SED: path from easy to hard

With today's publication we are opening a series of materials that allow us to take a fresh look at the use of EDS for automating corporate business processes. Implementing a BPM strategy using an electronic document management system may seem like a tempting idea - after all, a BPM engine is built into any modern solution. However, the relationship of the business process and the document in practice is more complicated than it seems in theory. In a series of articles, we will, together with expert Stanislav Makarov, tell you why the streamlined automation of document storage and processing is the first step towards future BPM automation. In subsequent articles, we plan to demonstrate the relevance of this thought with examples of real business processes, such as budgeting, contract work, or logistical support.



The capabilities of the EDMS / ECM systems over the past twenty years - and this is precisely the age of this market - has grown significantly. They are capable of any task to automate business processes, strongly tied to work with documents. Immediately make a reservation: there is no confrontation with BPM as a methodology. Inside the ERMS / ECM solutions, as a rule, modern BPM engines are integrated, and their proper use is on the conscience of customers and implementers. Modern EDS is a designer of business objects and, in general, the automation of workflow using such systems is a special case. Such systems can be trusted with a very wide class of information management tasks in an enterprise. (Note: hereinafter, as developers of SED TEZIS , we rely primarily on the capabilities of our system)



So, having received a powerful universal tool in your hands, you want to solve all urgent issues at once, in one fell swoop. Just think, document flow, incoming-outgoing! Same yesterday! Let's immediately automate our most complex processes! - For some, this is contractual work, for others budgeting, for the third - material and technical supply. Immediately you can not guess what is most important - within a large organization, all these solutions can be equally demanded. And worse, all are interrelated. This is where the trap lies in wait for us: automating one site will not necessarily give a performance boost for the organization as a whole. Because no department works in isolation from others, the loss of productivity at the joints can negate the effect of implementation.

Trap the Paradox of Productivity

In a broader context, this phenomenon is known as the “productivity paradox,” formulated by Nobel laureate Robert Solow, which states that “you can see the era of computers everywhere around you, but not in the figures of productivity growth” (Solow, 1987), and is inconsistent IT costs of the results. Statistics have repeatedly confirmed that productivity growth does not correlate with IT costs — the more countries invest in informatization, the more they have to create and maintain IT systems themselves, while the overall productivity gains are not that great.

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However, not everything is so sad, there is hope! The latest research has shown that at the country level it is possible to overcome this unpleasant tendency, when some critical amount of investment in IT infrastructure is reached - that is, when all enterprises and organizations begin to interact with each other in electronic form, business processes reach a new level of efficiency. .

Strictly speaking, from a scientific point of view, the Solow paradox manifests itself at the national and global levels, and not at the level of an individual enterprise, which can invest in IT with a much greater return than the average for an industry or country. Nevertheless, some analogies can be traced - as we know, the “island” automation does not give much effect.

"Two pennies" from the SED - in a common cause

Let the EDS insert your two kopecks here: you will not be able to build end-to-end, cross-functional business processes in organizations and optimize communication with the outside world — with customers, suppliers and partners until you create a single information space and a common repository of documents. EDMS is an important part of the IT infrastructure. Let not the most expensive and not the most difficult - compared with the implementation of ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) or with a heavy ERP-project. But without a single database of documents stored in the SED, many other initiatives are simply stalled.



They slip because a paper document or even a file, if it is not registered in the system, becomes a “bottleneck” in the business process, causes time spent on attaching, copying, forwarding, is often lost, comes in the wrong format, and so on. d. etc. In general, if there is no culture and policy of working with documents, then with the growth of informatization, the mess will only increase.



So, it is more correct to consider EDS not just as another application system, but as an obligatory element of the IT infrastructure, and accordingly relate to its implementation:

• Plan that, over time, access to the system will be necessary for all employees of the organization, and not for some narrow group of “clerks”;
• Think in advance about the integration of EDMS with ERP and your other business applications - because you still need it anyway;
• Start with simple projects and don’t rush to conclusions, realizing that full effectiveness will come later when the SED “covers” the entire organization.

Practice shows - the gradual complication approach works

A review of major implementations of SED TEZIS confirms the practical usefulness of this approach - let's call it “start with SED, complex processes later”. For example, the Russian Platinum company needed to automate work with contracts. But before diving into the specifics of the contractual work in the organization, it was necessary to ensure the infrastructure of the workflow. Russkaya Platina lives in distributed mode - the head office in Moscow, and production units in Khabarovsk. Therefore, we first had to develop and implement a solution to synchronize the two sites in order to implement “related processes” - when the participants in the coordination chain are in Moscow and some in Khabarovsk, but at the same time they work as if in one system, although there are actually two of them because a centralized solution would be too dependent on the communication channel and the risk of downtime would be high.



In NK "Alliance" also began the introduction of the SED, with the aim to reduce the time of coordination and minimize the risk of losing documents - quite the usual desire of any customer. Since business users did not want to “bend over” and adjust their processes to the way it was implemented in the system, flexibility and the ability to customize processes was a selection criterion.

(A small remark: Business consultants can criticize such an approach. According to science, reengineering and optimization of business processes need to be carried out. Nobody argues that this is the case - only it will not be IT, but a consulting project. The previously selected flexible system can be recast on new processes, in accordance with the recommendations of the consultants - there is no conflict here, but if the management system is under the old processes, then it will just have to be thrown out.)



At the first stage, the question of speeding up the process of negotiating contracts was particularly acute, and this was resolved with the help of the SED. Further - more: for the essence of the contractual work consists not in formal endorsement of documents or in catching legal nuances. The task of the coordinator is actually to decide whether this contract is necessary at all, whether it can be concluded now or whether it is necessary to wait, whether this counterparty is suitable for us or not. That is, contract management is a part of management accounting, which entails a corresponding block of functional requirements. The result was that the decision later grew into a complex treasury system that allows you to work with payment documents to contracts, conduct financial planning, check bids for compliance with the budget, and so on. Is it SED or not? