Tag: Actu

Streamline production tools for an efficient response to the continuity of digital activities

Digital transformation at all levels

It is no longer a secret now, the acceleration of the digital transformation of companies is at a high stage of maturity (even in France). Indeed, the recent combined COVID and inflation crises will lead companies to accelerate their digital transformation, which to be honest was still timid and piecemeal.

Cloud migration projects, urbanization projects, application modernization projects are in the portfolios of many CIOs or CDOs.
For more information on these business priorities, I recommend reading this August 2022 ZDNET article “Businesses will need a clear roadmap for deploying new technologies to help them survive and to thrive, regardless of the social and economic headwinds they may face in the future. »

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The importance of digital activities in today’s and tomorrow’s business

Digital activities at the heart of business

Here too, we can speak of evidence, but it is not so simple. In fact, the Business of tomorrow is based on digital activities. From there emerge new problems of modernization, but more generally of business strategy as detailed in this article : Datascience

The vast majority of digital development projects will lead companies to question their infrastructures and networks, and it is the major market influencers, GAFAMs and operators who are pushing this trend.
However, digital activities are also and above all in the hands of applications and data exchanges.
These two components, applications and data exchanges imply the quality and the relevance of the information exchanged in the company for its success.

This ability to properly communicate reliable and quality information is included in interoperability.

High-performance digital activities will be supported both by a clear and precise application urbanization, but also by an impeccable governance of data exchanges.

What are digital activities?

To understand what the fundamental principles of digital business continuity are, it is first necessary to approach the two great worlds of enterprise information systems BackOffice and FrontOffice, but above all on both sides, the “no man’s land that surrounds them.

The Back Office

The BackOffice is fundamental. It is made up of what the user does not see when using an interface. We will find there the infrastructures, the Cloud, the various application components and technical tools, such as what will be around the ITIL processes, IT management.

The Front Office

The FrontOffice, for its part, includes everything that will concern users/customers. It includes “business” applications, the processing of information / data with value for the company. The notions of business processes and the experience of users through interfaces that allow them to interact with this data.

The “no man’s land” of data

The two Front and Back domains are therefore complementary, but so different in objectives and expectations that on both sides, there are major subjects including that of information/data processing, but also and above all that of its communication in the company and its ecosystem.

Technicians call them API-supported data flows when users call them digital activities and business processes. Today, no one has really found a recipe that can make this no man’s land more fluid. “The data is the user!”, some will say, while others will say “it’s the network that doesn’t work!”.

The continuity of digital activities obviously involves mastering both worlds, but also mastering this “no man’s land” of data. No continuity of digital activities without governance of data exchanges, nor shared visibility on the associated processes. These processes that drive business success today and tomorrow.

Why are there so many tools to ensure this continuity

The lack of transversality of organizations and objectives

In fact, by taking up the idea of ​​the major components of digital activities, it is easy to understand that the various tools required are multiple: those for infrastructures, those for this or that application, and sometimes technical flow management solutions. But in an almost general way no consolidated solution between technique and business allows to give a global vision (the most important perimeter) of the success of business activities. Yet these are the most important activities in the success and growth of the business.

A simple and pragmatic model to ensure digital business continuity

Three tools and that’s it

In fact today, all the solutions to ensure the continuity of services have greatly evolved and with only three different tools, it is possible to control the continuity/performance of digital business activities for the majority of companies (hence TGEs must be excluded, because silos and egos are too important for this awareness).

The first tool is an observability solution, because it brings together all the components necessary to master the technical and application components of a company.

The following tool is an NPM solution (rather software), because communication networks today are very complex and deserve a dedicated solution.

Finally, the last is a solution that makes it possible to measure digital activities as closely as possible, the exchange of valuable data, to monitor the associated processes, while providing a unified and collaborative view of the digital operation of the company. Basically, a “business” definition of the need for interoperability in business tools.

