Email it!

Paper has now become passé technology. The fact that you’re reading this blog on a computer (or mobile) screen is a testament to the lacking need for tangible documents. With more than 144 billion emails sent every day, communication would slow to a crawl if we still relied on paper—it’s less proficient and lacks any real-time capabilities.

The Tablet is Mightier than the Pen

In the healthcare industry, doctors, medical professionals, and insurance companies are required by law to keep secure records of their billions of patients. The Agency of the Health and Social Services (ASSS) of Montreal knows the challenge all too well. Trying to maintain a working level of efficiency while tracking paper records on each patient is nearly impossible. Every day ASSS de Montreal relied on tens of thousands of paper forms. Since the agency was dealing with more than 1.6 million residents across 17 hospitals, this was a huge waste of paper and, more so, the definition of a big data problem.

“Our major challenge was to reduce the number of paper forms as we noticed that on an average 80 percent of the information in a form was being replicated in other forms, which was a waste of time, effort, material, and resource.”

-Diamantino De Sousa, ASSS de Montreal

With the ability to have electronic medical forms delivered directly into an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system, workflows become more efficient, and healthcare providers and physicians get the information they need on mobile devices, smartphones, laptops, and tablets. An integrated healthcare infrastructure — where systems are connected so information is available in a centralized place — rid the issue of excessive paper waste at ASSS de Montreal.

An Electronic Form is the New Norm

Because of TIBCO Formvine, electronic medical forms help streamline data submission so they’re easily available through various applications, while still remaining secure. Having the ability to instantaneously gather signatures, images, drawings, and other information on a mobile device, decreased time spent on creating and submitting forms by 30 percent.  The days are gone when a doctor has to shuffle through hundreds of files and papers to find the exact one needed.

ASSS de Montreal now has the ability to access, deliver, manage, share, and create information faster than ever before, without the need for paper. This has not only decreased the amount of time, money, and effort spent on ensuring proper documentation and availability, but it is also helping to advance innovation in the healthcare industry.

Email it!

A lot of people don’t think about oil and gas in terms of the medicine we need or the food we eat, but most products we buy are touched by this industry. The energy that heats our homes, and powers our cars, trains, planes, and boats allows us to enjoy an advanced quality of life. Much of our current technology is directly powered or indirectly in need of oil and gas. That doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be regulations and safe practices to ensure the welfare of our planet and the living things that inhabit it. Oil and gas companies have a big responsibility, other than just bringing in a profit. The environment is as much a major concern for them as it is for everyone else.

APPEA 2013

The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) is holding the 2013 APPEA Conference in Brisbane, Australia from May 26 to 29. This is the Southern Hemisphere’s leading oil and gas event, where local and international experts from the industry — including people from the technical, economic, environmental, and political sectors — come together and exchange ideas and ways to help promote the sale and reliable use of oil and gas.

In Australia, as it is in the rest of the world, it’s important that the oil and gas industry be regulated and accountable to governments and people who care as much about the environment as the companies do. There is room for innovation to help improve the industry and keep our planet greener, and still provide people with the fuel to drive automobiles, economies, and the future.

Technology and Collaboration

Juggling the need to stay ahead in a competitive industry, obeying government regulations, and making the environment a priority— these are not easy tasks. As in many other situations and challenges companies face in the 21st century, technology helps to overcome some of these issues. No matter if it’s identifying where to drill, optimizing production targets, or classic big data problems of capturing data from the environment, oil and gas companies must be able to manage everything.

Combine the need for technology with the value of collaboration and the oil and gas industry can continue to help provide the world with a valuable resource and protect the future.

TIBCO will take part in the 2013 APPEA Conference and you can, too. You can follow us on Twitter and check out our tweets from the event or send us your own.

Email it!

This post was originally featured on May 21, 2013 in VentureBeat as a guest post by Matt Quinn, CTO of TIBCO.

We’re well beyond any question about whether cloud computing is the future. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) paved the way for the idea that organizations can operate some of their most important systems in an on- or off-premise cloud. Small, medium, and even large businesses accept that cloud computing delivers flexibility, cost, and scalability that business has never had before. Companies are gravitating to cloud because it brings very short time to value and doesn’t impact the current business model. Lower cost and less risk are very attractive propositions.

How big is this move? Forrester estimates that the average company has 9.3 different SaaS applications in use. Consulting firm Capgemini reports that 78% of new applications are deployed into the cloud — and that’s just the applications that are being tracked. In reality, workers today are practicing BYOS (Bring Your Own Service) as they experiment with SaaS in broad ways that IT, and even business managers, may not know about.

Cloud has its challenges

As cloud computing continues to mature and its use expands, it hasn’t been without challenges. The most significant limitation has been the increasing pain of a lack of integration between cloud applications and the rest of the business. This is a pain that becomes more acute as the cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-on-premise system invariably becomes more complex. On top of the integration challenge, the mechanics of cloud expose organizations to increased risk of data integrity, process latency and security. Oftentimes, SaaS applications are being marketed to the business, which likely looks at risk in a different way than IT or compliance. This is a challenge itself as the organization faces risks that aren’t understood or moratoriums on SaaS use that aren’t followed.

