Tag: automation technology

Building Global Centers of Excellence (CoEs) in GBS Organizations to Drive the CEO Agenda

The Global Business Services (GBS) market has witnessed improvement in performance, enhancements in role, and growth across verticals and functions over the years. In fact, the pandemic served as a catalyst for GBS organizations to step up and deliver higher value-add services, becoming a pillar for enterprises to evolve at a much faster rate. However, as the world evolves, GBS organizations need to remain agile to keep up with advancing technologies, navigate the recent talent shortage, and maintain cost competitiveness and accelerate innovation to help drive the CEO agenda.

To achieve these multiple priorities, many GBS organizations are building Centers of Excellence (CoEs), which further facilitate collaboration and speed-up transformation and delivery for the enterprise. CoEs are entities that work across business (BU)s units, or product lines within a BU, and provide leading-edge knowledge and capabilities in targeted areas. CoEs have proven instrumental for GBS organizations to drive initiatives and deliver access to high-demand skills and competencies, accelerating improvements and pushing efforts forward for faster execution.

The five types of CoEs that drive the CEO agenda

The role of the GBS organization needs to pivot toward creating strategic impact for the CEO. CoEs and competency centers within GBS organizations are designed to streamline and set actionable steps for the CEO’s agenda and critical priorities. The following five types of CoEs help enterprises to drive stronger business performance.

Core operations and corporate services CoE: This CoE focuses on developing expertise for multiple departments within the enterprise, including reporting, finance, marketing, customer onboarding, and core operations

Next-generation IT and digital technologies CoE: This CoE targets the development and management of new skills and technologies, such as AI, analytics, cybersecurity, blockchain, and testing

Talent CoE: The talent CoE develops the strategic services, capabilities, and best practices for staffing, e-learning, and employee onboarding

Automation and/or innovation CoE: Today’s strategic CEOs are looking to quickly advance their organizations’ automation and innovation maturity. This CoE is dedicated to cultivating these initiatives within the enterprise and deploying and scaling technologies like robotic process automation (RPA) and intelligent automation (IA)

Global sourcing and vendor management CoE: The goals of global sourcing and vendor management within organizations are often changing to keep up with market trends. This CoE provides CEOs with needed processes, insight, and agility to manage their sourcing and vendor models as market trends fluctuate

Going into 2022, these five types of CoEs, built within GBS organizations, can advance and strengthen enterprises and push strategies toward next-generation digital technologies, automation, and innovation. We covered this in more detail in our webinar, 5 Success-driving Actions GBS Organizations Need in 2022.

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Why GBS organizations are the right candidates for building CoEs

Multiple factors play into why GBS organizations are good candidates for building CoEs and ultimately offer significant benefits to enterprises and the CEO agenda. These include:

  • Deep process, domain, and technology expertise, providing a superior overall experience for the enterprise
  • Access to next-generation and niche skills at competitive costs, which accelerate enterprises’ digital transformations
  • Through a microcosm effect, offering high cross-functional and regional impact, the GBS-built CoE improves new product and services development
  • The ability to drive fast-paced, low-cost innovation enables top-line growth throughout the enterprise
  • Alignment with organizational culture and business goals improve overall productivity

How to develop an effective CoE

The various aspects of developing an effective CoE should be charted out to accelerate enterprise-wide adoption. Setting up a CoE is the first step for a GBS to embark on excellence, but it needs to ensure that it takes the right actions to establish success.

  • The first step is to map out a vision and strategy, think through possible risks, and mitigate them
  • Defining a governance and engagement model between the CoE and the enterprise is paramount to ensure that those goals and strategies are communicated, carried out, and met
  • GBS organizations will also need to design a talent model structured around growth and establish funding and financing mechanisms to initiate the process. Once the team is structured and goals are set, GBS organizations should incorporate a way to measure success through performance metrics and KPIs to collect the best data on impact delivered

Best practices for setting up a CoE

CoEs are designed to bring expertise and forward-thinking guidance, which often means taking risks and adapting; however, here are a few best practices to keep in mind when setting up CoEs:

Clearly articulate the “why”: If there is not enough clarity, the CoE is unlikely to deliver results aligned with the enterprises’ strategy

Take an entity-wide view: Combine the business case with an internal assessment of the company’s vision and strategy, requirements, and capabilities to identify concrete opportunity cases

Clearly define the governance and organizational model: The CoE should articulate the governance mechanism, reporting model, roles and responsibilities, and business units supported, so all parties are aware

Talent is the most critical success enabler: Leadership and team skills are often the most critical factor for a CoE’s success. Consider collaborating with external partners such as startups and academic institutions to fill gaps

Aim for quick wins in the initial stages to gain visibility and confidence: Select early use cases that allow the enterprise to develop confidence in the CoE

Ensure strong engagement and precise stakeholder management: Secure the right sponsorship at the right time, preferably in the early stages

For more information on how GBS CoE’s can drive the CEO agenda, watch our webinar, 5 Success-driving Actions GBS Organizations Need in 2022.

