Organize to meet the process imperative

Niamh Lordan00:00

Welcome to our webinar, Organize to Meet the Process Imperative. I'm Niamh Lordan, head of marketing at FlowForma. If you have any trouble with audio, email info@flowforma.com. Your lines are muted, but use the Q&A function and we'll answer questions at the end. The webinar is being recorded, and I'll share a copy with you all tomorrow.

Niamh Lordan00:44

I'm delighted to be joined by Rob Koplowitz, VP and principal analyst at Forrester, serving application development and delivery professionals. His research focuses on digital process automation as well as AI and cognitive computing. We're also joined by my colleague Ross Cullen, digital adoption specialist on our customer success team, who'll share how our customers are empowering their business users to become change agents.

Rob Koplowitz01:34

Thank you, Niamh, and thank you all for joining. This is a really interesting topic, and an interesting time for it. I want to talk about three things: what I call the process imperative, the technology challenge, which is really more of a technology opportunity, and some recommendations.

Rob Koplowitz02:09

Process and workflow are very hot, against a backdrop of a massive hunger for automation. There are new technologies popping up every day, so we'll give you some guidelines for how to apply them to drive the most value. Please ask questions as we go; we'll take them at the end.

Rob Koplowitz03:10

We haven't always loved process. If you drop the term BPM to some people, you get a little bit of a PTSD reaction. Those projects were incredibly valuable and potentially transformative, but they were very large, complex and time-consuming, with a higher failure rate than we'd like. So we shied away from process and workflow for a long time, and business process reengineering fell into disfavor too.

Rob Koplowitz04:24

None of that is the case now. Folks are vitally interested in automation, against a backdrop of digital business transformation. When we ask in our research what the primary driver of process improvement is, people are still driving down costs, improving customer experience and making employees more efficient, but a couple of years out, half of all process improvement initiatives are about driving digital transformation.

Rob Koplowitz05:08

That's a very different thing to do. Even the most successful large BPM projects transformed a piece of the business, such as onboarding a customer or handling a claim. They weren't transforming the business, and they certainly weren't transforming lots of different types of businesses. With FlowForma we're seeing some really interesting applications of digital transformation in new industries.

Rob Koplowitz05:53

If you're trying to transform your business, a lot of things happen differently. Process diligence is the top of the funnel. We have to be better at discovering how we work today, because most of us don't really know how our processes work, and jumping straight to automation may not be the right answer.

Rob Koplowitz06:24

Conformance in regulated industries is still a major driver, but now we're also trying to enhance experiences for employees, customers, citizens and patients, and we're doing a lot of it. So we need guidance on what we're trying to do and how to prioritize it.

Rob Koplowitz07:00

Forrester's new research, which you're among the first to see, explores a logical series of steps. Discover what you're doing, with process mining and analytics. Analyze where processes break down, where the friction points and manual steps are. Bring process experts, automation experts and the business together, with better and more collaborative modeling. And the process experts and Six Sigma people are absolutely still needed, to understand and reengineer processes before they're automated.

Rob Koplowitz08:26

What's different from the old BPM days is that we do this continually, over and over again, as we try to become more like software companies and less like our traditional businesses.

Rob Koplowitz08:48

The classic BPM project was like turning an aircraft carrier: you brought in 50 expensive consultants, and the results were often great. But if you're aligned around digital transformation, everything is becoming digital. All the paper, the spreadsheets running macros passed to the next person, is being beaten out of your organization, and that has to happen consistently. It's more like turning a bunch of speedboats in unison. To transform, you have to think about the role of all the people in your business in driving change.

Rob Koplowitz09:58

A lot of the drivers come back to the customer journey, and that can equally be a patient, citizen or employee journey. Customer experience people think about someone who gets up in the morning and receives a statement in the mail, what mood they're in. That's important, but it's not what we do. We look at the piece where automation can help.

Rob Koplowitz11:08

Steve has to find a piece of paper, get the information out, call customer service and sit on hold. The customer experience people say that when Steve sits on hold for 30 minutes without the information at his fingertips, he hangs up and goes to the competition. We say he doesn't have to do any of that; we can take all that out. There's a really virtuous relationship between the journey people with their post-it notes and the process people with their modeling tools.

