tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-217846142012-01-20T11:12:32.205+11:00Occasional thoughts on business process management, eprocurement, customer service, the dark art of sales and the creatures that inhabit these worlds.Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.comBlogger661100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-36484090748982367482011-03-07T21:14:00.005+11:002011-03-22T11:48:41.439+11:00

Back in 2009 the scandal of the British MPs abusing their recoverable expenses hit the news big time and remained on the front page of the newspapers for weeks if not months. At time of writing at least 2 of them are in jail and more to go.To remind yourself of the whole story.So it was only a matter of time before appropriate systemised controls were put in place.Working at an Aussie reseller of

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-82116419537960260442009-12-22T17:01:00.004+11:002009-12-22T17:29:54.730+11:00

I touched a while back on the problem with SharePoint trying to be all things to all people and in our offering to clients this has recently taken shape in a meaningful way. With 100 million (yes, 100,000,000) or more seats sold over the last some years there is no getting away that SharePoint has a powerful place in the business software landscape.The CEO of our author partner - FlowCentric -

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-33579709838738694722009-12-21T12:45:00.008+11:002009-12-22T17:00:44.365+11:00

A little while ago we finished off the tail-end of our home kitchen renovation. The cupboards and benchtop and appliances etc had been in place for ages but the missing thing to bring it all together was glass.Now it wasn't as simple as a splashback behind the stove, it was that and much more - feature glass on the exposed cabinets facing the external deck, pretty little glass shelves to hold

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-66368846393897325672009-10-12T17:05:00.006+11:002009-12-21T17:14:43.575+11:00

I think SharePoint is one of those software applications that has the potential to be a spectacular disappointment - perhaps undeservedly so. Rarely does one hear or read about an organisation that has easily been able to harness it to its best abilities. It always seems to be "just not quite there".I think there are a couple of points worth discussing and although this post by Bjorn Kuruknap

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-88767898787492727752009-09-28T12:49:00.004+10:002009-09-28T13:22:24.934+10:00

How did that happen? I took my eye off the blogging for a minute and 12 months slipped by.Getting back into it now, and what a year it has been, I'm not going to bother commenting other than to say "I don't think that is a sea bird sitting on the bow, there must be land nearby".What is really coming into its own now is the whole business process management story - the "do less with more -

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-28989357007942812682008-09-15T12:43:00.002+10:002008-09-15T12:47:02.137+10:00

This is fun - a Wordle makes an image of a block of text based on the frequency of words used within it.Check out my blog Wordle as at 15 Sept 2008

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-66135033461420159952008-07-10T12:57:00.006+10:002008-07-10T13:34:59.296+10:00

With employment hovering around 4% in Australia these days the brutal reality is that the people available for work quite frankly can't or won't. Many businesses, my employer included, are scrambling to find quality people to fill the vacant positions throughout the company.This brings two interesting issues to the fore:- you need to be efficient and effective in what you do- you need smart tools

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-8924431059555218692008-06-27T09:41:00.003+10:002008-06-27T10:01:09.626+10:00

I have had a number of conversations recently with an array of different people - colleagues, partners and clients - all on the topic of "where do you start?". How do you choose what activities and operations in the business are the best candidates for review and improvement? The answer of course is "it depends" (spare me the classic MBA speak please!).We have a little team of experts that have

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-3039592159969032062008-04-02T19:14:00.003+11:002008-04-02T19:22:59.458+11:00

I am heading for London again late April and I was hoping to have the joy of Terminal 5 rather than the bleak and harried T's 1 through 4 that I have hated and blogged about before - but it was not to be - and aren't I glad after the last few days of total chaos after the inglorious opening.The news reports here mention that BAA executives were doubtful of the systems capability to handle the

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-79611811397268383052008-03-19T15:35:00.004+11:002008-06-27T10:12:08.910+10:00

With “greening your business” being a fashionable corporate catch cry these days I thought I would put together my thoughts on what could be involved in an environmentally sustainable procurement policy. I think it would be fairly obvious to everyone that you won’t become carbon neutral by policy issues alone, for that you will need to purchase carbon credits in some form, preferably from a

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-36076346726999876532008-03-19T14:52:00.005+11:002008-03-19T15:35:30.926+11:00

Boy - January to March seems to have disappeared this year. I know the years get shorter as we get older but this is ridiculous. What happened? What did I rant about? Who knows? Who cares?

