The role of Business Process Management Systems - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 7 Words: 1955 Downloads: 10 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Management Essay Type Analytical essay Did you like this example? à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“For information systems it is increasingly difficult to draw a line around an application system and say that you own and control it. For example, value chains extend beyond enterprises, supplier and customer systems become part of each others information architectureà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  (Hasselbring, 2000, p33) Critically evaluate the role of Business Process Management Systems (BPMS), Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) architectures and current middle ware technologies in resolving issues of system integration within and between organisations. How are these developments likely to change the nature of enterprise systems? Introduction Business Process Management and enterprise computing have undergone a remarkable evolution in the recent past. Emphasis on easy availability of data to customers and efficient management of applications within an organisation has lead to the need of integrating and automating applications within the corporate enviro nment. Business Process Management and Enterprise Application Integration are both recognised as being cost efficient methods of integrating existing applications within an enterprise, and across multiple enterprises and adding new technologies to the mix. (Banerjee et al, 2005) Many academics have discussed the various aspects of business process and enterprise computing and the need for business integration together with the various technologies related to BPMS and EAI, and the comparison with other approaches like B2B and customer integration. Also, organisations today typically manage and maintain a diverse portfolio of Information Systems (IS) applications, and as a result organisations are now realising the pressing need to link à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“islands of applicationsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  that have emerged as a consequence of divisional or functional silos. Consequently, both academics and practitioners are showing increasing interest in the area of Enterprise Application Integra tion, which is referred as the plans, methods, and tools aimed at modernising, consolidating, integration and coordinating the computer applications within an enterprise optimisation (Smith and Fingar, March 2003). Today, most companies recognise the value of systems integration, and use it in some capacity to cut costs. However, increasingly many are also looking to outsourcers to get to the next level of business performance, through deploying business process management systems and enterprise application integration. Analyst firm IDC defines business process management as à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“the business transformation or evolution strategy that employs all the advances that have been made in using IT to enhance business efficiency, integrate processes, and manage and present information for greater performance.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  (Grigori et al, 2004) However, for companies that struggle with the implementation of à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“all the advances made it using ITà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ , one area to gain lift is in employing outsourcing expertise for greater business process and enterprise application integration. Main Body IS has become the organisational fabric for intra- and inter-organisational collaboration in business. As a result, there is mounting pressure from customers and suppliers for a direct move away from disparate systems operating in parallel towards a more common shared architecture. In part, this has been achieved through the emergence of new technology that is being packaged into a portfolio of technologies known as EAI. Its emergence however, is presenting investment decision-makers charged with the evaluation of IS with an interesting challenge. The integration of IS in-line with the needs of the business is extending their identity and lifecycle, making it difficult to evaluate the full impact of the system as it has no definitive start and/or end. Indeed, the argument presented by several academics is that traditional life cycle models are changing as a result of technologies that support their integration with other systems. (Irani et al, 2003) Traditional approaches to managing business processes have often been shown to be inadequate for large-scale, organisation-wide, dynamic settings. However, since Internet and Intranet technologies have become widespread, an increasing number of business processes exhibit these properties, and therefore a new approach is needed. To this end, Jennings et al (2000) described the motivation, conceptualization, design, and implementation of a novel agent-based business process management system, with a key advantage of said system being that responsibility for enacting various components of the business process is delegated to a number of autonomous problem-solving agents. To enact their role, these agents typically interact and negotiate with other agents in order to coordinate their actions and to buy in the services they require. This approach leads to a system that is signif icantly more agile and robust, and easy to integrate, than its traditional counterparts. Modern BPMSs are software platforms that support the definition, execution, and tracking of business processes. BPMSs have the ability of logging information about the business processes they support, and thus proper analysis of BPMS execution logs can yield important knowledge and help organizations improve the quality of their business processes and services to their business partners, through integration. Indeed, BPMSs provide a set of integrated tools that support business and IT users in managing process execution quality by providing several features, such as analysis, prediction, monitoring, control, and optimisation (Smith and Fingar, 2003). Grigori et al (2004) referred to this set of tools as the Business Process Intelligence (BPI) tool suite, defining