Actionable ECM Blog

This write-up details how documents can easily be scanned into the Alfresco document management system. The InstaCapture Advantage with Alfresco connector is being used in this scenario to provide a distributed scanning and indexing capability in addition to being able to release documents into Alfresco.

The write-up has 2 parts.

1. Configuring InstaCapture for Scanning & Indexing
2. Configuring iConnect for Alfresco

Terms used

Document: Documents are a logical collection of scanned pages that pertain to specific process and that may contain one or more pages.

Batch: A batch is a set of business documents that are typically scanned together as a logical collection. It typically contains related documents that pertain to a business process. For e.g. an Invoice Batch may have Purchase Order, set of Invoices, Delivery Receipts, Scanned copies of Cheques and any other Supporting Documents.

Pages: Pages put together form a document in a batch.

Properties: Properties or metadata are used to index or reference a batch or document. They are used to logically classify them for search and retrieval. A batch or a document may have one or more properties.

Setup

The first step in the setup is to define the structures of the documents and batches that will be scanned using the InstaCapture Configuration utility. This involves:

1. Creating properties and assigning them to documents and batches.
2. Selecting document recognition mechanisms and assigning them to the newly created document types. There are three such methods for recognition:

• Position : The documents can be recognized by their position in a batch.
• Barcode : A barcode can be specified to distinguish a document.
• ADR : Automatic Document Recognition uses templates to recognize documents. ADR is used only when the documents to be recognized are of uniform structure and form.

3. Selecting the batch recognition mechanism which can be either manual or using barcodes. Commit the batch after the configuration changes.

Scan

Once the configuration is complete, we can go on to the scan step. First a scan profile has to be created which specifies the scanner to be used, the format of the image, the desired brightness, contrast, paper-size, dpi etc. One or more profiles may be created and a default profile set as well. Once the profile is set, scanning can begin.

Batches can be scanned using the batch scan option or by explicitly creating a new batch of the desired type and then scanning documents into the batch. Once batches are scanned, they can be sent to the next step which is separation.

Separate

Documents are separated automatically during this step. Separation is the process by which the scanned pages are identified with the documents to which they are associated. This is based on the Document Recognition mechanism specified while setting up the Batches and Document Types. If any error occurs, separation can switch to the manual mode. The separated documents are then sent on to the indexing stage.

Index

The documents can then be indexed by entering the values for the properties. Indexing can be set to automatic by configuring index zones for zonal OCR and mapping them to their respective properties. If the documents are not structured uniformly however, manual indexing is preferable. After completion of indexing, the documents are moved into Alfresco Repository.

Part 2

IntrospeQt Alfresco Connector is responsible for integration of InstaCapture with the Alfresco document management system. The entire system is a distributed one where scanning can be done at one station, indexing at another and the connector to Alfresco installed in yet another. It is therefore an ideal solution for large companies that are situated across various locations geographically.

The Connector consists of a configuration module called iConfig.Alfresco and a release module called iConnect.Alfresco.

iConfig.Alfresco

iConfig is a simple application used to configure the connection between InstaCapture and Alfresco. It is designed to:

• Configure and connect to Alfresco server and release location
• Extract existing document types and associated meta-data from Alfresco and provide a mapping tool to map them to InstaCapture index properties.
• Perform connection testing to ensure connectivity for successful document transfer.  

Alfresco release configuration 

The first step is to set the parameters for the Alfresco release configuration as shown in the figure. To do so, follow the steps detailed below: 

1. Enter the connection settings

• Alfresco URL: Specify the server URL.
• User Name: Enter the user name.
• Password: Enter the password.

      2.   Enter  Batch Release Settings

• Release Every: Specify the intervals between releases.

Select the check box ‘Delete batches after successful release’ if the InstaCapture repository is to be cleared of records on release to Alfresco.

     3.    Click ‘Save’ to save the settings.

     4.    Click ‘Connect’ to test the connectivity to the Alfresco server.

     5.    Once the connection is successful, the Document Mapping Tab appears. If the connection is unsuccessful, a message pops up asking the user to verify the server parameters.  

