BUSINESS P PROCESS T TRENDS PRODUCT REVIEW PR BPM... ·...

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BBBBBUSINESSUSINESSUSINESSUSINESSUSINESS P P P P PROCESSROCESSROCESSROCESSROCESS T T T T TRENDSRENDSRENDSRENDSRENDS PRODUCT REVIEW

September 1, 2004

1© 2004 Business Process Trends

www.bptrends.com

Vendor:Chordiant Software

Web: www.chordiant.com

US HeadquartersChordiant Software20400 Stevens Creek Blvd.Cupertino, CA 95014, USAPhone: +1 408 517 6100

European Headquarters:Chordiant Software International, Ltd.2 Goat Wharf, High StreetBrentford, Middlesex, UK TW8 0BAPhone: +44 (0) 20 8380 0600

Regional Offices:Boston, Chicago, New York City, Mahwah,NJ, Manchester, NH, London, Paris,Amsterdam, Munich, and Frankfurt

Founded: 1997

Ownership: Public: Nasdaq CHRD

Revenues in 2002: $73.0 Million

Employees: 282 worldwide

Author:Paul HarmonExecutive EditorBusiness Process Trends

Business Process Managementand Chordiant

Business Process Management

Business Process Management (BPM) is, today, a very popular term among businessexecutives, software vendors, and the press. This white paper examines what BusinessProcess Management means, and considers the role that Chordiant products plays inthe emerging BPM market.

Business Process Management, broadly, refers to an approach to organizing andmanaging a company that places a major emphasis on business processes. Unlike adepartmental approach, which emphasizes functional specialization, BPM emphasizesprocesses that cut across departmental lines and, ultimately, link suppliers to customers.Thus, one major benefit of a process approach is the emphasis it places on satisfyingcustomers. At the same time, a process-oriented approach emphasizes organizingemployees and software resources around the processes and subprocesses theysupport. Once jobs and software applications are aligned with processes, they can bechanged, more or less automatically, to support the revision or redesign of a process.This makes it easier to respond to problems or new opportunities more quickly. In aprocess-oriented environment, managers can change dynamically alter the productsor services that are delivered.

Some BPM efforts are aimed at helping managers reconceptualize what they do.Other efforts are aimed at defining business processes and shifting resources so thatthey are aligned with processes. Many companies are working to define good processmeasures and using the information derived from process measures to facilitate bettermanagement decisions. Still other efforts are aimed at creating and installing softwareproducts that will make it easier to manage and automate processes.

This white paper will focus primarily on recent efforts to automate Business ProcessManagement, and, specifically, on the role that Chordiant’s products can play in acorporate BPM effort.

Software Products that Support BPM

A variety of companies are offering products to support corporate BPM initiatives. Inany new market, software vendors usually offer a number of different solutions, rangingfrom new software development languages to enterprise applications. One canconceptualize the BPM market with a continuum like the one shown in Figure 1.

On the left side of the BPM continuum there are new software languages and applicationservers designed to facilitate building models of business processes and managingimplementation resources at runtime. These are programmer’s tools and aren’t friendlyenough for most business analysts. Next come the BPM tools or utilities, specialized

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PRODUCT REVIEW Business Process Management and Chordiant


products that help developers accomplish specific tasks. A business process modelingtool or a business rule editor are both examples of tools that most companies aregoing to want to combine into an integrated suite.

As you move to the right of the middle, you reach BPM suites. These productscombine a variety of BPM tools to form a comprehensive BPM development environment.They may be based on a standard BPM language and an established server, or theymay rely on a proprietary engine and server. For most companies seeking to developnew BPM applications, this is where they will begin. Like the languages, servers, andtools, BPM suites are generic in the sense that they can be used to develop any typeof business process solution. Unlike the languages and servers, however, the BPMsuites have better interfaces and more sophisticated development environments. Hence,they are easier to use, but they also incorporate more constraints. A suite, for exampleusually includes a process modeling tool that makes it easy to model activity sequences.Similarly, a BPM suite will include a BPM engine to execute a process at runtime anda utility that can generate browser interfaces for employees who have to interface withthe BPM application created with the suite. On the other hand, suites tend to run onspecific operating systems. Some are more effective for modeling manual processes,while others are tailored to be better at managing automated software processes.Some suites provide structure to facilitate faster development, but lack knowledge ofspecific processes.

