The ambition maturity_gap_report_june_2012_final_final

Improving Business Operations: The Ambition/Maturity Gap and

the need for BPM

A European perspective

A Vanson Bourne survey

Contents

Summary of key findings 1

Businesses are under pressure to improve and progress 1

IT departments are being tasked with enabling business transformation 1

IT departments are struggling to meet the needs of their businesses 1

The reasons for IT departments struggling to deliver as required are both technical and organisational 2

The strained relationship between business and IT can have significant consequences 2

Introduction 3

Objectives 3

Themes 3

What is the Ambition-Maturity Gap? 3

The demands faced by businesses and the pressures on IT 4

The need for change 4

Implementing change 5

The changes required are time-critical 5

The processes required are challenging 6

IT is struggling to meet the business need 7

Why is business change challenging and what are the consequences? 9

The reasons 9

Bypassing the IT department 10

The Ambition-Maturity Gap 11

Further evidence of the Ambition/Maturity Gap 11

Bridging the Ambition/Maturity Gap 12

Appendix 14

Research Scope 14

About Vanson Bourne 14

About Cordys 14

1

Summary of key findings

Businesses are under pressure to improve

and progress

Almost every business interviewed as part of

the survey process indicated that they are

operating under increased pressure, with

96% of business decision-makers reporting

that they have business priorities for 2012

that have become a greater focus as a result

of the current economic and competitive

environment.

This is having a significant impact on the demands

of business decision-makers on the resources and

infrastructure available to them; 92% require

improvements to the way their business functions.

IT departments are being tasked with

enabling business transformation

All IT departments interviewed are feeling the

impact of the increased pressures under

which businesses are operating; all report

that they have been asked by areas of their

business to make operational improvements.

Similarly, almost all business decision-makers are

aware of IT’s workload; 92% knowing of projects

underway or planned, to improve operational

effectiveness.

For the majority of businesses where

improvements are planned or underway,

there is an urgency attached to these tasks.

Three-quarters (74%) of business decision-makers

describe exisitng or planned projects to improve

operational effectiveness as time-critical. Almost

six in ten (57%) IT decision-makers believe that

they are being asked to deliver IT projects more

quickly due to the current economic and

competitive environment.

Furthermore, the transformation required is

far from simple.

Almost six in ten (57%) business decision-makers

acknowledge that current business improvement

projects are challenging.

Nearly all (92%) IT decision-makers describe the

achievement of business or process transformation

as challenging.

IT departments are struggling to meet the

needs of their businesses

Both business and IT decision-makers do not

think the standard of IT that is currently

delivered is adequate.

More than seven in ten (72%) business decision-

makers believe that their business’s IT is NOT

facilitating their need to achieve their priorities for

2012.

Four in five (80%) IT decision-makers admit that

their IT does not perform well in supporting or

delivering certain functions key to an efficient,

competitive business.

In addition, IT is not enabling the business

transformation that is required.

Two-thirds (65%) of business decision-makers

report that their business’s IT is NOT helping them

achieve the business improvements they require.

Similarly, two-thirds (67%) of IT decision-makers

are of the opinion that their business colleagues do

not believe that their IT systems are helpful.

2

The reasons for IT departments struggling

to deliver as required are both technical

and organisational

Business process transformation, although

time-critical, is not happening within the

required timescales.

More than a third (36%) of business decision-

makers who regard as challenging the task IT has

been set of delivering business process

improvement or transformation, do so because

their experience is that those tasks usually take

longer than planned.

As evidence of this, more than half (52%) of IT

decision-makers report that business or process

transformation tasks take longer than planned.

Legacy IT systems restrict the process of

business transformation, making those

transformational tasks more challenging.

More than a quarter (27%) of business decision-

makers who regard as challenging the task IT has

been set of delivering business process

improvement or transformation, do so because of

the inflexibility/insularity of IT systems.

And in the IT department, more than four in ten

(44%) IT decision-makers believe the

inflexibility/insularity of business systems causes

business or process transformation to be

challenging.

The relationship between business and IT

departments in many businesses is not

conducive to achieving a common goal.

Around one in six (17%) business decision-makers

who regard as challenging the task IT has been set

of delivering business process improvement or

transformation, report that it's hard to get IT to

absorb and react to their needs in a timescale that

matches their expectation.

