These 10 “things you need to know” about Case Management/BPM and Smart Process Applications are drawn from a survey of 301 information professionals conducted earlier this year. Survey respondents represent organizations of all sizes. Larger organizations over 5,000 employees represent 33%, with mid-sized organizations of 500 to 5,000 employees at 38%. Small-to-mid sized organizations with 10 to 500 employees constitute 25%. 64% of the participants were from North America, and 25% from Europe.
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For 51% of the organizations polled, half or more of their business processes are not straightforward or predictable. For 62%, half or more processes involve assembling a case folder, claim file, project folder, proposal, etc.
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Increasing customer expectations for speed of response is the biggest pain point for those surveyed (44%). Dealing with unstructured inputs and connecting to key business systems was the next biggest issue (42%).
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58% consider their case handling system to be vital or very important to their customer experience management. For 67%, it is vital or very important for legal and regulatory compliance.
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37% have a case-capable support system, whereas 28% need to use customizations, workarounds, and add-ons to handle case scenarios. 18% use an entirely manual process, and 17% don’t really manage cases as processes.
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32% feel that a better system would also improve productivity, and 22% feel that the successful outcome of their cases is being limited by poor IT support.
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7% are live with adaptive and intelligent workflows, with a further 12% experimenting. 45% are more likely to be using fixed workflows, and 36% have very few computer-driven processes.
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Of those using smart applications, 41% have achieved successful outcomes, and 52% feel the results are promising, but it is early days. The biggest deployment issues are setting up the rules and handling difficult exceptions.
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The biggest benefits cited by users are faster and more consistent customer response and faster end-to-end process times. Staff appreciates the flexibility, and adaptive systems make it much easier to respond to regulatory change.
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For 67% of respondents, half or more of their main LOB processes involve connecting multi-channel inbound content to one managed process. One third considers this to be their biggest single problem in managing cases.
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23% admit that their management of inbound emails and faxes is somewhat ad hoc or even “chaotic.”
