Risk Management & Regulation

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Phil Webb

Back in July 2011, I posted a little on how Solvency II compliance could be supported through use of BPMN. Since then we’ve been developing an approach towards Risk Management & Regulation in the Financial Sector with our partner, Derek Fowler of JDF Consultancy. Next Thursday 29th March sees the public introduction of this approach, at a business breakfast meeting we’re hosting at the BCS in London. There’s still time to register for a free place at the event, which will include an engaging presentation by Derek, and further presentation by me on the use of BPMN in modelling and managing risk. Oh, and there’s free food before and after the talks too :)

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Shared Services Step 4: Measure service success

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Phil Webb

In my previous post on shared services we looked at how using BPMN collaborations can really help to define the contract between the client and shared service provider. These points of interaction are, of course, the vital aspect when it comes to measuring the success of a shared services programme.

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Shared Services Step 3: Define collaborations

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Phil Webb

In an earlier post in this series on Shared Services, I stressed the importance of understanding the processes you’re going to share or outsource, and mentioned that we should look out for the collaboration points between you and the service provider, defining the contract.

In this post, I want to look at the third step in our four starter steps, and recommend an approach to identifying and recording collaboration which can really help.

  • Step 3: Ensure that the collaboration points between the client and provider of the services are well-defined and clearly contracted

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Shared Services Step 2: Understand what will change and how you will manage that change

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Phil Webb

In this short series of blog posts we’re looking at some first steps towards Shared Services. See the introductory post for a brief explanation of Shared Services.

Last time we considered the first step of knowing what it is you’re going to share or outsource. In this post we consider the second step which is:

  • Step 2: Understand what will change and how you will manage that change

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Shared Services Step 1: Know what it is you’re going to share or outsource

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Phil Webb

In this short series of blog posts we’ll be looking at some first steps towards Shared Services. See the introductory post for a brief explanation of Shared Services.

The first step is:

  • Step 1: Know what it is you’re going to share or outsource

In using the word ‘know’, I want to stress that it is vital that you truly understand and can fully describe the business processes which will no longer be under your direct control. It’s fine to initially say “We can share our HR services between the 6 companies in our group”, but each company will have different perceptions of what HR should be providing, and that simple statement does not fully describe the complexities of those perceptions and implemented processes.

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First Steps towards Shared Services

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Phil Webb

An increasingly common model for the reduction of cost in large public and private sector organisations is the use of shared services. Shared services differ from outsourcing in that usually an internal group will take responsibility for the services rather than an external supplier, but the concepts are not dissimilar, and the first steps towards both approaches should certainly have many similarities.

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MID User Conference – INSIGHT 2011

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Phil Webb

I had the privilege of attending and speaking at the MID user conference, INSIGHT 2011, in Nürnberg yesterday. MID develop the BPMN, UML and Data modelling suite, Innovator, which we at Aptero Solutions work with and distribute in the UK and internationally. I’ve experience several user groups before, but it was really encouraging to see the number of MID clients willing to take a day out of their busy schedule to catch up on product plans, attend workshops on different product features, and hear a range of talks on many different topics.

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Getting Busy with BPMN

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Phil Webb

Having spent a number of weeks working onsite with a client during the autumn, I’m really excited about the new capabilities of Innovator for Business Analysts and about our own new In-Depth BPMN training course.

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Aiding Solvency II Compliance with BPMN

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Phil Webb

The analysis of business process, particularly in the insurance sector, has often been focused on those areas of the business that have direct contact with the customer. The sector is so competitive, that these interactions are often the ones which can most affect the business’ performance. However, with the Solvency II deadlines less than 18 months away, insurers are having to focus in more detail on their internal operations.

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Visio to Innovator: from BPMN pictures to models

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Phil Webb

I’ve been working recently with a section of an international banking group which has diligently produced a large number of Microsoft Visio process diagrams visually describing their processes across many aspects of the section. Each diagram was accompanied by a separately maintained Microsoft Word document holding descriptions of the process being depicted, the roles represented by the lanes, and of each step in the process.

My first reaction on seeing how they’ve been working was to congratulate them on managing to keep the Visio pictures and Word documents so well in sync, even down to unique identifiers for each step and gateway. This must have been a significant overhead on their process analysis activities, but one which should allow easier migration to more useful modelling tools.

We wanted to assure them that moving from Visio to a BPMN modelling tool was not only going to be beneficial in the long run to them as process analysts and to their process users also, but also that we could achieve a greater degree of accuracy through a migration from Visio pictures to BPMN models in Innovator.

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