INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
While business has always innovated and embraced new technology for a competitive edge, these days, the pace of this has hastened to
Witness such innovations as mobile Gigabit connections, autonomously driven cars, and smart homes - all on the cutting edge, and the stuff
of science fiction just a decade or so ago
transformationThis is distinct from digital transformation which refers to the implementation of digital processes across the business
Digital transformation is more of a cultural thing, with a rollout of digital technology, such as migration of data to the cloud, embracing
the DevOps approach to software development, and use of business analytics tools to spot trends - and do all of this faster than the
competition.Digital business automation is a component of digital transformation
It focuses on incorporating the digital realm - in particular data, the software and hardware that works with it, and the infrastructure
that supports it - and applying upgrades to efficiency to traditional business processes
This is all done to make the business more responsive to current market trends, interfacing with customers better, with the ultimate goal of
In other words, digital business automation uses digital innovation to take a clunky business process, and streamline it for a competitive
edge.History of digital business automationThe origin of digital business automation can be traced back to IBM in 2005, and its creation of
the BPMN standard (Business Process Model and Notation)
IBM provided software to facilitate creating flowcharts and diagrams for business purposes.The goal was to graphically describe complex
business processes, with a standard notation, to make it more understandable in the organization
The software that IBM released for digital business automation was known as WPS (Websphere Process Server), and the files created were from
a newly created open standard known as BPEL (Business Process Execution Language).WPS failed to gain the needed popularity, and was more
focused on the SOA (service-oriented architecture) than on traditional business aspects
This made it more focused on technical aspects, which made it more difficult for application to business processes
To focus more on these users, IBM then released their IBM WebSphere Business Modeller
However, it did not stand alone, and migration was required from the new software back to WPS for execution to occur.In the meantime, while
WPS struggled to gain traction in this emerging sector, a competitor emerged, Teamworks, a product of Lombardi
They also promptly in June 2010 renamed the Teamworks software to WebSphere Lombardi Edition (WLE)
They subsequently combined them both into one product, the IBM Business Process Manager (IBPM), drawing on the best of these two platforms
The IBPM offered an intuitive way to capture business processes, and is approachable for less technical business types to turn the business
process into an understandable diagram
Furthermore, diagrams can be adjusted easily.State of digital business automation todayThe current IBPM remains focused on improving
business processes, and unlike earlier versions that favored the technical or the business aspects, this version attempted to strike a
portal, and a learning library.IBM recently took a step forward this year to their next generation of digital business automation, and
repetitive human workContent - collection and management of business data with connectivity to digital business applicationsWorkflow - the
ability to analyze and improve business processes for improvementsCapture - digitization of business documents, with extraction and analysis
of data while obviating a manual entry processDecisions - application of business rules to fuel on the fly change in processes, while being
able to audit the processWith such a robust platform, all types of enterprise work can be automated including tasks, decisions and
workflows, with the capability to grow, and add multiple pieces as needed.Other implementations of digital business automationAnother less
known company is offering a digital business automation tool
Much of digital business automation has focused on analyzing and streamlining a process at an organization
As the data is available, and stays within the confines of the organization, this is a less challenging scenario
Ultimus wants to take on a more complicated scenario, of transactions between organizations.Here, things are more bumpy, with major trust
issues between the parties involved in the transaction, including customers, suppliers and partners
These types of transactions, from a purchase order, to a loan, or an employment contract, are typically quite time consuming
Documents need to be completed, and they are usually paper based, with physical signatures, notaries, and the dreaded faxes back and forth-
hardly the speed that a nimble business aspires to
applied to these types of business transactions as well.In order to take the theoretical to the practical, Ultimus is moving towards
applying blockchain technology to business transactions with their Composed Process Solutions (CPS)
Some practical challenges that their solution addresses include the accuracy of timestamps (within two hours given current blockchain tech),
Here a digital business automation approach gets applied to a streamlined user interface
Via a web portal, with data stored in their blockchain, the documents for the loan are tracked for uploading, verification, and review.Gone
are the pile of manila folders, as well as waiting for the notary public to return (who is invariably at lunch in our experience), as the
Along the way, an audit trail is created, and in another example of an automated business process, automated emails are generated to update
the concerned parties on how this is proceeding.XrBZbyowAY8eahR6NGWWnM.jpg#
