Getronics Streamlines Its IT Change Management Process by Analyzing It from End to End

Efficient IT change management processes are an integral part of maintaining flexible IT environments that adapt quickly to evolving business needs. Getronics—a leading provider of vendor-independent information and communication technology (ICT) solutions and services—is working with ProActivity, Inc. in an ongoing effort to streamline its internal Business Processes and Information Systems (BPIS) change management process. Using two Microsoft .NET applications based on Microsoft Office Visio 2003 technology, ProActivity Whiteboard for Visio and ProActivity Enterprise Hub for Visio, Getronics can easily capture as-is business process data with Visio diagrams, seamlessly integrate the diagram fragments into an end-to-end BPIS change management process model, and store the information in a central data repository. By usingthis integrated solution, Getronics estimates it will reduce the time it takes to capture the as-is processes by 30%. By analyzing and reporting on the end-to-end process, Getronics will be able to implement a flexible streamlined process across the organization and accomplish what matters most: increase the availability of client IT assets.

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Getronics is one of the world’s leadingproviders of vendor-independent information and communication technology (ICT) solutions and services. It designs, implements, deploys, manages, maintains, and supports IT infrastructure systems, networks, and enterprise applications that its clients rely on every day. Whether a Getronics client has decided to outsource all of its network operations or just reduce the complexity of its IT infrastructure, Getronics helps the client maximize the value of its technology investment and focus on its core business functions while leaving the rest to Getronics.

In order to provide top-notch IT services to many of the world's largest organizations and ensure that their IT environments operate at peak efficiency, Getronics wants to increase operational efficiency by streamlining its internal Business Processes and Information Systems (BPIS) change management process. This process addresses software and hardware infrastructure changes in its customer’s IT environments. Current BPIS change management processes are resource-intensive and vary among business units. Getronics recognizes the need for a consistent and standardized way of capturing process information. Non-standardized process documentation can lead to process gaps that could subject the organization to rework activity.

Getronics believes a standard method for capturing as-is process data across business units is important for its employees who aren’t necessarily trained business analysts. Getronics needs to integrate fragments of process information into a comprehensive end-to-end snapshot of the as-is BPIS change management process, analyze it, streamline it, and then implement the streamlined process in a consistent manner across all functional units in the BPIS organization. And, to ensure that Getronics receives a sufficient return on its investment, it needs a solution that achieves each of these objectives.

ProActivity, Inc.—a Microsoft® Office Visio® Solution Provider—develops software for business process discovery, design, analysis, and optimization. It is working with Getronics to achieve those goals using the patented ProActivity Whiteboard for Visio and ProActivity Enterprise Hub for Visio solutions—two comprehensive solutions that are a perfect fit for Getronics. Using Microsoft .NET™ technology, these solutions combine the data-processing strength of Microsoft SQL Sever™, the graphic ease of Microsoft Office Visio 2003, and XML Web services to provide a cost-effective, powerful solution for diagramming, designing, analyzing, and streamlining business processes.

First, Getronics subject matter experts (SMEs) visually capture as-is process information as Visio process diagrams with ProActivity Whiteboard for Visio—a Microsoft .NET application that seamlessly embeds the new Microsoft Office Visio 2003 ActiveX® Drawing Control into its user interface. Then, ProActivity Enterprise Hub for Visio converts these diagrams into data, validates the data, and integrates it into an end-to-end process model. It stores the data in a single, dynamic, scalable Microsoft SQL Server database—the ProActivity Business Process Knowledgebase—a single process data repository Getronics can share across the BPIS organization. Using this repository, or enterprise hub, Getronics can analyze and report on the end-to-end process in a variety of ways to reveal any issues or opportunities for improvement. Ultimately, it can implement the new streamlined process throughout the BPIS organization while continually honing and adapting it to fit changing business priorities.

Avi Fogel, ProActivity, Inc. Chairman and CEO, describes the benefits of this SME-driven process and using Visio business process diagrams: “Many of our clients are looking to expand business process optimization efforts to actively include those employees who are closest to the process, while leveraging their unique knowledge and providing a true collaborative environment to communicate and facilitate change. By incorporating Visio into our solution and using its extensible platform capabilities, we leverage an existing and well-known diagramming environment to provide an easy way to collect, share, analyze, simulate, design, and communicate enterprise business process information with the help of the employees who are closest to the process.”

