I am looking forward to attending “Building Strategic Partnerships with your Suppliers” session at the National Contract Management Association (NCMA) World Congress on Monday, July 19, 2010, from 3:45 pm – 5:00 pm.

How many of us are up to date on the Health Care Reform Bill, or can talk with confidence about the newest developments in the war in Iraq? Probably most of us. Both of these topics have full-time news coverage and representatives speaking out to make the ideas and beliefs of these subjects known. Unfortunately, there is a very important group who is going unheard. A group that is unable to help themselves or speak out for themselves. This group is the children who are being shuffled through Child Protective Service Agencies. The agencies that are supposed to protect these children have been making mistakes, placing children back into dangerous situations, forgetting children because of lack of continuity in case processes, and some needed cries for help have just been going unanswered. The problem isn’t the caseworkers; the problem is the unattainable workload. Finally, the caseworkers have had enough and caseworkers are making their situation known; giving a voice to the children who have been wronged by the mismanaged system and informing the public on problems that have, until now, been kept quiet.

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I was having a conversation with some of the team the other day talking about the keys to a successful implementation.  Things had been going smoothly so we wanted to capture what had been going “right”.  People were suggesting things like “active, engaged business sponsor” and “supportive, engaged technical staff” as well as a number of others.

The conversation went on around the group and a lot of good points and ideas were suggested.  The conversation came around to me and the question was asked – “what do you think is the key to a successful implementation?”.  I thought for a minute and said simply “communication”

Let me elaborate (just like the rest of group asked me to do) – all aspects of any implementation require successful collaboration, coordination and execution.  This requires communication.  Whether we are defining requirements, planning the deployment or implementing a configuration, communication is the key.  If subject matter experts do not clearly communicate their requirements, if IT resources do not clearly communicate the details of their technical environment, if project mangers do not clearly communicate plans, expectations, activities etc…. well, you can see where I would say communication is key.

I am not suggesting that all the other ideas put forward were not valid or insightful, just for me it boils down to communication.  As long as open, honest, two-way communication is happening and happening consistently, I believe every implementation will be successful.

We developed an affinity for the cloud approach to software through the experience of creating our ERP integrations. Like the cloud, we architected in such a way that an easy to use interface could serve as a conduit to powerful services behind it. In this case the services are found in the financial modules of all of the major ERP systems. These tried and true services provide functionality that performs the myriad operations needed to maintain your financials.

We’ve never aspired to replace these proven ERP functions; by now they simply cannot be improved upon. Instead we offer a well designed collection of web-forms, workflows, and powerful document display technology which comprise the Prodagio AP application. We give the user an integrated, nimble front-end that serves first and foremost as a familiar tool. Prodagio users can forego the sometimes enigmatic user interfaces provided by the ERP vendor, while at the same time they leverage the best-in-class business logic that it provides.

Mike

At a recent neighborhood get together, I was asked the typical question, “What do you do for a living?” For once, I paused before spitting out my typical “I’m in software” answer. I did not respond with a summary of the tasks I perform, but instead with the impact that work has. I responded, with total conviction, “I ensure people get fed and have beds to sleep in.” Instead of glazed over indifference, I got an engaged reply, “tell me more”. So, I did.
There is a county government agency in the East providing aid to families. They have an ongoing caseload of over 48,000 cases, which must be maintained and reviewed multiple times per year. In addition, the agency receives new applications for assistance daily. Needy individuals and families desperately need prompt service delivery. But they can’t get what the need. Committed Social Service workers desperately want to deliver service. But they can’t do what they want. They have a complex problem

• Mountains of Paper
• Complex Rules of Eligibility
• Over taxed resources.

To deliver fast service, the agency must perform timely eligibility determinations and redeterminations in addition to meeting state and federal guidelines. This is a Herculean and Sisyphean task when performed manually. This issue confronts most aid agencies and in my opinion leads to the stereotyped view that Social Services are slow. But this is not an issue of desire or skill, but one of friction caused by complex rules and a paper-based process.
We were lucky enough to be given an opportunity to help them. We recommended Prodagio Case Management as a way to handle the increased caseload without additional resources. The solution improves client services, creates efficiency, is more accurate, and reduces work duplication. Our project consolidated the manual workflows surrounding case record generation, searching multiple systems, intake assignment, eligibility determinations, redeterminations, ongoing case maintenance, and payment request functionality. Additionally, the solution will produce many positive impacts for the agency:

• Turn bulky, hard to store atoms into sleek electrons by digitizing the paper flow obtained from clients and then storing that information electronically. This will lessen the mound of paper, which is a storage problem within individual case manager’s cubicles.
• Stop redundant work by eliminating the need for staff to review their files and correspondence to be sent to storage. Also, it will provide a simplified method to share or transfer client records within the agency and staff locations.
• Stop dual data entry by transferring data along the process and linking reference systems.
• Reduce mistakes and reduce fraud by facilitating multiple system searches and saving client screening results electronically.

