Than BPMS is useful to banking business? Conversation with experts of SMART technologies company

Alexey Parkhomenko: Of course, the request for the BPM solution is always the answer to business needs. These requirements are defined by the growing competition between banks in fight for customers, today, on the one hand, the number of banks is constantly reduced, and, on the other hand, there are new companies which it is desirable to make the clients. The tendency of banks to increase quantity of products is obvious to clients. However, if for retail clients banks already implemented many digital services, then with corporate clients a situation other: still for many banks banal opening of the account can take 2 - 3 days. The same problem - with receiving the credit, the order of the bank guarantee under the state tender, etc. It is clear, that in the short term more successful there will be those banks which give the chance to receive all bank services quickly, flexibly and far off in a digital form.

Alexey Parkhomenko: An essence of BPM – not in the organization of business processes as such, and in increase in efficiency of these business processes, first of all, due to automation. Many business functions can be automated: sending an inquiry on check, data acquisition from partner sources, for example, bureau of credit histories, etc. Figuratively speaking emergence of BPM does not force the employee to refuse tea with roll, just when he chews roll, its working activities from discharge of routine will be automatically performed. And, in parallel for many requests.

Ivan Bantsov: It is clear, that the modern bank is the well computerized enterprise. However every time, having received the application for opening of the account, client manager is included into CRM manually to check whether this client is brought to a system. And the security officer manually passes on all necessary bases like BlackList, checks the potential client in an AML-system (Anti-Money Laundering) according to federal law No. 115-FZ "About counteraction of legalization (washing) of income gained in the criminal way and to terrorism financing". For each transaction, as a rule, there is the computernayabaza of data or a specialized information system. They work independently, and without automation of their work the normal request of opening of the account takes usually three days and five people of employees.

By the way, the problem of acceleration of processes can be solved also without any automation. For example, to increase the staff of personnel of business division by 10 times. Then the request of the client will be processed quicker too. But we will receive in 10 times more of errors because such is property of a human factor. And the cost of acceleration of specific process will be space. But if to put these standard actions of personnel in a BPM system, we will accelerate process without costs in a cost type of additional employees and their errors.

Alexey Parkhomenko: The engine of a BPM system will receive a request, will call the relevant service which will automatically address in the CRM system and will check that such client in bank is not registered yet. Then itself will visit the corresponding website, for example, of tax administration, or will address the on-line database where will find relevant data on the company of type of the RCBO code, the addresses, etc., and will enrich record about the potential client with missing data. Itself will automatically request an AML system and will receive the answer, will check "black lists", etc. As a result, taking into account that in some points of process participation of the person is required, on all actions 2 - 3 hours will be required.

One more example - receiving a corporate credit: instead of the traditional 3 - 5 working days - the solution within two hours. Or one more important point – obtaining the bank guarantee. Many companies constantly participate in the state tenders and make out 3 - 4 requests a week. For them two – three days on obtaining the bank guarantee are an unacceptable term, and two hours are what is required from the bank partner. By our experience, after implementation of BPM it is possible to provide completion date of a request of the bank guarantee 30 minutes.

Alexey Parkhomenko: Of course! It is possible to ask the client to fill out the request, to sign at the CEO, to make the scan, to send to bank, and then not to leave phone waiting for a call from the manager within two hours. And it is possible to press three buttons in mobile application and to receive on e-mail the file of the bank guarantee in the form of the scan of the document ready to be shipped for tender.

The matter is that at the most initial stage before implementation of BPM we formalize and we draw those business processes which we implement then in the BPM system in the form of flowcharts. Already at this stage the customer can visually see inefficient outdated business processes or construct new taking into account maximum efficiency and convenience.

Ivan Bantsov: I in general would tell that an implementation project of BPM more likely consulting, than IT. In this regard an important role is played by questions of measurability of processes and the corresponding metrics which are available in a BPM system. It is possible to tell that using BPM systems banks can measure everything: time of working off of this or that service, total time of implementation for the customer of this service to measure all intermediate components of process, etc. It allows to compare, first, objectively with competitors and accurately to understand itself, your service is how attractive to potential customers, and, secondly, to define bottlenecks, measuring terms of work of intermediate nodes of business process.

Alexey Parkhomenko: Having various temporary metrics at the order, it is possible to study a set of questions: from the analysis of bottlenecks and to correlations of these problem places with business indicators of bank. Let's tell if after implementation of BPM time of working off of the request for obtaining the bank guarantee was reduced till three o'clock, then it is possible to watch how it affected quantity of the sold products of bank: in a month or for other time frame to make the forecast about how the innovation will influence sale of other products of bank.

