Use process data to drive better visibility, decision making and problem solving

Host (FlowForma)00:00

Welcome to today's webinar with FlowForma Process Automation and Pontem Innovations on how to use process data to drive better visibility, decision making and problem solving. The session is being recorded, and you can use the Q&A panel to ask questions, which we'll take at the end.

Host (FlowForma)00:49

I'm delighted to be joined by Shay O'Connor, Head of Solutions at FlowForma. Rick Dowell, President and Co-Founder of Pontem Innovations, also joins us, with a background in senior operational leadership and board governance. And finally Cameron Fox, Director of Process Solutions at Pontem, who joined in 2019 to lead clients' adoption of data analytics, digital workflow and process automation.

Shay O'Connor01:46

At FlowForma we've spent years helping organizations digitize, in small ways and large. But the people using the systems are only one part of the picture. Supervisors and managers who make decisions on the day-to-day work want clear information. Today we want to close the loop: digitize, then present the clean information you gather in a way people can use. Pontem are the experts in this area.

Rick Dowell03:31

Our clients are constantly trying to tie together four things that often get looked at in silos: process, automation, analytics and strategy. The relationship between them is what drives performance and efficiency. Strategy is the output every business is trying to achieve. Analytics is the scorecard that tells you whether you're meeting it.

Rick Dowell04:42

Twenty years ago, tracking how a company was doing took a ton of manual effort to collect, compile and summarize information. Today's tools mostly remove that, yet many organizations still spend hours on it. What if you spent those hours on the actions instead? The idea is to get information into one system once, then use it across departments.

Rick Dowell05:47

Process is the foundation. It's how work gets done efficiently, and where consistent, predictable results come from. At Pontem we say good analytics is tied to good process: what data you need, what format it's in, where it comes from and what you'll do with it. Treat them as one integrated system, not separate projects.

Rick Dowell07:08

Picture a 2x2 matrix: automated process up the vertical axis, data analytics and dashboard reporting along the horizontal. Bottom left is chaos, high risk and uncertainty. It's stressful, unpredictable and, in a word, reactive. You're always holding the fire extinguisher.

Rick Dowell08:18

Top left has more automated process but poor visibility of performance. The foundation is good, but people spend a lot of manual effort pulling the story together for stakeholders.

Shay O'Connor09:11

We worked with one organization where it took a week to put together their KPIs every month.

Rick Dowell09:30

Bottom right is unstructured data and inconsistent reporting with little process. Reporting happens in silos and depends on individuals. If you've ever wondered what you'll do when Mary leaves, that's this quadrant, and the risk is higher than it feels.

Shay O'Connor10:37

Organizations rarely fall into one category. Some departments are chaos, others have great data because a department head decided to put something in place.

Cameron Fox11:12

One department can be ahead on process, another on data. When they're integrated, a finding from a process initiative leads to a data change, and a report's findings drive process changes. That's how you move to the top right.

Shay O'Connor12:37

Let's get those online involved with a quick poll: does your organization have clear reporting of all its business processes?

Shay O'Connor13:18

Interesting. Zero for yes, we have full visibility of all our business processes. Just over half can report on some, and 44% don't have clear reporting of their business processes. That's a pretty chunky percentage.

Rick Dowell13:55

I think that's in line with our experience. Some departments make real strides, but they do things specific to their area, even naming things differently. Without a common tool and approach, those processes don't transfer. Looked at holistically, you can make them look and feel the same across the organization while staying specific to each department.

Cameron Fox15:04

A lot of companies can create reports, but there's a time cost to building them, especially when the data comes from multiple systems or external sources.

Rick Dowell15:28

We've sat with CEOs who say reporting is pretty good: they had info for last month's board meeting. Then you look at the CFO or controller, and they shift in their chair. In the background, that team was up until 10 p.m. the night before stitching together Excel spreadsheets, and they know a lot of assumptions are baked in. Without automated process, everyone's fine, fine, fine, until they're not. The top right is where consistent, scalable, predictable results come from.

Shay O'Connor17:08

We've put together three steps to becoming more digitally efficient. The first is finding an internal champion. Without strategic support for a digital initiative, you're fighting a lonely, hard battle. It's a top-down and bottom-up transformation: leaders set the goals, and users bring together the work items that create usable data.

Shay O'Connor18:49

I've never come across an organization that started digitizing its processes and then reversed out of it. It's how every organization will be run. It's just taking the first step.

Rick Dowell19:44

Top down brings strategy, executive support, budget and a timeline. Bottom up is just as important: someone who understands the processes, has tried to improve things, and is open to using data and automation so processes survive without one person. Willingness to try new things matters more than anything, because the tools make it relatively easy.

Shay O'Connor21:19

A phased approach is really important, especially for hesitant organizations. Think of the diffusion of innovation curve: a small share of innovators, a few more early adopters, and a risk-averse majority. You win the majority one process at a time. I'd say 80% of our clients, maybe more, go this way.

Rick Dowell22:28

That's exactly what we recommend. Many people have felt the pain of IT projects that ran over on time or budget. I've been through two ERP implementations. With a phased approach you take one process at a time, so the scope and the risk are smaller. There's no ERP where you could put in 10% first and add more every month.

Rick Dowell23:38

You get smarter as you go and take those learnings into the next process. You show results quickly, bring in the right people at the right time, and reprioritize: priority five might become priority three once you see how things tie together.

