Because Process Matters » Customers

Think Big: Extending BPM Across Your Organization

Sandra Moran — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:48:03 +0000

In my blog post last month I covered a few of the lessons learned by early BPM adopters on how to begin a business process management (BPM) initiative. Based on many early BPM successes, we have seen the focus of BPM projects shift from just streamlining and improving a few key processes within their organization tonow turning to BPM to help them understand, visualize and optimize their operating model and business practices. However, to fully reap the rewards that BPM has to offer, organizations have had to stop looking at BPM as a tool to improve a handful of easy, high ROI projects and start thinking about BPM as change agent to instill agility into the enterprise.

From my experience working with our customers, the companies who have embraced BPM practices as essential to their management approach have had far greater success than those who have leveraged BPM to solve a few problem processes.

How AmerisourceBergen Transformed Their Business with BPM

For example, at last month’s User Summit, our customer AmerisourceBergen showed us just how far their “BPM way of thinking” has transformed their business. Their first BPM initiative was to implement an automated, collaborative Contract & Chargeback process which was not supported by their SAP application. The Contract & Chargeback process is used to manage the established pricing and terms for each of AmerisourceBergen’s manufactures and then controls compliance with pricing terms and payment of rebates from the manufacturer if the company is forced to sell at a lower price to compete- a multi-billion dollar exercise for the company. The project was a huge success and delivered a high return on investment through lower headcount, fewer and faster dispute resolution, and more accurate pricing information. AmerisourceBergen identified many additional processes for BPM and expanded its use of Metastorm BPM to support an enterprise-wide business transformation initiative. More specifically, the company created six new processes in Metastorm BPM that extend and augment SAP’s capabilities around managing and automating high volume, highly-specialized supplier credit processes. Today AmerisourceBergen has over 3,000 users and almost 300 processes automated in Metastorm BPM. They have also established a Process Center of Excellence (COE) consisting of key business and IT people to access new processes for automation, build business cases for BPM and oversee BPM projects.

Rather than taking the one project at a time approach, AmerisourceBergen and other cutting edge BPM adopters have seen a significant pay-off from adopting an enterprise-wide, business transformation approach to BPM. By building a Process Center of Excellence, your organization can bring together both IT and business people and resources to start thinking about how to deploy BPM across your entire organization.

If you’re interested in learning how to extend your BPM implementation beyond a few projects, or have any thoughts on this subject, feel free to leave a comment below!

AmerisourceBergen Recognized for Business Process Improvement Initiatives Metastorm customers are continuing to receive tons of recognition for...
Pharmaceutical company recognized for process excellence Today we are proud to announce that, AmerisourceBergen – one...
Extending Our Leadership We’ve got some great news! Last week, IDC MarketScape announced...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

3 Tips to Improve New Client On-boarding

Alison Cooley — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:39:20 +0000

In its nature, new client on-boarding is prone to error. For example, to bring on a new customer a financial services firm often goes through redundant, manual paper-intensive processes – producing bottlenecks so large that it takes several weeks, or even months, for a customer to be fully integrated. The process, while seemingly effective at one point in time, is now flawed. Employees spend several hours entering the same data into several entry points and have little to no visibility into the new customer’s application progress.

Time is money and customer service is critical, so we’ve pulled together three quick tips to help you on-board your customers more efficiently and effectively. Now you can save money, improve overall customer and employee satisfaction, and gain a strategic advantage over your competitors.

#1 – Select a flexible business process management suite
Out of the box solutions for your new client on-boarding process aren’t going to give you the competitive edge that you need. Business process management allows you to build a customizable new client on-boarding process that is agile enough to allow you to evolve and change the process over time. For example, OpenText BPM integrates into your existing systems, giving you the ability to

mask the complexity of underlying legacy systems
create an aggregated view of client information across multiple systems and departments
streamline and manage the best process for your success
monitor inbound workflow with ease, providing you complete visibility into the status of a new customer’s progress
improve customer service

#2- Get the right people together and collaborate
Process improvement will only be as good as the people, knowledge and skills that are brought to the table to implement the transformation. You need to capture the current on-boarding process and understand the people, process, systems and technologies that it involves. The best approach is to identify key stakeholders and understand the bottlenecks and why they occur before you start to remodel your process. From there you can analyze and determine the best approach for improving and automating your new process.

#3 – Monitor and report on your process
You will never know how much you have improved without setting a way to monitor and report on your process. Having visibility into your process is critical to your ability to control and manage your progress. You no longer have to worry about reporting on several regulatory mandates, including Know Your Customer (KYC), because BPM allows you to capture both your human-centric and system-centric processes. With these tools you not only have a holistic picture of how your organization’s on-boarding process is executed, but see down to the granular level details about a specific process, system or technology involved. A BPM suite with dashboard capabilities takes monitoring and reporting to a whole new level, giving you complete 24-7 visibility into every aspect of you process.

