Driven by the rise in penetration of mobile phones and tablets, in the past few years, it has become ineluctable for every business, to embrace mobility. Especially any business, for which success depends largely on customers’ service experiences, must have a sound mobile strategy, in alignment with the changing customer preferences.
While mobility finds its applicability across all industries, it can play an essentially critical role in the success of an insurance organization. When leveraged across the insurance value chain, mobility can yield real business value, in terms of enhanced customer satisfaction, simpler processes, and reduced cycle times and administrative costs.
Insurers can use mobile technology to establish virtual offices for their field staff, allowing them ‘anytime-anywhere’ access to relevant information, such as customer details, new policy features, policy quotes, etc. This would result in faster sales cycles and improved revenues. Using mobile applications, insurers can enable sales agents to capture customer information at the point of contact, transfer it to the central processing office in real time, and initiate the processing of applications instantly.
Customer self-service is another area where mobility can add immense value. Today, mobile phones have become a norm, and the proliferation of smartphones is witnessing unprecedented growth rates. In such a scenario, in order to retain and expand its customer-base, it becomes imperative for an insurance organization to offer self-service tools, allowing customers to access their policy information, locate agents, pay premiums and apply for claims over their mobile devices.
Owing to the benefits that it promises to insurers, the case for adoption of mobile solutions is very strong. However, before an insurer invests in mobile solutions, it is important to outline a sound mobile strategy based on its specific requirements, in order to maximize the benefits of mobility.
Bio: Garima is part of the Marketing team at Newgen Software.
It took me exactly a day to write this blog. In the same time the following happened.
1. 1 billion pieces of content were added to Facebook.
2. Zynga processed 1 petabyte of content for players, a volume of data that is unmatched in the social game industry.
3. More than 1 billion searches were performed only on Twitter
4. More than 2 billion videos were watched on YouTube
That is not all. According to IBM, every day we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data. That is a unit of data I never thought existed even in the dictionary and for me an Urban Legend so to speak. The amount of data created each day has increased to such levels that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. This data is big data. An understatement to say the least.
Big Data will be of no use till the time it remains Data. The Big Data needs to be converted to Big Information.
The term Big Data is used to describe voluminous amount of unstructured and semi-structured data a company creates — data that would take too much time and cost too much money to load into a relational database for analysis.
So how do we manage the so called “big data“? What is the objective of managing it? What is the expected outcome of this extremely tedious exercise? The massive size of Big Data goes beyond the ability of average database software tools to capture, store, manage, and analyze them effectively.
Bill Hoggarth, speaker at the ITWeb BPM Summit, says “Unlike any other IT catchphrase, big data is here to stay because it’s being led and sponsored by business thought leaders.” From a BPM perspective, he also adds “It’s not so much how BPM helps with addressing big data, but rather how big data helps to address BPM challenges”. As companies shift towards more customer-centric approaches to managing their business, they are looking for frameworks to manage their business processes that can actually predict customer behavior.
Organizations have increasingly started thinking in terms of business processes rather than individual applications. The combination of BPM and advanced analytics tools that have ready access to massive amounts of data creates intriguing possibilities that could serve to automate any number of business functions.
Senior Management want businesses run on data-driven decisions. They want scenarios and simulations that provide immediate guidance on the best actions to take when disruption occur, disruptions ranging from unexpected competitors or an earthquake in a supply zone to a customer signaling a desire to switch providers. Management wants to understand optimal solutions based on complex business parameters or new information, and they want to take action quickly.
Of course, many business executives have been reluctant to attempt to automate many of the processes for fear that the data those decisions are being made on is either incorrect or incomplete. But as the volume of data for those decisions increases, the confidence in those decisions increases because the level of extrapolation being made based on the available data is significantly less.
It’ll be interesting to see what impact Big Data ultimately has on BPM adoption or vice versa. It is of utmost importance they complement each other to contribute to the growth of the organization. It is not just a matter of what came first – The egg or the chicken.