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-57845089259321268682007-12-01T15:47:00.001+11:002007-12-01T16:07:40.450+11:00

Having spent some time in the presence of a few of our American cousins over the last couple of months either at presentations or in phone conversations I record here a few vocabularistic (!)distractions for your enjoyment. They are not necessarily wrong, just were unusual to hear in day-to-day conversation or jarring in context.Yeoman people - the day to day workersMunge - no idea what this was

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-31640764218502112002007-11-01T19:02:00.001+11:002007-12-01T16:09:43.884+11:00

Yes, it has been a while, but I have been busy and preoccupied. Following my last post on SOA I decided that I needed a good hard look at the whole SOA story - there seems to be so much noise and marketing about it that I feel my small and addled brain has missed out on the important points that make it oh-so-exciting.To that end I have attended a couple of seminar presentations on the topic from

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-71899712899690170482007-09-13T17:21:00.000+10:002007-09-14T17:26:38.097+10:00

Following on from my previous post "How to buy as a corporate" I was delighted to see the following at JustSell which also suggests the path of an explicit sales process.Step 6 - close - agree to purchase.That means "ask for the order".

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-74831842262322855092007-09-06T13:06:00.000+10:002007-09-06T13:27:28.107+10:00

Sticking with Cynthia Rettig she has some great comment on the realities of the current tech buzz around SOA - "The Lego dream has been a persistent favorite among a generation or more of programmers who grew up with those construction toys. Unfortunately, however, software does not work as Legos do".Boiling SOA (service orientated architecture) down to some very simple points, I see it as 1) the

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-44058921346011301452007-08-24T20:27:00.000+10:002007-08-24T20:16:43.842+10:00

Quoting from a recent Cynthia Rettig article ..."TECHNOLOGY has always been about hope. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, businesses have embraced new technologies enthusiastically, and their optimism has been rewarded with improved processes, lower costs and reduced workforces. As the pace of technological innovation has intensified over the past two decades, businesses have come

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-54588401178570037862007-08-14T22:05:00.000+10:002007-08-16T10:28:36.344+10:00

Yes yes - its been a while since I last blogged - a busy time on the work and home front - not least being a few weeks holidays with the family that had us slog through my all time favourite place - Heathrow airport - not once but three times - we'll come back to them.One stopover was a trip to Tokyo Disney Land - a magical place for the true believers under 8 years old and also surprisingly a

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-56573125337504172202007-06-04T13:25:00.000+10:002007-09-06T13:35:09.892+10:00

The concept of “lights out processing” is well known in the supply chain and logistics arena – it is the concept of day to day operations occurring at such a low level of human intervention that for most of the time the lights aren’t even switched on in the warehouse and the machines just go about their automated business in the dark.This is the goal that Professional Advantage has in bringing an

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-27992574791518476832007-05-02T13:07:00.000+10:002007-05-02T14:36:15.404+10:00

One of my colleagues came back from a meeting with a prospect with a grin spread across his face, when asked why he said "these guys actually know how to buy something". As a result of the meeting the project sponsor had turned to our hero and said "it is obvious now that the next step is we need to buy this software and we will arrange the purchase order straightaway".This may seem like the

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-7990027597779019972007-04-18T13:00:00.000+10:002007-04-20T11:32:05.519+10:00

Time and again we see a pattern re-playing in our business process management projects - attacking these things at an enterprise level for most organisations is just a bridge too far. The budget, resources, buy in and intellectual and emotional stamina required are simply too great for a successful project.Having an audacious goal is laudable and an important part of the impetus to get started,

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-79653011140572133282007-04-07T14:13:00.000+10:002007-05-02T13:07:38.301+10:00

Last week a second cousin of mine died in a horrific and pointless motorbike accident in Durango, Colorado, USA. This is obviously a very personal event for our extended family and I agonised over posting anything about it in this blog.But yesterday I Googled him and found a blog of another of his cousins - a US attorney who had acknowledged Conor's passing.The world is a village and the Internet

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-26454922450093588652007-03-29T21:01:00.000+10:002007-03-29T21:01:24.770+10:00

This is an interesting little book recently published which will get stacked up on my bedside table. The premise is that for those people who have an entrepreneurial spirit but not the courage or resources to go out and do it alone, there are still strategies for making a difference and influencing change from within a corporation. It is a celebration of, and encouragement for, all those souls

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-27563430945091997942007-03-29T18:49:00.000+10:002007-03-29T20:41:35.905+10:00