Ivan Bantsov: Yes, the companies which reached a certain level of a maturity in the business processes, those which want to understand better that as well as why occurs in their processes are engaged in implementation of BPM. Why there was a failure in service? Why the request "hung up"? The analytics and modeling of processes are those integral results of implementation which such company wants to receive.

The majority of BPM systems are able to reveal bottlenecks at a stage of the description of business processes and to issue the corresponding warnings. During working operation at the expense of the saved-up statistics it is possible to see points of possible improvement of business processes, for example, to increase number of staff in this or that department if statistics shows "a bottle neck" there. By the way, such situations can be simulated in a system and to look what it will lead in practice to. As a result we increase the speed of change of business processes during any innovation and also "cost" of this implementation, including potential risks, considerably decreases. In other words, actually at the level of model by forces of two people (one – from business division and one – from IT) it is possible to simulate work of the whole division of bank within month, quarter, half-year. It is for the sake of what, among other, the companies implement BPMS.

Alexey Parkhomenko: One of key results of implementation of BPMS is a new level of speed of change of business processes. If business processes are issued in the old manner - in the job descriptions approved by the CEO, then any change of the instruction, bringing to final contractors is a process which usually takes not less than a week. If business process is supported by the BPM system, then it is possible to make changes to processes almost on the fly. Conditionally speaking, within a day it is possible to add new check or a stage of approval or, on the contrary, to exclude from approval if we understand that this function became excessive.

In the same way it is possible to react to certain market calls or situations. Let's tell, legal persons went for the credits, and the bank can quickly look in analytics of a BPM system where processes began to apply brakes partially and to make the decision, for example, to add specific function of employees or to change process that it became more quickly. In my opinion, exactly in it the main value of BPMS - consists in business process management. Not so much in support of their work of IT as means – in a monolith to cast once and on a pedestal to deliver, and they will be invariable as a monument, - how many in quick reaction on changes: market situation, requirements of the regulator, etc.

Alexey Parkhomenko: There are different methods. It is possible to finish the core banking system within a year to such status that she will support the changing business processes. It is obvious that such upgrade – case so difficult, expensive and responsible that very few people from banks will decide on it. It is possible to implement the same history means of CRM, each CRM system has own engine of process management. And it is possible to make it using implementation of a BPM system which will interact, according to the business process model, with different IT systems. And this approach, most often, appears many times quicker – the project can be implemented for several months.

Ivan Bantsov: In terms of functionality, BPMS is some process layer which is placed between the core banking system – almost invariable "heart" of bank – and a layer of the applied systems solving these or those applied problems: AML, CRM, Black List, e-document flow, etc. Actually, the process layer of BPM describes rules of interaction among themselves of the different applied systems. As the process layer is implemented in the form of separate structure, it is easy to modify it, i.e. to make changes to elements and logic of processes.

Ivan Bantsov: Today the standard de facto for corporate IT systems of banks and other organizations with the high level of informatization is the system architecture with the information bus via which all IT systems exchange data. This architecture very well approaches the IT environment of banks in which there is a stable and reliable core banking system, and there are applied systems: CRM, a business intelligence and so forth which vividly react to a business situation. Data exchange in such structure from two components: monolithic and dynamic, - it is performed via the information data bus. Here just the place for BPMS which coordinates all applied information systems in uniform logic and uses the data which are transferred on the information bus for business process management.

Alexey Parkhomenko: In terms of implementation of such approach, most effective use, so-called, micro service architecture. It is intended just for IT systems with a difficult inner pattern and high requirements to integration of components. The sense is that in back-end of the IT system of bank there is a set of programs which implement one simple function (micro service). For example, micro service of the appeal to API of telephone exchange and receiving the answer on purpose verification of the client through the phone number. Or micro service of check of presence of the company at "black list". Then the business process described in BPMS in the right places will cause this or that micro service, and it, in turn, to address the corresponding applied system for data via the common bus.

As a result very flexible structure turns out: a set of in advance programmed micro services is used for implementation of specific elements of the automated business processes. If necessary any micro service can be modified or added new, and these manipulations do not affect the working BPM system in any way - we make any changes to system architecture at the level of micro services. Let's tell if there is a new source of information from where it is necessary either to take away information, or to put there data, then we have a micro service for work with this system. Or in business process there is some entity which corresponds to micro service, and we use it further. At the same time all main system, all main logic remains the same.