Almost half (45%) of IT decision-makers believe

that their business tends to set unrealistic

timescales, not appreciating the work involved.

Almost six in ten (58%) business decision-makers

would NOT describe the process how the business

and IT work towards business or process

transformation as a collaborative one.

Almost six in ten (57%) IT decision-makers would

NOT describe the process how the business and IT

work towards business or process transformation

as a collaborative one.

The strained relationship between business

and IT can have significant consequences

Where business departments feel that IT is

not meeting their needs, there are those who

are using the availability of cloud services to

bypass their IT department, further

complicating IT’s task of managing business

processes and business use of IT.

Almost a quarter (23%) of business decision-

makers in organisations using cloud, are doing so

to bypass their IT department.

Nearly six in ten (56%) IT decision-makers believe

a part of their business has already adopted a

cloud-based solution and bypassed the IT

department.

More than four in ten (42%) IT decision-makers

who think that their business has bypassed the IT

department through their use of cloud, believe that

it is because they need the systems up and running

quicker than they would be otherwise.

3

Introduction

Objectives

The main objective of the research was to examine the demands and pressures under which

businesses and their IT departments operate and the impact on the relationship between them.

The research established a significant disconnect between the needs of businesses and IT’s current ability

to meet them. This disconnect has been defined as the Ambition/Maturity Gap.

Themes

There are four clear themes that run through the research:

The demands faced by businesses, and the pressures on IT

IT’s struggle to meet business needs

The reasons for, and consequences of, IT’s struggle to meet business needs

The Ambition/Maturity Gap

What is the Ambition-Maturity Gap?

The research demonstrates that whilst businesses are operating under intense pressure to

progress and change, and have the ambition and desire to implement this change, IT

departments are struggling to deliver.

Therefore, these is a disconnect between the ambition of businesses and IT’s ability to match

this ambition.

This disconnect can be described as the Ambition-Maturity gap.

However, in this report, there is also evidence that a small minority of IT departments are demonstrating

this maturity, to a greater or lesser extent, matching the desire and ambition of their business colleagues.

Significantly, this minority comprises businesses that have invested in Business Process Management

software.

4

The demands faced by businesses and the

pressures on IT

The need for change

Now is not a time for complacency or simply

doing things the way they have always been

done.

The vast majority of the businesses surveyed are

working under pressures that have become more

intense due to the prevailing economic and

competitive environment; 96% of businesses have

priorities for this year that have become more of a

focus for them because of the environment in

which they find themselves currently. The priorities

that are most likely to have become more

important recently are that of improving customer

service/customer engagement and cutting costs;

representative of recent business attitudes of

needing to achieve more whilst spending less.

Businesses’ priorities for 2012 that have increased

in importance

Figure 1: The percentage of businesses where these

2012 business priorities have become more of a focus, as

a result of the current economic and competitive

environment

This demonstrates the extent to which businesses

are having to adapt their goals and re-evaluate

their plans in accordance with their circumstances;

agility and speed of reaction are essential.

Therefore, businesses require a wide array of

improvements to the way they are operating,

including employee productivity/empowerment and

how information systems work together; indicating

the role of successful working relationships

between colleagues and also across corporate IT.

The improvements required by business

departments

Figure 2: The percentage of businesses that want to see

improvements made to these areas of fundamental

productivity

54%

62%

65%

67%

70%

70%

Dealing with an increased burden

of regulation and compliance

Getting products/services to

market quicker

Looking to grow new revenue

streams in new markets

Trying to be more productive and

efficient to "do more with less"

Cutting costs

Improving customer service/

customer engagement

65%

67%

68%

71%

74%

Access to the business information

required to make decisions

Business processes

How departments, locations,

functions collaborate across the

business

How the information systems you

use work together

Employee

productivity/empowerment

5

Implementing change

Business departments’ demands are having

an impact on the workload of the IT

department as they are required to address

the mounting the needs of their colleagues.

Every IT department surveyed reported that they

have recently been tasked with enabling

operational improvement in at least one area of

their business, be it improving business processes

(the most requested), or improving the availability

of corporate systems on mobile devices (the least

requested).

