IDS Scheer CEO, Peter Gérard
SINGAPORE, 4 MAY 2009 -- Business process management (BPM) fosters ongoing collabortion between IT and business users to improve enterprise business processes. The goal is to jointly build applications that effectively integrate people, processes and information.
IDS Scheer is a major provider of business process and performance management— software and solutions—plus process-driven business transformation and implementation. Their foundation product is ARIS. This week they announced that their net profit for Q1 2009 soared by 95 per cent, to 4.8 million euros (US$6.4 million).
IDS Scheer CEO, Peter Gérard, who visited Singapore to meet partners and customers in the region, explained the current profile of BPM in the Asia Pacific to MIS Asia managing editor Ross O. Storey.
How do companies in Singapore/Malaysia/Hong Kong (in general, the Asia Pacific) currently relate to BPM and where do you think they need to improve?
Business process management can be perceived as an IT strategy, when it actually is a horizontal layer of methodologies and best practices that can be applied across an entire company’s business processes and can be universally applied to almost any industry from financial services to pharmaceutical, manufacturing, oil and gas, public sector and even military organisations.
Companies may perceive BPM as an IT function, but it is BPM, or more specifically, process intelligence (PI) that produces valuable insights on how to monitor and manage activities within organisations. Process management optimises the organisation’s efficiency by identifying hidden costs, and to better utilise available assets and resources. This allows companies in the region to do more with less in these tough times.
Companies that are poised for quick growth can benefit from utilising BPM as a means of managing efficiencies or costs. BPM makes organisations risk resilient, which is a critical attribute in times of heightened emphasis for corporate governance.
Given the phenomenal growth potential in Asia, businesses that wish to scale their operations rapidly need to keep a close watch on their business processes from developing any bottlenecks or regulatory oversight.
How can BPM help enterprises make tough decisions in the current economic downturn and what issues specifically stand out for the Asia Pacific, compared to other major markets?
A lack of regulatory oversight, corporate governance and its related issues are crucial reasons why the current downturn arose. By understanding and monitoring, in real time, the details of an organisation’s business processes, you can identify any breech of regulations and flag them before any dire consequences occur.
While well-managed processes can address third party or customer interactions, there is no way to completely eliminate risk, as there are counter party risks that involve factors beyond a company’s control. But by using BPM, it is possible to design the processes of an organisation such that the company can respond quickly to crises and ride through realised risks with minimal harm.
BPM methodologies involves the deliberate, collaborative improvement, innovation, and management of end-to-end business processes that drive business results, create value, and enable an organisation to meet its business objectives with more agility
This ability to fully control the business processes dramatically reduces internal operational risk for companies and prevents any unnecessary liability issues that may arise from oversight by individuals.
Why do you think that IDS Scheer is successfully swimming against the downturn tide and what strategies have led to this success?
With the ARIS platform, we have software that helps companies minimise the impact of the recession through BPM and we also implement our respective ARIS methodology extensively throughout our company. We operate in the same challenging environment as every other company. Even some of the biggest companies in the world have been affected and the number one response has to be streamlining processes to cut waste and deliver more value to your clients. It is especially now, that future-oriented companies discover the value of BPM.
What is IDS Scheer's strategy for the Asia Pacific and why is this market unique?
We aim to match our customers and partners’ needs in this market with their true business potential. The value of BPM extends to how companies actually think about their business model and where revenue streams can be expanded and how redundant costs or wastage can be eliminated.
The focus industries for BPM in Asia Pacific are in the retail, telecommunications and finance. These industries have activities and requirements that can benefit most from BPM in processes such as billing and transactions, compliance and regulatory issues.
How was the Crisis Capability Test developed and what sort of feedback has IDS Scheer received about it? What is the goal of the test and the reasoning behind it?
The Crisis Capability Test was launched in Germany in early April. It’s a ten-minute online survey for business leaders. The automatically-generated results provide insights for business leaders to analyse the current operational state of their company and to evaluate the company’s processes, business model and resources. The English site is expected to be available soon.
The Crisis Capability Test uses IDS Scheer’s 25 years of experience in BPM research and consultancy to start a conversation with organisations that are thinking about their business processes. Many are curious about where they stand on implementing the methodologies that will help them prepare for the next economic upturn.
There has been a dramatic rise in interest for BPM ever since the test was developed, and organisations are beginning to realise that various activities in their business can actually be remodelled and enhanced in real time. They are realising that these activities or processes can be adjusted to drive more value, meet compliance requirements and match output to desired KPIs more efficiently to help their businesses succeed.
Is there anything else you'd like to add relating to BPM, the test, and IDS Scheer's overall vision?
At IDS Scheer, we strive to execute on plans and implement achievable results for partners and customers.
In ARIS, we have a proven methodology that is recognised as the market leader by Gartner and Forester, and we aim to push for ARIS to become a de facto standard in BPM, by providing it to the public, free for download for single (home) use. From that, we hope to help educate and cultivate students and researchers to use the ARIS platform when planning BPM implementations.