New client on-boarding doesn’t need to be headache
Long, unnecessary processes will hinder your organizations ability to on-board customers quickly – resulting in lost business to competitors. Investing in a robust, flexible BPM suite allows will help you automate and streamline key processes and dramatically improve your organization, resulting in increased ROI, higher productivity, better turnaround and more profitability.

Do you have tips for improving new client on-boarding? Post a comment and share them.

BPM for new client matter intake Reviewing and processing new clients or new business from existing...
Three Big Topics in Financial Services In the wake of this historic, global economic downturn there...
BPM and CRM: utility company uses Metastorm software to improve customer service A major utilities company in Arizona faced a challenge to...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

7 Reasons You Want to Attend the OpenText BPM User Summit!

Elizabeth Edwards — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:12:45 +0000

For the past nine years Metastorm has hosted its Global User Summit, designed to offer our customers and partners the opportunity to extend their ROI, hear success stories from industry peers and learn first-hand what is in the pipeline for upcoming products and services. This year is no different. In fact, we are thrilled to offer an expanded Global User Summit, now OpenText BPM, bringing together Global 360 and Metastorm customers, partners, executives and product experts for three days of learning and networking.

Our theme this year is Expand Your Universe. Regardless of where you are on the spectrum of enterprise architecture, business process analysis, business process management, case management, and enterprise content management, there is opportunity to expand your reach to drive further strategic and operational improvements.

I have been a part of the User Summit since its beginning. There is no doubt in my mind the tremendous value you will gain by attending the Summit. However, if you are still deciding if you should attend – I have put together seven excellent reasons that should sway your decision.

The Top 7 Reasons Why You Should Attend #UC2011:

1. Keynotes
Hear from John Shackleton, President and CEO of OpenText who will be revealing his vision for convergence of process and content and the value the new combination of Metastorm and Global 360 as OpenText BPM brings to our customers and partners. Bob Caldwell, general manager of OpenText BPM will also be sharing his vision for the continued growth and achievements of this newly created product group. Additionally, Clay Richardson, senior analyst at Forrester Research will be adding his insight into Social BPM and why collaborative and social technologies can drive serious, meaningful results.

2. OpenText BPM Roadmap
Chief Technology Officer for OpenText BPM, Steve Russell, will address all attendees and share product roadmap insights and strategy. He will be discussing the future of enterprise architecture, business process analysis, business process management, case management, and enterprise content management and how these capabilities will come together to help your organization plan for and execute smart improvements. You will be the first to hear the plans and how they will increase your ability to change the way you do business.

3. Pre-Summit OpenText Metastorm Workshops
We’re offering a special one-day curriculum of unique workshops focused on giving you the knowledge to maximize your investment in OpenText Metastorm products. While the workshops are an additional cost to the Summit registration fee, our customers who invest in training are better utilizing our products and see a much higher return on investment from our technology. There are still seats available for our Pre-Summit Workshops – register today!

4. Networking, networking, networking
With hundreds of attendees from a variety of industries, there are endless opportunities to network. By attending you can get new, fresh ideas about how to expand your EA, BPA, BPM, DCM and ECM efforts to support your business objectives.

5. Customer Success Stories
One of the best ways to get the most out of your investment in our products is to hear the incredible things your peers are doing. This year we have a dynamic group of customer speakers, including Blue Rhino, Coca-Cola Bottling Company, HP, Parsons Brinckerhoff, PCSU Financial Services, Salt River Project, SCRI, and Sunstein Kann Murphy & Timbers LLP, who will all be sharing how they leveraged our technology to transform their operations.

6. Location & Events
This year, our Global User Summit will be held in Reston, Virginia at the Hyatt Regency Reston – a premier hotel in the heart of Fairfax County’s technology hub and close to Washington, D.C. To further inspire you, we are providing a complimentary evening event for all Summit attendees. You can take advantage of this great opportunity to explore the world-renowned Steven F. Udar-Hazy Center – the companion facility to the National Air & Space Museum on the National Mall.

7. Partner Symposium
This one-day event is exclusively for partners and designed to give you insight into the vision of the OpenText executive team for our partner community. By attending our Partner Symposium you will gain firsthand experience of how to maximize your sales success and maximize your potential as an OpenText partner.

By selecting Metastorm and Global 360 software, you’ve already made the commitment to innovation and business improvement. With two days of sessions, case studies, demos, networking, product roadmaps and more, you will gain some serious insight and deeper knowledge (that you can’t find anywhere else!) about our software solutions and how you can initiate positive change across your organization!

P.S.: Register by October 1^st and get $200 off the regular Summit rate!