The Australia Day Google Maps fly over is long past and I promised a link to the spot where we went so here it is. Clifton Gardens, a nice harbourside beach with small waves, safe for the kiddies to play in.Unfortunately due to last minute air traffic control restrictions and time challenges the Google Biggles didn't actually fly over us - we saw the plane out over the harbour but it never came

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-15249918893104694482007-03-14T21:03:00.000+11:002007-03-15T15:25:54.782+11:00

Part of our Best Employer initiatives is regular communication across the business on what and how we are doing and where we are doing it. We recently had the past quarter company update that is a morning session comprising of about 8 different corporate and divisional presentations, supposedly for an hour but some quarters long past are remembered for their record breaking overruns!It was not

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1599140489403850802007-03-08T20:29:00.000+11:002007-09-06T13:37:47.919+10:00

I was chastised today for letting my blog entries lapse - time is a precious commodity these days and work, travel, kids, ill family members and handyman jobs have conspired to keep me away from the keyboard last month.Another whirlwind week of business in London during Feb and another battle with the misery that is Heathrow airport. That place must be terribly demoralising to work in – it seems

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-4261107244423589082007-01-25T21:05:00.000+11:002007-03-29T20:53:32.040+10:00

Google have been very smart with their marketing this year and have given all Sydneysiders the opportunity to make a personal appearance in Google maps. Check this out. (Update 29 March 2007 - Sorry, they deleted the link! They were planning to fly the camera plane around the cebtral, harbour and beach suburbs of Sydney to update the Google Maps images and give us Aussies a chance to be noticed.)

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-36480367906457608532007-01-24T09:37:00.000+11:002007-01-25T19:16:13.919+11:00

What is it about process and why do we want to manage it?I am always pondering on ways to explain this to clients and watching Shane Warne retire recently from Australian international cricket gave me another insight. Warne, with perhaps an unimpressive track record off the pitch, is without doubt one of the world's best cricket bowlers, if not the best to date - even I who doesn't follow the

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-28342111965525995542007-01-05T14:28:00.000+11:002007-01-05T15:11:12.138+11:00

I was recently asked to compare one of our products to a supposed competitor in the marketplace. In reality we see the two as playing different roles and in some ways complementary to eachother. Different users have different needs and goals and the two products in question would be of value to intersecting subsets of the overall user community.As I worked through a somewhat lengthy list of

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-8610158814014627842006-12-22T09:52:00.000+11:002006-12-22T10:20:31.973+11:00

Years ago, when I lived with my parents, my father would switch off the lights at home that were not needed, usually left on by the heedless amongst the family like myself. Now I do it in my house. I read somewhere that Queen Elizabeth does it in Buckingham Palace. It appears to be an abiding ritual hardwired into the oldest person in a household. Without doubt it was a money saving exercise on

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-29629632720210369822006-12-18T18:06:00.000+11:002006-12-18T18:11:57.924+11:00

Another of my interests and roles is the stewardship of our debt collection/credit control module, SunSystems Collect. I have been remiss in not including my thoughts on that area in this blog. Today I was drafting an article for another forum and thought it pertinent to add here.Days Sales Outstanding (DSO)DSO is probably one of the most critical performance metrics in the debt collection

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-55908940100434530782006-12-14T18:53:00.000+11:002006-12-14T20:54:59.243+11:00

Thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas User Group and drinkies at one of our partners this week. They produce a fantastic process mapping and modelling suite that just goes from strength to strength - some very smart guys. This tool is becoming pivotal in how some of our clients approach their business improvement and I will elaborate a bit more another time.One of the team was regaling us with stories

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-84373428362621608082006-12-13T13:22:00.000+11:002006-12-13T13:34:59.658+11:00

I came across SunPundits a few months ago and posted a comment or two on SunSystems Collect which is our debt collection / credit control module for SunSystems. It was pretty embrionic at the time but I like the idea and the premise - sharing tips and tricks on operational issues around Infor SunSystems at a grass roots level.I dropped back in on the group the other day and was pleased to see

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-69944839550533461182006-12-08T13:29:00.000+11:002006-12-11T16:14:12.351+11:00

We had an interesting corporate experience the other week - our Melbourne office basement was flooded with 7 feet of water by a burst main on Sunday night. The building was closed down until it could be pumped out and re-certified for safe occupancy. Now this is not a 2-up-2-down humpy in the suburbs, this is a major sky scraper in the Melbourne CBD - a significant event. Press coverage here for

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-74461972411388396922006-11-21T17:02:00.000+11:002006-11-29T14:17:09.897+11:00

