IBM Global Business Services
Agile Process
Improvement
Agile Process Improvement
– Solution Approach
– Benefi ts
What’s new in Agile Process
Improvement?
Reluctant about automating a working process?
Agile Process Improvement permits a fast realization of your
process automation wishes. We have experienced that many
banks are reluctant to modernize their paper-based or other-wise manual processes as they fear the project complexity,
cost and the risks associated with a change. Numcom’s
Appway® toolkit addresses this issue and offers a set of
readily available components that can be reused and cus-tomized easily.
This concept completely eliminates the need for lengthy and
complex custom developments. Everything is implemented
onsite and the initial results can usually be seen fairy quickly,
giving you the opportunity and flexibility to still make small
modifications as the project progresses.
Solution offered
IBM’s process improvement experts together with a toolkit
like Appway are the best match to review and address your
process efficiency, reduce labor intensiveness and eliminate
media breaches wherever possible.
When implemented you will instantly achieve process trans-parency, increase transaction speed and improve ser vice
quality for your clients. What’s more, you will be able to lo-cate and address sources of errors or delay, permitting full
management control and further improvement measures.
Proven success
IBM Global Business Services have already successfully
implemented Agile Process Improvement solutions with
clients.
In one of our last projects we achieved the following
re-sults*:
•
Ready for productive use in 5 months
•
Break even < 18 months
•
ROI > 40%
•
50% savings in manual work
•
End-to-end processing time reduced manifold
Learn more about the that methodology and current project
examples.
*Figures derived from the example project implementation (see following pages)
Agile Process Improvement means
fast process implementation in close
collaboration with the customer using
flexible integration options.
An international private bank in Switzerland relies on Appway as the strategic workflow tool and IBM Global Business Services for business process engineering and process implementation.
The bank wanted to optimize its processes and particularly eliminate those that are paperbased. The payment process was identified as a first business case with a high potential for improvement in terms of service to the client, quality and cost.
Methodology
Appway enables agile development because the implementa tion team is able to visualize the ideas of the business analysts and the key users almost instantly. This means the solution can be developed within a few iterations without having to produce complete specifications in advance. The business owner, the business analysts as well as the key users were involved in all iterations and were able to see, feel and influence the develop ment of the solution during the project. This allowed the identifi cation of requirement gaps and errors at a very early stage and they could be addressed quickly.
Analysis and Planning
Based on this business case, IBM started with an analysis of the current situation and requirements before defining a high level target process. All work was carried out in close coopera tion with the client. The iterations of the Agile Development were at this point as part of the overall project and at the end of each development iteration validation workshops were held with the client.
High Level Implementation
At the first iteration the actors and their roles were identified and defined, screens were prototyped and interfaces to surround ing systems planned.
Example Project
Before: paper-based payment orders
At the end of this iteration the workflows and the screens were functional and the interfaces had been specified in detail. Most functions had already been fully implemented.
After: an application for payments
Solution Validation
At this point the focus shifted to eliminating remaining gaps. The implementation of further new requirements was moved to a later phase in order to focus on completing all screens and interfaces for full functionality.
Results
It took only three months from the bank’s decision to start the project, based on the business case, until the solution was ready to undergo User Acceptance Testing. After an additional month of testing the solution successfully went into production. The processing time for written client orders has been reduced from over night to a few hours intraday and we expect a reduction of 50% in overall time spent working on payments. Furthermore,
Detailed Implementation
the potential for human errors has been minimized and the service to the client significantly improved by a faster execution and instant visibility of the order status.
Continuous Improvement
The agility factor does not end on conclusion of a project since improvements to the running system are possible with short iterations of specification, implementation and testing.
Five key characteristics of Agile Process Improvement
Agile Process Improvement means
• A combination of business expertise with an outstanding BPMPlatform
• Iterative solution design together with the client and without extensive specification phases
• Process design and application development in one step • BPMPlatform and development directly based at the client • Fast endtoend process implementation with various inte
gration options
We invite you to learn more about
topical and current projects in
banks – please contact us for a
personal demonstration!
Solution
IBM uses a wide range of methods and techniques to implement Agile Process Improvement:
• The IBM Component Business Model and the IBM Bench mark Wizard with more than 1500 industry specific key figures is used to achieve transparency of all the banks activities
• IBM provides business process models (the current IBM information framework consists of 2000+ banking standard processes) for each component which can be used as a basis for client adaptation
• IBM uses proven data and integration models as well as tools for business process modelling
Our huge experience in process improvement for banks is based on many Swiss and international projects in the financial services industry.
Benefits
Agile Process Improvement permits a fast realization of en hancements. Costly and labourintensive manual processes that include a high degree of collaboration in particular can be automated quite fast. The potential for savings here is evidently high and the project payback period usually short.
The key is to use a Business Process Platform. With the help of this platform the bank can redesign processes as workflows and build a new application at the same time. This platform acts as an integration layer and reduces user interactions and process breaches.
Agile Process Improvement Approach
Strategy check
Consider business strategy and goals of the client
Consider IT-Strategy e.g. application landscape, sourcing strategy
Activity analysis
Integral bank analysis with focus on process benchmarks
Identification of key areas with highest potential for improvement
Implementation
High level implementation
Detailed implementation
Solution validation
Constant improvement
Integration with additional applications
Continuous improvement Client can monitor, maintain
and improve the process solution
Business assumes ownership of the process application, no detailed programming knowledge needed
Process analysis
Analysis of processes from identified key areas
Business relevance
Improvement potential
Technology support
Valuation of potential
Quantification – Business Case
Complexity of implementation
Client maintenance
Client opening Client Risk assessment KYC Review Client Tax status Client closing
Infrastructure Support processes
Focus-processes with high cost implication
Focus-processes with high service and regulation implication
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Contact
Andreas LenkeBusiness Process Management CH + AT
Global Business Services Phone +41 (0) 58 333 68 26 Mobile +41 (0) 79 572 40 03 andreas.lenke@ch.ibm.com Markus Spörri
Business Process Management CH + AT
Global Business Services Phone +41 (0) 58 333 74 17 Mobile +41 (0) 79 352 52 10 markus.spoerri@ch.ibm.com