I think it’s critical for software companies to look at their efforts through their customer’s eyes and to take ownership of the problems they are solving. These problems can only be bested when we join efforts with our clients. Only then is lasting and true value created. This is something I deeply understand but need to remind myself on a regular basis.
I will let you know how it goes when I respond in a similar way when my daughter asks “how was your day at work?”

Cloud Computing is a viable module for Enterprise Level Business Applications, and Prodagio has been deploying in this manner for years. Now, cloud computing is becoming more mainstream with our clients for a three primary reasons. It is technically viable, economically advantageous, and (to paraphrase Senator Stuart Smalley – AKA Al Franken) doggone it, users like it.

Many of the concepts behind cloud computing have been around for years. For instance, the idea of a thin-client driven by services on a remote virtual machine dates back to the mainframe era. (Funny, now we are back where we started). Internet performance and security have matured enough to make web-based cloud computing a viable enterprise platform. Each cloud offering has the same pattern of light, user-friendly interfaces pointing to an array of high-value services. As companies such as Salesforce.com and Amazon continue to demonstrate successes with this model, IT decision-maker acceptance is more widespread.

Today’s economic environment has put the spotlight on overall business spending. Cloud computing provides a “pay as you go” model which helps to reduce or eliminate capital expenditures and high-cost software licensing. Cloud applications are able to offer this model because the technological underpinnings at the server level are architected for easy and dynamic scalability. When you need more bandwidth or computational power, it’s just a phone-call or email away and the results are instantaneous.

Lastly, the cloud model is more likely to provide the most productive interface for the latest generation of workers. It offers more flexibility of workspace and time; workers can log in from anywhere, anytime to perform tasks. That, combined with a rich user interface, makes for an easy to use solution that most mimics the collaborative and social nature of computing at which they are so adept.

Mike

I was talking to Phil, a former colleague of mine, last week and he was expressing his frustration over trying to build a contracts management software application on top of SharePoint. (Lucky me, just in time for a blog entry.) The way he told the story was hilarious, one of those Dilbert-type experiences that makes for a good laugh for anyone who has worked in an office for more than a week.

But underneath the laughter was a good amount of despair and Phil was feeling his position might be on the line. Most of his issues were around people not knowing what they really wanted the application to do and a failure on everyone’s part to understand the content management solution’s strengths and weaknesses.

No one really owned the process from the business side but lots of people had opinions – some very strong opinions and for very good reasons. Some were worried about the process of creating a new contract, some about missing legal obligations, some deeply concerned about risk mitigation, version control and compliance. These issues had been brewing through several corporate near-misses and one outright crisis that I won’t document here. One of the executives demanded the problems around contract creation and management be solved once and for all.

A manager had the idea of using SharePoint since they had it “lying around” and gave that idea to my friend and expected him to work some magic. Everyone on the team seemed to believe this was a viable option and faster than trying to buy a product or design a custom solution. After all, there was business pain that had to be fixed fast.

Weeks of research and many months of design iterations later and they were no closer to consensus, much less a working application.

After listening to this for a few minutes, I couldn’t help but chime in. The issue comes down to not having a complete understanding of the problem to be solved and the supporting belief that throwing technology at a process will automatically improve it. The solution hinged on people being able to effectively collaborate on a process with quite a few steps and the problem was different based on the role of the person looking at it. The initial creator of the document had one mission. The next person who had to validate information and sign off had a different goal. And so on, and so on, from start to finish. A big issue was that the workflow wasn’t static, there were many possible variations and exceptions based on a whole host of conditions.

The entire team was deeply concerned about creating reminders and escalations since a big part of the problem they were trying to solve involved issues falling through the cracks. Many attempts to diagram and customize the process had not resulted in a workable solution.