Watch the webinar on-demand

 

IBM to Acquire myInvenio: Completing the Intelligent Automation Puzzle with Process Mining | Blog

The intelligent automation space has been witnessing a slew of acquisitions over the past couple of years. Several big tech providers have entered the market through numerous acquisitions, especially in the robotic process automation (RPA) space.

While the trend continues in RPA, with ServiceNow’s acquisition of India-based RPA vendor, Intellibot as the latest addition, 2021 seems to be a year of increasing M&A activity in the process mining space. After the acquisition of Signavio by SAP earlier this year, IBM’s acquisition of myInvenio is the second M&A deal happening in the process mining market within a short span of three months.

In one of our previously published blogs, Is It Open Season for RPA Acquisitions?, we highlighted larger technology players entering the intelligent automation market and discussed why more acquisitions might follow as these players seek to build more holistic business transformation solutions.

IBM entered the intelligent automation space with its platform, IBM Cloud Pak for Automation, in 2018 to help enterprises scale up their digital transformation initiatives. Two years later, IBM acquired WDG Automation, a Brazilian RPA vendor, to augment its platform capabilities.

Now, IBM is looking to further expand its automation portfolio with its latest acquisition of myInvenio, an Italy-based process mining technology vendor. The acquisition for an undisclosed price is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2021.

Why the acquisition is not a big surprise

IBM provides IT and business process automation services to enterprises through its automation suite, which includes RPA, Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA), and process orchestration capabilities. Looking at IBM’s offerings within the intelligent automation technology ecosystem, process mining emerges as the key missing element in its automation suite.

The COVID-19 crisis highlighted the importance of digital transformation and the need to accelerate automation journeys for enterprises. The lack of a healthy automation pipeline and the inability to identify the right level of optimization opportunities emerged as key barriers for enterprises to scale automation initiatives. This has led to an increased focus on better understanding business processes and optimizing them to improve value realization from automation initiatives.

Process mining emerged as a critical technology providing the ability to discover as-is processes and identify/prioritize automation opportunities. Lately, the intelligent automation space also witnessed increased consolidation and entry of other bigger players in the market such as Microsoft, SAP, ServiceNow, etc., resulting in increased competitiveness for IBM.

To cater to the market demand and better compete in the automation space, IBM partnered with myInvenio in November 2020 to help its customers gain visibility into business processes and identify automation opportunities. Through this partnership, IBM sought to deliver a single solution to its clients for streamlining and automating business processes.

IBM has a very strong focus on enabling a unified experience to its clients through a one-stop-shop automation suite. In line with this vision, this acquisition would help IBM provide process mining capabilities that are tightly integrated into its automation platform. Also, this union would provide a holistic solution to IBM’s clients where they could access various technologies that constitute the intelligent automation ecosystem. It also boosts their AI and hybrid cloud strategy to provide enterprises with the necessary AI-enabled automation capabilities.

Why myInvenio?

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Reggio Emilia, Italy, myInvenio has a vision to support enterprises in their digital transformation journey by helping them create a digital twin of their organization. Over the last eight years, it has acquired clients globally spanning the European, North American, APAC, and UK regions and serves enterprises across key verticals such as banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), manufacturing, and healthcare and pharmaceutical.

Through its process mining solution, myInvenio focuses on enabling data-driven process discovery, analysis, and continuous monitoring to identify process improvement and transformation opportunities.

myInvenio was identified as a major contender in Everest Group’s 2020 Process Mining PEAK Matrix® and brings a host of capability modules to enhance the value proposition of IBM’s automation suite. These include:

  • myInvenio Process Analyst
    • Process discovery – to automatically generate process maps, perform multi-level process mining, and create BPMN 2.0 compliant process models
    • Conformance checking – to compare discovered as-is process model with a target reference model, perform root-cause analysis, and check compliance rules such as segregation of duties
  • myInvenio Process Insights
    • Process monitoring and reporting – to derive process insights through continuous monitoring, create customizable dashboards, and define custom KPIs/metrics
    • Process enhancement – to identify processes/tasks for automation, predict and highlight any expected KPI breach, and perform simulations/what-if analysis
  • myInvenio Desktop Process Mining (DPM)/Task mining capability – to capture users’ interactions across multiple desktops and map the recorded tasks to respective processes using Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning algorithms for discovering end-to-end processes
  • myInvenio Process Store – to provide out-of-the-box pre-built templates for processes spanning across industries such as banking, manufacturing, and energy and utilities

What are the implications going forward?