Save the Date – Metastorm Global User Summit Coming Soon! Expand your universe! The 2011 Metastorm Global User Summit and...
Insights from OpenText: What Metastorm Brings to the Company OpenText announced Friday the completion of the Metastorm acquisition. We...
Takeaways from the Elite User Conference At the Elite User Conference — both on the exhibit hall...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Who Drives an Enterprise Architecture Initiative? Part 3

Alison Cooley — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:18:35 +0000

Enterprise Architecture (EA) projects are often thought to be initiated solely by the IT department. Depending on the situation, this isn’t always the case. In the past two posts of this series we have discussed how EA initiatives can be driven by enterprise architects or IT, but these two groups aren’t the only people who drive process change. Oftentimes it is members of a business unit who identify a serious and urgent need to drastically improve the organization’s operations, most often based on experience from their daily interactions and responsibilities within the organization.

One of Metastorm’s customers is a global aerospace engineering corporation that has several business units responsible for building and supporting its engineering services. This organization is organized by individual project teams, and has several, massive multi-million dollar projects running at any given time. Each project team can have a budget allocation of millions of dollars and is comprised of several engineers who work closely together, but separate from members of other project teams to complete their individual missions. Given the sizable investment for each project, the team focuses solely on what they need to do in order to deliver on time and on budget. As a result, if a team needs a specific application or program that they don’t already own they go ahead and purchase it, without checking if the other teams have the tool.

The company realized that these teams were working on similar projects but in siloed teams and there was little communication occurring across the organization. This resulted in multiple teams owning the same programs and resources – creating duplication of effort and financial investment. It also became apparent that there were some projects that could have been leveraged by another group eliminating re-work and lost time. Given the lack of cross-departmental visibility, opportunities to improve overall profitability and efficiency were lost.

Realizing that they would be able to operate more effectively if they had a better understanding of their current applications, systems, programs, and processes, the company looked into implementing an enterprise and business architecture tool. They recognized the need to get a comprehensive blueprint of what assets each of the project teams owned, what they were doing, and how it fit into the bigger picture. After looking at several vendors in the marketplace, the company selected Metastorm ProVision to help consolidate its engineering efforts and build a new system that encompassed the entire organization’s capabilities.

The project started 18 months ago and with the help of Metastorm consultants they built a repository for all of the different components, capabilities and assets that once existed among siloed project teams. With Metastorm ProVision, the company now has an enterprise model that helps them understand the relationships that exist across their organization, what assets they have, and how project teams are leveraging these assets. All the sub-projects roll up into a high level view of all initiatives and are tied back to corporate KPIs. Metastorm ProVision allowed them to create strategy through to execution providing a clear vision to transform their engineering operations.

For many organizations, enterprise architecture has become a critical component for bringing value to the business and integrating IT and business operations. As we have discussed in this series, EA initiatives can start at an executive level, as part of an IT initiative, or in response to a specific business requirement. Regardless of its source, your organization should find a tool that supports the ability to move beyond tactical architecture to allow users of all backgrounds to understand the systems, processes, applications and people that will help your organization maximize its resources and reach its goals.

Who Drives an Enterprise Architecture Initiative?
Part 2 Depending on the scenario, enterprise architecture projects can be led...
Who Drives an Enterprise Architecture Initiative? Who drives an enterprise architecture initiative? Does it come from...
The Road Ahead for Enterprise & Business Architecture With a new year upon us it’s always exciting to...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Who Drives an Enterprise Architecture Initiative? Part 2

Alison Cooley — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:27:32 +0000

Depending on the scenario, enterprise architecture projects can be led by different people and groups within an organization. In the first of our three-part series published last week, we discussed a customer case study where enterprise architects drove the need for implementing an EA solution, but this is just one example.

With a powerful enterprise architecture system in place, a variety of groups can lead EA initiatives. For instance, one of our customers is a global financial services company who is one of the largest credit card issuers in the United States. To support its global operations, the organization has 10 different mainframes located throughout the world that are responsible for running the company’s complex business applications.

Recognizing the amount of money and time spent maintaining these mainframes, the IT department decided they needed to consolidate and move the mainframes to a more centralized, lower cost location where they could be better managed. The members of the IT team went through a demanding investigative process to analyze the potential to bring the mainframes back to the U.S. At that time, the mainframe systems were outsourced to another company to be hosted and maintained. After almost four years, the IT team realized that it had not saved any money from this outsourcing initiative.

Realizing the enormous scale of this data and system architecture project and the potential cost savings that the company could achieve, the IT team needed a strong enterprise architecture solution that allowed them to model all of the assets and capabilities of each mainframe in order to better understand the divisions and functions they supported. Using Metastorm ProVision, the team was able to build a portfolio management solution to understand its entire mainframe environment, which includes the hardware, software, applications, communication, support, maintenance and costs.

The first step was to map out the current environment of its mainframes. During this process, the IT team identified close to 500,000 objects in the repository. After the mapping phase the team built out a consolidated model and was able to reduce the number of mainframes from 10 to four. Additionally, the team was also able to consolidate the subsystems (regions) from 30 to less than 10, which considerably lowered redundant messaging. Working with the Metastorm consulting team, the organization has identified two separate data types within the consolidated mainframes, the customer and the supplier. They have also been able to understand and define specific objects. With the unique data linking supported by Metastorm, if an application is moved the team will know what databases, queue requests, transactions, subsystems, data, file transfers, batch jobs, and software that will be affected.