Rob Koplowitz12:09

There's also a technology challenge and opportunity. To the left of the line is what I call the IT zone: ERP, CRM, the big BPM projects, only some of which help us transform. To the right is a whole bunch of technology at your fingertips: digital process automation, where FlowForma sits; content, and FlowForma is built on SharePoint so it's aligned with your content strategy; and low code.

Rob Koplowitz13:19

Low code isn't just about building software faster. New people are participating in development, so you're not putting a request into an IT queue and never being served. We can serve the long tail of automation that's so vital to digital transformation. Then there's RPA, decisioning rules, AI and document generation.

Rob Koplowitz14:28

We have to step back and think about the outcomes we're trying to achieve before we jump into any automation solution. There's a lot of energy around RPA, and it's powerful: bots can automate things where there's no API or the integration was too expensive. But what I hear from clients over and over is, we're trying to deploy a thousand bots and we're up to three hundred.

Rob Koplowitz15:32

I don't think deploying the most bots, or even writing the most low-code software, is a viable way of measuring your automation. You have to think in terms of outcomes, and with that in mind each of these technologies takes on very complementary roles.

Rob Koplowitz16:05

There are new interaction models: voice, chat, maybe someone in their kitchen talking to a smart speaker. As a process professional, I don't particularly care how the information comes in; I want it to come in the way that's easiest for the person interacting with the system.

Rob Koplowitz17:09

Low-code automation is exploding and attacking the long tail of automation we couldn't reach before. Whether a business user builds in a tool like FlowForma or sits side by side with an IT developer, iterating quickly, we're tapping into business expertise far more directly than ever before.

Rob Koplowitz17:58

Rules and decisioning route work depending on conditions. RPA takes the human-centric steps where there's no API and does them automatically, which keeps the process moving instead of sitting in a wait state. And AI is getting very good at things like fraud detection and understanding content, such as confirming a utility bill shows someone lives where they say, so the work can go straight through.

Rob Koplowitz19:46

Underneath all of that sits digital process automation: the modeling, orchestration and monitoring environment that ties these technologies together and drives the process. This is non-trivial, hard stuff, and we feel it's the realm and the job of the DPA vendor to integrate these technologies and drive consistency across the whole experience.

Rob Koplowitz20:30

We built a simple outcome-driven model for onboarding customers, where business, IT and process professionals work together. DPA is the backbone; rules route each case to the right customer success rep; AI handles fraud detection; and RPA automates multiple steps. So look at all the intelligent automation technologies available and keep them in their own lanes.

Rob Koplowitz21:34

Our framework has two varieties of DPA. DPA deep is for incredibly sophisticated processes, where the classic BPM vendors tend to sit. Then there's an emerging class, DPA wide, where FlowForma falls, aimed at the long tail: not three to five processes, but dozens, and eventually hundreds, across the organization. The focus is simplicity of design and a cost point that lets you deploy at very high scale.

Rob Koplowitz22:35

Beneath that sit dynamic case management, RPA, rules and AI. Some of the most pragmatic applications of AI are happening in process automation, because we understand the business outcomes we're driving. So develop a governance model that keeps these technologies in their own lanes, and use outcomes as your measure.

Rob Koplowitz23:36

The next piece is a little controversial: the rogue developer. Nobody wants to be told what to use, and you can probably move faster if you choose your own tools. But if we're going to do a lot of development in support of common business outcomes, finance, logistics, supply chain and customer service need to be on the same platform, because processes cross boundaries.

Rob Koplowitz24:51

Pulling business users in requires common approaches to training and change management. We did it with email and spreadsheets, and it's time to do it with low code. Govern your technology centrally, with central skills in the technology and in process excellence, and pull business experts into the process more deeply than ever before.

Rob Koplowitz25:47

This is a continuous cycle: understand your processes, collaborate on reengineering, automate where appropriate, because not everything is right for automation, prioritize with strategic objectives in mind, think about the journey and experience, and repeat.

Rob Koplowitz26:35

My recommendations: centralize how you think about process improvement and routinize it for scale. Automate for outcomes, not just for the sake of automation. Engage a new class of developer, your business people; it's probably not their job today, but it probably needs to be soon. And standardize on technology, with a centralized governance model, so you can do this at scale.