Some BPM suites are completely generic and lack any support for any specific process.Others include templates, frameworks, models, or rule sets to make it faster andeasier to develop applications to support specific types of business processes.

BPM applications are designed to support specific types of processes. They includemodels of the processes they support and the rules used to make decisions aboutevents that occur. They make assumptions about how tasks will be done, and providespecific interfaces for employees and managers who will use the process. They differfrom ordinary applications because they incorporate a BPM language or BPM suiteand, thus, managers or business analysts using BPM applications are able to examinethe processes models that structure the application and change rules or process flowsas their processes change.

Figure 1. A language – application continuum for BPM.

XMLJava

BPEL Chordiant's StraightThrough Service

Processing (STSP) andother products likeIntalio's Intalio |n3,

Pegasystems' Pega RulesProcess Controller,Fuego's BPM, and

Ultimus's BPM Suite

Specific BPM-basedapplication packages,

including Chordiant Card,Chordiant Contact

Center, Chordiant RetailChannel, and Chordiant

Marketing

IBM'sWebSphereMicrosoft's

BizTalk Server

Very genericapproach. User

needs to add structureand knowledge

BPMLanguage

BPELApplication

Server

BPMTool

BPMSuite

Chordiant'sBusiness

Process Designerand Rules Editor,

or IBM's WBIModeler and

Choreographer

ApplicationBPM

Very specificapproach. Structureand knowledge are

predefined

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We’ll consider the differences between BPM suites and BPM applications in a bitmore detail.

In essence, a Business Process Management Suite is a software package that allowsa business manager or business analyst to describe process, and, later, as needed, tomodify the process. From a software architect’s perspective, one could describe BPMproducts as a new layer of software that sits above applications and uses businessprocess specifications to coordinate the execution of the applications.

A BPM software suite includes a process-diagramming interface for the manager touse to define the process and a workflow or BPM engine that starts applications whenthey are needed and terminates them when the process no longer requires thoseservices.

There’s quite a bit more to a BPM suite than our definition suggests, but let’s start withthis simplistic overview. In Figure 2 we picture the two core BPM elements. One is thedescription of the process. The other is a BPM engine that follows the script implicitin the process description and manages the dynamic invocation of applications whenthe process is actually executed. In effect, a business analyst describes what is to bedone, and the BPM engine then “reads” the description, invoking each implementationcomponent in order.

Before looking at any of the details, let’s be sure we understand a BPM suite’s primaryvalue claim. BPM suites make it possible for business analysts to change howprocesses work without having to ask IT to reprogram. Some claim any businessmanager would be able to do this, but that’s unlikely. More likely, the BPM suite willbe used by a business analyst working with business managers.

A EDC

Software Modeling Utility That Displays a Graphical View of a Process

PhysicalImplementationof the Process

SoftwareComponent

B

SoftwareComponent

C

EnterpriseApplicationModule E

BPM Suite

EnterpriseApplicationModule D

UserInterface

Business AnalystInterface

and Implementation

That Manages LinksBetween Diagram

BPM Engine

Logical Implementation of the Process

B

Figure 2. A simple overview of a BPM Suite.

BPM Suites

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Figure 3 suggests how a business analyst might have used a BPM suite to change aprocess diagram pictured in Figure 2, thereby automatically changing the underlyingflow of the implementation software. We assume that the same underlyingimplementation components are still in place and that they function as they did inFigure 2. Now, however, the order in which they are invoked has changed. Moreover,the changes have been accomplished without the intervention of IT developers. Theability of a BPM suite to re-establish links to underlying software components withoutthe support of IT requires a flexible BPM engine that can dynamically rearrange interfaceswith the software components.

It’s also important to notice just what the BPM suite did NOT do. The BPM suite, aswe have defined it, did NOT create any new components. It simply allowed the businessanalyst to rearrange the order in which existing components were used.

Now let’s consider the elements required by the BPM suite we have pictured in Figures2 and 3 that we have not discussed yet.

A Process Design Tool and a Database

Most BPM suites will have a process design utility that a business manager or analystcan use to define and revise a process. If the BPM suite vendor really hopes thatbusiness managers will be able to use the tool, the design utility had better be reallyeasy to use.

