling where the call is routed into a workflow system. At the insurance group Staffware controls disability and motor claims. These pilot sites are set to grow and become more widely used throughout the enterprise.

Commenting on workflow developments, Lloyd-Skinner says "Microsoft is entering the workflow arena but Staffware does not see Microsoft`s entry into the market as a threat. On the contrary we see their move as a positive one because it validates workflow."

Staffware has links with Microsoft and has a research and development centre in Spokane, Washington State, specifically to be close to Microsoft headquarters. The core product development activities are now shared between this new location and the company`s existing development centre in Swindon, UK, and the Product Assurance Group in Nottingham, UK.

Lloyd-Skinner, defining Staffware, says: "Staffware is an integrated portfolio of tools enabling the rapid development of robust workflow applications scaling from departmental to the enterprise level, using both client/server and thin client/ Web-based architectures.

"At its simplest, workflow enables users to set down rules for routing and at the high-end workflow becomes a tool for re-engineering entire corporate processes." Workflow software automates the procedures within an organisation. The software adds control mechanisms to ensure that the right work is done at the right time by the right people, in the right order.

By defining the procedure and the people involved in a procedure, workflow software removes the risk of error, prevalent in paper-based companies. There is no opportunity for details to be left out of a document, which would mean returning to an earlier stage of a procedure to get the right information, costing time and money.

@EditorNote = Staffware

Staffware is the founder of the independent workflow industry and has a substantial market lead, with over double the market share of its nearest competitor. The company has grown tenfold in the last five years.

Staffware workflow is marketed globally by Staffware companies in the United Kingdom, USA, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, Australia, Spain and South Africa as well as through 350 partners worldwide.

The company employs over 230 staff worldwide and in addition to these has access to over 2 000 Staffware consultants in its network of partners, resellers and OEMs. Partners include Cap Gemini, Compaq/Digital, EDS, Ernst and Young, Formtek, IBM, ICL, Logica, Microsoft, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Sema, Systems Union, Tower Technology and Unisys.

Staffware, with its partners, provides specialist industry knowledge and workflow expertise in individual market sectors, such as Insurance, Financial Services, Banking, Telecommunications, Utilities, Government and Retail with the most effective Workflow solutions.

In 1996 the company floated on the Alternate Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange.

Staffware Solutions

Software solutions within Staffware`s product set include Staffware 97, Staffware Global and Staffware for Exchange.

Staffware for Exchange makes full use of key Microsoft technologies to ensure seamless integration between the two products. Staffware also gained Back Office Compliance Certification for its workflow product.

With a universal client independent of the operating and database environment, Staffware 97 fully supports any corporate computing strategy as well as providing the underlying architecture for the company`s new Java-based Web client, Staffware Global.

Staffware Global is the first enterprise-wide web-enabled workflow solution. This system is a unique pure Java-based client that provides full participative workflow through a Web browser.

Staffware Global can be used to implement workflow more easily both within and between enterprises allowing organisations to integrate their business partners, customers and suppliers directly in their business processes, streamlining activities and shortening process times dramatically.

Staffware Global also allows organisations to radically rethink the way they operate as it can remove the problem of where people are situated, enabling a business process to be worked on by staff irrespective of location and time.

Staffware 2000 is being launched this year, and will provide further increases in scalability, more functionality, advanced Object Orientated development support and more web options.

Staffware software operates on a wide range of IT platforms. The server runs on all popular versions of Unix, and Windows NT. At the client side Staffware is deployable on thin client and client/server based architectures using Windows 3.x, 95 and NT. It integrates with third party applications notably imaging, document management and line of business systems to fully support any corporate computing strategy.