Process improvement is a funny old thing when you look at it over an extended period of time. When the journey started the focus was about relieving some very explicit "pain" in the system and all thought, money and effort would have been addressed to that task. Over time that pain was dulled and was replaced by another "pain" further along the system. Again with time and money this second pain

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-9552661872365815382006-11-20T09:36:00.000+11:002006-11-20T09:52:45.540+11:00

Another comment by one of the BPMG Sydney chapter attendees was very pertinent - he claimed in a recent process improvement project that 98% of the benefits came from only 2% of the improvements and all of them were human related process improvements. Now that is a huge ratio and if you were the sponsor looking back at that you would probably be frustrated at the return on investment (ROI) for

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-44279309903155516202006-11-16T21:39:00.000+11:002006-11-16T21:56:41.373+11:00

We hosted the BPMG Sydney Chapter meeting this evening and there was some spirited discussion on a range of topics - the one that tickled my fancy was a forceful statement from a Professor in academia." BI is nothing without process focus" - and it rings so true - in fact I have blogged it separately here. You can measure to your hearts content and configure dashboards and guages and graphs and "

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1163064944503085772006-11-09T20:22:00.000+11:002006-11-20T09:55:41.002+11:00

I've covered New Account Opening here before and the other week I had a meeting with a client that has a monster NAO headache. They are a global organisation running a centralised implementation of SunSystems with 200+ separate operating entities in the enterprise.Many of the businesses operate in common territories so the rationalisation and management of suppliers is a fiscally and

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1162271554198752182006-10-31T15:55:00.000+11:002006-11-20T09:56:35.450+11:00

We have been building OLAP cubes over SunSystems for some time now and more and more the realisation dawns in people's heads that process and performance are just two different ends of the same spectrum. I have blogged on this topic before and won't torture you with any more on that (yet).What I will do is offer interested parties a free - yes, that's right, gratis and for nothing - SQL script

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1161006094403411602006-10-16T23:14:00.000+10:002006-11-22T09:21:46.186+11:00

Time has passed and I have calmed down over the Heathrow shocker (although it still gets me hot under the collar when I think of it) sufficiently to do a little comparison with the people and processes at the airport in my home town of Sydney.We have a tricky thing called curfew here that restricts flight arrivals prior to 6.00am - and fair enough, the airport is close into the city and

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1159322576739941232006-09-27T11:26:00.000+10:002006-11-20T10:01:19.433+11:00

Having had the misfortune to pass through London Heathrow airport twice in the last few weeks I can personally vouch for the chaotic, careless, rude and unprofessional way in which that airport is processing its customers since the latest round of safety threats regarding UK to US flights and the threat of liquid explosives.I fully acknowledge the (unfortunate) need for enhanced security measures

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1158642271897657432006-09-19T14:36:00.000+10:002006-11-20T09:58:08.729+11:00

So here you now sit with a finely honed process model in your hot and sticky hands. What do you do now? Well the first question to ask yourself is probably - is this a map of how to get somewhere or a script of how to do something? How you answer this will radically direct your next steps.A map is the easy one - this process flow records the path that is taken to get from one point to another in

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1155012398599692962006-08-25T16:43:00.000+10:002006-11-20T09:58:33.961+11:00

To read my previous posts on starting the BPM journey you could be mistaken in thinking any old fool could do this and what is the big deal about it all. Unfortunately the reality is that these type of improvemnet projects have a glorious history of failure or catastrophic under delivery. We recently ran an internal workshop of the core stakeholders of our own improvement project and the

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1154431413207378472006-08-01T22:45:00.000+10:002006-11-20T10:00:07.748+11:00

Another week - another iPOS for SunSystems eProcurement client management workshop. This organisation really has its head screwed on:- senior management level (director) project sponsor- believes that progressive implementation is the pragmatic way to improve the business- a focus on continuous improvement "and in our business that improvement means iPOS" (this is an enterprise whose demands for

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1153454392667846542006-07-21T13:24:00.000+10:002006-11-20T10:01:53.017+11:00

So you have chosen the correct path for your business vis-a-vis drive down admin costs or attack high value/risk operations and for good or for bad you now need to "do something".Common and worthwhile advice is to map out the process "as is" - this means draw out the logical steps and decision points of the process as it currently exists and you understand it today. Invariably this means setting

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1153208478281511452006-07-18T18:20:00.000+10:002006-11-20T10:02:18.738+11:00

A noisy and opinionated little group of us were "workshopping" (shooting the breeze) the perennial problem for most companies which is where to start the BPM journey. Peeling away the layers of enthusiasm and passion and looking at the hard cold facts we have seen around the traps there seems to be two schools of thought:(1) under the radar, low cost-low value, administration/HR style processes(2