The result is one standard, validated central view of thebusiness process, which enables sophisticated analysis, simulation, design, and forward implementation support for business and IT analysts.

Diagram As-Is BPIS Processes

Getronics subject matter experts (SMEs) in various functional areas across the BPIS organization kick off the data-capturing
process and overall streamlining effort with ProActivity Whiteboard for Visio, which connects the Visio drawing window to the enterprise hub. ProActivity makes diagramming high-level or detailed representations of as-is BPIS change management processes simple by providing standard templates and SmartShapes® symbols for Getronics SMEs to use.

Using the intuitive Visio visual work environment and shapes, SMEs across the BPIS organization can create standard, consistent, error-free process diagrams by just dragging shapes from the ProActivity Whiteboard for Visio toolbar onto the drawing page and connecting them. Then, they can easily add process descriptions by selecting a shape and typing.

Getronics SMEs who work remotely or don’t have ProActivity Whiteboard for Visio installed on their computers can diagram processes remotely over an Internet connection using Windows®Server 2003 Terminal Services.

Add BPIS Data to Diagrams

Each diagram created by a Getronics SME represents a fragment of the BPIS change management process and is aptly named: process fragment. As SMEs create these process fragments, they use the Visio functionality in ProActivity Whiteboard for Visio to associate BPIS data with shapes using custom properties that vary from shape to shape.

After SMEs drag shapes onto the drawing page, they enter data for the shape’s custom properties. For example, as an Activity shape is dragged onto the drawing page, the Activity Properties dialog box appears, in which SMEs can enter data for that shape’s custom properties, such as the activity name, the role of the person performing the activity, the system used to perform the activity, and the hourly cost of performing the activity. This data is stored with the shape and diagram, and then later imported into the enterprise hub, analyzed, and used to generate reports, such as process costing and timing or process resource reports.

Validate Process Diagrams and Convert Them to Data

Using the Submit Drawing to Hub option on the ProActivity Whiteboard for Visio toolbar, Getronics SMEs can validate and submit process fragments directly from the Visio drawing window to the enterprise hub. Process analysts provide one more layer of validation by reviewing the diagrams to ensure the SMEs captured all the information necessary to integrate the diagrams successfully into the end-to-end process. Analysts then export the approved process in Visio XML file format, which retains all of the data associated with shapes in the diagram. ProActivity Enterprise Hub for Visio converts the diagrams into data and stores the data in the enterprise hub for analysis and further enterprise-level validation.

Link Process Fragments and Create End-to-End Process Model

As ProActivity process analysts submit business process fragments, they populate the enterprise hub with individual fragments of the BPIS change management process. ProActivity Enterprise Hub for Visio links these fragments by matching inputs in one process fragment to outputs in another. Then, it integrates all the fragments into a comprehensive end-to-end process model, which enables organizations like Getronics to successfully take on large, complex streamlining efforts.

Analyze and Streamline the Entire BPIS Process

Using the integrated process data in the enterprise hub, process managers, business analysts, system developers, strategic planners, and directors—anyone at Getronics—can see the same detailed end-to-end view of how Getronics teams function. As they collaborate with ProActivity process analysts to review and analyze the information, they can perform the following tasks:

• Dynamically view and analyze the end-to-end BPIS change management process in a variety of ways, including viewing swim lane and activity-level diagrams.
• Run reports, such as gap analysis, process costing and timing, and process resource reports.
• Improve the as-is BPIS process and design the to-be process by generating Visio process diagrams from process data in the enterprise hub, and then modifying the diagrams with ProActivity Whiteboard for Visio.
• Simulate optimized process scenarios throughout the BPIS organization before process deployment.
• Publish BPIS process data in a variety of file formats, such as Microsoft Office Visio, Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Excel, XML, HTML, and PDF file formats.
• Effectively monitor changes to the process to eliminate vulnerabilities.

Getronics and ProActivity business analysts can then hone the BPIS change management process until it’s optimized for the current IT production environment, meets the needs of all of the functional units in the BPIS organization, and aligns with current business priorities.

Implement the Streamlined Process Across the Organization

After the streamlined process is approved, Getronics can integrate it into its IT environments and provide documentation for the entire process or fragments of it to employees in visual and accessible file formats, such as Visio diagrams or HTML pages on an intranet site. Getronics can use this documentation to train employees on the new streamlined process and ensure they comply with particular rules and regulations throughout the process.