Document Mapping

The second step in the configuration process is to set up the document mapping to Alfresco. To do so, follow the steps detailed below:

1. In the Document Mapping Console, select the InstaCapture Document Type to be mapped from the list of existing types.

      2.     To map the InstaCapture document type to an Alfresco Document type, select the appropriate document type from the drop down list provided from Alfresco.

      3.    Click ‘Map to add the document type.

     4.    The user can also import the Alfresco document type to create the InstaCapture document type.

     5.    The document mapping is complete and displayed under the ‘Document Class’ column of the table. Click ‘Remove’ to remove any mapping.

Property Mapping

The last step in the configuration process is to set up the property mapping to Alfresco. To do so follow the steps detailed below:

1. In the Property Mapping console, select the relevant InstaCapture Document Type to be mapped. This will display all the properties related to the selected document type. 
2. From the available Alfresco properties, select the appropriate property to be mapped.
3. Select the appropriate row from the listed rows of InstaCapture document properties.
4. Click ‘Map’ to add the mapping.

     5.    The mapping is displayed for the relevant document property. Click ‘Remove’ to remove any mapping.

Document Release Attributes

The release attributes specify the release format, release folder and document naming conventions. To set these attributes:

1. Select the required release format to Alfresco. The options are ‘TIF’ and ‘PDF’. The ‘PDF’ released to Alfresco is searchable.

     2.    Enter the appropriate ‘Release Folder’ name. This folder needs to be an existing one in the Alfresco server – it needs to be a space under the company root space.

      3.    To set-up an appropriate naming convention for documents released to Alfresco, select the relevant expressions from the drop down and concatenate as required or type in text into the ‘Name Expression’ field.

     4.    Click ‘Save’ to save the settings.

iConnect Alfresco

iConnect Alfresco is a simple module to release documents to Alfresco and view the release statistics. No configuration is required. 

1. Click on ‘Release Documents’ to initiate the release of documents. Once this application is started it will run as a tray application releasing documents to the Alfresco server. The log displayed will highlight success or error in releasing the batches to Alfresco along with the date and time stamps.

Click on ‘Release Statistics’ to view the statistics and reports on the batch release. This will display a detailed report on the release statistics.     

Once the scanned and indexed documents are released to Alfresco, they can be processed further if required. Thus the entire operation from scan to storage in Alfresco is seamless and highly efficient. With this set up in place, organizations can easily capture, securely transfer, store and access scanned documents from Alfresco.

Part 1

Over the years I have lead numerous FileNet implementations in India, in recent times have noticed a growing emphasis especially from FileNet customers that the developers / administrators / installers / designers supplied by vendors are FileNet certified. This of course is completely warranted, the motivation behind this, as is with any other demand for certified professionals, is that novices do not and should not build enterprise systems.  It also makes sense with products such as FileNet; each layer of the stack involves considerable complexity and multiple technologies from an installation and maintenance perspective. IBM recognizes this and mandates that  person(s) installing FileNet 4.X in a production environment be a certified FileNet installer. This is to ensure that the installer has sufficient understanding of the hardware and software configurations required to perform the installation task.

So, how does one become a certified FileNet installer? Where do you start?  I have outlined below a simple roadmap based on my recent experience with the FileNet 4.5 Installation Certification.

To become an IBM certified FileNet installer, the first step is to attend a FileNet Installation training (Classroom or Instructor led online course). As a part of this course, there will be a minimum of 2 instructor-led installations done in different configurations (mix of App servers, databases, OS and LDAP providers) during the first 4 days. On the 5th day, the participant will have to chose a configuration and perform the installation without any help from instructor. Once the participant completes, the instructor verifies the installation and a key will be provided to the participant to take the online exam. The participant will have to go to IBM FileNet Certification web site, provide this key and take an online exam to complete the certification. However, the last activity (online exam) will not be the part of the 5 day program. This has to be taken whenever the participant feels he is ready to take it.