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1149490486762495002006-07-17T11:54:00.000+10:002006-11-20T21:11:03.341+11:00

It is a rare beast indeed that empowers people throughout an organisation to truly initiate changes to "business as usual" in the pursuit of efficiency and productivity. Many talk the talk but how many really walk the walk?The impetus for significant change struggles to bubble up from within. It depends on senior management for the oxygen and nutrients necessary to survive. This is the reality of

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1152156627042111652006-07-06T14:06:00.000+10:002006-11-20T09:57:29.556+11:00

It appears that Phil Ayres and I stumbled across each other from two different sides of the world at pretty much the same time. While I was reading his excellent blog on New Account Opening last night he appears to have been responding to one of my posts on risk removal - gotta love that Internet.Phil's background and experience are perhaps in a strata of business that we don't have much of a

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1150426649759174142006-07-05T23:26:00.000+10:002006-11-20T21:11:40.742+11:00

Plenty of blogs and mainstream press these days are focussing on SOA (service orientated architecture) and in the business process management world there is lots of debate about are SOA and BPM the same thing? Is one a subset of the other? How do they interplay?I'm a simple old soul really and perhaps not sufficiently learned about the various, and assuredly complex, layers in all of this however

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1150426088342071792006-07-04T12:47:00.000+10:002006-11-20T10:03:14.352+11:00

Lots of meetings and conversations I am having at the moment seem to have a "risk management" component to them - everyone is looking for ways of managing the risks they have in their business. But hang on - if you are into risk management then you go looking for risks to manage - why not be into risk removal? Go looking for the risks and then identify how to remove the scale or nature of the

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1150772478279011162006-06-20T12:44:00.000+10:002006-11-20T10:00:38.348+11:00

Catalogue management is one of the trials and tribulations of implementing an eProcurement system. There are many reasons why managed catalogues make absolute sense and yet so many businesses fight it off during process design and system implementation workshops - "it's too hard - we won't be able to maintain it - our suppliers can't give us their catalogs electronically" etc etc.The following is

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1150426515930799182006-06-19T21:48:00.000+10:002006-11-20T21:13:29.550+11:00

Last week I was at the inaugural meeting of the Sydney chapter of BPMG. We had an interesting little get-together with an assortment of players in town. Thank you Bryan for an excellent venue and breakfast. During the general discussion Bridget B from Telstra asked a probing question - why don't processes get treated like assets?I am two-finger-typing this out on a very uninspiring notebook PC -

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1149491387651530542006-06-16T17:20:00.000+10:002006-11-15T22:05:33.314+11:00

Michael Rosemann told a very BPM orientated joke the other week - how many people does it take to change a light bulb?None - if darkness is best practice.Hmmm, OK, don't try it onstage at the comedy club but it has a certain drama hook.Are there monsters in the dark corners of your business that keep you awake at night? Go out and find yourself a process doctor with a bag of light bulbs.

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1149490381111947582006-06-14T17:47:00.000+10:002006-11-20T10:03:53.358+11:00

This is a big conundrom in the process management world - when your business is structured in a vertical org-chart or traditional cost centre model and you start down the path of business process improvement just about everyone will tell you that you need Business Process Owners (BPO). They are champions responsible and accountable for the process end-to-end regardless of the edge-to-edge

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1148556220993081482006-06-06T16:50:00.000+10:002006-11-22T09:18:07.630+11:00

Remember our adminaphobic colleagues with the aversion to administrative tasks outside the areas of their important expertise? Well I have a few thoughts on how we can bring them back into the team.An empowering strategy in addressing human conflict is the willingness to accept what the other person is saying as true for them in the moment. (Don't get me wrong - you don't have to agree with them,

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1149078889733130742006-05-31T22:05:00.000+10:002006-11-15T22:05:32.887+11:00

Another week another conference - well my life isn't actually like that, it is just coincidence that I had two back to back - no more for months. This one was on B-Process-M and had moments of enlightenment in amongst the chaff. One of the moderators was Dr Michael Rosemann from QUT in Brisbane - someone I have met a few times now and each time I am more impressed than the last - he has a

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1148386427568597612006-05-26T22:02:00.000+10:002006-11-22T09:18:52.518+11:00