further enhancements on the BPI tools suite, including automated exception prevention, and refinement of process data preparation st age, as well as integrating other data mining techniques. These developments are particularly relevant, as every day organisations execute thousands of processes as they transact business, and manage sales, contracts and delivery. Business process effectiveness shapes the company, in terms of its strength, growth and ability to effectively serve customers. When evaluating their own business process effectiveness, companies should consider the following questions: Are our processes customer-focused, do these processes support, enhance or move our business goals forward, is our organisation dependent on ad hoc legacy processes that are often manual, duplicative, biased and lack standardization, and are we losing operational efficiency and margin through poor process execution? The answers to these questions are key to the overriding question of whether a business should invest in business process management capabilities, in order to improve their systems integration. (Smith and Fin gar, June 2003) Many organizations manage and maintain a diverse portfolio of IS)applications, and increasingly the integration of these applications is often necessary to support broader enterprise-wide business solutions such as e-business, automated supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP). EAI has been found to be the best approach to IS application integration by Lam (2005), who undertook a case study of an integration project at Harmond Bank, where an EAI approach was used to integrate the IS applications in its home loans division. The case-study highlights many of the management and architectural decisions that arc pertinent to IS application integration projects, and lessons learned from the case are discussed, together with the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) in Enterprise Application Integration. Lam (2005) thus used interview transcripts to identify groups of CSFs in which the CSFs appeared closely in ter-related, concluding that, as organisations embark on major enterprise-wide business initiatives, they will need to think more strategically about how to integrate their diverse portfolio of IS applications. Enterprise integration is also considered to be of great strategic significance in the support of organisations trying to achieve a competitive advantage. Traditional approaches to integration such as electronic data interchange (EDI) have provided a wide range of benefits but have not managed to fully automate and integrate business processes and applications. In addressing many of the limitations of EDI to piece together disparate systems, ERP solutions introduced an alternative approach to integration. However, although ERP systems overcome significant integration problems, they have failed to adequately support intra and inter-organisational integration. There has been a great demand by organisations to overcome integration problems and become more competitive, and in this respect, EAI has emerged to address intra and inter-organisational integration in a more flexible and maintainable way. (Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 2004) Unfortunately, the literature remains limited regarding this emerging area and there is consequently a need for further research and contribution in identifying influential factors for EAI adoption. The rightful installation of ERP and EAI systems should involve replacing functional systems with a standardized company-wide system, however making an EAI system work is more than an issue of technical expertise or social accommodation. (Chang, 2002) Newman and Westrup (2005) builds this argument using the example of management accountants in Great Britain based on evidence from a survey and several case studies. It begins by briefly considering the role of management accountants as a professional group in Great Britain and the significance of the introduction of EAI systems as a challenge to their expertise. It further discusses how ERP systems are made to work, and introduces the technology power loop and its relevance to systems integration. It illustrates the argument using evidence from a survey and a number of cases in the United Kingdom and, in the final sections, it returns to the technology power loop and suggest some developments to it to aid understanding of how EAI systems work in organizations. Summary / Conclusion My findings tend to support Hasselbringà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s view that the role of information systems in business is fundamentally changing, and ownership of an application is increasingly shared across many areas of an organisation. As a result, it is crucial to integrate these applications as best as possible, in order to secure sustained competitive advantage through supply chain management, customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning (Lam, 2005). Whilst they are not perfect systems, and many organisations are unfamiliar with their f ull range of application and usefulness, my research suggested that BPMS and EAI are two of the most successful and robust methods of integrating disparate systems and resolving any issues arising as a result of said integration. Of course, the approach I have taken may have its drawbacks, as many of the writers on the subject have openly professed a preference for BPMS and EAI, thus there is a very real possibility that their views on the concepts may be biased. Equally, although I was able to find many articles and journals citing successful BPMS and EAI implementations, there was very little writing on the drawbacks of these systems, both potential and realised. As a result, this work cannot be considered to be as complete, and as valid, as a study which incorporated research, ideally primary research, into said drawbacks, and found and discussed case studies where BPMS and EAI had failed to deliver the promised integration performance. References: Banerjee, N. Chordia, A. and Rajib, P. (2005) Seamless Enterprise Computing using Enterprise Application Integration (EAI). Journal of Services Research; Vol. 5, Issue 1, p. 171. Chang, J. (2002) Envisioning the Process-centric Enterprise. eAI Journal; August 2002, p. 30. Grigori, D. Casati, F. Castellanos, M. Dayal, U. Sayal, M. and