Name: Swapnil
Bio: Swapnil is part of Newgen's Presales team, working for the company's Regional Office in Mumbai.
In my previous article, titled ‘From Banks to Financial Supermarkets’, I have mentioned about the strategies banks are following these days and projecting themselves as financial supermarkets- one stop shop for all financial needs; be it opening of CASA, home loan, personal loan, credit card, bank assurance, or mutual funds.
There is one more way of looking at the term “Financial Supermarket”. The word Supermarket signifies multiple products from multiple brands made available under a single roof. Now let’s see how the concept of Supermarket translates to Financial Services. A Financial Supermarket means all financial products from different vendors made available under the same roof. Today’s customer is very aware and makes his financial decisions after evaluating several options. He may want a credit card from one bank and an insurance solution from another. In such a case to get a complete control of a customer’s portfolio or to create a loyal customer base, a bank can tie up with other Financial Services vendors and earn huge commissions. For e.g. XYZ, a leading bank in India, that offers all banking products ties up with ABC Insurance Company and adds ABC’s products also in its portfolio. Following a similar approach, a bank can tie up with several financial services vendors. This will not only add variety to the banks portfolio but also result in increased revenues.
However, to adopt this concept of Financial Supermarkets, banks need to have a very strong back office, or a ‘Process Factory’- BPM platform above Core, which can take the entire processing load from the front office staff, thus giving them an opportunity to concentrate on sales and customer service.
Name: Neeraj
Bio: Neeraj Koli is part of the Global Business Development team at Newgen, and is responsible for the APAC Banking market.
Traditionally, small parts of a process (work-step/s) have been performed by different workers who add some value at each work-step. However, increasing automation has led to reducing of the repetitive work and work-steps involve very little value addition from each worker. To keep work interesting and meaningful for a knowledge worker, and to enhance efficiencies, each knowledge worker is expected to perform the task end-to-end. This requires knowledge workers to collaborate in both structured and ad-hoc manner depending on how the case shapes up. Typical “case management” application areas include a benefits claim processing, an investigation by a government agency or a loan request processing.
“Case Management” includes usage of content, collaboration and support for dynamic work allocation. Within such cases, exceptions are unpredictable and rather become the norm. Such “ cases” can only be visualized and modeled into a process after they are completed. Therefore, to successfully manage the “Case”, along with the Content Management tools, the information worker also requires social/collaboration tools for the ad hoc work, and tools like BPM, and business rules for managing structured work.
Bio: Rohit Thakur is Senior Manager-Marketing, at Newgen Software
The demands on the Finance and Accounting (F&A) function in business organizations are significant, with constant pressures to achieve process compliance and increase business efficiency and agility, while also driving down transactional costs.
As a result, finance operations demand a transformational approach with higher automation, better process visibility and enhanced business agility. A Business Process Management (BPM) solution is the right tool for finance functions seeking not just cost savings but also process efficiencies and compliance, as well as improved management reporting. BPM enables business organizations to model, automate, manage, and optimize their F&A procedures.
Newgen’s BPM-based F&A solutions help clients overcome the problems posed by manual systems, by enabling continuous streamlining of processes in order to improve efficiency, control, compliance, and risk mitigation, to meet the challenges of a highly volatile business environment.
Newgen’s BPM suite has been recognized by top analyst firms. Two Newgen clients- Unilever and Future Group were declared winners of the 2011 Excellence Awards for Finance & Accounting (F&A) Transformation through Shared Services. While Unilever Shared Service (erstwhile Indigo) was recognized under the category of Excellence in Servicing Clients in the Sub-continent, the Future Group Shared Service won the award for Excellence in Strategy towards Financial Transformation.
Newgen’s solutions are designed to automate a wide range of F&A processes, such as accounts payables, receivables and fixed assets, general ledger and policy owner servicing, etc. Newgen helps clients to improve operational effectiveness while allowing them to leverage their existing technology investments. Business benefits delivered to the client by Newgen’s F&A solutions include:
Bio: Garima is part of the Marketing team at Newgen Software.
