There are two types of business workflow that we deal with, one is called machine-to-machine workflow, which manages data flow and integrity between applications. The other is people-oriented workflow, where explicit tasks and activities are automatically routed to the responsible role for completion and routing to the next operative until completion and archive.
There are requirements for instances of both these types of workflow in most organisations. They are managed by workflow framework tools and as such extend the ROI of existing systems and applications.
Service Oriented Architcture (SOA) plays a significant part in the deployment of these tools, enabling rapid and agile deployment of new workflow processes. The frameworks also provide management and control in previously isolated silos of business activity.
Process visibility and flexibility affords organisations the ability to maintain a constant business workflow optimisation lifecycle, which provides improved service levels both internally and externally to customers.
Business managers own their processes and change management is simplified by BA level configuration of workflows. Costs for expensive software changes can be utilised in other areas for greater efficiency.
When workflow is integrated with rules and operational decisioning, the business value is seen to be an ROI mulitplier. Business managers are able to own the rules through which their business workflow run. The business rules provide decisioning and logic that drive the steps or activities within a process.