Shan, M-C. (2004) Business Process Intelligence. Computers in Industry; Vol. 53, Issue 3, p. 321. Hasselbring, W. (2000) Information System Integration. Communications of the ACM; Vol. 43, Issue 6. Irani, Z. Themistocleous, M. and Love, P. E. D. (2003) The impact of enterprise application integration on information system lifecycles. Information Management; Vol. 41, Issue 2, p177 Jennings, N. R. Norman, T. J. Faratin, P. OBrien, P. and Odgers, B. (2000) Autonomous Agents for Business Process Management. Applied Artificial Intelligence; Vol. 14, Issue 2, p. 145. Journal of Enterprise Information Management (2004) Justifying the decisions for EAI implementations: a validated proposition of influential factors. Journal of Enterprise Information Management; Vol. 17, Issue 2, p. 85. Lam, W. (2005) Investigating success factors in enterprise application integration: a case-driven analysis. European Journal of Information Systems; Vol. 14, Issue 2, p. 175. Newman, M. and Westrup, C. (2005) Making ERPs work: accountants and the introduction of ERP systems. European Journal of Information Systems; Vol. 14, Issue 3, p. 258. Smith, H. and Fingar, (2003) Business Process Management: The Third Wave Meghan-Kiffer Press. Smith, H. and Fingar, (June 2003) A Chasm to be Crossed. www.intelligententerprise.com, 17th June 2003, p. 30. Smith, H. and Fingar, (March 2003) Dont bridge the Business-IT divide: Obliterate it! eAI Journal; March 2003, p. 36. Spigel, R. (2003) B2Bà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s Tower of Babel. www.manufacturingsystems.com, April 2003. Stevens, C. P. (2003) Enterprise Resource Planning: A Trio of Resources Information Systems Management; Summer 2003, p. 61. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The role of Business Process Management Systems" essay for you Create order

Ancient Egypt The World Civilizations Essay - 1084 Words

Thomas Pennell World Civilizations I Mr. Shows 7 November 2016 Ancient Egypt Multiple factors go into account when considering that Ancient Egypt is one of the best civilizations of all time. First, the location of Egypt allowed it to prosper; second, the culture was one that the world hadn’t seen until then; third, the architecture that took place baffles scientists to this day; and lastly the impact it had on modern culture. Egypt is located in a prime location for civilization to spring up. Egypt possessed many natural protective barriers. The Mediterranean Sea lay to the north and the Red sea lay to the east. Ancient Egyptians depended on deserts in the east, south, and west, as well as mountains on the eastern coast to protect them from invaders. The Nile River flows through it for over a 1,000 miles which creates fertile farmland. Whenever the Nile overflows its banks during flooding season it would leave a black sediment. The Egyptians would capture the flood waters in irrigation basins and grew crops in the black sediment; it act ed as a topsoil. Also, when it flooded the egyptian farmers were idled therefore providing a ready workforce for construction of the temples and tombs that stand still beside the Nile’s eternal waters.The Egyptians used also used the Nile River as means of transportation and trade, as well as irrigation for their crops. Thus, the Nile river made Egypt habitable nurtured its crops, carried its commerce, and shaped its beliefs.Show MoreRelatedAncient Egypt : The World s Great Civilizations967 Words   |  4 Pages23:10, â€Å"Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set ... Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless.† 　　　　　Back into the ancient Egypt , in order to divide the land and show who owned which part, those large stones were used as landmarks by most of peoples to divide the land. 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Hbs Jetblue Airlines Managing Growth Free Essays

Analyzing each of these areas we recommend that Getable Implement (A) a new employee selection strategy, (B) a formalized training program, and (C) a reference management system to continue fostering employee autonomy and motivation. II. Analysis Stable’s rapid growth presents a potentially costly problem. We will write a custom essay sample on Hbs: Jetblue Airlines Managing Growth or any similar topic only for you Order Now In terms of strategy, Getable avoids the common airline problem with unions by investing heavily in (1) selection, (2) culture, and (3) systems, areas in which it can grant employee autonomy and foster motivation. While this strategy works currently, these areas do not have the fundamental Institutions to survive the company’s growth. People: employee selection and hiring: Currently, Getable constructs highly motivated teams using both n in-depth selection process and role customization. Stable’s human resources (HRS) department uses behavioral interviews, where all interviewers reach consensus, to determine applicant cultural fit and value alignment. By closely controlling employee quality and fit, Getable can offer employees significant autonomy and fulfill their higher order â€Å"esteem† needs. In addition, Getable developed customized compensation, benefits, and work structures per role that align with each group’s respective desires. The hiring and compensation structures have two main results: 1 ) Jet Blue can attract top talent that matches the organization and (2) the company reinforces overall fairness by tailoring each role. While currently successful, Stable’s hiring process is a hindrance to its continued growth as it is not scalable. Getable will Increase its workforce 400% in a limited timeshare to meet Its internal growth targets. The current selection process will fall because Getable does not have the HRS resources or time to personally interview all applicants multiple times. If Getable maintains its current hiring practices, it risks losing quality employees and grunting the fairness and autonomy that it currently offers. Culture through values, employees, and approachability: Stable’s value-centric, employee focused, and approachable culture motivates employees, attracts talent, differentiates the firm, and enforces the company’s values. First, the company establishes culture by focusing on values. Stable’s top management locked themselves in a New York hotel and defined the company’s core values that