BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AS PART OF A BSC COMPUETR Business Intelligence and Strategic Information Systems “Workflow, Business Process Management and the management of unstructured documents

Table of Contents

Introduction2

Workflow modeling9

Communication-based methodologies10

Activity-based methodologies10

SIS planning12

Formulation of SIS model15

Proposed guidelines for SIS strategic planning24

Conclusion26

References28

Business Intelligence and Strategic Information Systems “Workflow, Business Process Management and the management of unstructured documents

Introduction

Cost pressures within financial institutions have resulted in a perception of the diminishing returns of IT with single digit growth of IT budgets and the depopulation of IT/IT Sourcing becoming more visible. In addition, IT credibility is under the microscope with some questioning the business value of IT, whether IT really matters and how IT can, and should, be used for competitive advantage. Both Workflow and BPM offer the promise of being enablers of business agility so that an organisations IT architecture and business processes fuse together as enablers of change so that they can speed up and transform business processes to enable real time visibility. Many industry analysts, such as Gartner, talk about the push towards “the Real Time Enterprise” and many technology vendors are using this thinking as a key element of their strategic marketing. What does this mean for workflow and BPM? The most successful organisations demonstrate responsiveness, flexible sourcing and balanced management of the customer experience. They integrate their many access channels to offer customers a fast response to queries, more choice, good advice and valuable services. Some organisations have built on previous Workflow implementations and have adopted Business Process Management technologies to solve problems in specific departments. For instance, both Abbey and Allied Irish Bank use new kinds of data analysis to suggest products to customers when sales opportunities arise. In the future, the integration of Workflow and BPM technologies will substantially increase their value, but it will also heighten their complexity. Banks increasingly think of branches as the channel best suited to solve customers' problems, deliver personalised advice, and sell a growing range of investment and insurance products. Several new branch technologies purport to offer ways to improve contact between customers and bank staff, while also improving self-service facilities. Workflow and Document Management technology is mature, but deployment in a bank's front office for workflow automation has only recently begun. It requires moving back-office operations to a bank's front office, as well as a shift in focus to the customer relationship rather than transactions. Document imaging reduces costs, such as for transportation of paper cheques. As the capability and complexity of remote imaging increases it will be more difficult to justify current paper processes. Adding BPM will change the nature of this mature technology and will enable banks to detect problems and issues more quickly, and reduce costly back-office document scanning operations. Business Process Management adds process analysis to monitoring and administration, including definition and execution, and support for human and application-level interaction. Banks are focussing on integration more than on replacing processes. New regulations such as the Basel II Accord and Sarbanes-Oxley are accelerating the need for effective business process management as ...