Platformize to Fast Track Digital

|Platformize|www.newgensoft.com
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Platformize
Fast-track your digital journey
Your Digital Guidebook
from Newgen

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“As digitalization moves from an
innovative trend to a core
competency, enterprises need to
understand and exploit platform
effects throughout all aspects of
their businesses. Not doing so will
threaten their ability to: deliver;
attract and retain talent; and have
their products/services perceived as
value-adding by customers.”
Building the Digital Platform:
Insights From the 2016 Gartner CIO
Agenda Report
”

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The
Digital
Imperative
Image Credit: emka74 / shutterstock.com
#1 Delight Your Customers
Exceeding customer expectations is now expected.
Especially because of the nexus of forces. Every interaction
with the customer must be designed and mapped to ensure
the right message at the right time.
#2 Faster than the fastest
An organization should be able to respond to any change
with agility. Whether it stems from the market, competition,
or even a single interaction with a customer.
#3 Business that is Infinite
An infinite workplace is where everyone works, wherever
they are with easy and real time access, to whatever their
work demands.
It’s not about ‘whether’ or ‘when’…
Now, It’s about ‘what specifically’,
and ‘how exactly’…

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”
Delight Your
Customers
Customer Experience and
Contextual Customer Engagement
Customer Experience today is no more a differentiator, but
a fundamental expectation. Millennials are joining he
customer base as well as workforce, making it imperative
for organizations to adopt to their needs.
Making customers happy today goes beyond the default
User Experience.
Digital requires that you engage with customers in their
own context, where they are.
Providing a digital interface and touchpoint through
mobility and apps is not enough. They need
transactional experience as well as ‘process experience’.
You need to know your customers before you reach out
to them. You need to understand them when they reach
out to you.

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Be Faster than the
Fastest
Business Agility and Operational
Responsiveness
Digital has brought about change in everything we do.
Your business needs to adopt to changing customer
dynamics and respond to competitive forces in real-time.
Your customers, partners, and suppliers are on their toes
and they expect you to be up and running too.
Operationally, you need to be fast and responsive.
Responsive doesn’t mean an automated standard reply,
but a response in context when customers expect.
Digital requires that you respond to external changes
faster than you could in past, and faster than you do
even today.
Business Agility is paramount challenge for your
business. Automation, per se, is not enough. Digital
requires you to be able to tune business models and
policies to external environment.
Your whole ecosystem — systems, processes, people —
need to adopt and respond.

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Build business
that is inﬁnite
Anytime-Anywhere Business
Ecosystem and Value Web
In traditional value chain regime, the enterprise
resources have been aligned to serve to the value
chain. The underlying ERP and core business
systems served these relationships in mostly
bilateral manner. That Value Chain is out. Value
Web is in.
Your customers, suppliers, partners, and
employees should be able to operate, engage,
and transact in “anytime-anywhere” model.
Social and Mobility allow for reach and access.
However, in order to enable a seamless value
web operation, you need to connect your
processes, people, systems and things.
You need to elevate process orchestration in
order to better connect and leverage the
resources and underlying systems.
You need to decouple your IT resources from
the hard-wired IT systems, and equip them for
late-binding for adaptability.

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The Path to
Digital
Image Credit: emka74 / shutterstock.com
While digital technologies provide the
leverage to address the demands of today,
the same technologies cannot be just
plugged into the existing legacy without a
well thought-out strategy. Challenges on the
ground prevent swift action.
Large enterprises carry years of legacy
and experience that cannot be thrown
away.
Large transformational programs are
fraught with risks that decisions makers
today are not in a position to undertake.
Existing processes and systems are siloed
and rigid, not allowing the IT leaders to
move with speed.
Business counterparts — CMOs, CHROs,
BU Heads — ﬁnd it easier sometimes to
go ahead and procure readily available
technology, leading to many shadow IT
resources that are difﬁcult to contain.
…is not straightforward.

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Clients looking for graphic designers today can access design services without having to know the designers.
Teachers can conduct classes without having to access a classroom, without having to commute, and without knowing in
advance whom they’re teaching. Students can access classes without having to move from their desk.
Passengers can order food to be delivered at a particular station in a long train journey without having to talk to anyone at
the railways or the respective caterer.
That’s not all, retailers are moving beyond the traditional e-commerce based supply chain to leveraging online cab services
for food and package deliveries, faster than the largest e-commerce players.
Products and services are going beyond single ownership. Platforms, where multiple parties organically
combine to deliver products and services to customers, are disrupting all industries.
You need to ﬁnd ways to “Connect” all the dots of your Value Web.
Value Web
Value Chain is out.
Value Web is in.
Connected Value
Webs are thriving
across industries
and across
occupations.
Connected Value
Webs are changing
everything.

