Become a process hero: hear how from our customer panel

Shay O'Connor00:00

Welcome to today's webinar, Become a Process Hero: Hear How From Our Customer Panel. I'm Shay O'Connor, SVP at FlowForma and your host. This session was born from the success of our eBook, Six Ways to Automate Processes and Accelerate Digital Transformation, and we have a panel of real-world FlowForma customers, our current process heroes, sharing their experiences of digital transformation.

Shay O'Connor00:53

The webinar is being recorded. Your lines are muted, but use the Q&A function to ask questions and we'll answer as many as we can at the end. There are polls throughout, so please get involved, and we'll send everyone a copy of the recording afterwards.

Shay O'Connor02:09

We're covering three trends, and coincidentally we have three panelists. Dustin Ray is a business process analyst at McKinley Irvin, one of the largest divorce and family law firms in the US Northwest, joining from Seattle, and he'll share his experience of driving McKinley Irvin's digital transformation strategy.

Shay O'Connor02:57

James Morgan is IT manager at the A14 Integrated Delivery Team, the largest road construction project in the UK at the moment, a £1.5 billion joint venture between Costain, Skanska and Balfour Beatty. And Treasa Cunneen is a solutions architect at GOAL, an international humanitarian aid agency, joining from Limerick, who'll share how GOAL has transformed processes for its remote aid workers and internally.

Shay O'Connor03:56

We'll discuss trends highlighted recently by Forrester Research. The first: digital transformation demands automation of hundreds or thousands of operating processes, work best led by process owners, if not completed by them. A poll is popping up now. I personally agree: there are hundreds of processes out there, and the best people to do them are the process owners, because they know them best.

James Morgan05:21

I absolutely agree. Joint ventures are short-lived, three or four years, and come together very quickly from different entities, so translating their requirements from an IT point of view is very difficult. With FlowForma, engagement and buy-in from the business is far greater when they design the process and are empowered to maintain it.

James Morgan06:13

One of our most efficient uses is the requisition process. On a construction job we're purchasing materials daily in large quantities, and it was a paper-based process, shuffled from desk to desk for sign-off. We automated it with the buying department, and now they completely own it. If they want a new release, they do it in UAT. That makes perfect sense, because they know what they want.

James Morgan07:18

We've done that in as many places as we can. Site visit requests are owned and run by the office managers. A very complex one is the permit to dig: our utilities team marks out areas for trial holes across a 31-kilometer scheme, and I wouldn't have a clue what that involves. They run it entirely themselves, and all I do is validate that they conform to our standards.

Shay O'Connor08:05

With different organizations coming together, a big thing must be standardizing those processes, so instead of three different types of forms you have one type of data that you can report on.

James Morgan08:46

Completely. Everyone understands the process, and we're very focused on reporting and data analysis, so having data in three different formats would be a nightmare. In a joint venture everyone has their own way of doing it and believes theirs is best, so it's about developing consensus and a solution that fits all, with one way of doing it across the joint venture.

Shay O'Connor10:05

Treasa, GOAL has automated some crucial processes, and you have a distributed workforce. Can you share an example?

Treasa Cunneen10:37

We have offices in 13 countries, and like James, we're standardizing and streamlining a lot of our processes. We've done HR processes such as requests for new joiners and leavers, and approval systems. One of the most recent is our payment request system, which goes through approval in the country, depending on a specific checklist and payment levels, and may then go to head office. We can push it back from head office to the field, or from the field back to head office.

Treasa Cunneen11:47

Before, it was done through email and spreadsheets, and it was difficult to see where things were, where the gaps were, why things were taking so long, or why they weren't being filled out correctly. Visibility is huge for us: an email might not be responded to, might be forwarded, might not be the current version of the truth.

Treasa Cunneen13:17

And it's visibility for the managers of a process, but also for yourself: you can see what's outstanding for you, and what you've sent to everybody else, which is really helpful.

Shay O'Connor14:09

Dustin, you had the foresight that you wanted to digitize everything. Can you give an example of what you did as the process owner?

Dustin Ray14:35

One of the biggest changes at McKinley Irvin was exactly what Treasa said: we were living inside the inbox, looking for the triggers that would guide us through our processes. One of our biggest initiatives was to bring our client closeout process into the digitization initiative. That requires participation from process owners across our legal and accounting teams, and you really have to meet your process owners halfway, collecting their standards and requirements and guiding them through.

Dustin Ray16:05

There was some resistance, because change is always challenging, especially across multiple offices with slightly different processes and standards. The ability to guide people into a single form, with options for their different needs, but pointing them back to a single method of working for the company as a whole, is critical.

Shay O'Connor16:54

James, how long did it take to deploy one of your processes, compared with what you may have done in the past?

James Morgan17:16

It's quicker, because the process owners are directly involved. The plant and materials requisition took about six weeks, but we had to get it out to eight offices and around a thousand people, so a good couple of weeks of that was training. It depends on complexity: some we've done within a matter of days, start to finish. Far quicker than when we were developing on SharePoint, which took quite a bit longer and normally needed rework.

