Many organisations today struggle with the problem of effectively managing business processes that span across multiple departments.
Industry analysts such as Gartner, Forrester, Delphi and Aberdeen point out that companies require a business process management (BPM) solution to enable them to automate and manage all the processes within their enterprise. This includes extracting customer information from line-of-business systems while adding new customer transactional information to them, generating and controlling transactions in multiple unrelated systems, and supporting straight-though processing with or without human interventions as and when required.
Telkom`s Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) department recently implemented Staffware`s BPM solution, the Staffware Process Suite, to fulfil exactly these requirements in the organisation, resulting in significant improvements in organisational efficiencies.
Telkom required a holistic business process automation and management software solution, and selected Staffware on the recommendation of several IT analysts.
Although there were previous departmental systems in place within Telkom to automate line-of-business and provisioning processes such as new business applications and new line installations, there was no over-arching BPM system to link inter-departmental processes, such as those between the Faults Reporting and the Accounts Departments, for example.
Because Telkom`s systems were not linked together in an efficient, automated manner, any given inter-departmental process - such as Fault Reporting - could take several weeks to complete.
Now that Telkom have installed the Staffware Process Suite, which involves automated decision-making and prioritising, many unnecessary steps in the process have now been eradicated - resulting in a far better turnaround time, and ultimately, far more efficient customer service.
The Staffware Process Suite is an extension of the award-winning Staffware 2000 product, incorporating many enhancements that have been demanded by the market.
"It provides a rich platform for automating an organisation`s key business processes, delivering all the benefits of efficiency and productivity," points out Adrian Tonkin, a Senior Consultant at Staffware, responsible for the technical project management of the Telkom implementation.
According to Tonkin, the Staffware Process Suite implemented at Telkom includes:
* Enhanced active directory management capabilities for easier administration of users.
*. An XML client.
* A multi-step broker for very fast straight through processing (STP) capabilities.
* An WfXML interface.
* Extended work queue capabilities for more effective process automation.
* Seamless integration with the Relationship Manager (RM) toolset.
"Staffware was the first international vendor to provide a complete, packaged BPM solution. This solution, known as Staffware Process Suite - of which the Staffware Process Engine is a part - supports the requirements for process management across the enterprise by combining several previously released and new process automation components into a single product offering," Tonkin explains.
"The Staffware Process Suite is well positioned to satisfy the needs of large enterprises for a BPM solution that supports both line of business applications and those processes that span multiple lines of business across the organisation, as in the case of the Telkom implementation," Tonkin adds.
"Over the past 10 years, organisations have struggled with the problem of effectively automating business processes across the enterprise. In the early 1990s, most enterprises focused on process automation by integrating specific back-office systems as needed. In the mid-1990s, workflow applications became more complex, requiring more extensive integration with multiple systems," he remarks.
"As such, workflow applications evolved from simply automating manual tasks into BPM platforms capable of automating system functions and acting as a platform for providing integration between disparate systems. Today, companies need BPM capabilities to accommodate their evolving business models," he says.
"Furthermore, the success of several independent industry performance and fail-over tests indicate that the Staffware Process Suite can be relied upon to be a highly scalable and reliable BPM solution for large enterprises - such as Telkom - looking to deploy process management both within and across their lines of business," Tonkin adds.
In challenging economic times, improving business processes moves to the top of the business agenda. Rapid payback and quick return on investment are crucial.
Today, with shrinking IT budgets and ever-increasing user and information demands, an organisation needs to reduce costs, improve business controls, provide quicker response to customers, and - above all else - deliver improved business processes.
The only effective way of achieving these objectives is to improve the effectiveness and flexibility of one`s end-to-end processes, which is what Staffware Process Suite has enabled Telkom to do, across the enterprise.
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