Ivan Bantsov: This description, in my opinion, perfectly shows a role of BPMS in a modern corporate IT system. Business processes in itself anyway, anyway, work. A task of BPMS - to unify them, to lead them to a uniform notation, uniform if you want, philosophies. In other words, functionally to connect those IT systems which existed and worked earlier by clear simple rules, to force them to work together with ready bigger efficiency and effectiveness.

Besides, enrollment of the micro services written for one business process for certain can be used in other situations. For example, verification of the client is a function which is required in different business challenges. Thus, in the company own bank of the ready micro services tested and completely ready to use in different business processes is created.

Alexey Parkhomenko: In general, if the company rather mature in respect of informatization, and banks, as a rule, such also is, then at it the architecture with the data bus is usually already implemented. Respectively, the issue with connectors to the applied systems is already resolved – standard connectors which are a part of WebSphere Message Broker or the CRM solution Oracle Siebel are used, or they are written independently.

Ivan Bantsov: Well, if to look at the diagram of an exit of releases of commercial BPM, then key releases leave once a year, less significant changes – time in several months. It is clear, that the enormous quantity of errors, inaccuracies is during this time corrected, the new functionality is added. But here question: whether consumers of this system are ready to receive updates of functionality with such speed? Practice shows an explicit trend towards more and more deep customization of BPM solutions.

It seems, everything is good with the closed vendor solution: the customer was given ready IT solution, interfaces for business process management and the extensive list of systems capabilities. However this list in one part is excessive, in another something is obviously missing, and in general the solution which satisfies to specific business requirements of the company is necessary. But as this closed solution, perhaps, the customer even should change several own business processes to please to that they corresponded to opportunities of the purchased commercial system …

As a result of often company open source select the solution which has an open code, it is possible to look what it consists of, to make the necessary changes, to grind a system under the requirements, i.e. to make personal customization. And to receive absolute flexibility, having paid only for customization and for technical support afterwards. Then duration of making changes is reduced to duration of the development, and changes will be made those which are necessary to this customer.

In other words, nobody raises at development of a universal "magic tablet" of BPMS because it will be very long, very expensively and extremely inefficiently, in terms of making changes. That is why any IT solution, whether it be the proprietary software from global vendor or the products open source, anyway it is necessary to finish and adapt to that information system and those real business processes which the customer has at the moment.

Alexey Parkhomenko: We consider that the correct approach is use of open source of products which give necessary flexibility and the chance to create the system which is most conforming to requirements of customers. Because to customize and in addition it is necessary to finish under requirements of the customer surely any system. Even if it is Pegasystems or IBM WebSphere Lombardi, i.e. difficult and dear world leaders of commercial proprietary solutions. Actually the customer needs to program own business processes, so, it is necessary to put a lot of effort for customization of the initial software solution. Only in case of open source it is not necessary to pay for the license, and together with open source you receive that flexibility of the solution which is so important for tasks of BPM.

Plus to it if it is the system selected by open source it is rather popular, i.e. a huge number of developers worldwide which shares open-cast minings with community. We, by the way, selected specific open source a product - the Camunda BPM platform. It is the open platform for business process management and automation of decision making which today, by estimates of analysts, is the most popular solution in the world.

Ivan Bantsov: I will add that today the commonly accepted standard of the description and business process modeling – BPMN 2.0 which maintains the majority of BPM systems, including, and Camunda. In this notation there is enough functional units, logical actions using which it is possible to describe business process from beginning to end. At the same time it is easy - using clicking of one button - to send this described business process to a development environment which will provide its IT support. In other words, the person far from programming can describe business process.

Ivan Bantsov: Quite so. Today, by and large, very few people already write programs from scratch. They are collected, at best, from ready software objects, software modules in this or that environment. By the way, this approach became especially popular in banks because there it gives the real chance to agree to managers of bank – functional customers – with bank programmers who perfectly are able to program here only a common language with business divisions find with great difficulty. And so, it turned out that much more simply and quicker to teach representatives of business to work with standard forms and notations in low-codding style, than it to agree with programmers that needs to be programmed.

Ivan Bantsov: He purchases skills not of the programmer, and analyst more likely that it is precisely much more interesting to it. You look: when we model any business process, at once we see the available mismatches. Let's tell, the department issues one data set at the exit, and the department interacting with it needs other data set. Or this department left the mass of documentation, but did not act in work because nobody can accept these data. Here the field for reflections of the analyst opens: what are problems in business processes and how they can be permitted? It is possible to go in the administrative way: we enshrine in regulating documents that the available data are enough, and a point! It is possible to solve in the technical way: let's request missing data with the help of micro services or in the manual mode. Anyway the uniform format process descriptions will allow all to see mismatches and to agree how to liquidate them.