Just as every BPM suite will support a business process design capability, every BPMsuite will have some data to store. It will need to store the process description itself,the BPM engine, and any data that is created when the process is actually executed.Similarly, the BPM suite will probably have a directory and security information aboutwhich employees are to be sent information and who can change the process flow.

Figure 3. A simple overview of a BPM Suite showing how a business analysthas modified the flow of a business process.

A B E

D

C

Software Tool That Displays a Graphical View of a Process

PhysicalImplementationof the Process

SoftwareComponent

C

SoftwareComponent

B

EnterpriseApplicationModule E

BPM Suite

EnterpriseApplicationModule D

UserInterface


and Implementation

That Manages LinksBetween Diagram

BPM Engine

Logical Implementation of the Process

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In Figure 3, we pictured an analyst interface to the process design tool and a databaseassociated with the BPM engine.

Business Rules

Very simple processes can be described with diagrams, but more complex processesrequire the business analyst to incorporate business rules in the process descriptionto handle decisions that need to be made during the execution of the process. Thedecisions made during some activities may only require one or a few rules. Otheractivities, in which complex analysis, configuration, or design decisions are made,may require tens or hundreds of rules. Put a different way, some process descriptionsmodel processes that are always executed in exactly the same way. Most processes,especially those involving customers or suppliers, vary a little each time they areperformed. In cases where slight changes in the context result in different decisions orpaths through the process, rules are required to handle each of the different situationsthat might occur when the process is executed. We believe that all BPM suitesshould include support for rules. Again, if business managers or analysts are to usethe product, the rules tool needs to have a very friendly interface.

Assume that some of the activities shown in Figure 3 will contain business rules tohelp determine how to accomplish those activities. Similarly, there may be rulesassociated with the arrows to determine the flow of data between activities. Thus,when a business analyst changes the order of the activities, and, hence, the order inwhich the software components might be used, he or she may alter specific rules tochange how the process would deal with specific problems in the future.

Alternately, rules may fire while a specific process is executed and determine that newactivities and, hence, new software components will be called, depending on the datathe user inputs as the activities are being executed. The use of rules makes theseprocess sequences much more dynamic than processes that simply move through afixed sequence of activities.

Support for Manual and Automated Activities

The actual implementation elements are not part of the BPM suite as we have definedit. In the example shown in Figure 3, we picture three different kinds of implementationelements. First, we have an employee manually implementing activity A. Presumably,the BPM suite sends information to the employee. Perhaps it’s a scanned applicationform. Perhaps it’s a request for the employee to approve a change in the customer’sstatus, or to approve a purchase. We assume that the employee takes the appropriateaction and enters the outcome into his or her terminal and that the entry completesactivity A. Once activity A is complete, the BPM engine invokes activity B. Manualtasks are usually described in terms of “work items” or “work lists” and are stored inthe BPM suite database. Presumably, a business analyst, using a process designutility, would be able to create or modify the work lists associated with specific activitiesjust as he or she could modify rules associated with specific activities.

We assume that activity B and C are implemented by software components developedby the company that created the process the BPM suite is to manage. Perhaps oneis a legacy application written in COBOL that runs on a mainframe. Perhaps the otheris an application written in C++ and running on a Unix workstation.

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The right hand software module in Figure 2 (E) represents an enterprise application –say, a ERP application. If our BPM suite is actually going to link and coordinate thesedifferent applications, it is going to have to have at least some of the capabilities of anEnterprise Application Integration (EAI) engine, or it is going to have to rely on a powerfulmiddleware system, like the OMG’s CORBA. This has led some analysts to suggestthat BPM suites are really EAI tools. They are more, but they certainly need toincorporate EAI technologies.

BPM Suites, the Web, and Transactions

Most BPM suites are designed to work on the Internet. In Figure 3, for example, wepicture an employee interacting with the BPM suite via a computer. Most BPM suiteswill support Web Browser interfaces, so that the employee can access the BPM systemover the Internet by means of a browser. In addition, since most BPM suites willprovide support for integrating software modules and databases from a variety of differentvendors, Internet protocols, like XML, will typically be used to support smooth dataand software component integration.

Some BPM suites are highly tailored to support new applications that call componentsor services by means of the Internet. Others use the Internet to facilitate communication,but are tailored to support transaction applications that primarily run within anorganization. The latter, especially if they are to support thousands of userssimultaneously, need sophisticated utilities that make it easy for them to scale up tosupport high volumes of transactions at peak periods.

