The Sacred Cows of Roles, Process and Metrics

A View on Sacred Cows

There has long been some academic argument, theoretical disconnect and the occasional raised tension between the dedicated followers of business intelligence /performance management (BI) and those that stand behind business process management (BPM).

KPI and data evangelists sometimes view process advocates as bureaucrats no longer tuned to the dynamics of changing businesses, and are now more interested in outcomes than processes.

Meanwhile, the process faithful have worked incrementally and under a long-held premise that 'where business/technology initiatives fail, there’s normally a clumsy process to blame'.

Inside Process Initiatives
By their very nature, inside process initiatives draw little attention, being as they are usually secretive. The greater effect of business process outsourcing (BPO) has already shifted workforces for scale.

What started with call centre outsourcing, sooner or later touched internal departments for travel, payroll, time and expense, software development/maintenance and even CRM or other customer-facing applications.

Process and Data Converge

In the last few years we’ve seen the process and data worlds merge to the point where process conference speakers actually discuss business intelligence and vice versa. It’s that tentative connection of processes and KPIs (or service levels for BPO providers) that has led to some recent rationalising thoughts on soft skills and the beginning of what might someday become a wider and mor comprehensive use of on-demand employment.

Executive Ambitions and Goals

We have been learning about executive ambitions and goals inside global corporations. These normally culminate in the establishment of internal priorities for employees and the outsourcing of everything else. We have to be more thoughtful now and need to consider that data centre managed service offerings are replacing not only IT infrastructure, but also their discrete IT functions.

Where is this leading?
Well, as service based infrastructure and process providers move deeper up and into the enterprise, old roles are slowly moving towards silo containment and tiers of competence. This leads more and more towards the virtual external providers whose value has becomes more nad more commoditised over time.

Driving or Steering SMEs
This use of comoditised outsourced suppliers is what is driving or steering small and mid-sized organisations and feed the continuous discussions to appraise and determine if even key undertakings like business intelligence are effectively outsourced to service providers.

Corporations' Citadel Approach

The larger corporations are not going to be outsourcing business intelligence or even key data functions anytime soon. Having said this, the previous years of rapid organic growth has created a jumble of capital assets, business architecture and roles in enterprises, which are becoming less controllable and therefore less defensible to maintain in-house.

Proven Competency
If you accept that BPO vendors have demonstrated and proven their competency, it may be more likely that core competencies will be begrudgingly and tentatively handed over to process owners inside the organisation, to manage internal and external resources.

Controlled Handover
This handover is already happening in a controlled way at companies like HP, Ford and Cisco. We already have people managing this transition, in the form of project and program managers, whose roles are enjoying elevated backing and status.

The Future

There is still some work to be done but there is good reason to believe that, improved operational metrics, performance management and business intelligence, will bring with it the mover and shakers of the process and on-demand movements. We just have to keep to the path, fight the fight and hold the faith.