As a part of IBM FileNet P8 Platform Installation 4.5 course one needs to do at least 2 of the below mentioned configurations.
Config 1
Application Server – WebSphere 6.1.X
Database – SQL Server 2005
LDAP Provider – Microsoft Active Directory
CE 4.5 on Windows 2003 Server & WAS 6.1.X
PE 4.5 on Windows 2003 Server
AE 4.5 on SuSE Linux Server & WAS 6.1.X

Config 2
Application Server – WebSphere 6.1.X
Database – Oracle 11i
LDAP Provider – Novell eDirectory
CE 4.5 on SuSE Linux & WAS 6.1.X
PE 4.5 on Windows 2003 Server
AE 4.5 on Windows 2003 Server & WAS 6.1.X

Config 3 (Included in the course but done only if there is time)
Application Server – WebSphere 6.1.X
Database – DB2 9.1.X
LDAP Provider – IBM Tivoli Directory Service
CE 4.5 on Windows 2003 Server & WAS 6.1.X
PE 4.5 on Windows 2003 Server
AE 4.5 on SuSE Linux Server & WAS 6.1.X

During the earlier FileNet 4.0 trainings, we had the option of choosing WebLogic configuration on Windows or Linux. In FileNet 4.5, the focus has shifted more onto WAS 6.1.X (understandably) as it is being bundled with CM / BPM licenses. So, in all the configurations, you will end up deploying CE and AE on WAS 6.1.X. However, WebLogic and JBoss are supported and FileNet 4.5 can run on these two application servers also.As far as the online exam is concerned, there will be 30 multiple choice questions, 90 minutes and you need to score 80% or above to complete the certification.

So all you folks out there interested in expanding your expertise in the FileNet domain, version 4.5 is the latest version and it makes sense to get started with this to stay ahead in the game. Good luck and look forward to hearing about your experiences!

Enterprise Content Management and Business Process Management are not merely IT projects. Ascending on an ECM/BPM path requires meticulous planning, execution, and measurement. For all stakeholders, it is essential to internalize that such an initiative will definitely alter the way the organization executes its business, positively.

ECM/BPM is about business transformation. It is about aligning people, process, and content with business priorities. So, it is essential for an organization to define how this alignment can be achieved. Any organization that is serious about content and process management must define an ECM/BPM program.

ECM/BPM Program

A program is mandatory for any organization contemplating ECM/BPM. Putting a program in place does not mean that the organization should look at executing the program in a massive way. The organization need not, and in many cases should not, proceed with a big bang approach to ECM/BPM. At the same time, projects should not be executed in isolation thus creating silos within the organization. Defining a program helps the organization in setting the direction of the ECM/BPM journey. Even if the execution approach is small and tactical, a program will let the organization align such steps in the same strategic direction.

An ECM/BPM program involves four steps:
• Articulating the objectives
• Planning
• Executing the plan
• Measuring the program itself

Objectives

It is essential that the organization understand what the objectives of this program be. Such a program will be deemed to fail unless there is buy-in from all key stake holders in the organization. The top management, functional heads, line managers, and all employees of the organization should be prepared well for the change and its benefits.

The commonly achieved benefits of such a program are:
• Improved organizational efficiency and effectiveness
• Better control of the operations
• Increased collaboration between functions
• Better customer satisfaction levels
• Ability to scale up operations better
• Cost reduction

While all or many of these benefits can be achieved in an ECM/BPM program, it is paramount to identify the primary potential benefits. The goal for potential benefits is unique for an organization, so the first step of such a program is to identify them. The most important potential benefits will be the objectives of the program.

Defining the objectives will be an exercise where representatives from all key stakeholders participate. Potential benefits can be defined only if current pain points are enumerated and analyzed. This is a vital exercise since a solution cannot be arrived at before understanding the problem in detail.

The outcome of this step will be clearly articulated organizational objectives for the ECM/BPM program that are endorsed and internalized by the key stakeholders.