Up to this point, we’ve described BPM suites and emphasized that a BPM suite, as it“comes out of the box,” does not include the components or application modules thatit is managing. Similarly, most tools lack any process descriptions, rules, or userinterfaces. Instead, they offer an environment in which a developer can create processdescriptions, write rules, create worklists and interfaces for users, and link to existingsoftware components or application modules.

Some BPM suites include knowledge of specific processes, pretested rule sets, orsoftware components that make it easier to develop specific types of applications.Thus, some BPM suite vendors will specialize in helping financial companies andinclude process models and rules for popular financial applications, while others willfocus on customer-facing applications and include process models and interfaces andcomponents that will facilitate the rapid development of online catalog sales centers orcall center applications.

Predictably, as time passes, BPM suite vendors will tend to offer more extensions thatsupport the development of specific types of applications. Offerings will range fromtemplates and rather generic process models to highly detailed models and rules.Some vendors will offer complete BPM applications that are ready to run “out of thebox.”

We are using the term BPM application to refer to an application that includes a BPMsuite or language within the application. Thus, unlike traditional ERP or CRM enterpriseapplications, a BPM application provides business managers and analysts with a wayof analyzing exactly how the application is structured and with the ability to modify the

BPM Applications

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BPMS ToolBPMS Tool

ProcessMonitoring

BPMEngine

ProcessModeling

Tool

UserInterface

RuleEngine

General Infrastructure

BPMS InfrastructureBPEL

XML SOAP

Tools

BPM SuiteBPM Suite

RuleEngineRule

EngineUser

InterfaceUser

InterfaceProcessModeling

Tool

ProcessModeling

ToolBPM

EngineBPM

EngineProcess

MonitoringProcess

Monitoring

Today's suites combine allthese utilities (except,perhaps monitoring)

BP Knowledge

A BPM Applicationcombines a BPM Suitewith domain or industry

specific knoweldge.

Knowledge is necessarily domainor industry specific.

ProcessMonitoringProcess

Monitoring

Rules forSpecific

ProcessesProcess

MonitoringProcess

Monitoring

Models forSpecific

Processes ProcessMonitoringProcess

Monitoring

SoftwareComponentsto Automate

SpecificProcesses


Monitoring

UserInterfacesto Support

SpecificProcesses

BPM Application

BPM Application

General Infrastructure

ERP Suites allowlimited editingcapabilities.

ERP Application

ERP Application

BP Knowledge

Today's ERP suites offer users avariety of modules that can be comined

in various sequences. The internalprocesses or rules, however, cannot be

examined or changed easily.


Monitoring

Hardcoded

Modules

ERP Infrastructure

application, as needed. This is an important point. Traditional enterprise applicationmodules allow programmers to tailor the applications when they are first installed.Once the programmers have chosen among the options provided, and complied theenterprise modules, it’s very hard to modify them again. If they need to be modified, ittakes time and requires the services of a programmer who knows the programminglanguage in which the module is written. A BPM application separates the flow and therules used for decisions from the underlying components or software modules. Abusiness analyst can examine the flow using the workflow modeling tool that comeswith the BPM application. Similarly, the business analyst can examine and changethe rules used whenever he or she wants. Thus, a true BPM application providesbusiness managers and business analysts with a whole new kind of control. It movesmost of the decisions and the ability to make the changes to implement those decisionsinto the hands of the business manager or business analyst, and frees business peoplefrom the heavy dependence on IT that one associates with traditional enterpriseapplications.

Figure 4 provides another way to conceptualize the difference between BPM languages,tools, suites, and applications, and contrasts them with a typical ERP application. Ineffect, Figure 4 turns the continuum on end, and emphasizes the layers of softwareand knowledge contained in each successive product.

Figure 4. The stack of software layers and types of knowledge that make up aBPM application and an ERP application.

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To summarize, we are suggesting that a BPM application can be created either byprogramming in a business process language, like BPEL, or by using a BPM suite. Insome cases, depending on how much process specific knowledge the BPM suiteincorporates, there may not be much difference between a BPM suite and a BPMapplication. In other cases, one will start with a BPM suite, create process diagrams,add rules, create employee task lists and user interfaces and add software componentsto create a business process management application to support your business process.