Another session in last week's Corporate Performance Management seminar was a case study by the Melbourne Cricket Club. A venerable Australian sporting institution that coincidently I am proud to call an iPOS eProcurement for SunSystems client. The speaker introduced himself as "a presentation virgin" being his first presentation to a body of this nature. He performed admirably, his talk was on

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1148387385425373592006-05-25T22:14:00.000+10:002006-11-15T22:05:32.711+11:00

Today I am coining a new phrase - remember, you read it here first - the "Adminaphobic knowledge worker". The what? The well paid, over-ego'd, middle/senior ranking colleague who believes he (let's face it, rarely a she) is too important/busy/needed elsewhere to be bothered with the nuisance of administrative tasks such as purchase requisitioning, timesheets, incident reporting, leave requests

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1148295321407983972006-05-22T20:49:00.000+10:002006-11-22T09:19:30.413+11:00

I spent 2 days of last week at a conference, the major focus of which was Corporate Performance Management (CPM) - quite worthwhile, mildly enlightening, excellent hospitality. One of the presenters voiced a commonly held view - Enterprise Performance Management, Corporate Performance Management and Business Performance Management are one and the same thing. I concur.And on the basis that the

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1142213881389186072006-03-13T12:27:00.000+11:002006-11-15T22:05:32.463+11:00

Much to the chagrin of my home life I was in London for 10 days in February and as a concession to my absence I though I would make a good impression by sending some surprise flowers on Valentines day. The joys on online commerce I thought as I selected a florist website, selected a bunch, filled in the details - and when I hit submit .... horror of horrers - the ultimate draed of the web-shop -

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1142213259030328402006-03-13T12:26:00.000+11:002006-11-15T22:05:32.362+11:00

Everything in life is a process. Brushing your teeth is a process – a process that when done well results in rewards from the tooth fairy – and when done poorly ends up in tears at the dentist (can you tell I have got kids?).A business process is any one of the day-to-day jobs that you have to do from 9 to 5. It may be the mundane business equivalent of teeth brushing or the enthusiastic

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1140563436110771932006-02-22T10:06:00.000+11:002006-11-15T22:05:32.284+11:00

Ownership, responsibility and accountability - my favourite topic again. One of the various email newsletters I get is from Just Sell which is a sales practice forum. Their latest posting is called "A letter to Garcia" and reprints a missive from Elbert Hubbard in 1899 - the ORA concept brilliantly put all those years ago. Check it out for yourselves.

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1140028971541368552006-02-16T05:35:00.000+11:002006-11-15T22:05:32.210+11:00

…and why should small and medium companies be looking at this practice? The answer is simple – dollars, dollars, dollars. Over the last decade we have seen the wax and wane of the big IT project throughout the enterprise – ERP, CRM, intranet, ecommerce etc. Time and again these projects failed to meet expectations, ran over budget, implementations rolled on endlessly and no-one talked ROI at the

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1139790244424463952006-02-13T11:20:00.000+11:002006-11-15T22:05:32.150+11:00

I am writing this on a plane to London – 24 hours of enforced inactivity – plenty of thinking time. I have a jammed week of meetings with our UK resellers ahead and this may be one of the only times I get for a rant.Before I left I checked the level in our water tank. We have a modest 3000 litre tank in the back garden fed by the runoff from the main living area roof. It is connected to a smart

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1139280651986857562006-02-07T13:36:00.000+11:002006-11-15T22:05:32.088+11:00

Another of my current personal responsibilites is the commercial ownership of our Business Process Management (BPM) solution FlowCentric. The whole concept and practice of BPM is fairly new and evolving within the small to mid-tier enterprise and is frequently referred to as workflow (the big boys have been playing here for years but we have a great, affordable solution for the more cost

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1138921946496587252006-02-03T10:08:00.000+11:002006-11-15T22:05:31.994+11:00

This is a subject close to my heart and something I expect I will bang on about from time to time. One of my personal responsibilities is the commercial development and distribution of an eprocurement solution called iPOS for SunSystems. Some time ago I was asked to attend a meeting with a client that was complaining that their purchasing policies weren't beeing adhered to by the system.As a

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21784614.post-1138759020154317382006-02-01T12:38:00.000+11:002006-11-15T22:05:31.914+11:00

Negligent customer service really annoys me and unfortunately I seem to be coming across it a lot at the moment - maybe its me, not "them". My latest ISP is a support quicksand, I logged an online trouble ticket on 24th Jan and never heard from them again. I followed it up with a phone call today and the tech phone support desk announces they don't have access to the trouble ticket system - "

Neil Richardsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07731833400330887647noreply@blogger.com0