A way to solve this problem is to stay within a single SaaS vendor “stack,” but that leaves an organization beholden to a single vendor – a risky position. But there’s a reality of the still-maturing cloud: SaaS applications are typically limited in capability, a necessary evil of the SaaS paradigm that creates economies of scale for users by requiring customers to use highly standardized interfaces and functionality. To build out the same level of capability that’s commonplace in the on-premise world, organizations need to blend custom functionality within their own walls with multiple, disparate cloud applications and storage options. The reality of Cloud is that nearly all enterprises will need to operate a hybrid model for years to come.

TIBCO Cloud Bus

With these challenges in mind, TIBCO released TIBCO Cloud Bus yesterday. This is an entirely new integration-platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) that uses ready-made templates and connectors to integrate cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-on-premise systems and applications, and includes integration with social networks. In keeping with the nature of the cloud, TIBCO Cloud Bus is a subscription, pay-as-you-go service without a large upfront investment or infrastructure.

The immediate benefit of this iPaaS platform comes from being able to rapidly connect SaaS applications without having to program, by using the latest graphical tools in a business-friendly user interface. Considering how critical time-to-value has become, this kind of ease of use is essential. Let’s face it:  What matters enormously today may not be necessary tomorrow; and likewise, business needs to constantly innovate through technology that seems to change daily.

http://www.capgemini.com/sites/default/files/resource/pdf/simply._business_cloud_where_business_meets_cloud.pdf

Speaking to the C-Suite about BPM

What’s at the top of the C-level agenda and how does BPM added-value align to strategic vision?

There have always been a number of ways to manage processes in organizations:

• the tried-and-true mix of spreadsheets, emails and Post-Its
• the ambitious projects to “reengineer” the whole company every couple of years
• and there is the daily pain of just doing what needs to be done.

Astute managers figure out a way to cope with the process issues, taking them off their shoulders while improving efficiency. BPM, which can be implemented at any level, can be a “local solution.”

Thus BPM implementation often begins and grows locally. BPM is an empowering tool at all levels of an organization. When you are responsible for departmental goals and objectives, you may see clearly how your organization can gain direct benefit from BPM automation.

Yet wide-spread adoption needs the buy-in of top management. Selling the value of BPM implementation is “not all about you.” Instead, it should be “all about the strategic objectives of the enterprise.”

So how should you talk to executive management about BPM?  Address the issues at the top of the C-Suite agenda. Here are 6 specific issues; in this post I’ll address the first 3, and in Part 2 of this blog series I’ll address the rest.

1. Quality of service & customer satisfaction
2. Operational excellence & productivity
3. Business agility
4. Governance & sustainability
5. Risk management
6. Employee motivation & collaboration

1. Quality of service & customer satisfaction

BPM allows you to design and quickly implement inter-related customer-facing processes with all involved stakeholders, to collect data from customer interaction and to report results. This can be done in incremental steps, to aid adoption by building on success. Change is made easier and the customer experience can be improved continuously.

2. BPM is the path to operational excellence & productivity

When an organization is achieving results – good or bad –you can retrace how those results are obtained by using BPM. Management can easily replicate successful processes in other departments or subsidiaries. Where there are issues, you can quickly identify bottlenecks, understand root causes and apply fixes.

Thanks to this continuous improvement loop, your company’s processes can be optimized to best serve your markets at any time, leading to great operational efficiency and higher customer satisfaction.

3. BPM improves business agility and speed-to-market

To remain competitive in the fast-moving global economy, your company needs to be able to anticipate changes and act before competitors. If your processes are clear, robust and efficient, your company will be better prepared to tackle tomorrow’s market challenges.

Your company may well get a higher ROI than your calculations anticipate

BPM can have a positive impact on many aspects of a company, from governance and sustainability to motivation and change management, to agility and collaboration, to compliance and risk management.

Is this something that can be quantified? Definitely.

Classic ROI calculation builds upon:

• efficiency models measuring cost savings, lost productivity, rework and duplication, and
• statistical and probabilistic model for risk evaluation.

The good news is there’s a very good chance your company will get a higher return than your calculations will anticipate. And you will be able to show this with process measurements.

Once the company’s processes are structured, optimized and automated, management can focus more on defining and implementing strategy and less on logistics. Teams have time to get customer insights, and to anticipate and get ready for the next challenges.

The C-suite and the Board of Directors are better prepared to work on their vision of the future.

For details about these and other examples, see the BPMLeader featured white paper Speaking to the C-Suite About BPM.

1. Why do BPM projects fail?
2. Why RASCI Is Important For BPM Projects
3. 12 Important Questions When Starting BPM Projects
4. Why all projects should include BPM and OCM
5. 12 Important Questions When Starting BPM Projects