Shay O'Connor18:07

The first poll asked who should lead process automation: IT, the business, or the business governed by IT. 7% said IT, 36% said the business, and the majority, 57%, said the business governed by IT. It's always the people in the business whose experience and opinions count.

Shay O'Connor19:16

The second trend: customer-obsessed transformation has pushed automation front and center, but it's difficult to choose among automation tools. There's a lot of conflicting information and marketing out there, and at some stage you have to make a choice. The poll is up for this one now.

Treasa Cunneen20:43

We use Office 365, so we needed something that would integrate with our current platform; that was one of the first requirements. We wanted something easy to use, so that eventually our business process automation champions could take ownership within the business, and something that would let us automate processes quickly.

Treasa Cunneen21:23

One of our biggest challenges is to document what our process is, define what it should be and standardize it across the whole organization, so we needed something that made it easy to roll that process out. And we needed good support, somewhere we could reach out to for help if we needed it.

Treasa Cunneen22:55

We don't have a huge development team within GOAL's IT department, so it was really important for us to have a no-code or low-code solution. And yes, it is a jungle out there.

Shay O'Connor23:23

Dustin, integration with Office 365 was high on your list. What was your experience of searching for the right solution?

Dustin Ray23:36

It's incredibly difficult. There are more than a few options, and a lot of people won't know exactly what their requirements are until they're in the middle of the process, well after the selection. FlowForma's onboarding program made the startup so much easier: dive in, get that first process rolling and turn over some results.

Dustin Ray25:42

The trial is, in my understanding, pretty rare among business process automation solutions: the ability to fire up a trial, kick the tires, develop some quick-start applications, get a feel for the technology and even roll it out tentatively to some of your business owners. That makes a big difference.

Shay O'Connor26:16

The last thing you want is a client who signs up and wants something completely different, which is why the trial environment is there. I'd always encourage people: don't just believe us, try it yourself and prove it to yourself.

Shay O'Connor27:29

James, mobility was a big thing for you, with a scheme covering a very large area. How did your selection go?

James Morgan28:03

We have people in the field eight, nine, ten hours a day, and we don't want them traveling back into offices. We needed something they could use on a device out in the field, working offline, because much of the site is green field and communications links are relatively poor. We spent about 12 months evaluating products, and we struggled to find technology that offered mobile devices and offline operation.

James Morgan28:55

Part of the win with FlowForma was being able to try it: I could drive out on the job and test how the synchronization works. We looked at other products, like Nintex and K2, but they retained the complexity and the dependency on the IT department, and we simply aren't big enough for the volume of processes we want to automate.

James Morgan30:26

When we looked at it towards the end of 2016, one of the most important things was that the people on site capture a lot of imagery. FlowForma put that on the roadmap, and I think it went into the next release cycle.

Shay O'Connor30:51

When a client says they really need something and we hear the same from other clients, it shoots to the top of the list, and everybody benefits.

Shay O'Connor31:20

Any advice for someone assessing tools: make sure you look for X or Y?

Dustin Ray31:40

Make sure the system is going to play nice with the tools you have. You want it to plug into your organization, make sure the data formatting works for you, and make sure the consumers of the product will be familiar with it. For us, that meant something that integrates with SharePoint and Office 365. For others it might be different, so look at what's important to you. The ability to get up and running in a no-code environment was a big one for us.

Shay O'Connor32:34

Some companies don't describe scripting as coding, but for someone who's never done scripting, scripting is definitely coding.

Shay O'Connor32:54

The poll asked about your requirements for an automation tool. 100% of respondents identified no code and integration with Office 365; those two stood out, and that aligns with what the panel has been saying.

Shay O'Connor33:37

Our final trend is an emerging one: when your processes engage partners and customers, the benefits become game-changing. There's a poll for this one too. Bringing third parties and outward-facing people into your processes is becoming very important in the evolution of digital transformation.

Shay O'Connor34:35

James, the A14 uses FlowForma Engage, publicly accessible forms, to bring external users into multiple processes. How important was that?

James Morgan34:56

Very important. We have a large supply chain, and we don't necessarily want to bring them into our Office 365 tenancy, but there's data we want to capture from them. Our site visit requests, for example, are publicized without needing yet another system. Every week we provide our end client with stats on trainees and people joining and leaving the job, including the supply chain, so we have a weekly supply chain data capture form that kicks off an internal process.

James Morgan36:14

We've got probably 15 or 16 processes out there that people can interact with, which means we don't have to provision an Office 365 license.

Shay O'Connor36:33

People often answer the question for themselves at the start: if I want to bring in external users, I'll have to give them licenses, or code web-facing forms. They never check whether the product can already do it. For you, James, it was one of your requirements from the very start.

