Successful Strategies To Improve Customer Care...

11
The knowledge gained by TXU Energy when it implemented its process-monitoring system is applicable to organizations that need to improve the effectiveness and service levels of complex, end-to-end processes that encompass heterogeneous business applications. Overview This research explains how real-time operational intelligence is used to improve customer service for complex end-to-end business processes in a virtual enterprise. IT leaders, business leaders and business analysts must understand best practices to minimize their risk and achieve rapid payback. Case Study: Learn Some Lessons From TXU Energy’s Operational Intelligence System Key Findings End-to-end operational intelligence reveals problems that cannot be detected by silo management reports and monitoring systems that track only individual applications. Operational intelligence does not require a workflow or process orchestration tool to actively drive the end-to-end process. The event data required for end-to-end monitoring can be captured from database management systems (DBMSs) or other aspects of the business applications. Significant business events typically occur when a transaction crosses from one 1 Gartner Case Study: Learn Some Lessons From TXU Energy’s Operational Intelligence System 8 Understanding Operational Intelligence: Frequently Asked Questions 10 Using Operational Intelligence To Improve Your Business: Common Use Cases 11 About Vitria Featuring research from Issue 1 Successful Strategies To Improve Customer Care Processes Make Better, Faster Decisions Using Operational Intelligence SAMPLE

Transcript of Successful Strategies To Improve Customer Care...

Page 1: Successful Strategies To Improve Customer Care Processesimagesrv.gartner.com/media-products/pdf/mediaproductsemail/2012/Q... · • SAP CRM for customer-facing transactions • SAP-ISU

The knowledge gained by TXU Energy when it implemented its process-monitoring system is applicable to organizations that need to improve the effectiveness and service levels of complex, end-to-end processes that encompass heterogeneous business applications.

Overview

This research explains how real-time operational intelligence is used to improve customer service for complex end-to-end business processes in a virtual enterprise. IT leaders, business leaders and business analysts must understand best practices to minimize their risk and achieve rapid payback.

Case Study: Learn Some Lessons From TXU Energy’s Operational Intelligence System

Key Findings

• End-to-endoperationalintelligencerevealsproblems that cannot be detected by silo management reports and monitoring systems that track only individual applications.

• Operationalintelligencedoesnotrequirea workflow or process orchestration tool to actively drive the end-to-end process. Theeventdatarequiredforend-to-endmonitoring can be captured from database management systems (DBMSs) or other aspects of the business applications.

• Significantbusinesseventstypicallyoccurwhen a transaction crosses from one

1Gartner Case Study: Learn Some Lessons From TXU Energy’s Operational Intelligence System

8Understanding Operational Intelligence: Frequently Asked Questions

10Using Operational Intelligence To Improve Your Business: Common Use Cases

11About Vitria

Featuring research from

Issue 1

Successful Strategies To Improve Customer Care Processes Make Better, Faster Decisions Using Operational Intelligence

SAMPLE

Page 2: Successful Strategies To Improve Customer Care Processesimagesrv.gartner.com/media-products/pdf/mediaproductsemail/2012/Q... · • SAP CRM for customer-facing transactions • SAP-ISU

2

SAMPLE

Successful Strategies For Improving Your Customer Care Processes is published by Vitria. Editorial supplied by Vitria is independent of Gartner analysis. All Gartner research is © 2012 by Gartner, Inc. All rights reserved. All Gartner materials are used with Gartner’s permission. The use or publication of Gartner research does not indicate Gartner’s endorsement of Vitria’s products and/or strategies. Reproduction or distribution of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completenessoradequacyofsuchinformation.Gartnershallhavenoliabilityforerrors,omissionsorinadequaciesintheinformationcontainedhereinorforinterpretationsthereof.Theopinionsexpressedhereinaresubject to change without notice. Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartnerisapubliccompany,anditsshareholdersmayincludefirmsandfundsthathavefinancialinterestsinentitiescoveredinGartnerresearch.Gartner’sBoardofDirectorsmayincludeseniormanagersofthesefirmsorfunds.Gartnerresearchisproducedindependentlybyitsresearchorganizationwithoutinputorinfluencefromthesefirms,fundsortheirmanagers.ForfurtherinformationontheindependenceandintegrityofGartnerresearch,see“GuidingPrinciplesonIndependenceandObjectivity”onitswebsite,http://www.gartner.com/technology/about/ombudsman/omb_guide2.jsp.

application to another, from one company to another, or when a personfinishesworkonatask.Inmostcases,businesspeopledonotneedorwanttoseefine-graineddetailsontheminoreventsthat happen within application systems.

