Break Away From Cookie Cutter Apps to Process Applications

by Jim Sinur

In the new digital world, the emphasis will be on differentiation, not on rigid best practices. While we don’t want to walk away from the steady applications of the late nineties and the early 2000’s, the demand for speed, change, and business differentiation make smart process applications that dynamically configure and reconfigure ideal for the future. That said, traditional packaged applications are strategic for standard and best practice-focused applications and it’s best to use them there. Smart process applications have the adaptability levers and the built-in analytic capabilities to adjust to emerging conditions. This makes smart process applications ideal for wrapping traditional standard transactions, tasks, and actions with emerging business differentiating features.

 

Traditional Packaged Applications:

While traditional packages have excellent best practice transactions and actions, the nature of business today is characterized by rapid change. Though some of these packages can be reconfigured through data driven methods, most fall short on agility. Traditional packages can support social, mobile, and cloud with expensive and painful upgrades, and want to leverage your pocket book for expensive additions for Big Data analytic capabilities.

Traditional Bespoke Applications:

While your custom built applications are not closed off to changes like packed applications, they need further investment to get to digital. Many organizations are surrounding these applications with smart process capabilities, with or without pre-built logic to bring them into the digital age. Additionally, many custom applications are being retrofitted with rules engines or data driven parameters to give them a longer shelf life.

Smart Process Applications:

If you are starting with a new green field organization or functions, a smart process application makes sense to avoid the problems with frozen applications and plain horizontal process technology without any jump start applications. Even if you don’t want the provided jump start apps, the process tools are perfect for the digital world if they support emerging processes or cases.

Net; Net:

Speed and agility are necessary to keep up with business change in the emerging digital world, so traditional applications will not cut it going forward. In fact, some of the providers of those packaged applications are also offering process applications themselves as to not to lose their customer base over the long haul. Some of the smartest CIOs are looking at their application portfolios to retrofit explicit rules and processes into some of their key applications. Other smart CIOs are buying new smart process applications now.

This blog was originally posted at jimsinur.blogspot.com.