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Innovation
Goes without saying that innovative organizations require systems and processes
that support ongoing innovation and continuous improvement.
Change Management
An infrastructure that has to support digital has to undertake Change Management
as part of the core set of objectives. This Change Management mechanism has to
address the business changes as against the traditional IT approach.
Governance
While IT leaders have always focused on governance, digital requires that CIOs look
at governance not only within the IT organization as immediate counterparts, but
beyond the deﬁnition of traditional business as well, going beyond the boundaries of
enterprise and consider partners, resellers, customers as part of the ecosystem.
Platformization
IT is not about applications any more. In fact, digital is not about just IT any more. IT
leaders have to imbibe the concept of the platform ecosystem and think in terms of
creating the “platforms that cohesively work internally and externally to enable a
multimodal connect for delivering digital enterprise”.
Multimodal Technology
Leverage
You need to recognise that core of digital lies in
leverage of “Technology” with business and
customer at core.

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Platformize!
Create the “platforms that cohesively work
internally and externally to enable a multimodal
connect for delivering digital enterprise”.

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Platformize to
fast-track digital!
Take following steps to
platformize.
Build Contextual Process
Platform
Integrate mobility and social in
process applications
Deliver Process Experience
Elevate Orchestration
Loosely Couple resources
Create and Carry Process
Context
Practice Platform Governance
Think Big, Start Small, Earn
quick wins, Expand
Leverage Agile Methodology
and Accelerators

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1 Build Contextual and Flexible
Process Platform

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Think Business Process. Think Context. Think Connect.
You need workflow automation. You need process lifecycle management capability
from modeling, to implementation, to deployment, to execution, to monitoring and
optimization.
A great process platform needs to also have integrated business rules management
system, and seamlessly integrated content management system.
You will also realize that for the required operational and business agility, you need
case management capability too.
Connect is key. A great customer-centric process relies on orchestration of workflow,
structured data and unstructured content, and integration with sources of record.
Think Flexibility. Think Change.
Building flexibility into platform is key to long term digital success. There are many
parts of the flexibility puzzle — Decoupling of resources, Elevation of orchestration,
Consistent platform governance, Development of a great integration infrastructure, to
name a few. However, the biggest asset lies in the mindset - to think of Platform as a
flexibility enabler.
A process orchestration engine allows for change management because of the fast
model-to-deploy cycle. This has to be done with many ingredients falling in place
though, as we would see next.
What
does it
mean?
Build Contextual and Flexible
Process Platform
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How do
you do
that?
You need a platform that orchestrates your business processes
through workflow automation. That, however is not enough for
digital experience. You need to build a contextual process platform
that seamlessly integrates with content management, decoupled
business rules, mobility, social, and your legacy systems.
Fast Track Tip!
A process platform can be
easier to embark than it may
seem. The initial process set
is critical. Pick a simple
customer facing process
that can demonstrate the
capability. Build your
incremental digital platform
capability in parallel.

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Engrain Mobility and Social in
Process Applications
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Think Process Applications. Think Customer-First.
Mobile means more than interface. A process strategy allows you to think of ways to
optimize for customer experience, lending you leverage offered by social and mobile.
Thinking process lends holistic advantage. A claims process that required a surveyor to
go to the site turns on its head when you consider the image capture capability with
geotagging in the hands of users in ﬁrst step itself.
Think Omni-Channel and Cross-Channel.
Customers should be able to initiate requests through any of the channels. The process
should be able to resume from another channel once started in one channel.
Think of processes with tasks that can be handed off to users or systems - with
interfaces loosely coupled in order to allow for ﬂexibility in mode of execution. Build
APIs that can be invoked through any of the channels or interfaces, or by systems for
execution of tasks. This is only possible with an orchestration engine at the backend.
Build Mobility Framework.
Think of Mobility as more than appendage to your platform. A mobility framework with
core imaging and process application capability and integration with process
orchestration engine and content management is what you should be building.
What
does it
mean?
Engrain Mobility and Social in
Process Applications
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How do
you do
that?
Most organizations build mobile interfaces and social
channels, and consider the job done. Pasting such interfaces
break the (already siloed) processes even further. Process
Applications should engrain the mobile and social strategy.