Recommendations

• Applyreal-timeoperationalintelligenceattwolevels:(1)tocorrectproblems that affect individual process instances (e.g., invalid datainacustomerservicerequest)and(2)tocorrectproblemsthat affect large groups of process instances (e.g., when an entire application system is down).

• Monitorend-to-endbusinessprocessesusingacoarse-grained,summary process model. In most cases, no more than seven to 10significantmilestonesforeachprocessshouldbeshownonabusiness dashboard.

• Developoperationalintelligenceapplicationsinaniterativemanner,refiningthebusinessdashboards,keyperformanceindicators (KPIs), alert thresholds and problem resolution processes as you gain experience with the system.

Analysis

What You Need to KnowReal-time operational intelligence systems enable timely action that improvestheefficiencyandeffectivenessofcompanyoperations.They provide one or more capabilities, such as business activity monitoring (BAM), advanced analytics, other kinds of decision management and process orchestration to resolve exceptions. BAM is a subset of operational intelligence; in a broad sense, it includes all business-oriented monitoring that provides current information on the conditions and changes that happen in a company and its externalenvironment.However,theterm“BAM”isusuallyappliedonly to business process monitoring (such as what occurs in this operational intelligence application) or to monitoring applications that lackaspecificfunctionallabel,suchassupplychainvisibilityorfrauddetection.

BAM has become relatively common for individual application systems and for business processes that are orchestrated at runtime by workflow or business process orchestration tools. However, BAM is still relatively uncommon for processes that encompass multiple heterogeneous application systems, especially if they are not orchestrated by a runtime business process monitoring software tool. Mostbusinessprocessesfitintothiscategory—thatis,theyrun“inthedark,”becausetheydon’thaveend-to-endprocessmonitoring.

The TXU Energy Case Study demonstrates how a small development teamcanquicklyimplementaprocessmonitoringsolutionthatgivesbusiness people much-improved visibility into complicated business processes, leading to substantial improvements in customer service levels and customer satisfaction.

IntroductionThe Texas electricity market is deregulated, so generating and transmitting electricity are separate from retail delivery. Multiple partiesareinvolved,including:

The TXU Energy Case Study demonstrates how a small development team can quickly implement a process monitoring solution that gives business people much-improved visibility into complicated business processes, leading to substantial improvements in customer service levels and customer satisfaction.W. Roy Schulte, VP Distinguished Analyst, Gartner

Page 3: Successful Strategies To Improve Customer Care Processesimagesrv.gartner.com/media-products/pdf/mediaproductsemail/2012/Q... · • SAP CRM for customer-facing transactions • SAP-ISU

3

SAMPLE

• Consumers

• Retailelectricitysuppliers,suchasTXU,thatprovidecustomerservice, arrange provisioning and handle billing

• TexasTransmissionandDistributionServiceProviders(TDSPs)thatprovide physical support (poles and wires) and read meters

• Companiesthatgenerateandsellbulkelectricity

• TheElectricReliabilityCouncilofTexas(ERCOT),theindependentsystemoperatorfor75%ofTexas;ERCOTrunsahubthatconnects retail electricity suppliers and consumers, it brokers the communication when consumers enroll or switch to a new provider, and it manages the physical flow of electric power and the settlement of wholesale bulk-power transactions

TXU has more than 2 million customers, making it the largest retail supplier in Texas. It offers consumer power plans and electricity bill payment assistance programs. The success of a retail electricity supplier depends on its ability to manage the flow of work among the participants in the complex provisioning and delivery processes. Customerscanswitchtoanothersupplieriftheyaredissatisfied.AsKevinChase,TXU’sCIO,explained,“Customerserviceiscrucialto maintaining our position as the leading energy company in the highlycompetitiveTexasmarket.”TXU’sgoalistoprocess100%ofcustomers’requestsonthedaypromised.

The ChallengeTXU’s goal was to improve customer service and reduce customer churn by implementing a new real-time operational intelligence system (sometimes called BAM, process intelligence, enterprise workflow monitoring or operational event workflow analysis). The new system was intended to provide visibility into its end-to-end processes, improve the process flow, eliminate bottlenecks that result in delays and make it possible to take immediate corrective action for emerging problems. It focused on two key business processes.

