WEVO Group Implements Business Process Workflows to Manage Upgrade of 4,500 PCs for Software License Compliance and Employee Productivity

WEVO’s client, a Global 2000 Consumer Electronics corporation, recently had a serious software upgrade issue (now resolved) that spanned 15 corporate sites and 4,500 PCs. 

“It almost sounds simple at first,” said the IT Asset Manager, “but we needed to complete a Windows 7 upgrade on all 4,500 PCs used by our employees.  As we engaged with the upgrade process, we soon realized there were a few challenges to overcome. First, we weren’t sure what software was on each device, nor who had ‘admin rights.’ Sorting that out proved a challenge when working across departments, to say nothing of the technical challenge of distributing those rights.  Second, we had recently been audited, and it was imperative that we ensure broad license compliance.  That meant having a record of what was on each PC.  Third, as we got into the upgrade process, it was taking huge amounts of time from my schedule and the schedules of my staff to manage it.  With a staff of just seven people, one of my key analysts was spending her entire day on secretarial duties, just scheduling the upgrades, one by one.  Some of these scheduled appointments grew rather complicated, because they required cross scheduling an engineer to be present along with the employee with the device.”   

The IT Asset Manager and his team soon realized they had to automate the process, or they would sink under the weight of 4,500 individual upgrade appointments and the entanglements of schedule coordination. 

Through a recommendation from Symantec, the client subsequently engaged the WEVO Group, which is a business process management specialist that focuses on optimizing and automating business processes, with a special knowledge of Symantec Workflow.  The project fit right into WEVO’s wheelhouse, because WEVO had recently engaged, or was actively engaging, several Fortune 500 companies at the time.  

“We asked WEVO to do the nearly impossible, because by the time we brought them in to replace the original contractors, we were late in the game against our plan for the Windows 7 upgrade. And some of our approaches to date had been fruitless, like white listing / black listing certain software or urging employees to upgrade themselves.”

Click here to read and/or download the full case study.  

For more information or to talk to WEVO Group about challenges you may be facing in your organization, contact WEVO Group. 

Finding efficiency in every day process

Business process management can be applied to all facets of your business and doesn't always involve automation. There are tasks and actions that happen in your organization every day that if analyzed might yield some surprising results. That is what business process management is; mapping out current processes and analyzing them to see if there are more efficient ways of accomplishing the end goal. The efficiency can be gained through some form of process automation or by simply changing a small part of the process.

Check out this article about UPS and left turns, http://priceonomics.com/why-ups-trucks-dont-turn-left/. This is a perfect example of how changing a small part of the daily delivery process can make a huge impact. Who would have thought that avoiding left turns would have such an effect on fuel consumption? But when you have 96,000 trucks on the road making deliveries, a small efficiency gain on every left turn lost adds up pretty quickly.

Revenue Generating BPM

Typically business process management results in ROI that is realized through gains in efficiency and cost savings. BPM ROI can also be acheived through improvements that assist in generating more revenue. Revenue generating process improvement usually involve proactive customer interactions. Here is a great example of a revenue generating process improvement:

Our client in the hospitality and entertainment business manages a number of hotel/casino properties. The goals of the process were to:

• Be able to send an intelligent/dynamic survey to every guest post check out
• Be able to quickly respond to every customer comment card
• To proactively follow up with every guest post visit to invite them back to the property and/or resolve any issues

The result was $1,100,000 in increased spend over 9 months by 500 guests that were run through the system vs. 500 guests that were simply monitored.

Check out this quick video summarizing the process in action.

As always we welcome any questions or comments below or contact us directly.

Thanks,
WEVO Group

HR Onboarding

Onboarding a new employee to an organization seems simple on the surface. Come to an agreement on compensation and a start date and you're good to go! But what happens after the offer acceptance? How do you communicate with the new employee during the "no man's land" period between acceptance and the start date? How can you ensure that your new employee will be welcomed properly, all the "stuff" they need will be ready and available on day one?

There are so many tasks, by many different departments, that need to be completed in order to get a computer, software, active directory account, email account, phone, mobile plan, office/cube, badge, etc. Some of these tasks are dependent on others. It can be a logistical nightmare with real consequences. If you've ever started a new job and the company seemed like they weren't ready for you, how did you feel?

The video below shows an automated process that allows for proactive communication during the no man's land period and organized task management with follow up and reporting. Feel free to share any questions and/or thoughts below.

Successful BPM Programs

If you are planning on implementing BPM at your organization I would recommend the IBM white paper, Eleven habits for highly successful BPM programs, as a guide and template.

I'll summarize the white paper below, but a few points to always keep in mind regarding business process management:

1. BPM doesn't always mean automation. We have seen up to 40% gains in efficiency by simply mapping out processes. 
2. Deliver business value through process visibility and control are the main goals of BPM. 
3. Remember that BPM is ever evolving and requires continuous improvement as the business changes for whatever reason. Common reasons for business change may include; a merger/acquisition, new or updated regulations for example HIPPA, SOX. 
4. Because of # 3 it's important to accept the fact that the first iteration of your process will not be the perfect ideal future state process that was mapped out. If you focus on implementing everything in the first iteration you will fail because you will never finish and most organizations don't have an unlimited budget and/or time. 

The white paper groups the eleven habits in to three stages; Successful Projects/delivery, Growing BPM team competency, and Leveraging BPM across the enterprise.

Successful Projects/Delivery

• Habit # 1: Prove Business Value First
• Habit # 2: Make BPM about Productivity and Visibility
• Habit # 3: Never "one and done"
• Habit # 4: Do not skip Process Analysis
• Habit # 5: Take the time to deliver value

 Growing BPM team competency

• Habit # 6: Build a complete team
• Habit # 7: Make self-sufficiency a priority

Leveraging BPM across the enterprise

• Habit # 8: Fund to value...not just first release
• Habit # 9: Force collaboration
• Habit # 10: Establish the owners
• Habit # 11: Market your work

As always we are interested in hearing your comments and/or questions so feel free to reach out or comment below.

Thanks!
WEVO Group