The operational improvements being implemented

by IT departments

Figure 3: The percentage of IT departments being

engaged by their busines to make operational

improvement in the areas above.

Figure 3 shows the wide variety of tasks being

undertaken by IT departments at the request of

their business colleagues, on both a macro and

micro scale; it demonstrates how integral IT

departments are to achieving business success.

However, where all IT departments surveyed report

that operational improvement projects are

underway or planned in the current year,

respondents in business departments are less

certain that this is happening (figure 4). Evidently

business departments are not always aware of the

work being undertaken or planned by their IT

department, which suggests a lack of

communication between the two.

Most, but not all business departments are aware of the changes being implemented by IT

Figure 4: The percentage of businesses reporting that

projects to improve operational effectiveness for the

above areas are currently underway or planned for 2012

improvement in the areas above.

The changes required are time-critical

An additional factor when it comes to the

implementation of business and process

transformation is how quickly it is required.

Around three-quarters (74%) of the business

decision-makers surveyed describe as “time-

critical” the projects, currently underway or

planned, to improve operational effectiveness

within their company. This shows just how

0%

27%

35%

35%

46%

48%

49%

49%

58%

62%

None

Getting corporate systems available

on mobile devices

Getting products/services to market

quicker


customer engagement

Employee



use work together





business

Cutting costs

Business processes

3%

5%

34%

40%

43%

49%

56%

Don't know

None of them


use work together



Employee




business

Business processes

6

important and urgent they are, and gives a sense

of the pressure being placed on the IT departments

tasked with implementing them.

Business departments reporting improvement

projects to be time-critical

Figure 5: The percentage of businesses describing the

operational effectiveness projects listed as time-critical

This pressure is also reported by IT departments

themselves, with nearly six in ten (57%) reporting

that they are being asked to deliver projects more

quickly because of the prevailing economic or

competitive enrvironment. Only around a quarter

(28%) of IT departments believe that they are

given sufficient time to accomplish the work they

are set.

IT departments are being given less time

Figure 6: Have prevailing economic or competitive

environments caused business departments to want IT

projects to be delivered more quickly?

The processes required are challenging

In addition to being required quickly, these

essential changes are difficult to implement.

The majority of business departments recognise

that the changes they are asking IT departments to

make are challenging, with almost six in ten (57%)

reporting as such.

Business departments recognise the

improvements they seek are challenging

Figure 7: The percentage of businesses that regard their

improvement projects as challenging.

Similarly, IT departments acknowledge the scale of

the task they face, with more than nine in ten

(92%) admitting that the process of business or

process transformation can be challenging.

IT departments also find it challenging

Figure 8: Can achieving business or process

transformation be challenging?

63%

68%

71%

72%

74%



business

Business processes

Employee





use work together

57% 28%

15% Yes

No - they recognise the

timescales we suggest

No - they have always

wanted delivery to be fast

44%

47%

47%

47%

51%

Employee


Business processes


use work together





business

92%

8%

Yes

No

7

IT is struggling to meet the business need

The type and nature of the changes that are

being demanded, coupled with the fact that

respondents from both camps describe the

process as challenging, makes it hardly a

surprise that IT is struggling to deliver.

Almost three-quarters (72%) of business decision-

makers are currently of the opinion that their

companies’ IT is NOT facilitating them in their aim

to achieve at least one of their business priorities

for this year.

Businesses believe IT is NOT facilitating the

achievement of business priorities

Figure 9: The percentage of businesses to answer that

their business IT is NOT a facilitator in achieving the

business priorities above.

Furthermore, two-thirds (65%) of business

decision-makers believe that their company’s IT is

NOT helping them make the changes they require

to their business; changes that, as previously

shown, are considered critical to the success of

their business.

Businesses that report that IT is NOT helping

them make the changes they require

Figure 10: The percentage of businesses to answer that

their business’ IT is NOT a help when improving the

processes above.

Tellingly, IT departments are aware of these

failings, with eight in ten (80%) reporting that

there is at least one area of IT’s support to the

business that is NOT functioning well. When these

areas are so critical to the success of their

business, this level of failure is difficult to justify.