Customer Onboarding (Enrollment and Move-In)

TXUreceivesthousandsofnewservicerequestsperday.Atanygiven time, the system must monitor the status of all outstanding onboardingrequeststhatareatsomestageintheirlifecycle.Someareprovisionedonthesamedaythattherequestismade;othersmay take several days.

Disconnect/Reconnect

TXU also handles thousands of events per day related to disconnects and reconnects for people who have exceeded the 16-day payment period.Regulationsrequirethatreconnectsthatcanbehandledremotely in automated meters may be accomplished in a minimum of twohoursofpaymentbeingreceived.Otherservice-levelregulationsgoverncustomerreconnectsthatrequireon-sitephysicalwork.

ApplicationsTXU uses four primary application systems to support these processes:

• SAPCRMforcustomer-facingtransactions

• SAP-ISUforbilling,invoicing,paymentsandcollections

• GSX’sInovisBizLinkforsendingandreceivingelectronicdatainterchange(EDI)transactionswithERCOT

• GSX’sTrustedLinkEnterprise(TLE)fortranslatingdocumentsfromSAP to EDI format and vice versa

The flow of work among these applications is not orchestrated by a runtime workflow or process management tool. Furthermore, prior to this project, each application was managed separately using the respectivereportingsystems.Localprocessmodelswereavailableforsome of the applications. Metrics and exceptions for some systems could be seen by people in different departments, but there was no end-to-end view. The management reports did not cross the application silos and did not cover some metrics of interest to the business.

The TXU operational business unit charged with monitoring these processes, the Transaction Management team, had no centralized wayoffindingwhereaparticularcustomer’senrollmentwasinthe process. If a customer’s enrollment was stalled, the company sometimes only learned of the problem when the person called in

Real-time operational intelligence systems enable timely action that improves the efficiency and effectiveness of company operations.W. Roy Schulte, VP Distinguished Analyst, Gartner

“”

Page 4: Successful Strategies To Improve Customer Care Processesimagesrv.gartner.com/media-products/pdf/mediaproductsemail/2012/Q... · • SAP CRM for customer-facing transactions • SAP-ISU

4

SAMPLE

to complain. The team would then have to implement an exception process, and track down the origins of the problem. This could take several days of investigation.

ApproachTXUfirstdevelopedaprototypeend-to-endBAMapplicationusingcustom, homegrown code. The system had high overhead, did not refreshfrequentlyenoughanddidnotprovidealloftheKPIsthattheTransactionManagementteamrequired.TXUalsoconsideredusingthe SAP Solution Manager product, but determined that this tool was better-suited to system monitoring than tracking business KPIs and end-to-endprocesses.TXUthenturnedtoVitriaTechnology’sM3OOperationalIntelligencePlatformtoprovidethesoftwaretechnologyinfrastructure for the project. A consulting company, Sendero Business Services, provided management consulting and one application developer.OneVitriaarchitectwasalsobroughtintohelpimplementthe solution, giving the project a total of two software developers and one management consultant.

Thefirststepintheprojectwastobuildend-to-endshadowtracking process models that described the flow of work across the applications. The shadow process models are used for BAM tracking purposes, but they are not used to control (orchestrate) the actual flow. The developers interviewed business people (subject matter experts) to get a general understanding of the major business events and overall flow at a conceptual level. Then they examined the application systems to determine the actual software transactions at amore-detailedlogicallevel.Insomecases,theexactsequencesofactivities in software were different than the processes as they were understood by business users.

The business events of interest only reflect major milestones, such as whenaservicerequestissubmitted,atransactionpassesfromoneapplication to another, or goes to or from another company, such asERCOToraTDSP.Thebusinessprocessesinthiscasestudyonlyhad nine major milestones (each) that needed to be tracked. The shadowprocessmodelswereexpressedinM3OBPM,theBusinessProcess Modeling Notation (BPMN)-based process modeling componentofM3O.Thesametoolisalsousedinaslightlydifferentway to orchestrate active business processes that carry out problem resolution after a problem has been detected.

