For Business Process & Applications Professionals (Length: 12 pages)

August 21, 2009

Untamed Business Processes: When Even The Best Of Intentions Go Awry

This is the second document in the "Untamed Business Processes" series.

by Craig Le Clair

with Connie Moore, Elisse Gaynor, Ralph Vitti


Executive Summary (This is a document excerpt)

A business process — at its highest level — is any activity that helps an enterprise achieve its goals. Packaged and industry-specific applications form the transactional backbone for most critical business processes in enterprises and small and medium-size businesses (SMBs); however, these are only part of the story. Enterprises need many other processes to meet their goals, and often, some of the processes not tackled through packaged apps get approached in tactically haphazard ways. Over time, these processes become laden and bloated with non-value added activity. In short — they become untamed. IT gets dragged reluctantly into the support and enhancement of these untamed processes. The results are not surprising. Weak architectural approaches spawn niche products, and the use of various business intelligence (BI), business process management (BPM), business rules, collaboration, and enterprise content management (ECM) tools that are applied like Band-Aids work chaotically to make untamed processes more efficient. Business process and applications (BP&A) professionals must take a more proactive and strategic approach to addressing these untamed business processes.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

NOTES & RESOURCES

itemUntamed Business Processes Are Different, Requiring Special Attention

itemThree Types Of Untamed Business Processes: Content-Centric, Abandoned, And Specialized

itemCharacteristics Of Untamed Processes: Chaotic, Broad, And Burdened With Content

itemPackaged Apps Address Well-Structured Processes With High Visibility

itemUntamed Processes Often Form In The Gaps Between Functional Business Groups

itemReference Architecture Needed For Untamed Processes

recommendations

itemShine A Light On Untamed Apps

WHAT IT MEANS

itemThe Spotlight Will Turn To Untamed Processes, Giving Packaged Apps A Run

Forrester interviewed 19 businesses, including Fidelity, Harris Corp, Heineken, Illinois Mutual, and Smith Dairy among others that did not want their names disclosed. We also documented customer onboarding issues from enterprises during inquiry. Plus, we interviewed 13 vendors that specialize in ECM, eForms, systems integration, strategy consulting, and document processing services.

Related Research Documents

itemThe Forrester Wave™: Document Output For Customer Communications Management, Q2 2009

June 25, 2009

itemBest Practices: Customer Onboarding

April 27, 2009

itemUse ECM To Fire Up Business Processes

October 20, 2008

Find Documents In Related Categories

This document falls under the following categories. Click on a link below to find similar documents.

Analyst: Craig Le Clair
Technology: Application Development, Application Development Processes & Tools, Business Intelligence, Business Process Management, Enterprise Collaboration, Enterprise Content Management, Enterprise Resource Planning Applications, Financial Management, Human Resources Management Applications, Information & Knowledge Management, Packaged Applications
Geography: Asia Pacific, Europe, North America

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Ratings and Comments
Rating: 8 out of 10
based on 1 ratings across all roles.
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