Which Is Better: Add-on Or Standalone Workflow Software?

Are you confused between add-on and stand-alone workflow software?

Employees can get confused by workflow automation, particularly when workflow is combined with other software as an add-on.

Some software offers workflow functionality as an “extra” – and this is where confusion starts to creep in.

Add-on workflow is not the main function of most software. In fact, it is often a basic tool used to upsell the main software to unsuspecting business owners.

Standalone workflow software, on the other hand, is specifically designed to improve your processes and manage the vast amount of tasks your business needs to function efficiently.

Business Process Management (BPM) software’s main function is to connect people and systems by bridging the gaps between them. It’s not about replacing workers with machines, but rather to help make their jobs easier and more efficient.

Standalone workflow software offers a comprehensive way for businesses to do more with less. Software development companies with online workflow as their flagship product provide excellent training and support for employees, as well as offering specific expertise customised to your situation. Workflow software developers often provide a comprehensive workflow solution, which involves an analysis and customised review of your business.

When you deploy standalone workflow software with adequate training and support from the developers, employees understand the big-picture goals of BPM implementation. They understand how they, as employees, fit in with the organisation’s larger mission and are able to work towards a common objective with the rest of their peers.

By taking labour-intensive processes and automating them with online BPM software, organisations can become more capable, efficient and profitable.

Web and Flo’s flagship workflow software, Kontinuum, is successfully used across different industries throughout the world.

New Year Processes

Improve Efficiency in 2010

Oscar Wilde wrote: A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.

The origin of New Year’s resolutions dates back as far as the early Babylonians. They believed that a person’s actions on the first day of the New Year affected what they would do throughout the year.

Of the 45 percent of the population that make New Year’s resolutions, a whopping 75 percent of these are never fulfilled. If your New Year’s resolution is to improve your processes and become more efficient – don’t become one of the statistics! Get some help and just do it!

Web and Flo provide BPM solutions for businesses of all sizes. Our workflow management software, Kontinuum, can be easily customised to reflect your own branding.

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing seems to be “it” these days. However, how many of us really understand cloud computing? Web and Flo conducted a survey in August 2009, and found that 40% of Australians surveyed were unsure of what the term “Cloud Computing” really meant. You can read about it in our press release “Cloud Computing Causes Confusion”. You can also watch Salesforce’s video at the end of this post, which clearly explains the concept of cloud computing.

Our main experience with cloud computing is based on what works within the BPM industry. Cloud computing plays a large role in efficiently managing processes in real time. Businesses already using online workflow software “in the cloud” have found that their processes are streamlined, accountability improves and communications are enhanced.

Gartner vice president David Cearley warns that many businesses may be disappointed by not entering the cloud. “We believe that 20% of businesses will be using cloud computing as part of IT processes by 2012,” Cearley said.  “You hear a lot about cloud computing today, and we do think we’re going to see rapid growth over the next few years. By 2012, about 20% of user organisations will rely on the cloud model for significant parts of their IT environment.”

It’s worth knowing a little about cloud computing, especially now that Microsoft and Google are competing with each other. Find out how cloud computing can help your organisation, otherwise you, as the consumer, may lose out.  Some benefits of cloud computing are:

• Easy access: Applications and data are easily accessed through a browser, in real-time from anywhere.
• Scalable: Resources can be adapted according to demand.
• Reduced IT demand: The vendor maintains the infrastructure, freeing IT staff to add more strategic value.
• Easy: User-friendly interfaces when purchasing access or configuring applications make operations easy.
• Cost: Fees based on usage or a subscription model, which means that costs are operating, and not capital, expenses.

Cloud computing and online workflow software may not be for every organisation. However, it has significantly improved the bottom line of many businesses that use Kontinuum, our online workflow software.

Watch the Salesforce video on cloud computing:

City of Melbourne Awards Business Expansion Grant to Web and Flo

Melbourne, Australia: The City of Melbourne has awarded workflow software company, Web and Flo, a Business Expansion Grant.

The Melbourne company will receive the maximum available amount of $30,000 to continue their expansion within the workflow and BPM software industry.

The funding is available twice a year to small businesses currently located in the City of Melbourne, and encourages a thriving and competitive business environment.

Web and Flo were assessed against the Small Business Grants objectives and application criteria. An external Independent Review Panel considered their application and recognised that Web and Flo offered a valuable contribution to the achievement of the program objectives.

Amongst other things, the planned $30,000 expansion will see the creation of a new website with additional online demonstrations of their flagship product, Kontinuum. This will provide customers with the opportunity to better understand workflow software and see how it can benefit their organisation.

Web and Flo’s Commercial Director, Anna Fogarty, said that they are delighted to have been given the opportunity to expand and extend their workflow software market.

“The City of Melbourne Business Expansion Grant has ensured that we can keep abreast of new developments and provide even better service to our clients,” said Fogarty.

The expansion grant forms part of the City of Melbourne’s Business Development Fund, which directly supports economic and business growth in the municipality.