Many readers associate Chordiant Software with customer-facing applications.Chordiant was founded in 1997. Its software is written in Java, and it uses Javacomponents throughout. It is architected to support Internet delivery and easy integrationwith other systems. Thus, Chordiant, was designed, from the beginning, to supportthe BPM approach, while most other enterprise application vendors will have to retrofittheir products in an effort to support the BPM paradigm, and will do so, in most cases,with considerable difficulty.

Today, Chordiant supports two different offerings. It sells a generic BPM suite, whichit calls the Chordiant Straight Through Service Processing environment, and it sellsfour BPM applications, including: Chordiant Card, Chordiant Contact Center, ChordiantRetail Channel, and Chordiant Marketing.

The Chordiant BPM suite

Figure 5 illustrates the BPM suite that Chordiant sells.

Chordiant has sold several suites to companies that want to develop new processesthat Chordiant does not currently offer. In most cases, companies want to use legacysystems and create additional processes with new rules so that the Chordiant StraightThrough Service Processing suite can facilitate the management of the existingapplication. Thus, in effect, the company moves a significant portion of the managementof the existing applications from IT to business analysts, while acquiring the ability toalter the existing applications in a much more timely manner. Chordiant BPM scales

Chordiant Software

Figure 5. Chordiant Straight Through Service Processing.

A EDC

Chordiant Process DesignerBPM Suite

UserInterface


Utilities for linking to a variety of software componentsand utilities for accessing and combining data from a

variety of sources.

BPM EngineB

Chordiant Straight ThroughService Processing

Chordiant has the ability to generateand support thousands of simultanious

user interactions with a process.

A rule interface and engine that supports creating hundreds of rules tomanage the flow of the process.

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and can manage thousands of simultaneous user interactions easily, and provides amigration path for those that choose to incorporate one or more of Chordiant’s existingcustomer-facing processes into their existing systems.

The Chordiant BPM Applications

In addition to selling a generic BPM suite, Chordiant also sells four BPM applicationstailored to support specific customer-facing processes. In effect, each application is aset of subprocesses that implement a more general process or application. Figure 6illustrates how the four Chordiant BPM applications are combined.

Chordiant markets its BPM applications primarily to financial, telecom, and retailorganizations. This figure shows how Chordiant has extended its BPM suite toincorporate predefined business processes and software components to implement amarketing process, a retail channel process, a card process, and a contact centerprocess. The bold outline includes some and excludes other software elements tosuggest that the Chordiant product includes some software components. but is designedso that other components and data sources can be easily plugged into the final system.

Figure 6. A Chordiant BPM package that combines a BPM suite with four predefinedsets of customer facing processes and the software components needed to

implement those processes.

Marketing Processes

BPM Engine

MPComponent 1

Customer

Internet

Mail/Telephone

Face-to-Face

Retail Channel Processes Contact Center Processes

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The heart of the Chordiant BPM suite is the Straight Through Servicing platform. Thisincludes the Process Design Tool, in which any process can be examined and modified,and Chordiant’s BPM engine which controls the execution of the processes and theinvocation of components.

In addition to the Chordiant BPM suite, there are four applications, each of whichincludes a set of subprocess models, rules, and tailored employee interfaces. Whenthe system is first set up, designers must establish what data will be needed fromcompany databases or applications and establish the interfaces. Once this is done,data from multiple sources are combined and presented in the tailored interface screensthat employees use. Thus, when a call center employee contacts a customer, a portionof the interface shows all the data on the customer. Chordiant is especially designedto allow the business analyst to easily link non-Chordiant databases and legacyapplications into a larger process. In fact, the Chordiant system can automaticallycombine data from multiple database sources and present a consolidated overview ofrelevant data.

Another part of the same screen shows the employee what processes are available.Typical processes that the employee might invoke include Change of Address, LostCredit Card, Change of Credit Card Limit, and Closing an Account. Once the employeeselects a process, the interface presents the employee with a Work List, and guidesthe employee through the steps involved in the process. Thus, Chordiant provides anice example of a BPM suite that is combined with knowledge of specific processes.