With increased focus on transparency, compliances and better services within a specified period of time, more and more government departments are realizing the need for investing in their IT Infrastructure. Government departments, specially the customer centric ones, such as Transport, Health, Passport, and MNREGA, are constantly faced with an uphill task of managing huge volumes of documents and processes. These departments need a system that can help them deliver citizen centric services to the people at a faster pace, with improved transparency and accountability.
Large public sector enterprises have already taken steps towards embracing e-Governance and Digitization. There are examples of organizations such as DMRC – very recently they have adopted a SaaS-based Document Management System, seeing digitization as the need of the Hour.
There are multiple other examples where Newgen has helped organization such as Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Gujarat Industries Power Company Ltd, Madhya Pradesh Transport Department, Estate Office Chandigarh, Gujarat State Fertilizers and Chemicals, LIC of India, and many public sector banks to realize their objective of a ‘Less Paper Office’ through its award winning end to end document management and process automation solutions.
If technology has enabled us to go paperless and achieve better governance there is no reason why organizations should not go with it.
Name: Neeraj Bio: Neeraj Koli is part of the Global Business Development team at Newgen, and is responsible for the APAC Banking market.
Last night I participated in a webinar titled “Banking Transformation Needs Smart Automation”. The webinar highlighted BPM and ECM as catalysts for financial services transformation and how business benefits could be accrued from their implementation. The speakers included Derek Miers, Principal Analyst of Forrester Research and Mridul Sharma, Senior Vice President, Solution Delivery Team, IndusInd Bank and Ritesh Verma, Head, CoE Banking Practice.
Mr. Derek Miers talked about “Driving Transformation in Financial Services.” He began by stating that most organizations today are in the midst of one of the most disruptive shifts in economic history. The shift has been from producers and those who hold capital to consumers. Consumers he said had a plethora of choices today and even more so in the finance and banking industry. He went on discuss the gradual transition from the way banking services were delivered on paper to the 360 degree approach that is followed today. He stressed on the fact that since customers had so many choices, the greatest differentiator was how customer experience was delivered to customers. If customers were dissatisfied, they would invariably jump ship. To keep in tune with customer needs, organizations had to evolve and transform themselves. Mr. Miers spoke about how processes were at the center of this transformation from Traditional Line Management to Processes and Services Management. He argued that this did not warrant a Band-aid approach where specific systems or parts of the organization were changed but more like a “Wellness Program” which brings overall vitality, rejuvenation and business transformation. He felt that customer centricity should become the default behavior of the organization and especially its front line.
This approach reminded me of the term “Big Process” that I read in an article by Connie Moore titled “Embrace Big Process Thinking” where she said, “Big Process is when senior-most business and technology leaders embrace business process change by shifting the organization’s focus from isolated BPM and process improvement projects to a sustainable, enterprise-wide business process transformation program that is then supported and driven by top executives.” I think this aligns perfectly with what Derek was trying to explain.
Derek went on to elaborate on how organizations should build their transformation plan by focusing on outcomes and working backwards to the processes it needs to deliver that outcome. He concluded by highlighting that organizations should look at this as an opportunity to shine and take the lead rather than waiting for change to happen.
Mridul Sharma then took the speaker’s role and discussed how Newgen’s BPM solution helped the bank to improve processes, reduce turn-around-times, foster transparency and lay the foundation for a paperless and green office.
Ritesh Verma concluded the presentation session by discussing Newgen’s capabilities in BPM and ECM and stressing on how Newgen is in the business of transforming banks. He went on to point out how Newgen has become a key enabler for fast growing banks. He also enumerated the company’s achievements in the BFS industry and its pedigree of 850+ installations across 45 countries. He concluded by showcasing the number of clients Newgen has worked with and how it has helped 119 banks across the globe to achieve their business goals.
The webinar was wrapped up by a Question and Answer round where participants interacted with the key speakers.
Name: Imroz Adeeb
Bio: Imroz is Associate Manager - Corporate Communications at Newgen Software.