This ongoing process improvement cycle comes full circle when ProActivity develops new Getronics best practice templates, based on the streamlined process, and distributes them to SMEs across the BPIS organization so they can use them when documenting and submitting new as-is processes to the enterprise hub.

Getronics predicts it can streamline the BPIS change management process in a fraction of the time it would normally take by working with the ProActivity Whiteboard for Visio and ProActivity Enterprise Hub for Visio solutions. It predicts it will also increase employee productivity, reduce the time it takes to capture process data by at least 30 percent, save time analyzing an end-to-end process with a single data repository, and improve customer satisfaction.

IncreasesEmployee Productivity by Visually Capturing Consistent As-Is Process Data with One Solution

Even though capturing as-is process information is an obvious starting point for any streamlining effort, many organizations see it as a daunting task and rarely do it because they do not have the right tool for the task. Getronics found the right tool—ProActivity Whiteboard for Visio. The intuitive Visio 2003 interface incorporated into it allows those people who are used to working with Visio to transfer their skills to this application and continue quickly and effectively creating as-is process diagrams.

Others who are new to this visual work environment can easily learn how to create diagrams by just dragging a few shapes onto the drawing page. As Dan Hay, Microsoft Office Visio Group Product Manager explains, “Visio makes it easy for ordinary people to produce detailed, accurate, professional diagrams that can be broadly communicated and understood. Microsoft is excited about the ProActivity solution that together with Visio provides enterprise customers a valuable, strategic asset that can be used to decrease costs, improve the bottom line, and optimize business processes.”

In addition to a low learning curve, there is no confusion about which shapes to use. Everyone throughout the organization uses a handful of simple shapes to diagram their portion of the overall process. The result is consistent, error-free, as-is process diagrams that are simple to understand and easy to validate and integrate into the enterprise hub. Getronics predicts that using ProActivity Whiteboard for Visio to capture as-is process data in diagram form will reduce the time it takes to capture data by at least 30 percent, thereby increasing employee productivity.

SavesTime by Analyzing End-to-End Processeswith a Single Data Repository

In order to streamline processes that span project teams, business units, and countries, organizations need to analyze the entire process from end to end. This seems like another obvious component in any streamlining effort; however, it is also another daunting task. It is much easier and less overwhelming for individual departments or teams to improve their part of the process, while overlooking interdepartmental dependencies, process overlaps, and the enterprise-wide big picture. Shortcuts like these are often expensive and the root cause of all streamlining effort failures.

Getronics believes in doing a job right the first time. That is why it is integrating its BPIS change management process information across functional units into one coherent whole with ProActivity Enterprise Hub for Visio. Then, it is analyzing this end-to-end process collaboratively as an organization to accomplish the following tasks:

• Determine when, where, and which departments are involved in the entire process and improve cross-communication among groups and departments.
• Determine opportunities for improvement organization-wide, why particular activities are performed, and why particular groups are performing them.
• Determine which processes or fragments of processes have the greatest impact on customers.
• Pinpoint bottlenecks, weaknesses, redundant tasks, and convoluted parts of the end-to-end process.
• Identify activities that do not add value to the overall process and group related activities together.
• Identify collaborative processes that reduce redundant activities within the end-to-end process.

With this organization-wide approach, Getronics predicts its employees will save time by analyzing the entire BPIS change management process using one accurate data repository. ProActivity Enterprise Hub for Visio enables them to do the job right the first time at a fraction of the cost by streamlining the change management process across the entire BPIS organization, not just a couple of departments.

IncreasesCustomer Satisfaction by Designing a Flexible Process

The final, most important benefit is this: Getronics predicts that an organization-wide streamlined BPIS change management process will ensure the process is flexible enough to accommodate customer requirements quickly and easily. It will also increase the availability of client IT assets. This in turn will increase customer satisfaction and positively affect the Getronics bottom line making ProActivity Whiteboard for Visio and ProActivity Enterprise Hub for Visio valuable strategic assets just as Microsoft Office Visio Group Product Manager, Dan Hay, foresaw.

Microsoft Office Visio 2003 is an easy-to-use diagramming application that enables business and technical professionals to document, design, communicate, and improve ideas, processes, and systems.

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