IT-based transformations are critical for business to survive in markets which are always getting more global and competitive.
This is according to business process management company Software AG CEO Karl-Heinz Streibich, giving the keynote address at the Software AG ProcessForum 2011, which took place this week at Vodaworld, Midrand.
Streibich said IT should transform the speed of business demands and align business goals, which makes the business processes much easier.
He urged companies to connect people, process and technology to drive the business vision. “The processes of transformation should be transparent and collaboration of people, processes and technology is crucial when going through a transformation. This can help the transformation to be faster, which is very important for survival nowadays.”
Focus on process excellence to unlock the potential of an organisation, he said. “In order to innovate, you have to integrate your infrastructure to be better connected. You should also optimise and automate your processes.
“The key to ensuring unique flexibility and agility is enterprise business process management that can speed up your transformation.”
Streibich said IT transformation technology sits between the business models and the application infrastructure. “It enables mashing up existing applications to support current and upcoming business needs.
“Instead of changing the applications themselves, this middle layer with process-driven transformation technologies is used to get results faster. An important building block is enabling collaboration between business and IT.” He referred to this process as “extreme collaboration”.
Streibich revealed that Software AG's vision is based on extreme collaboration where technology comes closer to influencing the way people think. “Technology on its own doesn't achieve anything, but collaboration of technology and people does.”
He said technology should combine dynamic and active process modelling, ad hoc management and monitoring, as well as decisions powered by the historic and real-time intelligence from a wide variety of enterprise and external participants.
This includes the use of social technologies to support these ad hoc and collaborative efforts, he explained.
“While spanning organisational and geographic boundaries, 'extreme collaboration' brings together diverse individuals who work together to improve the business, the process, and, ultimately, the goods and services delivered by the enterprise.”
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