The second step was to implement the connections into the four application systems. Business events are captured at runtime by pollingtheOracledatabasesintheapplicationsystemseveryoneto three minutes. Database rows with new or changed data are selected based on timestamps that are automatically generated byOracle.OneofthemostcomplicatedpartsofthedevelopmentprojectwastounderstandtheinternalhexidentifiersthatSAPusestostoredatainkeyfields.BygettingtheeventdatafromtheOracle

DBMS,theSAPapplicationsrequiredonlyonesmallmodification.Thesenior manager of operations development, who was responsible for the project from the business side, reported that the overhead of capturing the events from the SAP application databases is unnoticeable, because event data is only collected for a few major business events.

Thethirdandfinalstepwastodevelopthereal-timeintelligenceapplication, including the BAM business dashboard and problem resolution processes. The business rules that represent regulations, service-levelagreements(SLAs)andTXUpolicieswereprovidedbythe senior manager of operations development and members of the Transaction Management team. The policies were implemented in softwareontheM3Oplatform.Thedashboardwasimplementedusingthedrag-and-dropVisualBuildertoolintheFlex-basedM3OOperationscomponent.

RuntimeTheVitriaM3OFeedServersoftwarecomponentingestsbusinesseventsfromtheapplicationdatabases,convertsthemtoXML,archivesacopyinaneventlog(anotherOracledatabase),andforwardstheeventstotheM3OAnalyticServerforprocessing.Theoverallvolumeofeventsisrelativelymodest—onaverage,fewerthan 50 events per minute. Thousands of enrollment and disconnect/reconnectservicerequestsareopenatanyonetime,andeachcanhave as many as 200 business events archived in the event log.

TheM3OAnalyticServerrunstheoperationalintelligencelogic.Itusesitsinternalcomplex-eventprocessing(CEP)enginetofindmeaningfulpatterns of business events that constitute incidents, which are complex events that represent exceptions or other situations of interest. The Analytic Server also enriches events by inserting account ortransactionidentifierstomatchbusinesseventswithcustomerservicerequests.TheAnalyticServersendsincidentsandothereventstotheM3OBusinessProcessManagement(BPM)system.

TheM3OBPMengineimplementsthetrackingprocessesatruntime.It matches each incident to the history of its associated service requesttoseeiftheeventoccurredwithinanacceptabletimewindow. Tracking processes are also used to identify the absence ofevents—situationsinwhichaneventthatshouldhaveoccurreddidn’thappenduringthetimewindowsetbyatime-basedSLAoraTXU policy. For example, the system determines if a transaction was senttoERCOTbutaresponsewasnotreceived,orifatransactionwasreceivedfromERCOT,butaTXUSAPapplicationdidnotprocessit in a timely fashion. If a time threshold is exceeded, the BPM engine creates a case for a person in the Transaction Management team to resolvetheproblem.Atthispoint,M3OBPMisactivelyorchestratingaresolutionprocessbytriggeringasequenceofactivity(itisnolongerjust monitoring a shadow process).

Page 5: Successful Strategies To Improve Customer Care Processesimagesrv.gartner.com/media-products/pdf/mediaproductsemail/2012/Q... · • SAP CRM for customer-facing transactions • SAP-ISU

5

SAMPLE

M3Ohasarelativelyuniquetwo-wayintegrationbetweenM3OAnalytic Server and the BPM components. Some events from the BPM engine are fed back into the Analytic Server, so that it can generate KPIs that reflect aggregate statistics. These are used formonitoringtheoverallperformanceandSLAsofthebusinessprocesses, which are displayed on the business dashboards, complementingtheanalysisofindividualservicerequests(processinstances) previously described. As in most operational intelligence systems,problemresolutionoccursontwolevels:theindividualprocessinstances(customerservicerequests)andtheprocessatanaggregatelevel(awholesetofrequests).

The system provides information to help Transaction Management teammembersdeterminewhyaservicerequestdidn’tproceedwithin the expected time. The team member can optionally browse through the history of events for the case or replay the events to see what happened. For example, the person who entered the servicerequestmighthaveusedaninvalidproductcodetoenrollacustomer, so the transaction did not advance through the process. The system will send an alert and, if it is a high-priority enrollment,

thesystemwillalsosendanemailtonotifyawatchofficertoresolvetheproblem.ThesystemalsotrackscompliancewithregulatorySLAs,flaggingreconnectrequeststhatarenotfulfilledwithintheallowedwindow.