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Deliver Process Experience3

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What
does it
mean?
Deliver Process Experience3
How do
you do
that?
A broken process cannot deliver good customer experience.
You need to attack those broken processes and siloed
functions. Beyond a great user interface, delivering a great
process experience requires a unified platform.
Identify weak process zones
Look for signs of weak processes embedded in the point solutions. These customer
facing front-office applications are often rigid and transaction-centric, and do not
enable a holistic process experience. They are often torchbearers for their own silos.
Look at the customer-facing processes that span across multiple functions and
systems. Hand-offs between systems and functions are a cause of broken processes.
Reassess the Applications Portfolio
One way to look at addressing the broken process experience is to look at the set of
applications in various functions and areas, and rationalize it. Many of these
applications are replaceable with a more standard set over time. A more consistent
set of applications are easier to integrate with a process orchestration layer on top.
Build a Process Framework
Look at some candidate processes and build a process framework that would deliver
a seamless experience. A process framework would have a start-point, various
subprocesses involved, the business rules, and the participating applications, and a
well defined customer-centric end-point.
Earmark couple of customer facing processes for piloting on process platform.

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Elevate Orchestration4

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What
does it
mean?
Elevate Orchestration4
How do
you do
that?
The highest level of orchestration is the one that platform
businesses like Uber or Airbnb leverage. Within enterprise, you
can elevate orchestration of various resources through unified
platform to deliver business value and customer experience.
Discover your Process Architecture. Define the Process Layer.
Processes are often buried within the departmental functions with no specific control
over hand-offs and optimization in the overall business context. Discover those buried
processes and define an application-independent way of how you would like these
processes to work.
Define these processes in the process platform as an overarching prices layer. Build
integration points at various process steps to enable execution of respective parts by
various applications, backend systems, and human participants.
Develop Service Oriented Integration for orchestration
Apply various strategies to handle the execution and integration challenges. You may
allow some applications to use their own interface while some interfaces may be built
in the workflow. The essence should still be to elevate the process level orchestration
in order to ensure process remains seamless for end-users and customers.
Identify specific “Source of record” systems in order to ensure that you do not
replicate the business objects and business rules that are standard. However, develop
a parallel Integration Governance strategy to ensure consistency.
Promote the creation and leverage of web services and service oriented integration
mechanisms that are not tightly linked with underlying resources. Loosely coupled
resources are integral to process orchestration strategy,

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Decouple Resources5

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What
does it
mean?
Decouple Resources5
How do
you do
that?
Truly digital enterprises have proven that it is all about
orchestration of resources. In order to do that, the various
capabilities buried in systems have to be stripped down to
their objectives, and loosely coupled from each other.
Identify process ingredients and decouple them
This is basically an Object Oriented philosophy applied at business resources. Identify
the various parts of a process, their owner applications/systems, and decouple them
by removing the tight integration between those systems. Leverage a well-governed
service oriented integration approach to connect these with process layer, leaving
orchestration within process engine.
Identify heavily unstructured processes and leverage a case management capability to
provide an outcome-oriented process platform.
Decouple Business Rules and move them to BRMS
Wherever possible, extract the business rules out of the rigid and inﬂexible systems
and applications and embed them in business rules management system.
Identify Structured Data and Unstructured Data
A Content Management system is best suited for handling various multi-purpose data
items. Identify such data items embedded in applications and database systems, and
decouple them so as to manage them holistically in content management system.
Ensure that processes carry these data and create the context throughout through
integrated process engine and content management system.

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Context
6

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What
does it
mean?
Context
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How do
you do
that?
Processes are often broken in two ways. One, they are broken
en-route due to siloed systems and applications. Two, they
do not carry the process context. A great process experience
carries customer and transaction context until closure.
Leverage Case Management
In Case Management philosophy, a case folder carries the whole context and is driven
by the outcome or objective. The process engine or case management engine takes
the responsibility of orchestrating the tasks and empowering the right experts to
drive the case to closure.
Move unstructured processes to case management and leverage the integrated
content management capability that allows completeness of context. Even better,
your process platform should have ability to handle structured as well as unstructured
way of building processes in order to prevent broken customer facing processes.
Combine Mobile Imaging, Content Management and Process
Allow your processes to carry the context right from customer through a seamlessly
integrated platform. Images and transactions content captured at mobile, suppressed
and transferred to content management and integrated into process tasks ensures
that data is always available to your knowledge workers for taking decisions.
Ensure that your enterprise content management and transactional data are well
integrated with process orchestration layer. Accessibility of the right linked data is
critical to the performance of a process.

