Stepping up activities around the Netaction suite of software announced in February and the Integrated Service Management (ISM) strategy outlined in July, HP South Africa launched HP Process Manager 5.0 to the local market in early September.
Process Manager, a business process management and integration software solution, allows companies to integrate people (employees, customers and suppliers), business applications and e-services into the processes that support their value chain.
This, says Hannes Lategan, software business specialist at HP South Africa, is usually a complex task - one that Process Manager aims to simplify.
"Today`s business landscape is one of increasing aggregation," he points out. "Whether it is the internal integration of business applications and processes within an organisation - or the forging of links with other companies outside the organisation - nothing remains unaffected.
"Process is needed across the entire value chain, from transactions with suppliers to offerings of goods and services to customers. Increasing use of e-business and a move towards an e-services world is forcing companies to find dynamic new ways of working within this electronic trading network."
HP is touting Process Manager as the answer. Based on the XML standard, the software allows companies to define each element of their supply chain, identify the business-to-business interactions, refine the processes that drive them and then set a management framework in place.
It enables organisations to integrate front-end Web sites with back-office systems and processes so that orders can be fulfilled on time. It also allows companies to react to changing market conditions by rapidly changing processes.
"In essence," says Lategan, "it directly and tangibly links the management applications within the business process of a company."
There is a strong need to cater for the creation and activation of new services; process manager enables and simplifies this. It is also part of HP`s greater service assurance focus, which itself adheres to the standard FCAPS (fault management, configuration, accounting, performance and security) model. And then there`s service usage, the final stage of the lifecycle of the process initiated and tracked by Process Manager.
"This service delivery, assurance and usage all form part of HP`s recently launched ISM initiative," adds Lategan.
HP Process Manager 5.0 is simple to use and deploy, offering a broad range of adapters and an easy-to-use process modelling feature. It can be used standalone or as part of an enterprise application integration solution, thereby reducing the expense of having to buy all elements of the product. The service-based architecture and reusability features of HP Process Manager 5.0 can reduce the time a customer needs to implement or change business processes.
HP is also promoting Process Manager as a core component of the company`s middleware solution suite, Netaction, which is designed to create, integrate and deploy e-services. Process Manager itself integrates with other Netaction products and components of the HP OpenView suite to provide what HP says is an integrated solution.
HP Process Manager 5.0 is available on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, HP-UX and is expected to be available soon on Solaris. Further information on HP Process Manager 5.0 is available at www.hp.com/go/e-process.
HP Netaction software is the family of products used to develop, integrate and deploy e-services. It includes HP Bluestone, HP Process Manager, HP e-Speak, HP Internet Usage Manager, HP Opencall, HP Chai and HP security software.
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