The operational intelligence system has about 30 users. The overall flowofservicerequestsisgraphicallydepictedonthedashboard,along with numeric counts of the number of transactions at each stage that have been started, found to have errors, or have been warned, held, canceled and completed (refer to the top of Figure 1). Aggregate-level problems in the overall process are reflected in green-blue-yellow-red“trafficlight”indicators.Forexample,iftheGSXInovisBizLinkorTLEapplicationsgodown,hundredsofservicerequestsareaffected,andredlightswillquicklyappear.Again,email alerts are sent to several business managers, in addition to the dashboardalerts.Detailsofeachservicerequestaredisplayedatthebottom of the dashboard. As part of the problem resolution process, the system can also generate an Excel spreadsheet to send to TDSPs togetthepowerturnedon,bypassingthestandardnotificationprocess to speed up service.

Source:Gartner(September2011)

FIGURE 1Business Dashboard for Enrollment Process

Page 6: Successful Strategies To Improve Customer Care Processesimagesrv.gartner.com/media-products/pdf/mediaproductsemail/2012/Q... · • SAP CRM for customer-facing transactions • SAP-ISU

6

SAMPLE

ResultsThe implementation of this system was notably fast. Two developers builtalimitedproof-of-concept(POC)customerenrollmenttrackingapplicationandputitthroughtheITqualityassuranceprocessinfourweeks. It went into pilot production for one day, so that the business users could try it. However, users liked it so much that it remained in use until the full application went live four months later on 28 June 2010.ThePOCmonitoredfivemajormilestonesintheenrollmentprocess; the full end-to-end system covers nine milestones and does more to manage problem resolution processes. The second application to monitor the disconnect/reconnect process went live on23October2010.Thewholesystem,monitoringbothprocesses,requiredtwosoftwaredevelopersforeightmonths(notallfull-time), plus part-time involvement from a TXU senior manager and a management consultant from Sendero.

Inthefirstfewweeksofoperation,thenewsystemidentifiedcertainsetsofcustomerenrollmentrequeststhattookalongtimetogetthrough the process, because of missing data or invalid product codes.SomeinvalidrequestswererejectedbytheSAPCRMapplication, and then were manually corrected by the Transaction Managementteam.Otherrequestswerestalledwithoutbeingnoticed. The new operational intelligence system made the patterns ofrejectionsandstalledtransactionsvisible.Oncetheproblemwasunderstood, the enrollment process in the SAP CRM application was improved,andtheoveralllevelofproblemsdroppedsignificantly.

The time to resolve ongoing, individual, one-off enrollment errors hasalsodroppedsignificantly—“fromhourstominutes,”accordingto the TXU senior manager of operations development. Customer satisfaction ratings are at an all-time high, partly due to this operational intelligence system. TXU also implemented new staff trainingprograms,clarifiedsomeofitsproductsandmadeotherimprovements, so the contribution of the operational intelligence system cannot be determined precisely.

The system informs the Transaction Management team that an application is down, even before the IT department knows that the application is down. Although this is fundamentally a BAM system, the IT department asked for (and received) access to the system to complement the IT operations management tools that it uses to manage its systems.

Critical Success FactorsThis system was installed without disrupting the business applications thatremainedinoperationthroughouttheproject.Operationalintelligence is an overlay with almost no change to the legacy applications and no noticeable impact on the performance of the business applications.

The outside consultants from Sendero had worked with TXU for years before this project, so they understood the business processes well.

The senior manager of operations development, who was responsible for the project from the business side, was familiar with the general nature of real-time operational intelligence and also understoodthebusinessrequirements.Thiswasimportantbecause,as is common in such projects, the ultimate users of the system in the Transaction Management team were focused on their regular duties andhadlimitedtimetospendprovidingideasandspecificationsforthe new system.

Administrators from the Transaction Management team are empowered to adjust some of the alerting thresholds on an ongoing basis. For example, they can adjust the number of minutes of a delay before a yellow warning or red alarm is signaled. This makes the system more flexible and increases their sense of ownership of the system.

The software vendor, Vitria, was directly involved in the project and waswillingtodevelopsomecustomproductextensions.M3Owasrelatively new when this project was implemented in mid-2010. Vitria addedfeaturessuchastrafficlightdisplaywidgets,aJavaScriptextensiontosendemailalerts,anewtimerbasedonfixedtimeanddate (its timers previously counted only elapsed times), and an easier way to implement resolution processes that looped back and waited for something to change in the external environment.