Ross Cullen27:58

Thanks, Rob. Part of my job as digital adoption specialist is to reach out to our clients, see how they're getting on with FlowForma and help them get to where they need to be. Typically IT is in charge of a few highly complex applications, and what we want is to automate as much as possible, as quickly as possible. A huge part of that is getting the work into the hands of business users, because they understand the process and its pitfalls.

Ross Cullen28:55

IT is still in control and aware of everything happening, but leaving development to process owners massively increases the speed and accuracy of what's rolled out. FlowForma is completely no code, so business users don't need programming experience. IT provides sandboxes where users can build away from production; when they're happy, they request a move, IT approves it, and the migration happens behind the scenes.

Ross Cullen30:17

You mentioned process automation supporting the customer experience, so I'll start with Beaumont Hospital in Ireland: 4,000 staff and 820 beds. Like many state-funded hospitals, they have to provide a high standard of care within financial constraints. Their director of ICT wanted to replace paper-based processes, with the aim of improving patient care. Doctors and nurses were taking notes on paper that administration elsewhere in the hospital needed.

Ross Cullen31:26

A small team of staff was trained on FlowForma, and they automated processes spanning 14 different IT systems, plus 20 back-office forms for HR and finance. They integrated FlowForma with existing systems: from a patient record, staff click to launch a FlowForma form with the patient's details already filled in, which takes about 30 seconds to complete. They use it for waiting list referrals between departments.

Ross Cullen32:24

Another is theater notes. Straight after surgery, the surgeon documents who operated, which theater and any follow-up notes, so by the time the patient returns to the ward, the nurses have the information. It takes about two minutes and generates a summary PDF held with the patient record. Doctors find the electronic forms much easier, which frees their time for patient care.

Ross Cullen33:32

Over the next ten years, Beaumont wants to focus on incremental improvements, not just replacing paper forms. It's easy to make an exact replica of a paper form, but new technology gives you the chance to do things a paper form never could.

Rob Koplowitz33:57

Ross, I'm excited about this one, because I had the chance to meet the people who drove it and do some case study work from our side. Two things stand out. It was all about what they call the white coats, focusing on patient outcomes. And it came from the executive suite: the CEO said these are the outcomes, you have the freedom to figure out how, but it's about patients. A hundred percent outcome-based.

Ross Cullen35:06

You also mentioned getting your organization set up for success. The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine is the oldest school of tropical medicine in the world, with hundreds of staff working around the world. They had huge demand for electronic workflows and had decided to become a cloud-first organization using Microsoft technologies, but had limited resources and found outsourcing too expensive. FlowForma sitting on top of SharePoint was like finding a missing piece of the puzzle.

Ross Cullen36:02

They trained a couple of staff, got their first two processes live within the first month, and went on to create over 120 processes. Once they delivered a couple of high-profile wins, everyone started thinking about their own processes and how FlowForma could improve them.

Ross Cullen36:58

Their processes include finance requests such as transfers and currency exchanges, and an important travel request process. Staff travel to countries with infectious disease outbreaks, so they need to understand the risks and get the right level of sign-off. Before, that took four paper forms with a lot of duplicated information; now the information is captured once and reused. And because departments were involved in digitizing, turnaround was quicker and they got what they wanted, not what someone else thought they wanted.

Ross Cullen38:44

Abingdon and Witney College ties to your point about automating for outcomes. It's a further education college in the UK with 14,000 students across three campuses and six satellite sites, so with everything on paper it was difficult and time-consuming to get to records. Their finance director had come from the commercial sector and wanted to fill the gaps between the different systems the campuses used.

Rob Koplowitz39:46

Ross, ballpark, what does something like this take in terms of resources and development time to get live?

Ross Cullen40:05

They gave it to two business users and set up a process improvement committee, and they had these processes up and running in maybe a month or two. We also have an onboarding program where you work with an analyst to get your first process set up.

Rob Koplowitz40:47

Two months is really fast, and these are significant outcomes happening quickly. When you think about doing this at scale, these are the kinds of efficiencies you have to see.