Alexey Parkhomenko: In the product Camunda there is very convenient tool under the name Camunda Modeller. It allows not only to describe conveniently any end-to-end business processes using a standard notation of BPMN 2.0, but the business process created "on paper" to promodelirovat, check its working capacity. From my point of view, it is the most convenient effective modeling tool of processes among all BPMS. It is useful to the business user who understands how business process should work, but has no idea of how to put it in the IT system.

Ivan Bantsov: I think that the solution should not belong to open source from positions "it is required to finish much". The concept "finish" usually means correction of bugs, errors, and adaptation of this system is characteristic of creation of BPMS on the basis of the open source software (not a product, namely a ready system!) to the customer's business requirements. In my opinion, it is a serious difference: "develop what is definitely not enough", and "it is better to adapt to desirable parts of process". And it is not just different interpretations of one concept. In the first case we say that it is necessary for business at present. And in the second – about an opportunity to develop and adapt the created system for further requirements. By way of illustration I will give an example as one of our clients with success used BPMS for business questions, directly not business-related, in particular, for training of employees.

You should not explain long that to send for training of 50 employees of the bank is a serious intervention in business processes. In fact, they need to be pulled out from work, to send to rates, to organize them replacement, most likely, in the form of additional change. Do it, as usual, manually – a terrible headache. And in one of banks it was made using BPMS. Now they have a task of the organization of any training, a training of any scale or an offside event for employees is solved literally several cliques of "mouse".

Alexey Parkhomenko: Once you separately remind of such specifics of modern Russia, foreign sanctions. Let's take, for example, qualitative expensive BPMS solution IBM Lombardi. While some bank of the Russian Federation falls under sanctions, the IBM corporation will immediately turn off support, an opportunity to buy in addition any upgrades, updates of licenses, etc., regardless of that how many money was spent by bank for this system. In case of open source of a system no effects from sanctions will exist. As she was initially customized and supported by such partner of bank as SMART Technologies company, so it will support her further, regardless of the events on the geopolitical arena.

Alexey Parkhomenko: Of course, specific terms depend on specifics of the project. However there are methods of acceleration of the project. In particular, in the projects we use methodology of DevOps and technology of development Agile, and the micro service architecture, by the way, is very organically combined with the Agile/DevOps tools.

We spread all program code in the customer's repository at once. At once we begin implementation with tools of an automated assembly and the automated unit-testing. It allows us to correct on the run at once the errors revealed when testing and to do assembly in several minutes. As a result we can implement typical business process of bank completely for several months. In other words, in several months the bank will be able to offer to clients cardinally updated terms, for example, opening of the account and approval of the credit in an hour after the address.

Ivan Bantsov: And the following product, for example, the bank guarantee for an hour – in a month because the main IT elements are already created and work, and on everyone the qualitative detailed specification is created. We, since "a zero cycle" when business requirements to a new system still are finally not defined, using a series of an interview reveal business requirements, we detail them and we bring to the level of detailed technical specifications. Then, locating the detailed specification of each micro service, to program new process - case rather trivial. Our confidence is also based on it, actually, that for any processes of modern bank the maximum term of primary implementation of BPMS – only several months.

Ivan Bantsov: Quite so. The company, even large, can successfully work, but at the same time business processes can be based, figuratively speaking "on concepts". Let's tell if the large customers manager can come easily into an office to the CEO and sign the agreement, passing a number of checks, just on trusted relationships, then BPM will not help such organization. Suddenly in the agreement some risks were put, and they were implemented then, and the bank suffered financial losses? And there were they only because to someone it seemed more effective bypassing all IT systems and business processes to come into a director's office and quickly to resolve the issue.

Alexey Parkhomenko: In other words, the high level of informatization is a one component of a maturity of the company. The second part of a maturity is, figuratively speaking a common understanding that all of us will be better to go on the road by rules, than someone will go on a roadside, and it will pass one quicker, and all together will go more slowly. But only in these conditions all efforts on implementation of BPMS will yield fruits: detailed interviews with employees from different business divisions, identification of implicit contradictions in business processes, their knocking over at the initial stage of formalization and search of the best schemes of processes.

Such approach, judging by market reaction, is adequate to expectations of our partners – commercial banks. Now the company conducts several implementation projects of BPMS. We calculate that we will be able to tell about good results in the summer.