DevelopmentwasrelativelysimplebecauseM3Oprovidessophisticated CEP, process monitoring, process orchestration and BAM visualization capabilities in one product with a common development studio. These components are integrated, so they exchangeeventdataefficientlywithouttheneedforadaptersorcustom coding. TXU, Vitria and Sendero had a positive collaborative relationship that contributed to the speed of implementation and the success of the project.

Page 7: Successful Strategies To Improve Customer Care Processesimagesrv.gartner.com/media-products/pdf/mediaproductsemail/2012/Q... · • SAP CRM for customer-facing transactions • SAP-ISU

7

SAMPLE

Lessons LearnedEnd-to-end process monitoring reveals problems that cannot be detected by silo management reports and monitoring systems that track only individual application systems. End-to-end operational intelligence is highly relevant in a virtual enterprise (B2B) scenario such as this, where a process involves other companies or industry clearing houses.

Process analysts and business managers do not need to understand all the possible exceptions or problems that are occurring in their company before an operational intelligence system is deployed. An operational intelligence system reflects actual outcomes, such as the average elapsed time to transition through a business process or the number of transactions hung up at a particular stage. Thus, operational intelligence can reveal patterns of problems even before the causes are clear.

BAMdoesnotrequireaworkfloworprocessorchestrationtoolto actively drive the end-to-end process. The event data needed for end-to-end monitoring can be captured from DBMSs or other aspectsoftheindividualapplications.Operationalintelligencesystemsprovidevaluebyfindingandcorrectingproblemsthataffectindividual process instances (for example, a data entry error) and those that affect large groups of process instances (for example, a whole application system is down).

An end-to-end business process should be monitored at a coarse-grained,conceptuallevel.Nomorethansevento10significantmilestones for each process should be shown on a business dashboardinmostcases.Significantbusinesseventstypicallyoccurwhen a process crosses from one application system to another, from onecompanytoanother,orwhenapersonfinishesworkonatask(for example, approves a customer transaction). In a few cases, a majormilestonewithinanapplicationsystemissignificantenoughto include in the process model. However, business people generally donotneedorwanttoseefine-graineddetailonthemanyminorevents that happen within application systems. Systems that monitor at a detailed level are also more brittle, because they may have to be changedwhenevertheunderlyingapplicationsaremodifiedinsmallways.

The process of developing a successful operational intelligence application is iterative. In this case study, the KPIs and the problem resolution processes were improved in several stages from the time thattheinitialPOCsystemwentintoproduction,asusersbecamemore familiar with the system.

Source:GartnerG00219088,RoySchulte,

September 2011

Page 8: Successful Strategies To Improve Customer Care Processesimagesrv.gartner.com/media-products/pdf/mediaproductsemail/2012/Q... · • SAP CRM for customer-facing transactions • SAP-ISU

8

SAMPLE

Understanding Operational Intelligence: Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is Operational Intelligence?

A:OperationalIntelligence(OI)istheabilitytovisualizeandanalyzebusiness operations, in real time, and take immediate action to meet strategicbusinessgoals.OIuniformlyincorporatesnext-generation,real-time business analytics and process management capabilities intoacompleteintelligenceplatform.OIhelpsorganizationsmake smarter decisions with complete and up-to-the-second information,intimetomaximizeimpact.OperationalIntelligencehelps organizations visualize operations through comprehensive dashboards with real-time insight into business performance and health so that immediate policy-based action can be taken.

OperationalIntelligencesolutionssolvespecificbusinessproblems,analyzing live event feeds and transactional data to deliver real-time,actionableinformationtolive,role-baseddashboards.OIanalyzes complex patterns, allowing the rapid detection of new types of threats and opportunities from volumes of streaming data. OperationalIntelligencewillalsoprovidereal-timebehavior-basedanalysis, statistical trending and opportunity assessment and scoring. Inessence,OIleveragesbusinessandtechnologyevents,improvesoperational responsiveness and helps drive action.

Q: Who needs Operational Intelligence?

