By: Frank Buytendijk, chief marketing officer
Two weeks ago, Forrester published an analyst report on Be Informed. I have had a few questions already if there are other analyst reports as well. I think I have found the ultimate analyst report on Be Informed. Even more, it has been out for many years.
The analyst in question is Rene Descartes (1596-1650), a French philosopher, and father of what is now called "rationalism". He validated Be Informed's way of meta-modeling the business, although I must admit I am doubtful whether he was actually aware of this particular use of his philosophy.
Descartes tried to establish a fundamental set of principles of what is true. What cannot be doubted. Like any good philosopher, interested in what is true, he looked at phenomena and the world around him and asked if there were different explanations possible. Testingbe whether the existing explanations were correct. The safest way of asking these questions is to have no preconceptions at all, to doubt absolutely everything. The only way to establish truth is to reach a certain sound foundation, or in Be Informed terms an ontology, of which the rest can be derived.
Descartes eventually reached the conclusion that everything can be doubted, except doubt itself. You cannot doubt your doubt, because that would mean all would be certain, and that is what you are doubting. The thought of doubt itself already proves that doubt cannot be doubted. And because you cannot separate a person from his thoughts, therefore, cogito ergo sum: I think, therefore I exist. In fact, you have to exist. If you think you are dead, the fact you are thinking you are dead, proves that you are alive, as thought implies life. Trying to doubt your doubt is a metathought (thinking about thinking).
Still with me? Let's apply this thinking to Be Informed. Basically Descartes said that the only thing that cannot be doubted is the metalevel. The rational and pure thought. Everything real in the world can be doubted. Every process. Every system. Every way of working. What cannot be doubted is your description of your business model, or as Peter Drucker called it, your theory of the business. In fact, it is the only thing you can rely on. Your understanding of the world around you is changing all the time, because of new insights, but it is the only thing you in the end are in control of. The rest is questionable.
This exactly is Be Informed's approach. By building a business process ontology, you shape your world. Any specific process, any specific transaction, any instance of reality is simply derived from it. It is not needed to predefine every single process or exception, the only thing you do is describe the rules that every process instance (or in Be Informed's terminology: case) needs to obey.
Any more questions on the validity of Be Informed's ontological approach, in comparison with the common “best practice” approach of defining concrete processes? I doubt it...
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
Banging on your door
By: Rik Hoogenberg, chief executive officer
Currently, the need for efficient operations, transparency and building trust are to be considered universal for any administrative organization. Our experiences in the US, the UK and the Netherlands show that both public and private organizations are faced with the same tough challenges: improve performance and earn customer loyalty using resources as efficient as possible.
After years of business process optimization, drastic improvements can only be reached by adopting new principles for these processes. Modern organizations are increasingly abandoning traditional process oriented dogma’s in favour of a case based approach. The essence of this revolutionary idea is based on two key elements: business rules and customer context. These two elements are all you need to reach a decision, and that is precisely what the business process should deliver. The case based approached brings together business rules and customer context in any given situation, rendering yesterdays complicated process schemes obsolete. The catch here, is that anything can be considered and treated as a business rule; even exceptions. This notion is crucial for achieving breakthrough results in modernizing administrative organizations.
Dynamic case management, as analyst firm Forrester coined it, facilitates a tailor made process for any customer case through a generic, standardized path of dynamically assembled activities. And so far, the best of the story is that dynamic case management has a proven track record. The integration of business rules and customer context has proven to save organizations up to 50% in costs of operations and reductions in total cost of ownership which amount to 70%. And recently, Forrester even published a vendor snapshot report on Be Informed which, of course, makes me very proud. Don’t miss out on this one, once the word gets out to any stakeholder, they will be banging on your door.
Currently, the need for efficient operations, transparency and building trust are to be considered universal for any administrative organization. Our experiences in the US, the UK and the Netherlands show that both public and private organizations are faced with the same tough challenges: improve performance and earn customer loyalty using resources as efficient as possible.
After years of business process optimization, drastic improvements can only be reached by adopting new principles for these processes. Modern organizations are increasingly abandoning traditional process oriented dogma’s in favour of a case based approach. The essence of this revolutionary idea is based on two key elements: business rules and customer context. These two elements are all you need to reach a decision, and that is precisely what the business process should deliver. The case based approached brings together business rules and customer context in any given situation, rendering yesterdays complicated process schemes obsolete. The catch here, is that anything can be considered and treated as a business rule; even exceptions. This notion is crucial for achieving breakthrough results in modernizing administrative organizations.