Planning

The previous step defined what the program will bring to the organization. The planning step will define how the objectives will be met, who will make it happen, when and where the benefits can be realized.

The first step will be to put together a team who will manage and monitor the planning and execution of the program. The proposed team should have representation from the top management, business units, user community, information technology, compliance group, and other support functions.

This phase will flush out more details about the individual group pain points and areas of improvements. Besides, the step will define tactical and strategic approaches in dealing with the problems in hand. The most significant part of the planning process is to put together a potential organization-wide roadmap for achieving the objectives.

The last priority for the planning phase will be to prioritize the tactical initiatives that are achievable in the shorter timeframe and identify potential execution plans.

Execution

The execution phase will focus on identified and approved tactical plans. It will involve looking at these tactical plans, defining the problems in detail, identifying potential solution, identifying necessary technological improvements, getting internal or external teams to bring execution capabilities, and finally carrying out solution projects.

Execution phase is a long-term process and will involve a multitude of internal teams, technologies, vendors, and administrative functions. The program team will play a significant role in this phase to ensure that each tactical plan execution is fully aligned with the organizational objectives defined for the program.

Measurement

The most important and the most neglected step in an enterprise wide program is measuring. An organization should have a clear understanding of the ROI (Return On Investment) at every step of the program. ROI is nothing but a quantification of the objectives. Objectives are easy to enumerate, but difficult to quantify. In most cases, measurement and monitoring are lost in the execution step.

The program team will need to define measurable matrices for each tactical plan. These parameters are to be reviewed during and after the execution of the tactical plan. The findings are then to be incorporated into future tactical plan execution and approvals. This will ensure that the ROIs are accrued in the right direction throughout the program.

SharePoint is a huge success story for Microsoft. No other product from their stack in recent history had evoked such overwhelming responses from users worldwide. It solves the problem it was created to solve exceptionally well. Move content away from shared folders. Along come the cool collaboration features – shared document libraries, calendars, meeting sites, tasks, announcements, workflows etc. etc. WSS by itself gives an organization enough features to build a highly collaborative Intranet. And that too for free!

Upgrade to MOSS and you get browser based InfoPath forms, advanced search capabilities, IRM (Information Rights Management), Records Management Analytics and far too many more features. To be honest, the list is comparable to any leading ECM/BPM product out there. It is a salesman’s delight. It ticks at least as much features as a FileNet or a Documentum in an ECM/BPM questionnaire. And it costs way lower than what an IBM or EMC would quote for a similar set of requirements. Great stuff!

Unfortunately, the devil is in the details. SharePoint thrives in a very simplistic world. One can build a simple form based workflow in minutes with SharePoint and InfoPath. The catch here is that the workflow has to be simple (I mean very simple) and linear. What one need to do is to build a simple form template in InfoPath and publish to a document/form library in SharePoint and create a workflow using SharePoint Designer (This is also free!)

But real life is not that simple. If one has to build an expense approval workflow that resembles reality, life gets complicated (I mean very complicated). Let us look at a sample scenario like the one below:
- User fills an expense report form
- Attaches supporting documents
- On submit of the form, it is sent to the user’s manager for approval
- The manager updates some of the form information, adds/modifies the attachments, and approves/rejects the form with comments

To make the solution easier, let us assume that MOSS and InfoPath are used. Even then, to create the workflow one needs good amount of SharePoint and InfoPath programming knowledge. As far as I know, you can’t get this done without writing .Net code or using third party components.

One of the issues that the programmer would stumble upon is with attachments. InfoPath forms embed the attachment files inside the form making them inaccessible to SharePoint workflows. So, some amount of InfoPath code has to be written to extract the attachments and save them to SharePoint document libraries. The workflow has to be created with Visual Studio by a programmer and not with SharePoint Designer by an analyst since custom programming is involved. The other major issue is creating workflow tasks for the user’s manager. Finding the user’s manager from Active Directory will need some code effort. And the most important of them all, propagating the form information to the workflow task would require abundant amounts of thoughts, patience, and creativity. Only expert programmers can handle it.