The Interoperability Streamlining Model with Process Sentry

On this last type of tool, today’s market is still lacking in maturity and we will find different software markets that will partially respond. It mainly includes the SOAPs (schedulers), BAM (Business Application Monitoring), SDMS (Application Flow Management) and BPM (Business Process Management) markets.

It is indeed a rationalization of these different markets that Process Sentry offers, providing companies with a unique solution, which by controlling the application flows related to the activities and associated processes, allows governance of digital activities, while consolidating production tools. scheduling.

Process Sentry is therefore a transversal and collaborative tool in the company. It simplifies administration, production and digital communication, while providing the necessary and sufficient automation.

For more than ten years now, we have been hearing about digital transformation, the adoption of the Cloud or the digitization of business actions. It is a fact, the current health crisis has accelerated all this.

The acceleration of digital transformation for many companies, of all sizes, has led them to deploy and maintain more and more applications…twenty, thirty, fifty heterogeneous applications that must communicate, synchronize data on a daily basis.

No sector is spared

From HR processes, to school registration, or even to ordering express delivery on the Internet, communicating automation is bringing digital to companies. Applications support crucial digital operations, sustain growth and are the backbone of innovation. Many business activities are digital; all sectors, all processes are affected by automation and this should not decrease.

This sudden and unexpected acceleration, even if the applications are more and more stable, brings its share of complexity for IT managers. Particularly for SMEs and ETIs who must organize themselves at limited costs and highly constrained resources; while having the same objectives of quality and results with their customers.

Mastering the interoperability of applications in continuous change is a necessity

A recurring problem in the performance of the automation of digital activities lies in intra- and inter-company data exchanges which can malfunction, be unreliable, be blocked, etc. This can have potentially significant impacts on the continuity of production, the quality of the service provided, the image of the Company or even the revenues generated by digital.

The automation of business processes and activities is carried by enterprise applications, nothing new on this subject. Moreover, companies are rather mature for the measurement and control of their critical applications individually. However, the ability to exchange correctly between applications: their interoperability, is little or not taken into account as a priority in digital projects or initiatives.

See here our article on the interoperability of information systems.

The main reason is that it is a cross-functional constraint, outside the project or organization silos, or even outside the budget. As a result, companies find it difficult to manage it upstream and suffer from it in operation.

Process Sentry, an effective solution at a lower cost

The startup ACS DIGITAL SOFTWARE, publisher of the Process Sentry software solution, offers a simple and pragmatic “out-of-the-box” software solution to master the interoperability of applications and improve collaboration between business players.

It is at the crossroads of these different fields, and has taken the best of several markets: Business Process Management (BPM), Application Performance Management (APM), Scheduling management (SOAPs) or API management for make it an integrated solution that addresses the interoperability issue for the majority of businesses of all sizes.

Through three functional pillars (automation, monitoring and Business / IT collaboration), the solution allows companies often abandoned by large publishers to ensure control of their data exchanges and intra and inter-company flows to continue to innovate serenely with digital and IT decision-makers to rest easy.

Identifying and optimizing business processes: a major challenge for the company

Properly identifying business processes, modeling them and managing them optimally is not easy. But in the all-digital era, no company can skip this step at the risk of losing competitiveness, profitability or damaging its image.

In this article, we give you advice for identifying your key processes and implementing an effective and sustainable process management policy (BPM).

What is a business process ?

A simple definition could be: “A business process is a set of interrelated activities to carry out a task, a project or achieve an objective related to the business strategy. »

The business processes can be specific to a body of the company (accounting, human resources, IT), transverse between several services (management of a customer order, hiring of a new employee) or even inter-company (management of the supplier, outsourced payroll/accounting).

Each task in the process therefore requires inputs that it will use to provide the next task with the information it needs and advance the process to completion.