Dustin Ray37:52

This is a very natural progression for law firms in general. There's a huge amount of communication, data and requests flowing back and forth between the client and the firm. If you only stay within the bounds of the firm, you're not touching the whole ecosystem people work with, and in service-driven industries most of the work takes place between you and the client.

Dustin Ray38:43

So we're looking at extending Engage to start collecting client data earlier in the process and continue that conversation through FlowForma. We're already using FlowForma to distribute polling information to our former clients, and we're looking to expand that.

Shay O'Connor39:16

Some organizations come to us needing an external-facing process first, having looked at coded options. Here in Ireland, organizations such as the GAA and a national bus service run external-facing vetting forms through FlowForma, and it simplified everything because they could do it themselves.

James Morgan40:30

The way they've evolved, it's normally the front portion of the process that we expose, so it's very simple. We focus on the internal process, and once that's nailed, we migrate the first part over to the external instance. It's very straightforward.

Shay O'Connor41:02

The poll asked how people feel about engaging external users in processes: 55% said they want to, and 45% said they'd like to find out more. For a process that needs an anonymous user, someone without login credentials, you make the first section of the process external and continue the rest internally.

Treasa Cunneen42:04

We've been focusing on streamlining our internal processes so far, but I definitely think engaging external users is something we could look at in the future.

Shay O'Connor42:53

John asks: what are the biggest challenges to implementing automated solutions, particularly cost-effectiveness when you're making your case to management?

James Morgan43:35

A key thing is understanding the metric that demonstrates an efficiency saving. It's challenging: you may know you're releasing someone's time, but how do you guarantee that person is more effective at something else? As a joint venture we present efficiencies back to our end client, Highways England. Many of our selling points have been around data: we're heavily into Power BI reporting, and FlowForma brings consistency to how we capture and present data.

James Morgan44:43

And we can create processes a lot quicker than when we were developing them on SharePoint.

Shay O'Connor45:02

A question from the Netherlands: how can I help a beginner design their first process?

Treasa Cunneen45:18

Defining the process is the first step: what's the current process, and how can we make it better and streamline it? Then, depending on the user's technical literacy, sit down with them, starting from your SharePoint site, and work through how you'd gather the information you need. The biggest part for us is defining the process and making sure it makes sense for all our scenarios. The FlowForma part is much simpler.

Treasa Cunneen46:13

There are lots of webinars and training videos to help them become familiar with it, but then it's a matter of sitting down and hand-holding a little to walk through the process. You can't really break anything, especially with a sandbox.

Shay O'Connor46:52

And there's a facility that lets business users create a process and publish it once it's been reviewed and validated, through the governance facility.

Shay O'Connor47:14

Satish Kumar in the UAE says new processes in a large organization can create soft issues: some people feel insecure if decision-making is automated. Dustin, do you get pushback?

Dustin Ray47:48

Absolutely. People are always a little afraid of change, especially when a platform changes the way they've done business, sometimes for 28 years. You need the buy-in of process owners, and don't underestimate training. Implement something really small and simple, give them a few options on a form, and if possible stand over their shoulder, or share a screen, as they go through it the first time.

Dustin Ray48:56

When people click the buttons and realize this isn't out of their league, they feel much more comfortable. Most pushback comes from a place of fear, and training and guiding them through will help alleviate it.

Shay O'Connor49:13

One organization was trying to put in a really complex process first. Their project lead picked a really simple one instead; it took him a week from start to finish to agree and implement, and once people's first interaction felt good, it brought everything else along.

Dustin Ray50:05

Starting with the simpler, higher-volume processes is a great place to get your feet wet.

Shay O'Connor50:18

Clyde in Australia asks: what's the best way to measure process compliance or adoption?

James Morgan50:43

We're very heavily into Power BI. Before we automated it, one of the biggest issues was the permit to dig, a very manual process involving about six people. People would start the process on paper, because they want to dig a hole, but getting them to close permits out afterwards was very difficult, with only a permit register in Excel.

James Morgan51:27

Now the utilities team can see on a dashboard every day how many have been raised, what stage they're at and how many need closing, because closing them is as important as starting them. We had around 300 remaining open, and that fell quite rapidly.

Shay O'Connor52:05

A last question from John on scalability. We always feel clients should prove the point internally first, because in most cases there has never been any automation, and then scale.

Dustin Ray53:29

Like many organizations, you have to expand beyond one physical office, whether you're reaching out to suppliers, customers or both. That ability to expand and become a broad platform is essential.

Shay O'Connor53:47

Having the platform as an app on Office 365 enables that scalability, because Office 365 does the heavy lifting. You've already invested in that infrastructure, so you don't have to reinvest just to roll processes out across your organization.

Shay O'Connor54:29

I'm delighted you could join us today, and thank you to James, Treasa and Dustin for taking time out of your busy schedules. You can sign up for a free trial, and we can demo to you first or run a proof of concept. Trying it yourself will answer a lot of questions and show you the difference between coded solutions and a no-code platform. Look us up on G2 Crowd, and visit the website for case studies.