In this particular example, the IT team led the effort to embark on a full-scale enterprise architecture project. Based on the initial estimates, the company expects to see an estimated $40-100 million savings in the first fully operational year.

Tune in next week as we examine another business case where a totally different group within the organization decided to undertake an EA initiative.

Who Drives an Enterprise Architecture Initiative? Who drives an enterprise architecture initiative? Does it come from...
Enterprise Architecture still delivers in recessionary times Enterprise Architecture (EA) increasingly covers a broader role in an...
The Road Ahead for Enterprise & Business Architecture With a new year upon us it’s always exciting to...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Who Drives an Enterprise Architecture Initiative?

Alison Cooley — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 13:24:51 +0000

Who drives an enterprise architecture initiative? Does it come from an enterprise architect? Maybe it’s a request from IT? Or perhaps it comes from a business unit looking to solve a serious and specific problem…

Of course the answer really depends on the problem you are trying to solve. The reality is that any of these groups can drive an enterprise architecture (EA) initiative when it is supported by a robust enterprise architecture solution.

One of our customers is the largest global discount retail store chain in the world. Rapid global expansion of the customer’s business across North America, Asia, EMEA, and South America, resulted in a significant increase (in the thousands) in the number of applications required to support its growing business demands. Over time, the retailer’s enterprise architects discovered thousands of redundant and overlapping applications that existed in silos, often in largely unknown departments around the world. Not only were these applications redundant, they were costing the organization millions of dollars in maintenance, troubleshooting and licensing fees. Additionally, data was dispersed across dozens of countries, requiring multiple data entry points and different management requirements for individual applications.

The scope of the project was overwhelming. As they began dissecting the initiative, the architects determined they needed an enterprise and business architecture modeling solution to help them truly understand all of their applications. Specifically, they needed to know which applications supported the key functions of their business operations, which applications caused process breakdowns, which applications supported the core capabilities of specific business functions, and which applications were redundant and unnecessary.

After demonstrating to company executives the critical need for an Application Portfolio Management (APM) solution to solve this problem, the architects turned to Metastorm. Using Metastorm ProVision, the architects now have complete visibility and control into their global applications – giving the organization as a whole increased business agility and dramatically decreased costs. With this APM solution, the retailer expects to retire unnecessary applications and the hardware that supports them, simplify its IT support structure, and significantly reduce maintenance costs.

In this instance, the retailer’s enterprise architects pushed the initiative forward. However, as we will see in Part 2 of this series, EA’s aren’t the only people who drive enterprise and business architecture initiatives within organizations. Tune in next week as we explore another business case where a completely different group within an organization drove the EA initiative.

The Road Ahead for Enterprise & Business Architecture With a new year upon us it’s always exciting to...
Enterprise Architecture still delivers in recessionary times Enterprise Architecture (EA) increasingly covers a broader role in an...
Call for entries–Metastorm Enterprise Process Advantage® Awards 2010 We are very excited to announce that Metastorm is now...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Save the Date – Metastorm Global User Summit Coming Soon!

Process Matters Blogger — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 18:58:34 +0000

Expand your universe! The 2011 Metastorm Global User Summit and Partner Symposium is taking place November 7-9^th at the Hyatt Regency Reston in Virginia.

Regardless of where you are on the spectrum of enterprise architecture, business process analysis, and business process management, there is opportunity to innovate and extend your reach to drive further strategic and operational improvements.

Join us this November to explore:

– Best practices for your transformation initiatives

– How leveraging social BPM and online collaboration tools can support your process improvement efforts

– New Metastorm Cloud technologies and how they help build a stronger EA roadmap for success

– The future of Metastorm’s software applications and solutions

Stay tuned for more about the Metastorm Global User Summit registration information and program details!

Countdown to the 2010 Metastorm Global User Conference – 29 days! Don’t miss out on learning about the new innovations that...
2010 Metastorm Global User Conference- Hurry, the early bird registration rate is ending soon! Have you registered for the 2010 Metastorm Global User Conference...
Countdown to the 2010 Metastorm Global User Conference – 5 days! Wow, time really flies – I can’t believe that the...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Let’s Practice What We Preach

Process Matters Blogger — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 15:10:11 +0000

Today, OpenText announced it has completed the acquisition of Metastorm. In the two weeks since news of the pending transaction hit the wire, we have been in a quiet period and unable to comment. During that time, we have continued with business as usual and continued to deliver materials in support of our 2011 theme of “Business Transformation” – including the release of a new Business Transformation Practices Framework and services offering designed to help organizations better manage change and see value from business improvement and transformation initiatives. Some people got a chuckle at the irony of Metastorm promoting the importance of business transformation, while our company itself was in the midst of a dramatic change.