A: Forbusinessleaders,OperationalIntelligenceenablesinformeddecisionsintimetomaximizeimpact.OIcananalyzemorecomplexpatterns, making possible the rapid detection of new types of threats andopportunitiesfromvolumesofstreamingdata.WithOI,role-based dashboards will give executives real-time insight into the performance of the company. Simultaneously, business operations leaders will see an end-to-end view of the operation, in real-time. Withnocodingrequired,businessanalystscancreateanexecutivedashboard in a matter of minutes. Dashboards make it easy for users to immediately act on real-time information with the click of a mouse, leveragingthepowerofOI.

ForITdepartments,OperationalIntelligencecanbelayeredontop of existing technologies and solutions, such as ERP systems, to provide visibility into both business and technical operations. OperationalIntelligenceprovidesITdepartmentswithasingleviewintotheorganization’sdatasilos.OIcanprocessmassivevolumesofincoming data and events to help identify performance issues, broken processes, relationships, trends and key insights, all in a cost-effective manner.WithanOIsolutioninplace,ITdepartmentswillbeabletoquicklyandeasilydeliverwhatthebusinessneeds.

Q: What is the difference between Operational Intelligence and Business Intelligence?

A:TheprimarydifferencebetweenOperationalIntelligence(OI)andBusinessIntelligence(BI)isthatOIallowsforactionin“operationaltime”ratherthan“planningtime”.OIenablescorrectiveactiontobetaken while a transaction is still in process – while a customer is still on the line with a customer service representative.

AnotherkeydifferencebetweenOIandBIisthetimelinessoftheunderlying data, event or transaction that is analyzed. Whereas BI typically allows for analytical processing after the fact with historical datastoredindatamartsordatawarehouses,OIperformsreal-time analysis as business events flow through various systems and networks.

OperationalIntelligenceisdesignedtoprovidereal-time,event-drivenanalytics as well as complement existing BI data stores. This real-time informationcanbeacteduponinavarietyofways:alertscanbesentor executive decisions can be made using real-time dashboards. OperationalIntelligencesolutionsusereal-timeinformationtotakeautomatedactionbasedonpredefinedrules.Inthisway,securitymeasures and or exception management processes can be initiated.

Q: What are the crucial components and capabilities of an Operational Intelligence solution?

A:ThecrucialcomponentsofanOperationalIntelligencesolutioninclude analytic computing and event correlation capabilities, business process and policy management capabilities and dashboard creation. From a capability standpoint, multi-dimensional analysis,patterndetection,trendcalculations,aswellasthefilteringof high volumes of real-time events and historical data, are essential to perform the high-level analysis expected from data-driven operational teams.

Page 9: Successful Strategies To Improve Customer Care Processesimagesrv.gartner.com/media-products/pdf/mediaproductsemail/2012/Q... · • SAP CRM for customer-facing transactions • SAP-ISU

9

SAMPLE

Q: What is business process visibility?

A:Aprocessis“visible”whenanoperationalmanager,analystorexecutive can see, in-context, how business is impacted or how it will be impacted by an event in an enterprise business activity or service. Visibility is in part provided by alerts that are organized to identify root causes and close the loop with remediation capabilities.

For example, at a high-level, a summary dashboard provides an end-to-endviewofthecustomerexperience,definedbyservice-levelagreements(SLAs)anddefinedinkeyperformanceindicators(KPIs) that span multiple source systems (Web, CRM, and Call Center) andacrossdisciplines(Marketing,Sales,andSupport).OperationalIntelligence solutions are designed to give visibility into and extract insight from traditional IT process touch points from traditionally inflexible systems and environments.

Q: How does Operational Intelligence address Big Data in comparison to other technologies?

A:OperationalIntelligenceprovidesreal-time,continuousanalysisofinformationandhistoricaldata.Inreal-time,OIcananalyzehighvolumedatafrommultiplesourcesyieldinguniqueinsightintobusiness and operational performance. The result is the ability to immediatelytakeactiontoresolveissuesandmeetService-LevelAgreements.

OIprovidesseamlessconnectivitytotraditionalandnon-traditionalinformation sources including JMS, RSS, web services and databases.AdvancedOperationalIntelligenceproductswillprocessXMLdataatspeedssimilartotraditionalqueryanddevelopmentlanguages, providing insight by capturing the streaming data and revealing it in a consumable, user-friendly context to business users.