Information sharing is a process through which team members collectively utilize their available informational knowledge/resources and make it available to their peers for a mutual learning experience. With the ever increasing demands to fulfilling business needs it becomes extremely important to stay ready and face any business challenge with relative ease. The situation gave us an idea to create a platform for peer Newgenites and it embarks the birth of Newgen Brown Bag Club.
What is Brown Bag?
Brown bag is a symbol for meals brought along by the attendees, or provided by the host. In the most part of the world, those are often packed in brown paper bags.
Brown Bag Session:
A brown bag seminar, session or lunch is generally a training or information session during a lunch break or during a non productive hour. Brown bag seminars normally run an hour or two. The aim is to use regular breaks, e.g. the lunch break, to share some information amongst the attendees in a voluntary and informal setting. It is often followed by a discussion on the topic. This is an interesting medium for knowledge management and internal communications.
Brown Bag Club Vision:
To create a platform for knowledge and information sharing amongst peer Newgenites.
To allow them to grow horizontally and vertically in all Newgen involved domains and practices.
To make the brown bag club reach at a level where it can be used by the peer Sales and Pre-sales teams to allow Clients/Prospective clients have a strong reference.
Objectives of the Club Sessions:
1. Creating an environment of peer learning
2. To share, what all information any member have on any domain and/or any process
3. To debate on the concepts, brushing your workflow processes, discuss about an upcoming product/technology/business and anything or everything
4. To polish your ideas on implementation, delivery methods etc
5. To improve the project management skills
6. To improve the communication skills of the members
7. To improve the inter-personal skills of the members
8. To create a knowledge vault of information
Outcomes/Benefits of the Club Sessions:
1. To deliver a much refined process workflow for Newgen Customers
2. Debating will clear the concepts and would invite fresh ideas and methodologies to polish up work
3. To learn about various domains and industries, this would allow the members to bridge any gap with ease
4. To expand horizontally and vertically across Newgen products and industries
5. Better customer facing and presentation skills
6. Information archival for future
Brown Bag Session – Conducting Procedure
1. Finalize the topic voluntarily between the members / Invite someone outside of the club to present
2. Finalize the date and time
3. Discuss about the expectations of the members for the incoming session
4. Share the expectations with the presenter
5. Ice Breaking – Member nomination
6. Session/Discussion
7. Information archival for future use. (Archive articles, White Papers, Case Studies, PPTs etc. )
Brown Bag Club Moderators:
• Sumit Sahdev
• Sumit Aggarwal
• Ranjan Kumar
• Sparsh Arora
• Gagandeep Madan
Brown Bag Session Schedule:
| S.No. | Topic | Presenter | Domain | Date | Time | Venue |
| 1 | Newgen Brown Bag Club | Sumit Sahdev | General | 5-Jan-12 | 2:30-2:40 PM | D152 Conf room |
| 2 | SWIFT | Sumit Aggarwal | Banking | 5-Jan-12 | 2:40-3:30 PM | D152 Conf room |
| 3 | Insurance | Sparsh Arora | Insurance | 5-Jan-12 | 12:30-1:30 PM | VC Carpet Room |
Creating software from business requirements or walking on the water is very easy if both are frozen. No doubt one of the major challenges software companies face is to manage change during the coding phase. A good number of linear and iterative software development model concepts are available in the market. Even though these orthodox Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) models have good success rates of providing satisfactory software solutions, most of them fail to provide the solution in time.
More often than not, this happens because of the unforeseen changes or the new requirements which were not included in the requirement documents. Also, this kind of change requests make the entire project susceptible to potential risks as the partially built software may decline the newly suggested changes which are technically infeasible.
Unlike any other software, a BPM software solution always expects to have a lot of change requests during the coding phase. In fact, it will not be an exaggeration to say that the change requests during the implementation phase, best capture all the non-functional requirements for any BPM solution. A BPM solution never works in silos and on the contrary it gets all the individual business systems together on a single platform so that they can work collaboratively. Extensive integrations, rich GUI, user-friendly look and feel, adherence to branding guidelines on the screen (fonts, logos etc.) are some of the requirements which usually come up during the implementation phase. Now this is a challenge for all the BPM vendors and implementers to welcome all those changes and incorporate them in the solution without extending the project delivery time.