Impact on process mining vendor landscape and partnerships

IBM has strategic go-to-market partnerships and technology alliances with other process mining vendors. Earlier this month, Celonis, IBM, and Red Hat announced a strategic partnership to help enterprises accelerate their digital transformation by combining Celonis Execution Management System (EMS) with Red Hat OpenShift’s hybrid cloud approach and IBM Global Business Services’ expertise.

Partnerships like these are expected to continue, giving clients the flexibility to choose as co-opetition is becoming quite common in the enterprise software space. For example, IBM maintained its partnerships with RPA vendors such as Automation Anywhere and UiPath after the WDG automation acquisition.

The IBM acquisition of myInvenio could put pressure on other process mining vendors since many do not have a global reach and would need to expand their service provider partnership ecosystem. This latest deal could also encourage the acquisition of process mining capabilities by other tech giants, Business Process Management (BPM), and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) companies in the coming months to offer a more holistic solution to their clients.

Increased adoption of process mining

Process mining technology would reach a much broader audience after its integration into the platforms offered by these service providers, resulting in improved awareness and adoption. IBM offers its automation products to enterprises across different sectors such BFSI, healthcare, and manufacturing.

IBM started delivering process mining services to its customers in November 2020 by leveraging its OEM partnership with myInvenio. Augmenting its prior implementation experience with in-house technology capabilities, IBM can now provide process mining capabilities that are tightly integrated with its automation suite. It is expected that IBM would offer process mining on a standalone basis as well as part of its Cloud Pak for Automation platform.

Impact on service providers

This acquisition will nudge other service providers to demonstrate their ability to think ahead and make more investments to strengthen their automation suite. Last week, Celonis announced its execution management without limits program that gives service providers access to its process mining solution with unlimited users and processes but charges them based on the volume of data being analyzed. While Celonis offering its EMS to consultants could be a win-win situation for both Celonis and service providers, some large service suppliers still might look to acquire process mining capabilities to strengthen their in-house technology portfolio. Also, having this capability in-house would give service providers more negotiating power and reduce the reliance on third-party vendors for capabilities that can be critical for their business going forward. The acquisition route can provide them the ability to deliver innovation faster in their focus industries and functions.

The takeaway: the acquisition could fuel more activity 

Since IBM has been faster in integrating acquired capabilities into its suite because of its cloud-based platform approach and containerized product architecture, it is expected to take less time to embed myInvenio’s process mining offering at a technical level within IBM’s automation suite.

With process mining emerging as a critical component of the automation ecosystem, the process mining market is entering a disruptive phase, garnering attention from all parts of the world. This acquisition could also trigger other big enterprise tech vendors like Microsoft, Oracle, ServiceNow, and Salesforce to make similar moves to enter the process mining market.

Driving RPA from GICs? Learn from the Best-in-class | Sherpas in Blue Shirts

The shift towards a “digital-first model,” in the wake of technology-led disruption, has given GICs an opportunity to become strategic entities that can drive innovation across the enterprise, instead of an arbitrage-first-oriented low-cost set-up delivering back- / middle- office services at scale. A very positive move for GICs and the enterprises they support.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA), among other digital technologies, is gaining popularity across enterprises and GICs thanks to its many business benefits. And enterprises are increasingly leveraging their GICs to drive RPA usage. This is largely driven by factors such as GICs’ tighter integration with the core business, increased endorsement from the enterprise, shift toward insourcing, higher visibility to enterprise leadership, lower costs, and availability of talent.

So what factors enable best-in-class GICs to drive RPA programs successfully? We’ve identified eight:

How GICs drive RPA

Successful GICs, through dedicated RPA CoEs, have gone beyond exploring RPA technology for in-house consumption. From educating various stakeholders across the enterprise on capabilities and benefits of the technology, to executing RPA solutions across functions and locations, these CoEs are playing a key role in transforming processes across the enterprise. CoEs in best-in-class GICs have gone a notch higher, and are focusing on creating an ecosystem that enables businesses to independently explore RPA opportunities.

While GICs are well positioned to drive RPA across the enterprise, successful implementation requires dedicated focus on factors including governance and business continuity. They must also be on the lookout for advanced technologies, such as AI and cognitive, that can augment existing RPA technology and enhance overall automation business benefits.

To learn more about the best practices employed by best-in-class GIC adopters of RPA, please read our recently published report, “RPA Implementation in GICs – Learnings and Best Practices.” We developed it based on interactions with 100+ global enterprises’ GICs and a range of automation technology vendors.

If you are driving RPA from your GIC, I’d love to hear your story. Feel free to share your opinions and stories on how your GIC is evolving in its RPA journey directly with me at [email protected].

And/or, join in on our research on how enterprises design their GIC journeys to drive their enterprises’ digital agendas. Click here to take the survey; responses will, of course, remain anonymous.

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