The areas where they are most likely to be

struggling are:

Managing highly interactive, ad-hoc, unplanned

customer interactions (45%)

Delivering a single view of a business “need”,

e.g. customer, risk, fraud, product (44%)

Providing data to mobile devices (43%)

33%

37%

40%

41%

41%

46%

Trying to be more productive and

efficient to "do more with less"


customer engagement

Cutting costs

Getting products/services to

market quicker

Dealing with an increased burden

of regulation and compliance

Looking to grow new revenue

streams in new markets

36%

38%

38%

41%

41%


use work together

Business processes

Employee




business



8

In additon, two-thirds (67%) of IT departments

think that the business systems they deliver are

NOT regarded as a help by the departments that

use them.

IT departments recognise their failings

Figure 11: A business' IT systems can be a block to or a

facilitator of change. What is your impression of the

general opinion that the business has of its IT systems?

67%

33% IT is NOT seen by the

business as a help

IT is seen by the

business as a help

9

Why is business change challenging and what

are the consequences?

The reasons

Business decision-makers are not short of views on

why business or process transformation is

challenging; the main reason is that tasks take

longer than planned.

Why business departments consider business

improvement projects to be challenging

Figure 12: The main reason why businesses consider

business improvement projects to be challenging

IT decision-makers are most likely to report the

same reason as their business colleagues, that the

tasks take longer than planned. Their second-

ranked answer, that business departments set

unrealistic timescales – illustrates a lack of

communication and visibility of these processes

between business and IT.

Why IT departments consider business

improvement projects to be challenging

Figure 13: The reasons why IT departments consider

business improvement projects to be challenging

A lack of communication and a failure to appreciate

the needs of the business and the capabilities of IT

are also evident in how they describe their working

relationship when it comes to business

improvement projects.

Business departments would not describe the

process as collaborative

Figure 14: Business decision-makers’ description of the

process of achieving improvement projects

5%

15%

17%

27%

36%

The proposed solution is always

complex

Business or process

transformation tasks usually run

over budget

It's hard to get IT to absorb and

react to our needs in a timescale

that matches our expectation.

The inflexibility/insularity of

business systems

Business or process

transformation tasks usually take

longer than planned

20%

43%

44%

45%

52%

The proposed solution is always

complex

Business or process

transformation tasks usually run

over budget

The inflexibility/insularity of

business systems

Business tends to set unrealistic

timescales (doesn't appreciate the

work involved)

Business or process

transformation tasks usually take

longer than planned

42%

29%

29%

It is a collaborative process

It is driven by IT

It is tasked to IT by the business

10

In the case of both business and IT decision-

makers, only a minority describes the process as

“collaborative”.

IT departments would not describe the

process as collaborative

Figure 15: IT decision-makerss’ description of the

process of achieving improvement projects

Bypassing the IT department

A direct consequence of the apparent inability of IT,

the lack of communication between business and IT

and the resulting tension between the two, is that

business departments are seeking solutions to their

problems without the IT department’s involvement.

A quarter (23%)of business departments that use

cloud services, do so in order to bypass the IT

department. This creates an IT infrastructure that

is even more difficult to manage and integrate

effectively.

IT departments are very much aware of this issue;

more than half (56%) of IT decision-makers believe

that a part of their business has bypassed the IT

department by using cloud.

43%

38%

19% It is a collaborative

process

It is driven by IT

It is tasked to IT by the

business

11

The Ambition-Maturity Gap

This report demonstrates that:

Businesses are under pressure to create

change ...

And have the ambition and desire to

implement this change …

IT departments are aware of this

requirement of their business …

Yet they are struggling to deliver…

Causing additional complications.

Therefore, there is a clear disconnect between

the ambition of businesses and the maturity

of IT systems being provided to businesses.

This disconnect has been defined as the

Ambition/Maturity Gap.

Further evidence of the Ambition/Maturity

Gap

Demonstrating how IT departments are not

keeping pace with the business’s ambitions

with their use of IT systems, is their approach

to a number of tasks and processes.

For example, only around one in seven (14%) IT

decision-makers use or plan to use Business

Process Management software to execute, run and

measure business processes.

This means that six in seven businesses are

showing a reluctance to consider alternative

solutions to the problems they are experiencing,

particularly the 11% who do not execute their

processes in such a manner at all.