But Metastorm is no stranger to business transformation. In my almost 8 years with the company, we have undertaken four acquisitions and successfully grown the company from a pure-play BPM vendor to a recognized market leader in enterprise and business architecture, business process analysis and business process management software – software that is in use by large organizations all over the world. Now we are on to the next stage of our transformation – merging with a global leader in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions. The wealth of resources and opportunities within OpenText is tremendous – powerful technology, a vast global network of professional services and customer support expertise, and a vision for adding EA, BPA, and BPM to its portfolio to allow customers to get the most comprehensive view of their organization to date – from the strategy and goals that drive the business, to the day-to-day systems, processes and people that run it, to the content needed to make the best business decisions.

So, we will continue to preach the value of Business Transformation to our customers and encourage them to take advantage of Metastorm’s software and our new Business Transformation Practices Framework. We are excited to be part of OpenText. We believe that our customers and partners will benefit from the expanded resources that OpenText offers, and we remain committed to delivering on our product vision for integrated EA, BPA and BPM. Most importantly, we look forward to developing new, innovative industry solutions jointly with OpenText – because agility and the ability to embrace change are a must for any company seeking market leadership.

Law Firms Practice Process Improvement How can law firms increase revenue? With the complexity of...
3 Reasons to Start Thinking About a Business Transformation Strategy The reality is change is inevitable. To keep up with...
Metastorm Customers Speak Out on Business Process Improvement Its back! Today Metastorm reveals real-world insights from organizations speaking...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Forest Labs Chooses Metastorm for Business Improvement!

Process Matters Blogger — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:21:22 +0000

Today, Metastorm announced that Forest Laboratories has selected Metastorm’s enterprise software suite for its business process improvement initiatives. Forest has selected several business processes for analysis and automation – including a strategic initiative to model, analyze and automate business processes related to Aggregate Spend Management and compliance with the U.S. Federal Physician Payments Sunshine Act. Forest Labs is also working with Metastorm’s Professional Services team to establish a Process Center of Excellence to help govern process improvement initiatives across the organization.

Metastorm has a track record of success in the Life Sciences industry, helping some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies— including Allergan, AmerisourceBergen and PfizerWyeth—understand, improve and automate their business practices to prepare and respond to new regulations and competitor innovation.

For more information, check out our Life Science solution page, where you can download Metastorm’s Aggregate Spend Management overview, request a demo, and watch an onDemand webinar.

Metastorm Customers Speak Out on Business Process Improvement Its back! Today Metastorm reveals real-world insights from organizations speaking...
BPM & BOTOX: How Allergan Battled Compliance Burdens Last September, as you probably remember, Allergan reached a $600M...
AmerisourceBergen Recognized for Business Process Improvement Initiatives Metastorm customers are continuing to receive tons of recognition for...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Securing Fast Solutions for Government Agencies

Alison Cooley — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:20:19 +0000

Government agencies strive to be the best-in-class and in doing so they require skilled, efficient, and talented employees to support the goals of their organization. These high standards are not lowered when these agencies begin searching for software products to help optimize their systems and processes.

Government agencies – like their big business counterparts – are looking for the perfect solution, something that gives them the answer to all their business problems. They’re looking for an enterprise and business architecture tool that increases their agility while decreasing costs, improves visibility and enhances cross-agency collaboration, offers high levels of privacy to protect sensitive and classified files, complies with the standards set forth by their respective agencies, and most importantly – is easy to use, with a fast return on investment.

Over 100 federal government agencies and more than 1 million U.S. government users (and counting) deploy Metastorm’s business process management, business process analysis, and enterprise architecture software. As I mentioned, a key factor for agencies when selecting software is that it needs to comply with standards and regulations. Metastorm’s Enterprise software suite is Common Criteria Certified, JWICS Certified, DARS certified, Navy FAM approved, and this week Metastorm announced that Metastorm BPM Version 9 has been awarded the U.S. Army Certificate of Networthiness – assuring Metastorm BPM meets the strict U.S. Army and Department of Defense standards for security, compatibility and sustainability.

Throughout the years, Metastorm has seen our regional and federal government customers succeed in their business process improvement initiatives – and many accredit their success to Metastorm’s ease of use when solving such complex problems. Last week, CivSource published an article titled, Richmond, VA. utilizes BPM to get city employees involved in budget program, highlighting the City of Richmond’s success in implementing its Common Cents initiative built on Metastorm BPM.

Our federal customers have also leveraged Metastorm’s software to improve business processes. Metastorm Enterprise software is deployed, base-lined and accredited across almost all of the U.S. Intelligence agencies.

In a case study Metastorm published last month, the U.S. Army Human Resources Command (HRC) uses Metastorm Integration Manager (MIM) to transfer, store and integrate hundreds of thousands of sensitive personnel records in near real time. Prior to using Metastorm BPM the U.S. Army HRC was using a labor-intensive, time consuming process which took weeks, and even months to complete.