As you can see in Figure 6, the Chordiant BPM application shown comes with foursets of predefined processes. One set of processes is designed to help marketingmanagers plan and manage marketing campaigns. Using one of these processes, forexample, a marketing manager is guided through the steps required to plan a campaignin which customers are offered incentives to upgrade. This campaign can subsequentlybe implemented by either Retail Channel processes, as when a customer goes to acompany website to shop, or via Call Center processes that are triggered when acustomer calls the company. Since the business analyst has control over each of theprocesses in each of Chordiant’s major process groups, the analyst can tailor themarketing campaign process, and then, subsequently, tailor exactly how the resultingmarketing campaign is implemented by specific Call Center Processes.

Let’s take a closer look at how Chordiant supports BPM development. The screenshots that follow are derived from an Automobile Insurance Claims Management systemthat Chordiant developed for delivery on IBM platforms. The place to start, with anyBPM product, is to consider how Chordiant supports processes. Chordiant has adevelopment tool, the Business Process Designer, which is pictured in Figure 7. SinceChordiant comes with an extensive set of customer facing processes, one can use theProcess Designer to examine any existing Chordiant process. The business analystcan examine the flow and modify it, if desired. Obviously, some activities depend onothers, and the analyst is constrained from reordering or eliminating certain activitieswith dependencies, but is otherwise free to alter the diagrams to indicate how specificprocesses will be executed.

Chordiant Support for BPMDevelopment

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Each of the individual process boxes shown in Figure 7 can be opened, and theproperties of each activity can be examined or changed. As a generalization, mostChordiant processes are manual processes that require employees to make decisions.Thus, most processes are associated with worklists that structure the tasks theemployee should perform.

Another way that business analysts can tailor processes is by modifying the businessrules used to guide decisions. Chordiant incorporates a business rule engine that theanalyst accesses via a “spreadsheet,” that makes it easy to see which rules are beingused to make decisions. (See Figure 8.) The business analysis can quickly modifyrules to change outcomes. Suppose, for example, that your company wanted tomodify a specific process to increase the credit requirements for a specific type oftransaction. It would simply be a matter of changing the appropriate rules that wereused to determine credit worthiness for clients and you would automatically changethe credit criteria used in a given activity.

Figure 7. Chordiant’s Business Process Designer

Chordiant 5 Business Process Designer uses a graphical interface that allows Business Analysts, rather than IT Programmers to create, modify and test different business processes, including setting service levels and timers.

This allows much greater business agility as new or modified processes can be tested and run in minutes rather than weeks.

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Once the manager and the business analyst are satisfied that the processes supportedby Chordiant are tailored for their needs, they have an application and are ready toactually use the software to manage actual processes as they are executed.

Chordiant is designed to support Internet-based deployment. Thus, individual marketingmanagers, call center operators, or customers interact with Chordiant processes via abrowser interface. In other words, a specific employee simply signs-on, from his or hercomputer, and the system provides the relevant browser screen needed to undertakehis or her work.

Chordiant uses a single interface screen to manage all customer-facing processes.The screen is divided so that a given employee can view data on the right side of thescreen and available processes on the left side of the same screen. The underlyingChordiant system executes the processes as defined by the business analyst. Whenthe system is first set up, it is linked to various company and external databases andappropriate legacy applications so that any data needed to execute a process is availableto the employee. Thus, for example, if the employee is working in the call center anda customer calls to report an accident, the employee is quickly provided all companydata on the customer on the right side of the screen, in an integrated view.

Figure 8. The Chordiant Rules Designer

Chordiant Rules Designer uses spreadsheet-style forms and English-language definitions to formulate and apply business rules to the business processes. Conflicts and ambiguous rules are automatically identified to reduce errors and speed implementation.

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Once the employee selects the Accident Report process, the activity prompts, andany data capture forms are placed in the center of the screen. (See Figure 9.)

Figure 10 shows a pop-up box with a script to guide the employee through a call. If thecall were somewhat different, that box might suggest a marketing promotion that thecall center employee might suggest to the caller. Recall that the developer canincorporate rules that select customers with specific characteristics for specialtreatment. Thus, as customers are processed and targeted customers are identified,the rules dynamically alter the process flow to provide activities appropriate for theclients being processed.

While it’s not easy to show with screen shots, the Chordiant package incorporates anumber of other advanced BPM features. It uses the OMG’s XML integration language(XMI) to pass data, and it supports MDA, allowing users to pass data to Rational Rosewhen business analysts determine that software development must be undertaken.