Dynamic case management, as analyst firm Forrester coined it, facilitates a tailor made process for any customer case through a generic, standardized path of dynamically assembled activities. And so far, the best of the story is that dynamic case management has a proven track record. The integration of business rules and customer context has proven to save organizations up to 50% in costs of operations and reductions in total cost of ownership which amount to 70%. And recently, Forrester even published a vendor snapshot report on Be Informed which, of course, makes me very proud. Don’t miss out on this one, once the word gets out to any stakeholder, they will be banging on your door.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
IT is dead, long live IT!
By: Rik Hoogenberg, chief executive officer
Government organizations worldwide are struggling with ICT. They say it’s complex, so costs soar and the software is not doing what it should do. The point is precisely that many government IT organizations are not necessarily complex, but complicated. That's because they piled all these systems and applications on top of each other over the years. Legacy systems and licenses have become a hydra-headed monster that keeps itself alive.
At a time when government organizations worldwide have to cut costs, it is no longer justifiable to invest in legacy systems. In recent years, IT has developed impressively. Model Driven Architecture principles and 'Goal Oriented Business Process Management' offer opportunities to administrative organizations to be more responsive and agile for a fraction of the costs they are accustomed to.
Would it be risky to adopt a new approach to business processes? On the contrary! Dynamic case management, as analyst firm Forrester calls the new approach, allows organizations to improve customer intimacy and cut costs at the same time. Only semantic solutions like Be Informed can do that trick.
Government organizations worldwide are struggling with ICT. They say it’s complex, so costs soar and the software is not doing what it should do. The point is precisely that many government IT organizations are not necessarily complex, but complicated. That's because they piled all these systems and applications on top of each other over the years. Legacy systems and licenses have become a hydra-headed monster that keeps itself alive.
At a time when government organizations worldwide have to cut costs, it is no longer justifiable to invest in legacy systems. In recent years, IT has developed impressively. Model Driven Architecture principles and 'Goal Oriented Business Process Management' offer opportunities to administrative organizations to be more responsive and agile for a fraction of the costs they are accustomed to.
Would it be risky to adopt a new approach to business processes? On the contrary! Dynamic case management, as analyst firm Forrester calls the new approach, allows organizations to improve customer intimacy and cut costs at the same time. Only semantic solutions like Be Informed can do that trick.
Monday, March 14, 2011
The Machiavellian CIO: Strategy, Analytics, Philosophy and More
By: Frank Buytendijk, chief marketing officer
It is encouraging to see how many people have found my channel "The Machiavellian CIO: Strategy, Analytics, Philosophy and More" and my first article about the iThink already. The first series of three articles is now published, keeping the philosophy theme light, before we'll get serious!
In this series of three I'll discuss how Marx actually predicted the end of Google and Facebook. I can't recall how I saw the connection, but the similarities are striking. Where in the industrial world companies were hungry for capital, in the internet world we see a different hunger: the hunger for information. The dynamic is the same. In the industrial world the value is delivered by the workers, but the shareholders benefit from the value. The workers are exploited. In the internet world, the value is delivered by us, the users. But we are not the customers, the advertisers are. The users are exploited.
In Part 1, I am taking some time to describe this dynamic, summarizing Marx' view. Although I wouldn't call myself Marxist in any way, one cannot escape the feeling Marx had a few things right, looking at the economic crisis of today.
In Part 2, I describe how Google and Facebook are heading for disaster in their current way of working, and I will explain what Marx might have thought of them. Rather provocative! We all know that Marx in the end was wrong. The post-industrial world didn't turn to communism, although some communistic elements are hugely popular on the web. I'd call Wikipedia one of the most communistic organisations I can think of today.
Part 3, lastly, describes where the world has morphed into: democracy. Also not perfect as a system, but not bad so far. Again, I will draw some parallels to the world of IT. Some have actually used the term information democracy. Intuitively it sounds attractive, but the term hasn't been properly defined yet. I will share with you how I would define an information democracy.
