Johannesburg, 03 Aug 2018
Any attempt to become more competitive can be fraught with risks and challenges, but it can also pose opportunities. To stay competitive, companies need to be fast. They need flexibility and agility to rapidly change their practices and mature their business processes.
Innovative businesses are deploying new business models, through processes which deliver superior value for customers, employees and shareholders. A process can be defined as a set of activities and transactions that an organisation runs day-to-day to reach an objective. Business processes allow companies to work smarter, innovate faster and respond to new market demands in a timely manner.
Even if it is not structured, there is always a process being followed. Regardless of the department you work in, the industry you work in, or whether your job is aimed at generating profit or not, each activity follows a process, says Dilley Naidoo, Director, Rifle-Shot Performance Holdings.
Business process management (BPM) is the discipline of improving a business process from end to end by analysing it, modelling how it works in different scenarios, executing improvements, monitoring the improved process and continually optimising it. Improving business processes is therefore a crucial aspect for creating value, allowing for cross-functional collaboration, achieving better outcomes and delivering a high-quality customer experience.
Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have been applied along with BPM to take process innovation to another level. One of the industries that has benefited greatly from the union of BPM and AI is healthcare.
One example is a SoftExpert Software solution that streamlines day-to-day routines for healthcare professionals. It automates the entire process of patient care, from reception and screening, through consultation, diagnosis and determination of course of action, supporting clinical decision-making.
Research indicates by 2020, health data will double in volume every 73 days. With this in mind, it becomes an increasingly complex and challenging task to ensure healthcare professionals stay abreast of new drugs and new types of treatment.
Through cognitive computing capabilities, the system crosses scientific literature with patients' clinical data, such as age, symptoms, prior illnesses, and test results. This helps to more precisely diagnose diseases, while also recommending the most appropriate medicines and treatments according to the clinical condition of each patient.
The solution is fully aligned with the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10). Standardisation prevents errors and rework throughout the process, allowing patients' medical records to be safely re-used by other health professionals.
This was made possible due to an innovative approach that integrates IBM Watson's AI technology with SoftExpert BPM, a comprehensive business process management suite to empower organisations of all industries to increase business performance at all levels and to maximise industry-mandated compliance and corporate governance programmes.
SoftExpert BPM improves the visibility and control of business processes with its human-centric and user-friendly interface. The solution promotes continuous improvement of processes across the entire organisation. It manages every step of the life cycle, from modelling and optimisation to automation, execution and monitoring.
By delivering improved business understanding, faster processes, and greater business impact on strategic planning, the SoftExpert solution allows people to work more efficiently while improving orchestration of complex processes and supporting business goals with real-time business information.
SoftExpert BPM also includes enterprise-level capabilities such as monitoring for business activities and metrics, decision management, document management, quality assurance, system integration tools and dashboards. It is able to store process models in a native process repository with full version control, hierarchical categorisation, search capability, and role-based security for controlled access to each model.
In short, SoftExpert BPM delivers process control to the business while allowing IT to change its focus from maintenance to driving innovation.
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