Additionally, Metastorm BPM powers the Department of Justice, Office of the Detention Trustee eDesignate platform, which manages the prisoner designation process from the U.S. Courts, the United States Marshals Service (USMC), and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). The U.S. Social Security Administration also uses Metastorm BPM to conduct all allegations of fraud over 100,000 a year, and fraud investigations over 10,000 a year.

Those are just a few instances of how Metastorm’s government customers are streamlining and improving organizational processes, while seeing a great return on investment. I encourage you to check out more customer success stories, resources, and solution information for local and federal governments. Let us know if you have any questions or comments!

Metastorm Continues Success in Global Government Today Metastorm announced that our partner, iOctane, and the New...
Metastorm BPM Supports U.S. Army National Guard Yellow Ribbon Program Today Metastorm announced that the Army National Guard has successfully...
“Your local government, there when you need us” President Barack Obama has promised one of the most transparent...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

AmerisourceBergen Recognized for Business Process Improvement Initiatives

Process Matters Blogger — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 14:13:03 +0000

Metastorm customers are continuing to receive tons of recognition for their business process improvement initiatives! Last week Metastorm announced that the City of Richmond, VA has received multiple awards for its CommonCents initiative built on Metastorm BPM® software platform. Today, Metastorm announced that our valued customer AmerisourceBergen has been named runner-up in the 2010 Business Agility and Process Optimization Enabled by BPM and SOA contest, for its success in implementing business process initiatives using Metastorm BPM software!

The Business Agility and Process Optimization Enabled by BPM and SOA contest highlights the business success stories and lessons learned to provide proof points and insights for other organizations considering or pursuing BPM, SOA or combined BPM-SOA adoption.

AmerisourceBergen is one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical services companies serving the United States, Canada and selected global markets, and works closely with manufactures of branded pharmaceuticals, generic pharmaceuticals, biotech and specialty drugs, over-the counter remedies, and health and beauty aids.

AmerisourceBergen has deployed over 200 processes using Metastorm BPM! To govern its business process management initiatives, AmerisourceBergen has created a Center of Excellence and has seen millions of dollars in savings to date. In one of its most recent projects, AmerisourceBergen was able to leverage Metastorm BPM to extend and augment is new SAP implementation.

At Metastorm, we are dedicated to building software that helps organizations focus on the right business improvements to drive business change, optimization and effectiveness. We are very proud to see AmerisourceBergen, and all of our customers, recognized for their commitment to implementing strategic business process improvement initiatives. Check out AmerisourceBergen’s customer success story to learn more about its success in deploying BPM in the pharmaceutical industry.

Metastorm solutions can be tailored to fit all of your organizational needs. Visit our solutions page to find more information about how your organization can benefit from implementing Metastorm’s leading suite of Business Process Management, Business Process Analysis, and Enterprise Architecture software.

Allergan: Business Process Initiatives as an Investment for Long-Term Goals Pharmaceutical companies have found ease and success in deploying Metastorm...
City of Richmond Receives Multiple Awards for Business Process Improvement Initiatives Metastorm is very proud to announce that the City of...
Pharmaceutical company recognized for process excellence Today we are proud to announce that, AmerisourceBergen – one...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

City of Richmond Receives Multiple Awards for Business Process Improvement Initiatives

Process Matters Blogger — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:30:57 +0000

Metastorm is very proud to announce that the City of Richmond’s Department of Information Technology has received numerous awards this month, including two awards recognizing its CommonCents—Employee Budget Feedback Process that was developed using Metastorm BPM. The city received the Digital Government Achievement Award, which recognizes the top 50 outstanding agency and department websites and projects at the application and infrastructure level. The city also received an honorable mention for the Governor’s Technology Award that honors outstanding achievements and recognizes innovative technology initiatives in the public sector throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The CommonCents project was developed using Metastorm BPM and designed to increase government efficiencies by including employee feedback in addressing budget shortfalls in fiscal year 2010 and 2011. Within two weeks, the Department of Information Technology was able to design and deploy a web-based application that allows city employees across all levels to provide feedback and cost-saving ideas about problems they have discovered in the budget.

Leveraging Metastorm BPM’s proven solutions, CommonCents allows users to create a process that generates email notifications and to-do lists that are assigned and distributed throughout a review team, who then filter all incoming suggestions into specific departments based on its objective. From there, the ideas go through an in-depth cost-saving analysis and assigned to specific members of the department team. If a suggestion is believed to provide tangible cost-saving benefits, it is then assigned to the Deputy Chief Administrative Officer and the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) for approval.

Implementing the CommonCents program has enabled employees to offer suggestions in an easy, effective and timely manner and provided over $2 million in overall budget savings! Metastorm BPM has allowed the city to create greater efficiency and reduce cost, while improving employee and citizen satisfaction.