All the top notch BPM tools, available in the market are already over saturated with functionalities and features.
So, the discriminating factor between any two leading BPM vendors is not the BPM tool kit any more but their capability to implement the BPM solution in lesser time by addressing all the last minute changes.
All the BPM vendors use their own techniques and procedures for implementation. Newgen Software is not an exception. We have started using the Prototyping model for the BPM solution development which is by the way the most praised and the least followed method across the globe. Prototyping is highly praised because it ensures faster project delivery than any other methods and is least followed because it demands incorporating the continuously evolving solution requirements while developing the solution. The solution developed with available requirements is shown to the client for feedback. The client usually gets an early idea of how the solution will look like in real. Client feedback forms the basis for the requirements for the second version of the solution. After a number of iterations between the client and the development team, the solution becomes ready to be deployed. However, the process is not as easy as it sounds. It requires extensive domain knowledge of developing same kind of business solutions which bring the efforts to perfection in quick time.
Newgen has its ingenious methods and approaches for the prototyping model. Very recently, we have used this technique successfully for a leading European bank. We have fully automated 7 processes in 18 months and the solution has been deployed across 3 countries with 3 separate document management system implementation. So, the Newgen’s Prototyping model speaks for itself. Below is a generic overview of the model:
By using the Prototyping model, allows Newgen to design and release the 1st level of BPM solution without doing any custom coding. The entire deployment is completed in 3 levels.
Level 1- In the first level, the processes are designed as per the Function Specification Diagram (FSD) prepared for the project. Designing process does not include any kind of coding and is built upon the core functionality available within the product. Level -1 includes the following tasks:
First level usually takes 2 weeks time to implement the solution.
Level 2- In the second level, the validation check is provided. Level -2 includes the following tasks:
The 2nd level usually takes 2-4 weeks of time
Level 3- In the last level, all the integrations with external business systems are done. Depending upon the complexity, the last level takes 3-5 weeks of time.
The level-1 implementation is done by using the extensive domain knowledge that Newgen has on different verticals like Banking, Insurances, Financial Institutions, BPOs, SSCs, Telecom, and Government with the wide range of features available in the BPM suite. So, as soon as the level-1 implementation is over, it can be moved to the production site and the client can start using the BPM solution instantly. That happened with the European bank. The users’ feedback on the level-1 system was used to make improvements for the 2nd level. This innovative implementation approach results into the following benefits:
Bio: Sandipan Chakraborty is part of the Marketing Team at Newgen.
In order to capitalize on the growing market opportunities and mitigate potential risks, businesses need to follow the rule of thumb – ‘Sound business processes are the backbone of a business’. This looks like a simple rule, but when brought into practice turns out to be a rather abstruse proposition owing to the fact that the very definition of a ‘sound business process’ keeps changing continuously. Change is the order of the day, and only processes that adapt and respond quickly to changing market requirements, deliver sustainable business advantages. This ability of a business to identify change and to respond quickly to it is termed as business agility.
Now that we understand the basic meaning of business agility, the challenge before us is to understand not only how to achieve the threshold business agility to rise above competition, but also how to maintain that competitive edge. The solution is obvious – incorporate business agility into the very nature of your business processes.
Dynamic processes, capable of reacting and adapting to an ever-changing business environment, can be achieved by underpinning business processes with an efficient Business Process Management (BPM) platform. BPM is essentially a strategic management discipline aimed at continuously improving processes spanning business functions, bringing about the much needed visibility, and agility to facilitate business innovation. Further, the Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) component of BPM enables better control over process output and extensive process performance reporting. To sum up, BPM combines technology with strategic management practices to address changes in real time with minimal IT efforts and thus drives business agility.
Bio: Garima is part of the Marketing team at Newgen Software.
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