So, it is not easy to implement a very simple real life scenario in SharePoint. But it is not impossible. Using SharePoint for ECM/BPM needs will require skilled implementers. That’s all! Let us hope that Microsoft will make SharePoint 2010 a better ECM/BPM platform.

Service 2.0 is all about the service provider getting oriented towards the customers’ business success.  So, the service basket should consist of items that are easily understood and adapted by most stakeholders at the customer organization. 

The Ingredients

I would broadly organize the ingredients into four categories:

• Building repeatable solutions
• Leverage SaaS
• Ketchup applications
• Consulting services

Repeatable solutions

The talk around repeatable solutions is not new. I know that every service provider talked about it in the past, are talking now, and will talk in the future. There are some good examples of such solutions out there. Ideally, these solution offerings should package technology, domain knowledge, and best practice usage in a healthy mix. Going forward, the vendors will increasingly interact with the business stake holders as against just the IT personnel. The pattern of the discussions will revolve more around the business benefits than just the IT skills. So, it is imperative that the vendors talk and preferably demonstrate solutions that could impress the business stakeholders. For example, selling the concepts of mortgage workflow solutions or accounts payables automation solutions will be more acceptable than the effort to impress upon the capabilities of a FileNet, Documentum or Lombardi. The technology names can be used to drive positioning advantages, but what needs to be sold is a solution for a business problem. 

SaaS

In the recent years SaaS as a delivery model gained tremendous momentum. The smaller to medium organizations embraced SaaS a lot more than their bigger counterparts. As a delivery model SaaS is here to stay, but I am not fully convinced that it will totally replace the conventional IT infrastructure in enterprises. It makes sense for some service providers to invest in a SaaS infrastructure of their own and use it as a delivery channel as well as a pre-sales tool. The benefits of SaaS as a solution delivery channel are widely discussed and accepted. As a pre-sales tool, this model holds tremendous potential as well. A potential customer of an enterprise solution can experience a solution before actually deciding on investing on the infrastructure. And this is not merely being on the other side of the table during a vendor demo, but by signing up for the service on a pilot basis for as much time as s/he wishes. This way, having a SaaS infrastructure actually locks the customer in and obviously the vendor does not have to worry about a prolonged sales cycle.

Ketchup Applications

Ketchups are consumed along with a main course dish and are used to make the consumption process better. In the software world as well, ketchup applications can be used to enhance the functionality and usability of enterprise software products. For example, a web based process analyzer reports viewer for FileNet, a scanning plug-in for Alfresco, or a TIFF viewer with annotation capabilities for SharePoint can add tremendous value to these platforms. Service 2.0 vendors can package reusable solution code into such ketchup applications to speedup implementation timeframe, gain competitive advantages during the sales process, and fill a lot of gaps that the enterprise product vendors left out. Ketchup applications can be licensed to customers along with a service assignment or separately allowing the vendor to bring in revenues independent of the service contract.

Consulting

Service 2.0 companies could focus a lot of building the technology and domain expertise and using it for consulting assignments. Technology consulting is mostly about understanding the customer’s business and coming up with a strategy for information technology applications. Many organizations engage consultants to understand and document their pain points and come up with high level solution strategies. In today’s world it is difficult to zero-in on a particular technology or vendor to solve a set of business problems. Many times customers decide on technologies or vendors based on criteria other than the best suited ones. This could be because they could get biased by vendors or pressure groups. Sometimes the required levels of competence may not exist in the customer organization to take technology decisions. Service 2.0 vendors could provide consulting services to their customers in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of technologies when it comes to solving the business problem in hand. These services will assist its customers in choosing optimal software application solutions for their business needs.

There were many discussions about IT Services 2.0 before and we have seen many definitions of the phrase. All of those are derivations of individual opinions and I don’t think there is any official definition for the concept yet. Here is my take on the next generation of IT services.

