Smart Process, Smart Apps

In a recent EMC Pulse blog, Rohit Gai, SVP & GM, Products and Solutions, Information Intelligence Group at EMC discusses a new report: “The Forrester Wave^TM: Smart Process Applications, Q2 2013”. According to the report, “smart process applications are a new and emerging category of applications designed to help CIOs and their firms improve the effectiveness of their human-centric business activities.”

On Wednesday, I’ll be presenting on a BPM.com Webcast along with our partner Beach Street, where we will be discussing this new and emerging category of smart process applications, along with detailing a couple of best-of-class examples where case management has measurably improved the performance of work and the quality of decisions. Our EMC partner, Beach Street, will also be providing a live demonstration of their new contracts lifecycle management solution. To register for the event click here.

One of the topics I’ll be covering is where case management fits into automating organizational processes. You can look at case management as a place in between Process and Project oriented activities.

On the left side are transactional processes that focus on highly structured processes where the goal to automate the process and minimize human involvement. With these processes, the volumes are high, system to system interactions are common, transactions tend to be data centric. On the other side is project oriented processes that involve groups of people who are working on project oriented activities like mergers and acquisitions. These types of processes involve lots of human interaction in order for decisions to be made.

In the middle is where case management lies. It has aspects of automated processing, project orientation, and human involvement. With case management, there is a process or set of processes where the end goal is to make a decision. For example, loan processing has a series of collaborative steps that involve different individuals who must gather and review the loan information, and ultimately make a decision on whether or not to fund. Many of the processes that businesses struggle with today, require people to participate in part of a process or activity.

If you’d like to learn more on this topic and see a live demo of the Beach Street Contracts Lifecycle Management Solution, I encourage you to attend the Webcast.