Friday, September 17, 2010

How Cloud Computing can help in Business Process Improvement?

Business Process Improvement (BPI) is a systematic approach to help an organization optimize its underlying processes to achieve more efficient results. And you would be surprised to know that top priority of cloud computing technology is also the same; efficient utilization of available resources.

Cloud Computing enables organizations to dramatically increase the speed of change and apply business process management (BPM) better and faster. The unique combination of BPM and Cloud technology complements existing enterprise software and adds agility to business operations.

When we talk about intersection of cloud computing and constant process improvement, we find that both are meeting at the crossroads and are helping organizations to achieve their goals in a more cost effective manner using best of both the worlds. The cloud frees the organization to focus on mission-critical tasks instead of purchasing, configuring, and maintaining redundant infrastructure.

In the BPM world, there are some priorities of the business leaders, which are being addressed by cloud computing:

1. Business Process Improvement by utilizing cloud stake
2. Reducing cost of organization on IT
3. Providing more analytics and information
4. Improving workforce management
5. Attracting new customers and retaining them
6. Ease to maintain change management
7. Consolidating business operations


A BPI project is the same as any other project - you create a project plan to help keep you on track to guarantee a successful implementation of a new or improved business process. Companies have to spend an ample of budget for the purchase of business management solutions and the integration with the existing IT infrastructure or create their own BPI project to maintain the same. With the advent of Software as a Service (SaaS) on-demand web-based/client model applications, business organizations have become autonomous in executing various tasks smoothly with less man power or heavy IT investments. SaaS applications save time, effort, cost and also offer benefits to business due to their multi-tenant efficiency, flexibility and scalability features.

Some organizations have implemented BPI on a smaller scale and reported success, by implementing the following:

• Start with a small process that can be completed using cloud computing.
• Focus on process enhancement before implementing new ones.
• Management and primary stakeholders must be involved while deciding on cloud computing technology.
• Align the implementation to the business goals.
• Use Benchmarking to get measurable results.
• BPI should focus on “doing things right” then “doing the right thing”.

BPI enables organizations to be more efficient, more effective and more capable of change than a functionally focused, traditional hierarchical management approach. Cloud computing makes it easy to implement BPI within an organization by providing a quick proof of concept for each step of BPI plan and implementing the top priorities of business processes faster, better and cheaper.

NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Roar of the Cloud, unleash your ideas...

Entrepreneurship, power of ideas and similar efforts to bring about change has traditionally being met with stiff opposition in India. Be it in the area of primary education, social development, health care, services or just new media online business models – for generations we have been crippled due to the lack of capital, motivation, access to sophisticated technology/knowledge network and early customer markets. In short, producers in India struggle with ideation/creation, application and of course diffusion, not to mention – never gets to meet a possible user.

Thanks to Victor Menezes, Rajat Gupta, Vinod Khosla and a few hundred more business leaders in that league and recently recognized young talents like the 17 year old Indian origin Arjun Rajyagor who recently won the first BBC’s junior Apprentice title with £ 25,000 – Indians have never faced the challenge of talent. On the contrary, it is opportunity and lack of a well oiled system which haunt us as a nation.

While many organized and not so organized efforts have surfaced in various industries within the Indian business ecosystem, the success we have been able to drive in the world of Information Technology Services in recent years is a worldwide success phenomenon, taught in Business Schools today. Thanks to the enormous and kind support of global Indian entrepreneurs and exceptional leadership as demonstrated by companies such as Infosys, Wipro, etc – it is time for us as individuals & institutions to transform Indian IT industry from back office to the front office with innovation and entrepreneurship – the modern tools of economic development and welfare. Let us seize the opportunity and create a truly Indian Bloom Box or Foursquare or maybe a Microsoft – who knows!

Ideas which never saw light of the day, ideas which never received capital, ideas that were not worth exploring and ideas which got dissuaded by our own fear for existence or lack of exposure and inferiority complex needs a hearing. The global recession has put us at par and so have modern software development & delivery technologies like Social and Cloud Computing and open innovation methods like Crowd sourcing. In the words of Guy Kawasaki, “Don’t Let The Bozos Grind You Down” – who says we can’t be leaders?

A first of its kind – global opportunity knocks us in form of cloud computing or in other words Internet-based computing wave, whereby shared resources, software, hardware and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, like electricity from a grid. Global software giants are embracing the new and open culture; giving way to the new terms of business and shrugging off the legacy & old. From individuals to experts, from institutions to unorganized social networks, from students to professionals – Cloud Computing is igniting ideas and transforming human talent into user driven innovations / dollar ways never thought possible.

To seize this opportunity, One Billion Minds – Asia’s No 1 Open Innovation Network, JamCracker, leader in Cloud based Application Delivery & Management and WOLF Frameworks, an emerging player in the On Demand Application Development Platform business have developed the unique “The Roar of the Cloud” program to discover and support the best next generation online software application idea in India. The Winners of the challenge will access best in class application and venture development support as well as receive cash rewards, mentoring from the brightest leaders in the Cloud Computing innovation ecosystem to shape their vision.


This journey will only take you 30% closer to business success, but we assure you a 100% support from our hearts. Take the plunge and enjoy your journey, that’s all that matters…

Best,


Sunny Ghosh
Director & CEO, WOLF Frameworks


NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.