IntelliCorp Launches myProcesses.com, Web-Hosted Application Enabling SAP R/3 Users to Publish and Share Business Process Information
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 29, 2000--
SAP User Community Benefits in Drive to Accelerate
the Move to eBusiness
IntelliCorp (Nasdaq:INAI), a leading provider of eBusiness and CRM solutions for the SAP(TM) community, today announced myProcesses.com(TM), a web-based application for monitoring, analyzing, and comparing business process information.
Users and implementation partners of SAP R/3(TM) can use myProcesses.com to baseline, document and monitor the health of their business processes, providing a solid foundation for their move to eBusiness.
The service provides secure, universal access to business process and operational performance information for all levels of users including: management, employees, customers, suppliers and trading partners. MyProcesses.com enables users to gather, publish, subscribe, collaborate, design, generate, and distribute critical business processes and operational information, enabling organizations to maximize productivity and reduce cost.
"IntelliCorp's web-hosting business processes may prove to be a breakthrough for companies installing or already using SAP's R/3 solution," said Dick Beckman, ERP Program Manager of Lockheed Martin. "Traditionally, benchmarking has been a valued strategic and tactical management consulting service. Now benchmarking may also become a valued, operational management instrument."
The site offers products and services such as LiveCapture(TM), the new ProcessAnalyzer(TM) and Document Accelerator(TM), online consulting, as well as a powerful Web-centric application that allows companies to quickly and securely roll out Business Process Management and Monitoring (BPMM) systems.
Scott McLeod, senior analyst at Hurwitz Group, said, "On the challenging road to eBusiness transformation, companies need sophisticated tools to detect and avoid the hazards of faulty business processes. In this competitive setting, best-of-breed tools like myProcesses.com can detect common problems and assist in optimizing processes."
Community Benefit
Although many of the products available at the myProcesses.com site are available for use in-house, web hosting brings a unique community aspect to the service. IntelliCorp's myProcesses.com enables R/3 users to post their own business processes anonymously to the secure IntelliCorp site, and compare those processes with industry peers. This industry-specific benchmarking service is the first to cover the SAP R/3 Solution.
"We are creating a community for SAP users to share business process data that is critical for streamlining the supply chain," stated Colin Bodell, IntelliCorp Executive Vice President. "The additional data that myProcesses.com provides is invaluable to companies using or planning to use mySAP.com. For example, financial departments can compare the length of time, or number of distinct actions, it takes them to complete the purchase order process, from requisition to payment."
One compelling application, IntelliCorp's LiveCapture tool, which is available at the myProcesses.com site, reverse engineers a blue print from a running R/3 system. LiveCapture allows users to determine how much of the R/3 system they have implemented, and to monitor actual patterns of usage.
"While LiveCapture can be used in standalone mode at a customer installation, comparing the business processes can help ascertain if a company is unique in implementing any particular component of R/3. This information can be invaluable in explaining companies' agility, or lack thereof," explained Bodell.
eBusiness Process Management
In addition to the applications hosted by the site, myProcesses.com will also focus on the hottest issues facing R/3 users such as eCommerce integration, outsourcing, second-wave initiatives, and front to back office integration. As such, myProcesses.com embodies the four key elements of eBusiness Process Management:
-- identifying current business processes by discovering them as
actually implemented, not just as they were initially designed; -- monitoring the health of those processes at the business process
level, not merely by hardware or system performance; -- accelerating the move to eBusiness; and
-- improving performance, once companies have transformed
themselves.
While there are various system-level tools for assessing or improving performance, business process owners like CIOs, CFOs, and other executives need to know what their systems are doing, not just how fast they are doing it.
"There is a growing need for large, diverse companies to closely monitor 'best practices' within their own company, and to measure themselves against competitors and others without revealing their identity," explained Beckman of Lockheed Martin.
"Executives need benchmarking to fully understand the significance of operational performance metrics and to recognize superior performance delivered by their process teams. Hosting these benchmarks as a web service provides a secure way to obtain cross-industry benchmarks anonymously," Beckman added.
While the principal benefit is expected to come from the community aspects, some customers' internal policies may prohibit even anonymous, security-protected sharing of business processes. In these instances, customers will be allowed to host the service in-house. Many R/3 sites have thousands of users and dozens of sites. They can benefit from comparing processes among their own centers, emulating the most productive and tuning the others.
MyProcesses.com is currently in beta, with early availability to current IntelliCorp customers expected in April. General availability is expected by July. The service will be a part of current customers' maintenance contracts. The pricing approach for new customers will be typical of an ASP, with a monthly subscription, plus various discounts or premiums to be based on the numbers of transactions. |