Ross Cullen41:11

Their committee picked the processes that would save the most time and money, and the processes I've shared add up to over 5,000 hours saved. The return on investment speaks for itself.

Ross Cullen41:46

One is the student update form. With 14,000 students, details change all the time: a new address, a new phone number, a course change. On paper, things got lost or delayed, and nobody knew which version was most up to date. Now the student enters their ID number and the rest of their record is filled in automatically, so they only change what they need to.

Ross Cullen42:55

They also have a trips and visits process with proper risk assessment and approval, and they connect that data to Power BI for a real-time dashboard, so they know where staff and students are and can prepare for upcoming trips.

Ross Cullen43:37

The last one ties to your recommendation about engaging a new class of developer. Nipro is a large Japanese multinational with 20,000 staff that makes medical devices. They wanted a solution business users could champion, bringing responsibility for automated workflows back into the business instead of relying on third parties.

Ross Cullen44:28

They needed it to sit on SharePoint and be mobile, which suited our Android and iOS app. Staff take notes and capture client feedback in forms during meetings, and people in the field without an internet connection can save an entry and submit it once they're back online.

Ross Cullen45:20

For those not familiar with FlowForma, we're an award-winning provider of no-code process automation, recognized for revolutionizing the traditional BPM space, with multiple Microsoft community awards and placements in the Forrester Wave. Our customers span oil and gas, healthcare, construction, education and more. It really is the DPA wide tool Rob mentioned.

Niamh Lordan46:22

Thanks, Ross and Rob. If you'd like more detail, the case studies Ross presented are on our website, and Rob's report on advancing process automation by keeping technologies in their own lanes is in the handouts. You're also welcome to try FlowForma with a free trial from our website.

Niamh Lordan47:28

Robert asks: how can we get the right buy-in from the business to invest in digital transformation, and keep it a continuous improvement strategy?

Rob Koplowitz47:52

That's the hardest question, and a lot of my research this year is on change management. The technology part is a lot easier than the sociology part. When tools are made available, a percentage of eager users say, I've been doing this on a spreadsheet and email, and now I can bring it online. Others have had requests sitting in an IT backlog for years. But don't overemphasize the early adopters.

Rob Koplowitz49:26

To reach the whole organization, there has to be a perspective from the top that we're all turning the boats in unison and that there are new tools to get on board with. This isn't impossible; people were hesitant about email and spreadsheets once. Part of it is introducing the tools, part is training, which is why I emphasize standardization, so you can have common training. We're starting to see best practices emerge, but there's a long way to go.

Niamh Lordan51:29

Maureen asks: can FlowForma help us enable suppliers or customers to participate in our processes?

Ross Cullen51:49

Absolutely. We have functionality called FlowForma Engage for interacting with external users. One client runs vetting, where members of the public submit applications to be vetted before working with children or the elderly, without needing a login. The same applies to suppliers: they can access and submit forms, and once those are processed you can reach back out to them.

Niamh Lordan52:44

Mike says there's a real need to automate processes in his business, but it's daunting. Where should he start, and what can he achieve quickly?

Rob Koplowitz53:08

There's some burning outcome you're trying to achieve right now, and the big step is going from zero to one. Find the one with the right risk-reward balance: probably not the most mission-critical process, but one that's high value. A simple, low-risk, high-value automation becomes the pilot that proves you can do this quickly, and then you do another one.

Rob Koplowitz54:47

Then viral adoption works in your favor: when people see what's possible and have access to the tool, they want to try it. Start small, find something simple you can get your arms around, prove it works, and don't over-polish it. You'll expand on it, make mistakes and redo some things, and learn how the process can be better through automating it.

Rob Koplowitz55:56

Another model we love is to gather people with ideas, run a bootcamp with a couple of hours of training on the tool, then hold a little code fest. A manufacturing company in New England did that and put five or six applications into production over the next few weeks.

Niamh Lordan57:05

Brilliant advice, Rob. Thank you everyone for watching. If you'd like to discuss any of the trends or case studies, drop us a line at info@flowforma.com. A short survey will pop up at the end, and I'd really appreciate it if you could fill it in. Special thanks to Rob and Ross for sharing their insights.