Whether they are identified or not, optimized or not, monitored or not, the processes govern the life of the company and determine its productivity, the quality of the services rendered and ultimately, its profitability and sustainability. Having an effective business process management (BPM) policy and the tools to support it is giving your company the foundations for serene growth.

How to identify its key processes?

The key processes are those that are at the heart of your company’s strategy and that will allow you to achieve the objectives you have set for yourself (profitability, customer satisfaction, agility, etc.).

As these objectives are normally renewed every year, it is normal that the key processes are also different. This is why it is important to define for each action indicators to measure whether the changes made during the past year have been effective or not.

The Efficiency Matrix

To identify the key processes, the simplest way is to create an efficiency matrix listing all of your online processes and the objectives to be achieved in a column in ascending order of importance. By weighting the results, you will thus obtain the list of processes to be optimized as a priority.

The impact matrix

Attention, it is important to keep in mind that the processes are not all independent. An action taken on one of them can have an effect (positive or negative) on other processes or impact a large number of information systems. An effective way to avoid surprises and to have an impact matrix of your processes or even better that this matrix is integrated directly into your process management tool if you have one.

Finally, identifying the key processes of a company is not easy. An error can have serious consequences on the achievement of the objectives set. Do not hesitate to be accompanied in this process.

The business process management (BPM) policy?

Why implement a BPM policy?

The growth of the company, the multiplication of tools and the agility necessary for constant adaptation to the market necessarily increases the number of processes and their complexity. It is then essential for the company to have one or more tools allowing it to have a global and dynamic vision of all its processes and to be able to manage them.

But tools alone are not enough. Their implementation and use must be framed by rules and procedures that coordinate activities to achieve the company’s objectives as efficiently and economically as possible.

Certainly, the development and application of such a policy within the company will have immediate effects on the entire organization, services and tools. However, keep in mind that it can be carried out gently, gradually and not overlook a change management action with your employees.

The benefits of implementing a BPM policy

We thus immediately perceive the advantages of such a business process management policy at the heart of the company:

• An effective tool for detecting and improving the company’s key processes, making it possible to achieve the strategic objectives set more quickly and more efficiently or to pass a milestone.
• A 360° vision of all processes in which all tasks are identified, structured and modelled, enlightening each employee on the importance of their role in the organization and giving meaning to their work.
• An opportunity to break down silos to move towards a cross-functional and collaborative organization to regain serenity and empower each actor within their scope.
• An undeniable gain in terms of agility and responsiveness in the face of the constant changes required of companies to remain competitive.
• Great flexibility to support organizational and technical changes linked to these developments (evolution of working methods, adaptation of tools to business needs, etc.).
• And finally, a contribution in terms of efficiency to put the right resources where needed, improve productivity by identifying and automating unrewarding tasks.

Although necessary, the development of a process management policy is often a source of concern for managers because it brutally questions the organization of activities and then reveals the immensity of the task. This is why it is important to prepare well in advance for the implementation stages of this policy and to register its actions over time.
Our next article will be devoted to the implementation of a sustainable and effective process management policy.a consacré à la mise en place d’une politique de gestion des processus pérenne et efficace.

The importance of interoperability is the logical consequence of the digital transformation that all economic sectors are experiencing today. The proliferation of applications used on a daily basis in our personal or professional lives necessarily implies an increase in the exchange of information between heterogeneous systems. New norms and standards are regularly emerging, certainly bringing new solutions but also an anthology of new projects to put them into action.

Faced with this, CIOs have the heavy task of managing the urbanization of their information system as well as possible so that it effectively accompanies and supports the missions and strategy of their company.

Definition of interoperability

The following definition is the one agreed upon by the AFUL (French Association of Free Software Users) and Wikipédia. It has been used as a basis for the RGI, the General Interoperability Repository in which the state defines the norms and standards of communication of applications managed by ministries, administrations and communities :

“Interoperability is the ability of a product or system, whose interfaces are fully known, to operate with other existing or future products or systems without access or implementation restrictions.”