So far, the best articulated opinion I have seen is from Chris Barbin of Apprio (http://www.sandhill.com/opinion/editorial.php?id=129). While I agree with Chris on most aspects, there is an apprehension that he is limiting the scope to only SaaS based services in general, and Salesforce.com based services in particular. Here is an attempt to define IT Services 2.0 in a broader sense. It is clear that many of the thoughts presented by Chris are borrowed in this definition as well.

General Objectives

IT Services 2.0 is not too different from the erstwhile (1.0?) services in its theoretical objectives. If we were to look at both from an idealistic viewpoint, the guiding principles would look the same. The difference will primarily be in how the services are rendered and the motivations behind adhering to the objectives. The objectives recommended to be set for a 2.0 solution are:

1. Tangible business benefits to the customer
The most important objective of a Services 2.0 solution is to ensure tangible and measurable benefits to the customer’s business.  This is easier said than done. IT services companies hardly understand their customers and their business today. I don’t think we can blame these services companies because in many cases the IT departments of the customers may not have ample knowledge about the businesses their organizations are into. It is imperative that IT services companies invest in KYC (Know Your Customer) exercises throughout the engagement periods. The services company should be able to understand, articulate, deliver, and reiterate the business benefits derived out of an engagement to the customer.

2. Smaller and measurable project life cycles
In today’s scenario, customers don’t have the stomach for monolithic projects. In my opinion, the biggest positive to the IT industry from the global economic downturn will be the intolerance to very large IT initiatives. Since every investment will now be dissected and analyzed in all possible directions, it is essential to realize an ROI and that too in as little time as possible. So, individual IT projects will be looked at as 3-6 month exercises that will start yielding benefits within a maximum of 7-8 months from the initial decision point. This will enable the customers to realize the ROIs within the same budgeting year.

3. Expectations on value addition
A major requirement for a 2.0 service provider is to be savvy about the customer’s business parameters. Rather than supplying with lines of code or people who can code, these firms will be expected to provide the customers with ideas and suggestions as to how technology can help improve their business. The services firms will be expected to bring expertise and prior experience in solving the exact problem the customer is facing today.

4. “Show me” as compared to “Tell me” approach
The current approach to IT services puts a lot of thrust to tons of presentations, documents, status reports and innumerable meetings. Both the vendor and customer spend too much time and effort in communicating with each other formally with words, numbers and pictures. The thrust of the 2.0 services will be to show how things work right from the first meeting. “Show Me” as an approach will play a significant role in selling the services as well, thus reducing the sales cycle times drastically. SaaS will be a significant delivery model in 2.0 services and with the hosted approach, “Show Me” will be lot easier for the service provider to handle and the customer to comprehend.

5. Assembling instead of building
Building software from scratch is a thing of the past. Now we are surrounded with umpteen enterprise software platforms, technology frameworks, and rapid application development toolkits. Many of the current service providers make use of “reusable components” they have accumulated over a long period of time. I am talking about going to the next level of software solution preparation. This process will be carried out more by solution consultants with minimal effort from programmers. To achieve reduced turn around time for solution delivery, services companies will have to practice the art of quick solution assembly.

6. Paying for value generated and not for resources
What all these will culminate into is a significant shift in service vendors’ mindsets. Service 2.0 companies will not talk about billability of resources, will not send timesheets for customer approval, and will not look for deploying their workforce on customers’ sites on contract. Instead, the focus will be on how quickly they can get out of a customer’s active project. Billing will be based on the achieved business value generated. Most contracts will be subscription based or fixed bids.

What are the key ingredients of a successful 2.0 IT services offering? I have some thoughts on it as well. More on that topic, next time!

IT and business groups within big organizations haven’t had the best cohesion ever.  This is a much debated topic in various books, blogs, discussion forums, seminars, and workshops. The existence of such a divide is well acknowledged and accepted. Why do I want to talk about it again? I believe that many of the discussions around this topic were too theoretical. But it is time we look at the issue through a much simpler pair of lenses. It is important for this blog because, any discussion about enterprise BPM or content management will not be complete without understanding this particular issue.