Can't wait to hear your reactions,
frank
It is encouraging to see how many people have found my channel "The Machiavellian CIO: Strategy, Analytics, Philosophy and More" and my first article about the iThink already. The first series of three articles is now published, keeping the philosophy theme light, before we'll get serious!
In this series of three I'll discuss how Marx actually predicted the end of Google and Facebook. I can't recall how I saw the connection, but the similarities are striking. Where in the industrial world companies were hungry for capital, in the internet world we see a different hunger: the hunger for information. The dynamic is the same. In the industrial world the value is delivered by the workers, but the shareholders benefit from the value. The workers are exploited. In the internet world, the value is delivered by us, the users. But we are not the customers, the advertisers are. The users are exploited.
In Part 1, I am taking some time to describe this dynamic, summarizing Marx' view. Although I wouldn't call myself Marxist in any way, one cannot escape the feeling Marx had a few things right, looking at the economic crisis of today.
In Part 2, I describe how Google and Facebook are heading for disaster in their current way of working, and I will explain what Marx might have thought of them. Rather provocative! We all know that Marx in the end was wrong. The post-industrial world didn't turn to communism, although some communistic elements are hugely popular on the web. I'd call Wikipedia one of the most communistic organisations I can think of today.
Part 3, lastly, describes where the world has morphed into: democracy. Also not perfect as a system, but not bad so far. Again, I will draw some parallels to the world of IT. Some have actually used the term information democracy. Intuitively it sounds attractive, but the term hasn't been properly defined yet. I will share with you how I would define an information democracy.
Can't wait to hear your reactions,
frank
Monday, February 28, 2011
Separate the know from the flow
By: Thei Geurts, presales consultant
Just received a confirmation from the McKinsey Quaterly that they have accepted and published my comment on the article of Thomas H. Davenport on "Rethinking knowledge work: A strategic approach".
In this February 2011 article Thomas Davenport argues that: "We live in a world where knowledge-based work is expanding rapidly. So is the application of technology to almost every business process and job. But to date, high-end knowledge workers have largely remained free to use only the technology they personally find useful. It's time to think about how to make them more productive by imposing a bit more structure. This combination of technology and structure, along with a bit of managerial discretion in applying them to knowledge work, may well produce a revolution in the jobs that cost and matter the most to contemporary organizations." Mr. Davenport gives some limited examples for this, in his own words, radically different approach to the productivity of knowledge workers.
In my comment I focus on the approach and results of Be Informed clients in realizing this line of thought. The comment was published on the 7th of February under the name: Thei Geurts, Be Informed, Netherlands. This is the link: McKinsey Quarterly - Rethinking_knowledge_work_A_strategic_approach.
For the readers that don't want to register to the McKinsey Quarterly, here is the text of my comment:
Indeed, what is required is a change of perspective. A change from a control point of view or a granting maximum freedom point of view, towards a view that looks for a synthesis between control and freedom. It is the era of the 'AND.'
In various recent projects, I have seen how it is possible to realize substantial productivity improvements by an approach that separates 'the know' from 'the flow.'
The know stands for the business logic, rules, concepts and relations, and references to their authentic sources. The flow stands for the dynamic process of a case in which the know is infused. Knowledge workers are engaged in a goal-driven decision making process in which they have a high level of autonomy in how to organize their work. The decision prevails over the path towards the decision. Contextual information is provided based upon the case and phase at hand and actionable information has been made executable by instruments like decision trees, checklists, interactive forms, and calculators.
The process offers at the same time support to conform to operating standards and to leverage knowledge and methodologies for managing the life cycle of a case effectively. This includes facilities for coordination, planning, assigning tasks and time, and for embedded logging and history trails to serve audit and compliance purposes.
Examples of achieved productivity gains are: implementing a change in government regulations within 2-3 days instead of in 9 months, operational cost reduction for environmental licensing of 96 million Euro in year 1, reduction of TCO-costs with 50%.
Just received a confirmation from the McKinsey Quaterly that they have accepted and published my comment on the article of Thomas H. Davenport on "Rethinking knowledge work: A strategic approach".
