BPM - Business Process Management Software - Rules for Success

BPM - Business Process Management Software - Rules for Success

By PNMSoft


In its long history, a BPM software developer in the US has evolved from an exception processing vendor to a major player in business process management (BPM) software, one of the liveliest corners of the strong business-intelligence market. The BPM software company says the common thread through the company's development has been a focus on business rules and processes rather than the traditional IT concentration on data and how it's organized.

The BPM software developer discussed the need to make systems smarter and more able to make or support decisions.

What's the path from exception processing to business process management?

I'll give you some context. When I went to college and studied computers in the early '70s, I got involved with teaching computers to play chess, which at that time was considered a very hard thing to do. I became fascinated with what it would mean to teach a computer to take a complicated, human-associated activity like chess and be able to do it effectively in a way that you could not just rigorously program, that you needed to do by teaching the computer certain processes.

Then, when I graduated, I went into computers and began working in the late '70s for firms that did consulting mainly in the financial services industry. I was struck by how stupid the systems were, how they were just glorified recording systems. They really were about record keeping as opposed to being about the rules and processes of doing the business.

You say you wanted to build smarter systems, but didn't the technology of the early '80s limit your options?

The systems we had been building had been about recording information and presenting information; they weren't really about driving process and making decisions.

So I started as a BPM software developer, with the idea of being pragmatic about getting intelligence into systems by picking a couple of very specific problems to work on. We were limited by how fast computers were in the early and mid-'80s. We actually ran our first customers on a DEC VAX 780, which was about the size of [a conference table] and had a tenth of the power of [a laptop PC today]. It takes computer cycles to be smart. So we decided to go after exceptions, because exceptions involve smaller groups of people [and] typically involved only a percentage or two of the transactions, but were very complex and very high-value. So we went into the business of exception management because it represented an early way to do business process management and business rules without trying to boil the ocean.

How did you move beyond exception processing?

As we came into the '90s, machines had gotten a lot faster, and our knowledge had gotten better, and we understood it. So what Pega did in the early '90s was to start looking for other ways beyond exceptions to go after more mainstream processes. We began to do things around fulfillment. We started getting into call centers, and we started driving beyond financial services into health care. In the '90s, we took our traditionally exception-focused processes and approach to being much more of a whole business.

Where does that leave your BPM software company in relation to BPM software in 2004?

We think the design we came up with for the fourth generation of applications is pretty revolutionary. It takes the notion of enterprise rules and enterprise processes and puts it into the hands of the business user. So it's not just that systems can be smarter, but the business users can have more control, and the business users can do what we call build for change. It's an approach that uses very avant-garde technology around Java and distributed systems, with the underlying premise that the only way businesses take the next step is to afford business people greater control.

Why has it taken so long for companies to focus on the business processes and business rules?

The miracle of the '80s and '90s happened when companies' records became data and information. When we electronified them, we made them accessible. The whole way we think of the problem traditionally is around this electronification of data, which is incredibly important but is only half a loaf. The other half has to do with policies, which were still materially in people's heads. In the '80s, CPUs were scarce resources.

Now the number of CPU cycles that sit idle every day in a business outweigh those that are used by a factor of a thousand. That change, coupled with an enormous increase in power, makes it possible to do so much more. In order to be smart, the system has to be able to help operationalize the business process, not to just tell people what happened, but to help people actually do the work. Traditional systems make the user conform to the system. They tend to be organized around data. There's no help around trying to solve a business problem. It's organized around the data structures on the disk.

What's the approach to solving that problem?

The way to break this tension is to say we're not now trying to optimize every MIPS. That's less important in a world where 98% of the computing power sits idle.

We're going to let the systems themselves have information in them organized around rules that can actually do stuff for you. The only way that's going to work is to have things that are simple to use and simple to change. The model we have in mind is that IT is going to create this infrastructure for business users to do certain things on -- not everything, but certain things that they care about profoundly that IT doesn't care about.

How does that model work?

The breakthrough we've come up with technologically is that we've taken the rules of the business, and instead of having the rules of the business run in code, we treat the rules of the business as data. In our systems, the IT group creates the infrastructure, and we allow you to use Visio to sketch out your process, and then our engine asks you what sits behind each shape. We grab the answers, and we grab the Visio. We can run it down to the server so business users don't have to care about it. We dynamically compile it into Java as necessary, and then we run it.

If the business user changes it, then we're able to reflect those changes without having the IT guys make changes because the engine is actually running off the business-oriented definition of how you want to go through things, instead of the technically oriented definition of how the data is stored. This is the problem in a nutshell that we've been working on for more than 20 years.

Since PNMsoft's foundation in 1996 by experts in human workflow processes, we have focused on developing Business Process Management (BPM) and Workflow Automation solutions that are specially oriented towards business users.

From the start, we have applied our expertise and experience in BPM and BPI to build long-standing relationships with our customers and partners. Our products are complete projects, not shelfware, with the emphasis on reducing risk and enhancing incremental improvement. To this end, our activities extend far beyond the software itself, covering critical issues such as the speed of implementation, customization, risk reduction and fast ROI.

We believe that BPM can lead to greater business efficiencies and increased revenues when it involves everyone. Consequently we have developed the SEQUENCE family of BPM products for rapid, easy and effectively deployment across the entire business environment. A key factor in this philosophy has been our close integration with Microsoft and its products. Liaising frequently with Microsoft developers, we have ensured that new BPM users – from every culture and background - can leverage their Windows experience to rapidly become skilful in applying our BPM tools without the need for coding or programming.

Our growing penetration within world markets is testimony to this successful approach. Business users gain numerous advantages by using our automation technology and benefiting from our strong service orientation. They save over 60% in process development time, cut their administrative costs in half and gain greater control within their challenging multi-national business environments.

Profile

PMNsoft is a multi-national company with our marketing headquarters in the UK, our R&D centre in Israel and a network of business partners and associated offices around the globe. We have solid financial backing from Goldrock Capital, an institutionally-backed fund specializing in high-tech companies that show strong growth potential.

The executives leading PNMsoft's direction have a rich track record of expertise in computer science, information systems and workflow processes. Working in close unity with our employees and business partners, they have built a reputation for their responsiveness in providing intelligent, customized BPM solutions.

As an active player within the community, we contribute to Tmura, a charitable venture fund that supports local educational initiatives and youth opportunities. Alongside other 'green companies' we encourage our employees to be environmentally conscious, conserving resources and moving towards a paperless office.