Small businesses can apply for the grant if they have a demonstrated level of business success, supported by financial documentation and the capacity to promptly execute the activities funded by the grant.

Contact: Anna Fogarty, Commercial Director, Web and Flo. Tel: +61 3 8456 8997 Mobile: +61 405 131 557 (anytime) anna.fogarty@webandflo.com, www.webandflo.com

For more information on The City of Melbourne’s Grants, click here.

 
Web and Flo provides innovative workflow software and business process management (BPM) consultancy to businesses in industries such as Banking and Financial Services, Manufacturing, Education and Government. Web and Flo’s Workflow Management software, Kontinuum, is internationally recognised and is designed with the human end-user in mind. It is easy to use and can be accessed anywhere in the world in real time, as it is a purely web-based software solution.

What is BPM?

What is BPM?

Wikipedia defines BPM (Business Process Management) as: 

“A process is a collection of related, structured activities that produce a service or product. These processes tend to get management’s attention because they are performed daily and their costs are not insignificant.”

Managing processes manually are considered BPM, even if they do not use technology. In a paper based environment, a paper documenting the process will be routed to correct people, so that they may follow it.

When changes are made to that process, a new documented process is presented for people to follow. 

BPM is, in essence, a workflow solution that can be either paper or software based.

Workflow and Security

Security and Workflow

 

Web-based workflow software has enormous benefits, such as real-time visual tracking and current task status. 

An online presence makes workflow processes a lot easier to manage, but one of the concerns about anything on the internet is online-safety. 

 One of the concerns that people have with web-based BPM software is its level of security. Web and Flo have ensured that our workflow software, Kontinuum, is secure by including the following:

A ‘Complex Password Mode’ that allows Administrators to switch the level of complexity of a user’s password.

• Kontinuum offers SSL certificate for added security.
• Kontinuum can integrate with Active Directory so users only have to remember one password.

Web-based workflow software is safe and easy to use. We consistently update our products to ensure online security, putting your mind at ease.

Adapting to the changing needs of BPM

All businesses adapt and their requirements change. Workflow software meets the changing needs of your business processes through efficiency and automation. 

These include: 

• The ability to build user-friendly workflows and applications;
• Providing users with management tools, automated processes and integration with their current technologies;
• A dashboard that displays an overall view of each workflow initiated;
• A Wizard to make form creation, report generation and other information management tasks easy;
• Easy monitoring of tasks and users.

Workflow software streamlines your processes and offering a complete and cost-effective solution.

Unsure About Workflow?

Do you want workflow software? Are you looking to adopt workflow software as part of your IT strategy but are unsure of its capabilities? Web and Flo offer a Proof of Concept exercise as a starting point when looking to implement workflow software.  

The Proof of Concept involves a few days of consultancy and development resulting in a workflow application available for you to trial.

A Proof of Concept exercise provides you with a low risk option to trial workflow software, allowing you to make a more informed decision.  Web and Flo follows a structured methodology to ensure the: 

• Alignment of workflow with the high level goals;
• Collection of high level business requirements and low level user requirements;
• Understanding of users and roles within the process;
• Documentation of business rules and logic associated with workflow;
• Highlighting of areas of cost savings:
  • Automation
  • Elimination of double entry
  • Error reduction
  • Bottleneck reduction.

Workflow software will most certainly speed up your processes and provide you with an efficient BPM tool. If you would like to try a low-risk workflow option, give it a go today and contact us on: 1300 859 854.

Business Process Management ctnd…

Articles on BPM and BPM pundits tend to focus on two areas – the people and the technology.

The ‘people’ level

 BPM could be a philosophy. Management could be saying to underlings that they want their business processes managed more effectively.
A process owner could be managing their own business processes. They may define it, measure it [see how long the process takes], and look for trouble spots. Likely, they will look to make improvements to the process.
Managing processes manually are considered BPM, even if they do not utilize technology. In this paper based environment, a paper documenting the process will be routed to the people in the process so that they may follow it. When you make changes to that process, you will distribute the new documented process for them to follow.

The ‘technology’ level

 Many see BPM Software as BPM. They will skip over the people level and go right for the technology. Some see that information moves between enterprise software packages and immediately think of SOA [Services Oriented Architecture].
While some believe that modeling is the only way to create that ‘perfect’ process, so they think of modeling as BPM.

All of these concepts go into the definition of Business Process Management.

See the full article on our website here.

What is Business Process Management?

Wikipedia defines Business Process Management as:

The reason for business process management is efficiency. As a process owner, your job is to shorten cycle times and improve quality. This efficiency will cut costs and improve your company’s bottom line.
What is Business Process Management [BPM]?

A process is a collection of related, structured activities that produce a service or product. These processes tend to get management’s attention because they are performed daily and their costs are not insignificant.
Then there is another process – the process to define, measure and improve your processes – a ‘process optimization process’. This process happens all the time, but is seldom addressed. Articles on BPM and BPM pundits tend to focus on 2 areas – the people and the technology. Tomorrow we’ll go into each of these two areas.

Until next time,

 Flo