In this February 2011 article Thomas Davenport argues that: "We live in a world where knowledge-based work is expanding rapidly. So is the application of technology to almost every business process and job. But to date, high-end knowledge workers have largely remained free to use only the technology they personally find useful. It's time to think about how to make them more productive by imposing a bit more structure. This combination of technology and structure, along with a bit of managerial discretion in applying them to knowledge work, may well produce a revolution in the jobs that cost and matter the most to contemporary organizations." Mr. Davenport gives some limited examples for this, in his own words, radically different approach to the productivity of knowledge workers.
In my comment I focus on the approach and results of Be Informed clients in realizing this line of thought. The comment was published on the 7th of February under the name: Thei Geurts, Be Informed, Netherlands. This is the link: McKinsey Quarterly - Rethinking_knowledge_work_A_strategic_approach.
For the readers that don't want to register to the McKinsey Quarterly, here is the text of my comment:
Indeed, what is required is a change of perspective. A change from a control point of view or a granting maximum freedom point of view, towards a view that looks for a synthesis between control and freedom. It is the era of the 'AND.'
In various recent projects, I have seen how it is possible to realize substantial productivity improvements by an approach that separates 'the know' from 'the flow.'
The know stands for the business logic, rules, concepts and relations, and references to their authentic sources. The flow stands for the dynamic process of a case in which the know is infused. Knowledge workers are engaged in a goal-driven decision making process in which they have a high level of autonomy in how to organize their work. The decision prevails over the path towards the decision. Contextual information is provided based upon the case and phase at hand and actionable information has been made executable by instruments like decision trees, checklists, interactive forms, and calculators.
The process offers at the same time support to conform to operating standards and to leverage knowledge and methodologies for managing the life cycle of a case effectively. This includes facilities for coordination, planning, assigning tasks and time, and for embedded logging and history trails to serve audit and compliance purposes.
Examples of achieved productivity gains are: implementing a change in government regulations within 2-3 days instead of in 9 months, operational cost reduction for environmental licensing of 96 million Euro in year 1, reduction of TCO-costs with 50%.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Walk the walk if you talk the talk
By: Rik Hoogenberg, chief executive officer
Recently, the Innovation Union Scoreboard 2010 was published by the European Commission. The Netherlands is characterized as an ‘innovation follower’, ranking 8th among EU member states. Analysts fear that the Netherlands will fall back even further in the coming years.
The Dutch Government, however, maintains its ambition the be among the top 5 of knowledge driven economies worldwide. Why is it so hard to reach this goal?
The answer is found in Michael Porters ‘The Competitive Advantage of Nations’, in which he rightly argues that success factors of enterprises are created by a country or region. Porter comes increasingly to the conclusion that ultimately the environment of the organization is the source of sustainable competitive advantage.
Entrepreneurship in the Netherlands has developed considerably on the officially formulated Dutch ambition, only to find government hesitant to apply this approach in practice. Had a government wide vision on smart solutions, innovation and education been implemented, then private initiatives would have met with a more favorable climate.
Now, smart solutions for agile and efficient public services depend on the personal conviction of visionary leaders, often having to fight fierce battles in order to pursue their innovative goals. This leads to unnecessary delay in adopting innovative solutions and creating a fertile climate for a knowledge based economy.
Recently, the Innovation Union Scoreboard 2010 was published by the European Commission. The Netherlands is characterized as an ‘innovation follower’, ranking 8th among EU member states. Analysts fear that the Netherlands will fall back even further in the coming years.
The Dutch Government, however, maintains its ambition the be among the top 5 of knowledge driven economies worldwide. Why is it so hard to reach this goal?
The answer is found in Michael Porters ‘The Competitive Advantage of Nations’, in which he rightly argues that success factors of enterprises are created by a country or region. Porter comes increasingly to the conclusion that ultimately the environment of the organization is the source of sustainable competitive advantage.
Entrepreneurship in the Netherlands has developed considerably on the officially formulated Dutch ambition, only to find government hesitant to apply this approach in practice. Had a government wide vision on smart solutions, innovation and education been implemented, then private initiatives would have met with a more favorable climate.
