The Problem
Guess what? Your business processes do not run as efficiently and cost-effectively as they could. No one’s do.
To help you achieve an edge in business, you need the tools to organize and manage your processes – cost effectively.
You need technology that can help you adapt now and in the future. And you need a partner who understands the complete solution, which means:
> understanding how various technologies stack-up in a crowded field of competitors
> iterating through the design and development processes to stay grounded and focused along the way
> transparently managing your implementation to overcome obstacles early and effectively.
SYSCOM’s approach to building solutions combines the advantages of Case technology, such as processes that are adaptive and flexible – with a development and management strategy incorporating those same advantages.
PART 1:
The Case for Case
Recognition has dawned in the document management and workflow communities – knowledge workers are smarter than any static business process can be.
A properly implemented Case Management system not only recognizes this fact, it maximizes the benefits by providing users both the freedom to adapt and the technology to adapt faster, such as:
> fully-Integrated document management
> intelligently prioritized & distributed work
> organized aggregation of data, transactions, content, audit & compliance information.
Processes Designed to Mature
Pick your metaphor – ‘The Big Bang Approach’ or ‘Boiling the Ocean’ – either way, it’s clear that not only do projects fail from over-ambition and bloat, but these days business leaders are more reluctant than ever to fund expensive, time-consuming implementations.
Too often in the world of ‘traditional’ BPM, 80% of a project’s complexity was in automating 20% of a process. With Case Management, the approach is reversed – we spend time to nail down the relatively straightforward 80% of the complexity, and allow knowledge workers to make the smart decisions (in the context of an integrated Case) to resolve the remaining 20%. This approach represents a more efficient use of your development effort and budget.
Make time and change your friend by building processes that can subsequently be ‘tightened-up’ and ‘ratcheted-down’ – over as needed and when needed. This approach, made possible by Case technology, yields both quicker implementations as well as systems that can grow with your business into the future.
Never Stop Improving
Enabling people and processes through technology is literally only half of the solution. Measuring results, identifying areas for improvement, and making those necessary changes are arguably an even greater value to an organization. Unfortunately this is a value neglected by many companies.
Case management is an evolution of the prior visions of other process-oriented solutions before it. Beginning with the promises of ECM (Enterprise Content Management) and BPM (Business Process Management), a well-designed ACM (Advanced Case Management) system not only enables your organization to implement and adapt, it anticipates adaptation.
Compliance Called: You’re Doing It Wrong
We’ve all been there – requirements have been gathered and a solution has been designed to meet those requirements. Then, before the organization has even begun to realize the benefits, rules change. With a Case solution designed by SYSCOM, you needn’t fear the call of change. You will be ready for it.
Systems to Be Used,
by People
From our experience implementing projects of this kind, a lack of process adoption and adherence are hidden failure points of many automation projects. When users feel restricted by systems or burdened by steps that appear to add no value, the systems themselves become obstacles to the efficiency they are meant to produce.
Giving users the tools to make good decisions is a primary driver of Case Management, and it underpins not only the design but the delivery of a complete solution.
PART 2:
Designing and Delivering – Just ‘Agile’ Enough
SYSCOM’s process engineers and analysts begin with WHAT, not with HOW. This means that from the start we’re able to better engage your business experts. Since abstracting one’s daily workload into a series of discrete, well-defined steps is a challenge for even professionals in the field, we don’t even ask.
The average worker CAN explain, the information needed to manage their work – for example, they can show the forms used to capture data or the various documents necessary to support a certain business outcome.
Subsequently, after the ‘WHAT’, we capture high-level states. Since getting the complete process out of folks’ heads has been among the biggest challenges of BPM, SYSCOM focuses on the most basic and common states work goes through. For example, most cases will have an initiation state, an information-gathering state, a review state, and a resolution state.
This focus is steadily and logically refined as analysis, design, and build steps progress.
Seeing Is Believing
A key part of any iterative or ‘Agile’ development process is the production of artifacts users can see and potentially touch. Just as the goal of Case Management is an adaptive process, SYSCOM adheres to the goal of adaptive development. Users and management are presented with reference interfaces and system prototypes. Designs are subsequently adapted and shaped to fill a real business need, not the abstraction of need floating inside an analyst’s head.
‘Right-Sizing’ Your Solution
Many business processes are like traversing a twisting mountainous path. To traverse your path more efficiently, you have choices in modes of transportation. You could ignore the condition of your current process and simply automate what exists – which is a little like climbing on a donkey rather than walking.
Yes, you’ll likely get there quicker, but certain ‘care-and-feeding’ issues may arise.
At the other extreme you could purchase the top of the line sports car – but the amount of re-engineering involved and the high-costs of infrastructure could kill your ROI.
We recommend you balance the speed of travel with the costs of supporting it. SYSCOM helps you find the balance and ensures we neither over-engineer your business needs nor implement you a donkey of solution.
A Toolkit Full of Technology
The fact is, we’ve done this before – and you probably haven’t. Through our years of experience we’ve collected not only knowledge of industry and technology best-practices, we’ve also stored re-usable artifacts in our toolbox. This means you benefit from both our know-how and our pre-constructed components that result in:
> up to 50% reduction in costs
By giving the architect a working toolkit of functional case components in which to leverage to build solutions.
> faster solution delivery reducing opportunity costs
Providing a platform to allow new solutions to be developed more efficiently.
> higher quality and richer user experience
The Toolkit provides reusable artifacts and embodies best practices derived from many Solutions.
PART 3:
Managing via Value & Transparency
From a Project Management standpoint, SYSCOM employs an enhanced EVM (Earned Value Management) style. Weekly, we report to you on cost, time, and percent completion. These are used to calculate the ‘earned value’ component of EVM.
Among our ‘enhancements’ is an insistence on rigorous transparency, which we refer to as TVM (Transparent Value Management).
Since SYSCOM is typically the final integrator of many ‘moving pieces’, we need to understand and surface issues as they occur. And not just OUR issues, transparency requires shining a light on ALL issues – including those of our partners and customers.
Quantifying ‘Desirability’
A further advantage of SYSCOM’s TVM, which overlaps our development strategy, is the quantification of a feature or function’s desirability. Throughout the delivery cycle, our project managers help customers prioritize requests and potential changes – quantifying the desirability in relation to the time/effort required to implement it. This helps gauge a feature’s benefits when no clear ROI can be calculated, and it facilitates for more meaningful reporting to executive management.
A Focus on Outcomes
Case Management focuses less on process and more on outcomes. Our development and management strategies focus on the same.
At every step, we provide you clarity – the same clarity your business will gain from a well-designed Case implementation.
If You Don’t Succeed,
We Don’t Succeed
Too often projects fail not from folks performing a task explicitly wrong – but from folks not stepping up to do what’s right.
At SYSCOM, we nurture a culture of conscientiousness and none of us is afraid to ask, ‘who’s taking care of that?’ – or more importantly, we are each ready to pick-up the ball when we see it dropped.
SYSCOM simply will not let your project fail – because it’s OUR project too. Your job is to bring us a business process that needs improving, and we will bring the technology, the experience, and the knowledge to get the solution done right.
Our Mission remains…
To create and deliver the right technology solutions by teaming with our customers to understand their business needs and empower them to achieve their goals.
SYSCOM, Inc. has been a leading provider of end-to-end information technology services for more than a quarter of a century. The company offers innovative workflow and content systems integration, business consulting services and eBusiness solutions for organizations worldwide.
SYSCOM provides the knowledge and the tools to make your project deployment simpler and faster.
Contact SYSCOM today to discuss adding these valuable assets to your technology suite.
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