OperationalIntelligencecanquicklytapintoanydatafromanywhere:internalapplicationsandsystems,partnerandsocialmedia, structured, semi-structured and unstructured data. OperationalIntelligencealsoallowsuserstomanageandbalancelarge volumes of real-time events across multiple analytics engines. Asaresult,OIprovidesthedurability,scalabilityandavailabilityof feeds, facilitating real-time analysis and elevating high-volume feedstothestatusoffirst-classinformation.

Source:Vitria

Page 10: Successful Strategies To Improve Customer Care Processesimagesrv.gartner.com/media-products/pdf/mediaproductsemail/2012/Q... · • SAP CRM for customer-facing transactions • SAP-ISU

10

Operational Intelligence applies the bene�ts of real-time analytics, alerts, and actions to a broad spectrum of use cases across and beyond the enterprise. Here are some application areas where OI can be applied to solve problems:

Continuous Monitoring

Customer Care

Demand Response Management

Information Security

Service Assurance / Customer Experience Management

With OI applied to continuous monitoring, organizations can improve governance, lower compliance costs, and optimize operational performance. The most e�ective organizations use continuous monitoring across a breadth of use cases, including governance, compliance, and situational awareness.

Most companies struggle to see a complete end-to-end view of critical customer service processes, and typically they often span multiple systems, such as customer service (CRM), service provisioning, and billing. With OI, customer care agents can see an end-to-end view of customer touch points across interdependent networks and distributed data sources. This includes overall visibility through exception and incident management. This means they are able to take corrective action before the customer experience is compromised, keeping both customer service costs and customer churn low.

Energy consumption is rising. As a result, demand response management is a key part of the US government’s overall energy policy. Successful energy producers and utilities continue to deploy demand response programs to help ease peak time pressure on the electric utility infrastructure. Operational Intelligence makes demand response programs more �exible, responsive, and manageable through real-time information sharing. As smart meter and smart grid technologies are deployed, demand response programs can be optimized with OI to receive real-time dynamic updates in supply/demand characteristics and pricing inputs.

Operational Intelligence can provide an organization complete situational awareness across all information assets, networks, and systems. Organizations attempt to implement Security Information Event Management (SIEM) tools to gain situational and operational awareness through a series of processes that include auditing log �les, monitoring the impact of system changes, reviewing incidents and responses to security breaches, and managing user access privileges. Operational Intelligence can protect and present the state of critical information assets, in real-time. With OI, log �les can be aggregated and correlated to detect patterns of activity and presented using “live,” role-based dashboards.

Traditional network-centric service assurance solutions lack insight into customer behavior and the impact of network performance on their customers. As a result, call centers are overloaded as service providers attempt to resolve customer issues and meet SLA requirements using historical data and reactive processes. Operational Intelligence gives communications service providers and smart grid energy utilities visibility into real-time customer data and real-time network data. OI for service assurance enables the predictive and proactive identi�cation, prioritization, and resolution of service quality alerts and issues, often before they impact the customer. With OI, analysts can quickly gain insight into a situation and modify traditional processes to assure that SLA’s will be met.

Using Operational Intelligence For Your Business: Common OI Use Cases

Source:VitriaSAMPLE

Page 11: Successful Strategies To Improve Customer Care Processesimagesrv.gartner.com/media-products/pdf/mediaproductsemail/2012/Q... · • SAP CRM for customer-facing transactions • SAP-ISU

11

SAMPLE

About Vitria

Vitriaprovidestheindustry’sleadingOperationalIntelligencesuite,empowering partners and customers alike to develop innovative OperationalIntelligencesolutionstoanalyzebusinessactivitiesinthe proper context and take real-time action. The result is faster, better decision-making. With a rich heritage as a technology pioneer, Vitria’s award-winning process integration solutions provide the backbone for many Global 2000 companies’ mission-critical business processes.

Additional Resources:

• DownloadFeaturedWhitepaper:OperationalIntelligence–Improving the Customer Experience by Preventing Problems BeforeTheyOccur

• WatchOn-DemandOperationalIntelligenceWebinars

• LearnFromtheExperts:DownloadCaseStudies,Datasheets,VideosandWhitepapersThroughVirtualResourceLibrary

• RequestAProductDemonstration

Contact Us

Vitria Corporate Headquarters 945StewartDrive,Suite200 Sunnyvale,CA.94085-391 Phone:1.877.365.5935 Fax:1.408.212.2720

Using Operational Intelligence For Your Business: Common OI Use Cases