Now, smart solutions for agile and efficient public services depend on the personal conviction of visionary leaders, often having to fight fierce battles in order to pursue their innovative goals. This leads to unnecessary delay in adopting innovative solutions and creating a fertile climate for a knowledge based economy.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Good news and bad news
By: Frank Buytendijk, chief marketing officer
I joined Be Informed a little bit over three months ago now. The first thing I noticed, and what drew me to the world of business processes was the enormous growth potential, it is one of the few best-of-breed enterprise software markets left. There is ample room for innovation.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that I have the feeling that the business process discipline is terribly lacking behind other software markets. I think I can make the comparison, most of my own background comes from the business intelligence market. Let me explain.
In the management information systems world (MIS), close to twenty years ago it became clear that sending a programmer around, asking all users which reports they needed, and then program them all, is not the smartest approach. It leads to extremely expensive reports, no reusability and a heavy TCO burden. In the early 1990s the business intelligence query and reporting tools came up offering a different solution. Users and developers shouldn't put the report in the middle, but the data domain. If, using a metadata layer in between the reporting tool and the database, you can abstract from both the data model and the reporting layout, users can create all the necessary reports themselves. And you know all of those reports are right, because the metadata model describes the guardrails of what you can do very well.
How different the world of process still is. It is still pretty normal to send developers with little Visio schemas to all the users, and let them document, describe and build every single process. It is still accepted that business process specialists claim that "of course the process is always the starting point." Why, I wonder? It is the domain in which processes run that should be the starting point.
Be Informed has understood that fundamental principle, and basically built what is already the accepted paradigm in business intelligence. The only thing Be Informed does is describing the nature of all activities, and their mutual relationships. This is a metadata model, or in slightly more formal terms, an ontology. After doing that, users can go through processes every which way they want. And they know that whatever they do is perfectly right, because the ontology provides the guardrails.
Same thing!
If you look deep into the hearts of the people who develop Be Informed, they want nothing more than making sure that this process paradigm becomes the norm. The accepted best practice.
That would benefit Be Informed enormously. Most of our competitors have old-paradigm technologies, and it will take years to migrate to the new way of thinking. This is where I believe where Be Informed has the true lead in the market. Not the ontological approach per se, but how the idea of the ontology is consequently extrapolated and with extreme discipline is implemented throughout every aspect of the Be Informed Business Process Platform.
Hard to copy.
Interested? Would you like to know more? Let me know.
Be good,
frank
I joined Be Informed a little bit over three months ago now. The first thing I noticed, and what drew me to the world of business processes was the enormous growth potential, it is one of the few best-of-breed enterprise software markets left. There is ample room for innovation.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that I have the feeling that the business process discipline is terribly lacking behind other software markets. I think I can make the comparison, most of my own background comes from the business intelligence market. Let me explain.
In the management information systems world (MIS), close to twenty years ago it became clear that sending a programmer around, asking all users which reports they needed, and then program them all, is not the smartest approach. It leads to extremely expensive reports, no reusability and a heavy TCO burden. In the early 1990s the business intelligence query and reporting tools came up offering a different solution. Users and developers shouldn't put the report in the middle, but the data domain. If, using a metadata layer in between the reporting tool and the database, you can abstract from both the data model and the reporting layout, users can create all the necessary reports themselves. And you know all of those reports are right, because the metadata model describes the guardrails of what you can do very well.
How different the world of process still is. It is still pretty normal to send developers with little Visio schemas to all the users, and let them document, describe and build every single process. It is still accepted that business process specialists claim that "of course the process is always the starting point." Why, I wonder? It is the domain in which processes run that should be the starting point.
Be Informed has understood that fundamental principle, and basically built what is already the accepted paradigm in business intelligence. The only thing Be Informed does is describing the nature of all activities, and their mutual relationships. This is a metadata model, or in slightly more formal terms, an ontology. After doing that, users can go through processes every which way they want. And they know that whatever they do is perfectly right, because the ontology provides the guardrails.
Same thing!
If you look deep into the hearts of the people who develop Be Informed, they want nothing more than making sure that this process paradigm becomes the norm. The accepted best practice.
That would benefit Be Informed enormously. Most of our competitors have old-paradigm technologies, and it will take years to migrate to the new way of thinking. This is where I believe where Be Informed has the true lead in the market. Not the ontological approach per se, but how the idea of the ontology is consequently extrapolated and with extreme discipline is implemented throughout every aspect of the Be Informed Business Process Platform.
Hard to copy.
Interested? Would you like to know more? Let me know.
Be good,
frank
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