A lack of maturity: the execution, running and

measurement of business processes

Figure 16: IT departments’ methods of executing,

running and measuring business processes

Similarly, fewer than one in ten (9%) IT decision-

makers appear to have the breadth of vision to

consider innovative solutions to the delivery of a

single view of informatin across their business.

A lack of maturity: the delivery of a single

view of information across the business

Figure 17: IT departments’ methods of delivering a

single view of information across their business

11%

14%

26%

49%

We don't execute processes in the

way you describe

We have purchased or are looking

to use a Business Process

Management software

We have built our own workflow

tool

We build the processes into our

applications/systems

1%

9%

17%

30%

44%

Other

We use or are planning to use

Master Data Management (MDM)

We don't deliver a single view in

the way you describe

We have integrated together

numerous systems and expose

services to get this information

We have moved to a data

warehouse that contains this

information for the business to get

their single view

12

The sense that only a minority of IT decision-

makers are willing to adopt new solutions to tackle

their current challenges is reinforced when we look

at how they model and represent business

processes.

Only one in ten (9%) IT decision-makers are using

a Business Process Management Suite (BPMS) to

model and represent their business processes.

A lack of maturity: the modelling and

representing of business processes

Figure 18: IT departments’ methods of representing and

modeling their business processes

Bridging the Ambition/Maturity Gap

The small minority of IT departments using a

BPMS appear to be experiencing key benefits,

illustrating that use of such a technology can

bridge the gap between business ambition

and IT’s ability to deliver.

Users of a BPMS are more likely to report that their

IT is performing well when compared to non-users.

BPMS users’ IT performs better than that of

non-users

Figure 19: The percentage of IT departments to report

that their IT is performing well in regard to systems they

need.

It comes as no surprise that having IT systems that

are seen to perform better, and an IT department

that is perceived to have a greater ability to deliver

the systems needed, leads to IT departments being

better valued within their businesses.

BPMS users’ IT is more helpful than that of

non-users


that IT is considered to be a help by their business.

4%

7%

9%

18%

21%

41%

It's not something we have

attempted to do

We model them on paper

We use a Business Process

Management Suite (BPMS)

We model them in a Business

Process Analysis tool such as Aris

We document them and model

them in a format such as UML

We model them in Visio,

PowerPoint

19%

33%

BPMS non-users BPMS users

31%

53%

BPMS non-users BPMS users

13

The use of a BPMS also improves the working

relationship between business and IT; users of a

BPMS are more likely to report that they have an

effective, collaborative and aligned business and IT

relationship.

BPMS-using IT departments have a better

relationship with business departments


that they have an effective, collaborative, aligned

business and IT relationship.

Use of a BPMS also provides specific IT benefits,

such as when handling complex system integration.

Users of a BPMS are three times more likely to

describe their handling of complex system

integration as excellent, than non-users.

BPMS-using IT departments are better

equipped when handling complex system

integration


that they they handle complex system integration

excellently.

61%

83%

BPMS non-users BPMS Users

61%

83%

BPMS non-users BPMS Users

14

Appendix

Research Scope

In February 2012 Cordys appointed specialist technology market research house Vanson Bourne, to

conduct 650 interviews in Europe. An equal number of interviews were conducted with IT and business

decision-makers.

The targeted countries were as follows:

UK

France

Germany

Netherlands

These organisations have at least 500 employees and fall into the following sectors:

Financial services

Manufacturing

Telecoms

About Vanson Bourne

Vanson Bourne is, a specialist research-led consultancy, carrying out user research within a technology

context. Vanson Bourne's clients range from start-ups to well-known companies that need expert guidance,

delivering robust and credible research-based analysis. More info: http://www.vansonbourne.com

About Cordys

Cordys is a global provider of software for business process innovation. Global 2000 companies worldwide

have selected Cordys to achieve performance improvements in their business operations, such as increased

productivity, reduced time to market and faster response to ever-changing market demands.

Headquartered in the Netherlands, Cordys has offices in the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific. More info:

http://www.cordys.com.

Copyright © 2012 Vanson Bourne and Cordys

May be used free of charge. Selling without prior written consent prohibited. Obtain permission before redistributing. In all cases this

notice must remain intact.

http://www.vansonbourne.com/

http://www.cordys.com/

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