align with Its strategy and culture. These values gulled Stable’s hiring, strategy, dally operations, and employee evaluation. Second, Getable focuses on meeting employee needs. Through customized and 1 OFF clear signals that employees are a priority and treated fairly. Third, the management is approachable to all employees. Stories of David Melanin, CEO, working as flight attendant and responding directly to crew member suggestions, or Dave Barge, COO, staying on the plane with his family helping the cleanup crew were famous among employees. These actions reinforce that coaches and teams work in a fair â€Å"find a team solution† environment instead of â€Å"pointing fingers† culture visible in other airlines. The combination of clear values, employee focus, and management approachability gives Getable a culture that motivates employees through visible fairness and clear expectations. While Stable’s culture has succeeded, it lacks more formal embedding mechanisms to survive substantial growth and prevent cultural dilution. Stable’s current culture practices require a method by which to formally spread and reinforce the norms to all new and existing employees as the company expands. If Getable fails to sustain its culture, it risks compromising employee motivation and, as a result, its mechanisms that prevent unionization. Performance systems: To deliver low-fare airline tickets to customers, Getable uses genealogy to cut operating costs. Stable’s â€Å"paperless environment† not only saves paper and resources, but also is a motivating factor. Each pilot’s laptop computer allows him to eliminate monotonous work required for pre-flight checks and further focus on his Job, helping satisfy his need for interesting work. While technological systems help Getable develop a competitive advantage, their employee performance management systems are limited. Currently, Getable â€Å"coaches† review workers’ performance informally along the company’s five values. Because the company does not have more explicit expectations, the procedures risk Ewing perceived as unfair. As the company grows it must explicitly correlate performance to expectations to continue motivating employees. Ill. Recommendations We recommend a multi-faceted and integrated solution that addresses Stable’s scalability problems regarding their people, culture, and systems. First, we recommend that Getable use metrics and refine its hiring process. Second, we recommend that Getable pursue a formal training program. Third, we recommend that Getable construct a formal performance management system. Institute a performance metrics hiring selection process: We recommend using two online tests hat identify interpretable candidates. The first test will use multiple choice and review an individual’s personality against Stable’s five core values. The second test is role-specific and measures each individual’s work skills. Getable will then interview candidates that perform well on both tests only once. Getable can compare test results with career success and identify desirable characteristics from testing. This process will simultaneously (a) speed hiring practices, (b) significantly reduce costs associated with a talent search, and (c) improve employee fit while meeting workforce deeds. This improved efficiency will allow Getable to continue offering employees significant autonomy as the company grows. A potential hurdle is that individuals may attempt to cheat the tests. We contend this will not be a major problem. These individuals will either not pass the interview round, be terminated quickly, or potentially absorb the Getable culture through the training. Construct a formal management and new employees engage in mandatory â€Å"core training. † First, Getable must implement an all roles new hire orientation that focuses on values and the company goals. This will foster a shared company identity and create formal culture embedding. Top management involvement will reinforce that values and culture are universal from CEO to cleanup crew. Second, Getable must offer role specific training where employees are introduced to their coaches. This training will, along with teaching necessary Job skills, outline each role’s expectations, how it fits at Getable, and how each coach will help their employees develop. To ensure ongoing success, Getable should survey employees before the training about their expectations along with their feedback afterwards. Getable must then improve the program based on the feedback, further fostering a collaborative team environment. The training program ensures that Getable will reinforce company identity and embed its culture as the workforce grows. Implement a formal performance management system: We recommend that Getable adopt a formal performance management system to properly motivate employees. First, this system must formally outline each role’s expectations. This mandates that each role have both specific and accessible expectation by which coaches and peers can evaluate each other. Second, Getable must provide employees tit semi-annual â€Å"360† performance feedback. This feedback will allow both coaches and the employees’ peers to review their performance along the company values and role expectations. Third, employees must give formal feedback to both their coaches and Getable. This feedback fosters a greater company identity and helps coaches understand how to help employees. By implementing a more explicit performance management system, Getable can demonstrate fairness across employees and roles that will continue to motivate workers as the company grows. ‘V. Conclusion Stable’s competitive edge comes from its ability to discourage unionization and, s a result, it can keep costs low. Unions fulfill employee needs and culture when the parent company fails to do so. Currently, Getable uses a combination of successful selection, cultural practices, and systems to motivate employees and meet their needs; however, these will not survive Stable’s growth. To continue motivating employees through autonomy, shared identity, clear expectations, and fair practices, Getable must implement an improved hiring process, a formal training program, and a performance management system. These changes will help Getable retain its competitive edge as it expands. How to cite Hbs: Jetblue Airlines Managing Growth, Papers