The city has been a long-time customer of Metastorm and we are extremely pleased to continue to contribute to its success. Over the past few years the city has relied on Metastorm BPM to streamline, automate and manage several key processes and operations. For example, Metastorm BPM has helped the city design and deploy several processes including a Security Access Privilege Request process that provides access to computer technology and resources for 5500 city employees, a Change Control Notification process that tracks and manages the release of changes and systems applications, and a Status Report process that gathers, tracks and manages all projects and initiatives happening in the city for the CAO.

Metastorm looks forward to continuing to work with the city to help it identify areas of improvement and build a strong network of integrated and well-managed business practices. To learn more about how the City of Richmond has leveraged Metastorm BPM to gain better control over processes, read the city’s complete customer success story. If you are interested in finding out how Metastorm Enterprise products can help local and state governments, check out Metastorm’s solutions for regional and local government resource center.

Allergan: Business Process Initiatives as an Investment for Long-Term Goals Pharmaceutical companies have found ease and success in deploying Metastorm...
Metastorm Customers Speak Out on Business Process Improvement Its back! Today Metastorm reveals real-world insights from organizations speaking...
City of Norfolk Improves Citizen Service Despite Lean Times CivSource, a premiere publication writing about technology and policy issues...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

A Prescription for Compliance Controls to Address a $600M Problem

Ethan Smith — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 13:42:20 +0000

Among the litany of headlines recently blasting pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies, Allergan – the makers of Botox – has been the latest scapegoat. The past week’s news has been full of stories relating to Allergan’s agreement to settle “off label promotion” charges to the tune of $600M. While the specifics of pleas and allocation of all the dollars is not the focus of this post, a half- billion-dollar-plus fine and formal, very public settlement agreement for a $4.5B company[i] is no small matter. Aside from the fine itself, the legal costs and negative publicity cannot be understated. At the time of this writing, a simple Google News search on “Allergan” returns over 300 articles relating to the settlement with headlines like:

“Allergan to Pay $600 Million to Settle Botox Probe” –ABC News
“Allergan Settles Charges It Went Too Far Marketing Botox” –NPR News
“Allergan Will Pay Fine, Plead Guilty to Misdemeanor” –Bloomberg
“Botox Whistleblower Case Settles for $600 Million” –Trading Markets
“Feds Wrest $600 Million Settlement from Botox Maker” –Consumer Affairs

Clearly there is a very strong negative sentiment regarding this issue. The last headline above is one all pharma companies should be worried about – because the same risk could be looming for other companies in the space. The notion of the U.S. Federal government wringing money from a corporation in the name of protecting consumers is a strong driving force behind the recently passed Federal Physician Payments Sunshine Act, as well as numerous state laws that are already in force and several that are currently being debated. The new mantra is transparency – under the banner of promoting safety, consumer protection and ethical business practices.

From my point of view as an industry consultant, pharma companies (and biotech and medical devices too) need to hear loud and clear the underlying message in the Allergan incident and in recent legislation, and take decisive action to prepare for the onslaught of potential inquiries and investigations they may face. Most importantly, companies need to take immediate steps toward defining and implementing a compliance and governance foundation, along with a set of agile controls, to manage within the guidelines of current regulations and have the flexibility to adapt to future changes and extensions.

Unfortunately, what you won’t find in any of the 300+ articles referenced above – apart from one – is any mention of the proactive steps that Allergan has taken to address not only this specific instance but to implement go-forward controls and systems to enhance transparency, better enforce compliant business practices, and ensure they are prepared for future regulatory change. In addition to developing a formal compliance program subject to regular reviews, Allergan “further enhanced its compliance program by developing additional comprehensive policies and procedures, supported by significant technology investments, including its state-of-the-art Business Execution Automated Compliance Navigator (BEACON) compliance system.”[ii] This seemingly minor, yet crucial omission in the media coverage of this event should not go overlooked by industry peers.

Every Life Sciences company can and should learn from what happened to Allergan and how it handled the resolution of these serious issues. The BEACON application referenced was envisioned to provide both compliance process controls as well as flexibility to support future changes. It is built on the Metastorm Business Process Management (BPM) software platform to provide the controls, rules and documentation necessary for resolving the current situation as well as preventing future incidents.

Recently, the area of payments and promotions has exploded in both regulatory and public scrutiny. Most Life Sciences companies are now actively thinking about or looking for process controls and technology capabilities to prevent these costly events from occurring.

Leveraging our experience in helping pharmaceutical companies implement flexible, unique compliance systems that conform and adapt to changing regulations – with business process management and improvement at the heart of the platform, Metastorm has developed an Aggregate Spend Management solution that addresses the two fundamental aspects of the business problem. The first component is the management and reporting of expense data that must be reported to multiple state governments and soon the federal government as well. Secondly, and more importantly in my view, the business processes that are invoked to request/approve/execute/reconcile spend are critical to ensuring the spend data is not only accurate, but also compliant with various jurisdictional regulations and policies. In contrast to legacy vendors who focus solely on data aggregation for reports, Metastorm delivers both simplification of the state reporting in addition to automated, web-based processes and forms for spend request, review, approval, execution, reconciliation and documentation. This distinction is critical because, ultimately, Life Sciences companies will have to demonstrate to regulators, investigators and the public the ability to immediately generate justification for each reported expense, prove each expense’s business value and cite who provided the advanced authorization of the expenditure before it was released.