Cameron Fox26:49

For each new process, change management goes faster because people know the tools. FlowForma forms look the same, and Power BI report navigation is exactly the same.

Shay O'Connor27:52

Getting started is the tough bit, but once the wheel is turning you have to keep improving. A pharmaceutical organization used FlowForma first for onboarding, then realized from the process that three or four steps could run in parallel instead of files moving between departments.

Rick Dowell29:03

A financial services company we work with started with one department and several processes, then expanded into other departments. It began in operations with external stakeholders, moved into HR, and now they plan to use FlowForma and Power BI to replace their existing HR system, because they can do everything there and customize it their way.

Cameron Fox30:56

We have two examples where we combined FlowForma forms with Power BI reports: FlowForma's data input with Power BI's storytelling. That's only possible because FlowForma gives you full control of your data. You decide where it's held, in Azure or SharePoint, and what you do with it.

Cameron Fox32:04

The first is a private equity-backed oil and gas services company based in Alberta. We started in quality assurance, which tracks policy non-conformance in the field, such as a procedure not followed or equipment breaking down. They had been using Excel, Access and Word, swapping documents by email and shared drives, and entering the same information several times.

Cameron Fox33:32

The new state uses FlowForma forms as the single input, with document generation creating each individual report automatically, and Power BI reporting at organization, site and department level. All the layers of reporting come from one point of entry.

Cameron Fox34:22

In the demo, the field starts the non-conformance report with the entity, date, division, technician, downtime and equipment details. Quality assurance then assesses it and decides on corrective action. The single-instance report for a site is generated straight out of FlowForma.

Cameron Fox36:01

In Power BI, a drilling division manager can filter to see their investigation status, for example eight overdue, with statuses tied to each step of the FlowForma process. A detailed tab lists overdue items for a weekly or even daily review, and you can filter by site, time period, customer or division.

Rick Dowell38:04

You hear about garbage in, garbage out. Our analytics is only as good as the data coming in. FlowForma puts guardrails around the information you need, and the same structured data can serve a board-level trend or an operator's view of what's overdue in their area this morning. Before, it was paper, then Excel, then email, then a shared drive. The quality of information is dramatically better, and we know it's saving around 60% of time.

Cameron Fox40:50

With Azure and FlowForma's advanced reporting features, these Power BI reports can update in real time, so a change in FlowForma shows up in Power BI the moment it happens.

Cameron Fox41:42

The next example is Morgan Construction and Environmental, a western Canadian construction company. We started with their recruitment team, who receive position requests from the field, from one excavator operator tomorrow to 50 or 100 people in three months for a new project, and own onboarding from start to finish.

Cameron Fox42:44

The business grew so fast that around 15 people were working in the same Excel spreadsheet to track each person's onboarding. They also had to report to each site how many requested positions were filled, still open or ready to start.

Cameron Fox44:04

The FlowForma onboarding form has automated employee numbers, hire type, education and contact details, then manager review, orientations, required courses and drug testing before anyone can work on site. In Power BI, an executive or site foreman sees how many people are waiting in orientation, or on IT or HR.

Rick Dowell45:48

You might have a swim lane chart on the wall, but three months later can you say whether the process works? Here you can track how long each step takes and which needs optimizing. And if I'm in the field, "in process" isn't helpful. Has the person got nine of ten certificates, or one? The same approach works for QA, safety, operations, finance and payments.

Shay O'Connor47:19

A digitized process also gives you a virtual tap on the shoulder. If something sits in a step too long, the process sends a reminder, and you can escalate or reassign it.

Cameron Fox48:24

You get both layers: status tracking for where things are now, and a look back at whether you're getting people through faster, which helps you demonstrate ROI to the business.

Rick Dowell49:42

A common financial summary is revenue versus budget, broken down by division, with a previous-year comparison. Red, yellow and green show where to focus. Anyone who has tried this with financial statements in Excel knows how time-consuming it is.

Cameron Fox51:01

It's a much nicer way to view financial information than a 40- or 100-page financial statement.

Rick Dowell51:33

This agent scorecard tracks a customer service team against KPIs by day, with drill-downs and a team filter, so customer care and specialty care each see what's relevant to them in the same look and feel. It's all about the story you're telling stakeholders about success.

Shay O'Connor52:48

Process automation and interactive reporting only work hand in hand. There's not much point gathering clean data if you won't report on it, and reporting on disjointed data is a fool's errand. Together, they keep continuous improvement going.

Rick Dowell54:05

Forewarned is forearmed. In construction, people often knew about a problem three weeks or a month earlier, when there were five options instead of one or two. Real-time reporting lets you solve problems faster and proactively.

Shay O'Connor54:52

The biggest question is how quickly you can get going. On the FlowForma side, you can technically be up and running in an hour, but give yourself a few weeks for your first process. How about reporting?

Cameron Fox55:23

With structured data coming in from FlowForma, you could have a couple of reports built within a week very easily. A couple of simple reports could take a couple of hours as a starting point.

Shay O'Connor56:06

You no longer have to take on a big project. One process at a time leads to a report, then a dashboard, and you grow from there. It's not an old-style IT project where you spend weeks talking before anything starts.

Shay O'Connor57:43

If you'd like to try this, grab a trial and we'll even run a workshop with you and step you through it. There's also a tip sheet with this webinar on not delaying digitization. Everybody will be digitized in five years, but those who digitize today will have five years of data and improvements. Rick, Cam, thanks very much.