Why don’t IT and business groups talk to each other in the same language? I would say, in many organizations:

• They don’t take the trouble to understand each other
• They have their own respective priorities and budgets
• There may not be anybody whose job is to ensure that these groups talk to each other
• The thinking is so compartmental that people fail to see beyond their immediate problems and tasks
• Bridging this gap is pretty lower in the priority lists of the executive management

There could be another hundred such reasons that can be enumerated. The simpler fact is, we are talking about people! They like to be in their comfort zones, as long as there are no major incentives to break through them.

Historically, companies created innumerable inefficiencies within their four walls. The hierarchies, process controls, policies and the bureaucracies associated with them hamper the smooth sailing of organizations. They could afford to ignore such issues till recently. But, times are changing. The current economic scenario puts a lot of pressure on organizations to cleanup their acts. With the workforce shrinking and pressure to perform in difficult market conditions increasing, businesses have to look at better and smarter ways of doing things. So, it is paramount that companies try to bridge this divide.

Is there some magic to solve this issue? If there were, somebody would have succeeded by now. I have more questions than answers:

IT is a support group within companies. So, why do they need separate budgets? Should they derive their revenues from their internal customers? Why would a company year on year set aside x amount of money only as a cost budget? If there is a customer-vendor relationship between IT and business groups, will there be improved interactions between them? How many companies out there tried and tested such a model?

Do companies follow a process of discussing about newer IT initiatives to all business groups within the company? Are there initiatives to share learnings from one group’s experience with the rest?

Did anybody try to create a bridge group with leaders from IT and business, thus forming a small team with the sole responsibility of formulating IT solutions for business problems?

Has any organization tried to utilize the skill levels of IT services vendors in bridging this gap?

It’s been a while since I got the patience to write something down. Last six months were eventful. My new venture started off well and I had been working closely with customers in multiple geographies. What this meant to me is that I once again got back into looking at the finer details of content and process management implementations. This period provided me with a re-exposure to the American market.

During the 3 odd months I spent in the US, it was clear to me that the times are tough. I was consulting for a large banking corporation in the mid-west. The banking industry is badly hit, and it made the remaining players very cautious with anything and everything they do. The 2009 budgeting processes are complete and priorities are simple:

• Keep the lights on
• Invest only on projects that give clear returns within the year

Big infrastructure investment thoughts are clearly out of the window. No one wants to see monolithic projects being executed or even mentioned. So for vendors, selling more licenses of ECM or BPM is an uphill task. I am sure that it is going to hit the ECM BPM software industry in a big way.

The focus of enterprises is to reduce operational costs. What they would want to do in 2009 will be to do as much as possible to improve operational efficiency (Means more FTE reductions). ECM/BPM is definitely a technology that will help organizations to achieve the two aforementioned priorities. If there are innovative ways of utilizing the existing investments in technology infrastructure, and the benefits of such smaller initiatives are to be realized within a short period of time, many of the enterprises will look at such options with glee. Most of the organizations I have known have enough and more software licenses of some ECM/BPM system or the other and adequate hardware infrastructure that run those software. But they are seldom used effectively. Enterprises hardly have bridged the gap between IT and business priorities. I haven’t seen many customers who reap the benefits of a content enabled business process management system to its fullest potential.

The need of the hour (rather the year) is to implement quick and effective solutions to improve business agility. ECM and BPM can very much be at the centre stage for providing businesses with the agility they need to steer through the tougher times. The IT departments and services vendors will need to internalize this reality and come up with cost effective business solutions to help the enterprises. The shift from billability to customer value-add could be hard to realign to for many IT services providers. There could definitely be some smarter vendors who could reinvent themselves to become the next generation IT service companies. It is imperative that a 2.0 revolution happens in the IT services sector as well.