Finally, after several frustrating months and many arguments, he called me looking for some advice. The whitepaper we posted here, is our attempt to help Phil and others like him, get business value from their enterprise content management platforms. We decided to share with all of you with the hopes it spares you from Phil’s long hours and frustrations.

The other day a colleague shared this story in Newsday discussing the shortage of social services case workers and increasing demands for assistance; it reminded me how little has changed since I was a social services case worker in the late 80’s. My job was to process applications for beneifts under the AFDC program, a federal program designed to provide cash and medical assistance to children when a parent is missing from the home. The challenge was to provide assistance to people who qualified while ensuring the integrity of the program by preventing fraud and complying with the regulations defined in the program charter.

Regulations provided 30 days to either approve or deny the case – but when there is only one parent, no child support, no income and the landlord is about to evict — 30 days might as well be an eternity. Every day we dealt with people whose well-being rested in the balance – based on whether or not we made a good decision. Decide wrong and a child goes without food or medical care. Decide wrong and someone who doesn’t meet the program criteria, or intentionally commits fraud, may receive benefits that can never be recovered. These overpayments deplete the assistance pool for qualified recipients, can result in expensive legal fees for prosecution, and always lead to higher costs for the taxpayers to fund. In social work, bad decisions are often catastrophic.

To further complicate an already complex process, people had found all sorts of inventive ways to cheat the system. So much time had to be devoted to mitigating potential fraud that it often did take 30 days just to check social security, see if the applicant was receiving benefits anywhere else, check IRS, DMV and child support records and so on.

While that program no longer exists, many others do — with similar levels of need, time sensitivity and complexity. Today, we have the benefit of tremendous technology; yet many states and counties still suffer from outdated systems and manual processes that prevent them from making good decisions in a timely fashion. It’s not that they enjoy inefficiency; it’s often that budgets and regulations provide for the services for constituents but not a good technical mechanism for delivering them. Many agencies are either faced with cobbling together a solution, relying on manual processes or developing a custom system – all are unworkable from the perspective of accuracy, immediacy or cost.

Meanwhile, the weak economy puts increasing pressure on programs as more people have need. Many programs find themselves lacking sufficient staff to meet growing demand.

This is why it’s so critical for social services to have access to technology that is cost-effective and easy to implement, operate and maintain. These organizations aren’t swimming in IT resources and don’t have the luxury to replace systems they use every day – many of which may be provided by other agencies and outside their control. Overlay technologies, like Prodagio Case Management, are the only viable option as they provide the benefit of keeping essential data correlated in one place and full audit capabilities so essential for transparency and compliance. When regulations change, as they frequently do, these systems can be quickly updated for the new rules. These technologies help agencies balance the needs of constituents with the fiduciary responsibility to make good decisions; and that enables the best outcomes for everyone involved.

Field reports from IAPP have been full of interesting trends and buzz. The edgy and dark side of the conference is most participants feel the pressure to innovate or be outsourced. From our perspective, we have built the right products for managers to innovate and transform AP into a strategic financial management tool, instead of a commodity to be outsourced. Here is a quick recap of the show and how our products can help AP to capitalize on current trends:

1. Supplier Interaction – We think this awareness is more that timely. We are getting more interest in our Prodagio VSS product – Vendor Self Service. A few of our customers are starting to view themselves as customer service centers or at least are looking to that industry for the best practices on how to effectivley manage vendors in real-time. The solution logic is strong – push the responsibility for invoice entry out to your suppliers. This increases accuracy and lowers operating cost, but more importantly creates a automated vehicle to engage in Dynamic Supplier Management.
2. Linking Contracts with AP and Procurement - Another trend is linking AP with contracts. Prodagio has long seen this linkage in contracts and is the reason behind our investment in Prodagio Contracts.
3. Scanning or e-Invoicing – Sounds like the current trend is to do one or the other, but not both because of the time and cost involved. We built our Entry Channel Rules technology to handle transactions from any source so our customers are not limited by invoice ingestion technologies.
4. Dynamic Supplier Management – As we discussed in our webcast “An invoice is a demand on your cash” in February, the huge opportunity exists for companies to create a real-time linkage between AP and cash Management. Prodagio Analytics makes identifying these opportunities easy and Prodagio AP allows you to take immediate action.

More to come.