In the case of information systems interoperability, this definition has several aspects, such as the possibility for an application to interact with several database systems (DBMS) using the ODBC standard, for example, or the standardization of programming languages allowing heterogeneous systems to communicate via the Internet.

There are also several levels of interoperability depending on the layer at which the communication takes place.

The three levels of interoperability

Technical interoperability

As its name indicates, it constitutes the technical part of the exchanges. It covers the hardware aspects used to connect systems, but also the types of interface used (APIs, connectors, etc.), the format of the data exchanged and the protocols used for these exchanges. Technical interoperability describes the ability for different technologies to exchange data based on well-defined interface standards. This level of interoperability is supported by models such as MDA (Model Driven Architecture) which allows, starting from a business model independent of computerization, the transformation of this model into a platform-independent model and finally the transformation of the latter into a platform-specific model for the concrete implementation of the system using specific or general languages such as Java, C# or Python.

Semantic interoperability

This level of interoperability ensures that the meaning of the information exchanged is understandable by any other application that accesses the data. This requires the creation of a repository in which the meaning of each piece of information is described and shared. Semantic interoperability represents information in the form of a model containing concepts linked by relationships to model a set of knowledge on a given subject. This is called an ontology.

Syntactic interoperability

The purpose of this layer is to translate the meaning of the data into symbols that can be used by other systems. The difference between semantic interoperability and syntactic interoperability is similar to the difference between form and content in a text. Syntactic interoperability concerns the way data is coded and formatted. It ultimately leads to the notion of an open system, i.e. a system that can support the heterogeneity of the components involved in the exchange. Syntactic interoperability is supported by mechanisms such as the Unified Modeling Language (UML), the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and the Interface Definition Language (IDL).

Norms and standards

The importance of standardization

Interoperability is a concept related to communication. In order to exchange information, trade and prosper, mankind first created languages that allowed him to interact with other tribes, to understand and to be understood. Today, there are many idioms, some of which are more widely used than others and are considered “standards”, such as English. Man has also had to develop standards to agree on practices shared with other communities, such as the cutting of stones for the construction of large buildings.

We can, as Jacob Holmblad tells us in this editorial, see the importance of interoperability through the biblical myth of the Tower of Babel. One day, a vain man wanted to create an edifice that would reach the heavens, thus competing with God. But God, in order to stop the construction of the building, decided to create multiple languages so that the builders could no longer communicate with each other. Thus, undermining the interoperability, he makes the project fail.

The big publishers’ game

Increasing globalization, the growing complexity of interactions and the multiplication of so-called “communicating” systems complicate interoperability requirements and force the emergence of new, more robust and reliable standards.

This also forces the major publishers to open up their systems more and to propose gateways with their competitors so as not to find themselves isolated or even excluded from their ecosystem. They do not hesitate to get closer to standardization organizations and working groups such as ECMA, ETSI, OASIS, OMA, IEEE, ISO or W3C, to name but a few, in order to have a say in the debates and to impose their norm as a standard.

The bad students

Every rule has its exceptions. Some publishers have chosen not to open up their system and to remain on what is known as a proprietary or manufacturer-exclusive system. This is a strategic choice that allows them to keep a captive clientele, which is then totally dependent on the editor and the resources available to develop new functionalities or provide assistance. It is also complicated to interface these applications with others unless reverse engineering techniques are used to develop specific connectors. These vendors have no choice but to “pamper” their customers to prevent them from giving in to the siren call of open systems.

The future of interoperability

As we have just seen, interoperability is now at the heart of all systems, in all sectors, with crucial issues at stake in some cases (health, logistics, transport, etc.). For companies, it has become necessary, even vital, to master this notion and to put it into practice through a well thought-out urbanization of the information system, clear processes and open tools supporting norms and standards.

Even technologies that were previously closed, such as blockchains, have understood the need to open up in order to be democratized, as Philippe Limantour’s article shows.