Figure 9. A Chordiant role-based browser interface that an employee would use whileinteracting with customers calling into the contact center.

Specific items regarding the claimant can be displayed here for the agent’s attention.Specific items regarding the claimant can be displayed here for the agent’s attention.

Available processes for this agent’s role are displayed in windows-style directory.

In this example, the “New Claim” process will be launched.

Available processes for this agent’s role are displayed in windows-style directory.

In this example, the “New Claim” process will be launched.

All policies that are held by the customer are displayed. This data comes from multiple systems in real time.

All policies that are held by the customer are displayed. This data comes from multiple systems in real time.

A complete history of all policyholder interactions and activities is provided.A complete history of all policyholder interactions and activities is provided.

Once verified, the agent is presented with a 360 view of the policyholder’s status and product set, including any current alerts.

Once verified, the agent is presented with a 360 view of the policyholder’s status and product set, including any current alerts.

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The Chordiant BPM Application Versus Conventional PackagedApplications

Many readers probably think of Chordiant’s customer-facing applications as applicationssimilar to applications from other enterprise software vendors. This is an inaccuratecomparison, and it is the BPM engine that makes all the difference. Packages fromother vendors may provide graphics to describe the processes that their modulesimplement, and they may allow limited changes in the way modules or rules are usedin actual processing. In fact, however, without a BPM engine, the process models aresimply a kind of documentation. The modules themselves, and the rules they contain,are already coded and locked in compiled software modules.

The process begins with a query regarding injuries. With no injuries reported, the guided data collection process can begin.

Responses to certain questions will determine the sequence of subsequent forms and will pre-fill some data fields where the information is available from multiple data stores or legacy applications.

Active processes are displayed here and the agent can run multiple processes with multiple customers without exiting the application.

Dynamic scripting guides the agent through the process ensuring consistency and quality.

Figure 10. A Chordiant business process application showing a browser screen usedby Contact Center employees. This screen shows the information available and a

guided script that will lead the employee through the process

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Chordiant applications, on the other hand, are being managed and executed by theBPM engine as the application is run in real time. The process is actually beingassembled, dynamically, as users make inputs during the course of the process.Thus, depending on a user response, different rules will be called and the process thatis generated will change. The BPM engine not only allows managers to modifyprocesses as needed, it assures that the processes themselves change in responseto changing conditions. This provides new flexibility that is utterly unlike that offeredby conventional ERP and CRM applications.

Most companies have spent vast sums installing packaged applications over the pastdecade. In some cases those systems have proven very useful. In many casescompanies have been very frustrated by their inability to tailor ERP/CRM systemsmore easily or more effectively. Adding to the frustration, in some cases, is the factthat the packaged applications have been installed to support departmental organizationsthat have changed and the applications have not proven as effective in supportingnewer, more integrated, process-focused approaches.

In the past 2-3 years we have witnessed a major new emphasis on business processesand on creating systems that will allow managers a greater role in managing businessprocesses. Business Process Management languages and suites are steps in thatdirection. For some companies, BPM suites will offer a new and much more efficientway to organize and manage processes. Using a BPM suite, however, a company isstill forced to define the business processes to be managed and, in many cases, tocreate new software that can be used to automate the new processes. Thus, othercompanies will prefer BPM applications that combine a BPM suite with predefinedprocesses and rules, user interfaces, and software components that are ready to field.For many, this will prove the most cost-effective way to rapidly gain the advantagesoffered by Business Process Management.

Chordiant offers a BPM suite. It also sells a set of BPM applications that combine itsBPM suite with predefined customer-facing processes, supported by the rules,interfaces, and the application components necessary to implement those processes.A company can use Chordiant to quickly tailor a customer-facing application, and thenuse the process designer and rules engine to modify the application as needed. Inessence, the actual application is dynamically generated each time it is used by theprocess engine. Most companies will find Chordiant’s applications more flexible anddynamic than others they have used.

Chordiant’s BPM suite is designed to scale to support very large, complex processeswith tens of thousands of simultaneous users. It provides the utilities necessary tolink to data from a wide variety of sources and then to combine that data on userinterface screens.

As far as we know, Chordiant’s BPM suite is the first to combine a BPM engine withapplication components to provide this new level of functionality and flexibility. If youwant to examine the future of enterprise applications today, examine Chordiant’s BPMsuite and its associated BPM applications.

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