As evidenced in Allergan’s own press release on the settlement, Metastorm’s Aggregate Spend Management solution and its underlying BPM software platform have been a major component of Allergan’s approach to resolving the systemic issue by approaching it holistically and proactively. Watching a 6-minute demo of the solution is a good first step to help Life Sciences companies understand what is needed to put a solid compliance and governance solution in place now – to avoid potentially disastrous issues later.

_______________________________
[i] 2009 Total Revenue as reported in Allergan’s 2009 Annual Report
[ii] “Allergan Resolves United States Government Investigation of Past Sales and Marketing Practices Relating to Certain Therapeutic Uses of BOTOX(R)” official company press release dated September 1, 2010

Webinar: Countdown to Life Sciences Aggregate Spend Compliance Attention Life Sciences organizations! Check out this webinar, Countdown to...
The BPM approach to Aggregate Spend compliance In today’s Life Sciences world everything is becoming increasingly more...
Financial compliance at the process level In the new presidential administration, it is intended that new...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Hewlett-Packard: On Uncovering Global Processes

Process Matters Blogger — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:57:31 +0000

Organizations worldwide rely on enterprise software solutions to understand and optimize organizational systems, and achieve the agility they need to meet their evolving businesses goals. Over the past six years, the Metastorm Customers Speak Out video testimonial series has revealed real-world examples about how organizations are leveraging enterprise architecture, business processes analysis and business process management tools to understand the full scale of their business operations and maximize their overall performance. In Season 6, which launched earlier this week, customers discuss how they are successfully deploying enterprise software to automate, integrate, align and manage optimized business processes.

Business process analysis and management software enables organizations to design and implement optimal customer service processes, resulting in a world-class customer chain that supports all points of interactions between the business and the customer. When Hewlett-Packard needed help converging and simplifying complex, global customer service processes, they turned to business process analysis and management software to get the job done. In a recent video interview, Bill Riordan, customer service and support manager of Hewlett-Packard, shares how they are successfully deploying business process management tools to uncover and transform their global processes. HP’s customer service programs provide support for 132 countries. Using software as the basis for their BPM infrastructure, they were able to identify and analyze 1,500 disparate global processes and improve and consolidate them into 100 universal processes.

Watch more customer video interviews and read over 100 customer success stories.

Metastorm Customers Speak Out on Business Process Improvement Its back! Today Metastorm reveals real-world insights from organizations speaking...
Allergan: Business Process Initiatives as an Investment for Long-Term Goals Pharmaceutical companies have found ease and success in deploying Metastorm...
Metastorm Continues Success in Global Government Today Metastorm announced that our partner, iOctane, and the New...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Fortune 100 Energy Company: Identifying Gaps and Opportunities

Process Matters Blogger — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:40:26 +0000

Metastorm has a successful track record of providing support and services to organizations looking for a better understanding of their organizational operations, identifying areas for improvements, and maximizing operational performance and resource utilization. Recently, a Fortune 100 Energy Company used Metastorm Enterprise solutions to establish complete visibility across their corporate controls, helping them identify, analyze and improve gaps within their organization.

In this video from the Metastorm Customers Speak Out video testimonial series, released earlier this week, Cindy Bivians, senior manager of corporate risk control from a Fortune 100 energy company, shares insights into how they deployed Metastorm ProVision to achieve optimal business solutions. Bivians discusses how they are using Metastorm ProVision to model, visualize and improve gaps across the enterprise. By implementing Metastorm ProVision, the organization was able to establish transparency across integrated processes within their Corporate Risk Controls sector. In doing this, they were able to identify missing items and areas that needed improvement and documented results – including a repeatable savings of 65 hours of time from one group process. Since then, they have deployed Metastorm ProVision into all other areas of their organizational structure, and expect to see a dramatic change in hours saved in 2011.

Implementing Metastorm ProVision enables businesses to thoroughly understand the intricate relationships that exist between business strategy and business process and identify areas for improvement. Want to learn more about how customers are leveraging Metastorm Enterprise software? Check out our customer page where you can watch the complete Metastorm Customers Speak Out series and read over 100 customer success stories.

Metastorm Customers Speak Out on Business Process Improvement Its back! Today Metastorm reveals real-world insights from organizations speaking...
Allergan: Business Process Initiatives as an Investment for Long-Term Goals Pharmaceutical companies have found ease and success in deploying Metastorm...
Metastorm customers speak out! Today Metastorm launched Season 5 of its Metastorm Customers Speak...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.