The current economic scenario could very well pave the way for greater coherence between business and IT within enterprises. That would indeed be a welcome change in the right direction.

In India, there are two distinct markets at least for enterprise software applications. Let me call them the Day Market and the Night Market respectively. The day market is something that I have been talking about for a while. It consists of the traditional businesses who do business with a billion plus residents of this country. The night market is a new phenomenon. This market comprises of organizations whom we fondly call BPOs. The working hours of many BPOs coincide with those of their customers in America or Western Europe which means they operate at night in India. Hence the term night market. I assume that similar markets exist in many other countries which benefit from business process outsourcing.

Why do we need to consider BPOs as a separate market itself and not a vertical segment within the whole market called India? My reasoning here is that the dynamics of this market is entirely different from any other business vertical. Besides, you could see almost all industry verticals within the BPO market. So, it makes sense to look at this as a separate market itself and come up with strategies for selling software solutions in it.

The BPOs fall largely into two categories: Captive BPOs and BPO Businesses.

Captive BPOs are BPO arms of major corporations in the West and are owned and operated by these business houses. These organizations process the business functions of their respective parent and follow their systems and process standards. The applications and IT infrastructure are normally replicated as is, however good or bad they are. If you happen to sell a product or system which is part of their global infrastructure, you might get lucky and be able to sell some licenses to these BPOs.

The BPO businesses are organizations which provides process outsourcing services to third part customers. It is a big business and there are plenty of players in the market. These organizations offer tremendous opportunities for ECM/BPM. It is not often realized because most vendors approach this segment with a traditional license selling mindset.

The most important aspect of the BPO business is that everything is transaction based. For most BPOs, the business model revolves around transactions. Pricing to their customers are based on transactions. So the BPO management always thinks about their expenses and investments based on transactions. What this means is that when making an ECM/BPM decision, they need to calculate the ROI at the transaction level. If it takes them X Rupees to process a health insurance claim now, and with an ECM/BPM solution the cost of the transaction can be reduced to Y Rupees per claim, there is a business case. The entire industry works on cost arbitrage, so it is paramount to maintain transaction level costs down. More over, their contract with a customer for a particular business process could be time bound. So, it makes an investment decision all the more difficult. As long as the vendors can approach the BPOs with a transaction based pricing for their ECM/BPM solutions there will be a good chance of success. The ECM vendors will have to change their rigid license sale mentality and come up with creative ways of working with BPO companies, it will be all the more better for the ECM/BPM industry.

If I were running a BPO organization, the factors I would lose my sleep over will be Cost, Security, and Service Levels. I can’t quite prioritize them in terms of importance, but if I absolutely have to, I will do it in the same order as listed above. Cost is the most important factor since the existence of the industry in a country like India is because of the cost arbitrage. Security of information is critical because if there is a lax on it, not only the business but the entire industry suffers from bad publicity. The West hasn’t accepted the outsourcing phenomenon quite kindly yet and security lapse will be a good stick in the hands of the critics. Service level agreements are important because the customer’s business has to run smoothly even if certain parts of the business process are carried out halfway across the globe.

Given these priorities, ECM/BPM requirements will be predominantly on plain document management, records management, and workflow management. Document management will enhance the organization’s capability to manage the content that is coming from customers, and attach the right access levels to it. Record management capabilities will be critical from a retention and destruction perspective of customer documents. I would guess, it will apply more to the destruction of records and providing reporting of the content received in BPO organizations. Workflow capabilities will enable the BPOs in ensuring SLAs and providing accurate reports to customers on SLAs.

Another aspect of ECM that could play a major role in BPOs is automated capture systems with solid forms processing capabilities. This is one of my favorite topics and I will write about it separately.

To summarize, ECM/BPM solutions could help the BPO industry significantly, but it hasn’t made its presence felt in the marketplace so far. If the vendors could understand the pulse of this market and come up with creative pricing strategies, I am sure that BPO companies will definitely see the difference such solutions can make to their businesses and ultimately the bottom lines.