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Practice Platform
Governance
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What
does it
mean?
Practice Platform
Governance
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How do
you do
that?
You would have to strengthen platform capability as you
implement more customer centric processes on the platform.
A mechanism to standardize, govern and manage this
platform for enterprise leverage is critical for digital success.
Platform Engineering
Tightly control what capability is built into the platform and what remains outside it in
form of the other systems, applications and integration frameworks. For a truly digital
enterprise, putting together the platform components in order to connect the
resources is key.
Platform Implementation
As more process get on-boarded on the platform, you will need a set of methodology,
core process talent, and right project management tools to ensure that process
owners consistently get the process applications in scope, time and budget.
consistency and repeatability of great process development is critical for your
enterprise to move forward toward digital.
Platform Governance
A set of guidelines, standards, and governance practices ensure that your
organization moves in the direction intended without losing steam. These guidelines
include integration governance, process modeling and implementation guidelines,
standard process framework and notations, and the guidelines around handling
process v/s application conﬂict scenarios.

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quick wins, Expand
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What
does it
mean?
quick wins, Expand
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How do
you do
that?
Platform approach is a great way to fast-track digital. But, an
ambitious big bang approach is daunting as well as risky. You
need to combine the larger vision with quick wins strategy by
starting small and building on success as you go.
Think big
Envision the holistic digital enabler platform for your organization and create a simple
blue print that spells out the roles of process orchestration, context, content
management, mobility framework, source-of-record systems, databases, and other
front-end and back-end applications.
Use this as the guard rail in your platform engineering, implementation and
governance efforts as you go.ß
Identify initial quick wins
Assess a set of candidates processes, and pick a couple that ﬁt into the two
categories: 1. Customer facing high impact process with known challenges 2. Simple
integration oriented process with technical requirements
This approach allows you to build the right platform capability while ensuring that you
have a proof of the concept for your executive sponsors and business process owners
to back you.
Align business owners, end-users and technical resources
Ensure active participation and rapid deployment cycles to ensure everyone is aligned
with your long term vision.

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and Accelerators
9

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What
does it
mean?
and Accelerators
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How do
you do
that?
Many large transformational programs and process initiatives
“fail”. Organizations today do not have the time and energy
to wait for a long platform initiative to materialize. You need
to leverage accelerators, and follow agile methodology.
Leverage Accelerators
A process platform can be up and running with a domain solution accelerator within
weeks. While this is a great promise, look at the requirements of your processes,
ensure that the uniqueness of your business process is accounted for, and use the
accelerator as the starting point for your implementation.
Solution accelerator based approach provides you a leverage of bringing in standard
processes while allowing you to customize it to your differentiators without having to
build the processes from scratch. This is especially effective when organization
doesn't have time and resources to invest in long term transformational programs.
Follow Agile Methodology
The path to digital is paved with process milestones in quick succession. Your process
owners need to be clued in (and glued in), your technical and process resources need
to be leveraged consistently, and most importantly, feedback from user community
and business process owners need to be incorporated quickly and demonstrated as
you go.

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Partner with Newgen!
We help companies across geographies in their digital journey through our solutions
in Business Process Management, Enterprise Content Management, Case Management,
and Customer Communication Management.

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What can you
do today!
or just take a test drive!
Contact us!
There’s no time to lose. Platformizing your way to digital
starts with some simple, short steps:
Quickly assess where you are in your digital journey.
Identify a back-of-the-napkin long term goal to begin the thought process.
Discuss with your key stakeholders, and identify the gaps in your platform(s)
Take the ﬁrst steps towards Platformization as laid out in this guidebook.
Recommended Reading
Learn how IT is changing in this era of digital,
how the roles of enterprise IT leaders and CIOs
are changing today. Download our white paper.

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Platformize
Fast-track your
digital journey
About Newgen
Newgen Software is a leading global provider of Business Process Management (BPM), Enterprise Content Management (ECM),
Customer Communication Management (CCM) and Case Management, with a global footprint of 1300+ installations in more than 61
countries with large, mission-critical solutions deployed at the world's leading Banks, Insurance ﬁrms, BPO's, Healthcare
Organizations, Government, Telecom Companies & Shared Service Centers.
Newgen's Quality Systems are certiﬁed against ISO 9001:2008 and Information Security Standard, ISO 27001:2013. Newgen has
been assessed at CMMi Level3.
Write to us:
USA & CANADA: info@newgensoft.com
INDIA: corpmktg@newgensoft.com
APAC: asiapac@newgensoft.com
EMEA: emea@newgensoft.com
For sales enquiry, dial:
USA & CANADA: +1 (202) 800 7783
INDIA: +91 11 40773769
APAC: +65 3157 6189
EMEA: +44 (0) 2036 514805, +973-1-619-8002 www.newgensoft.com

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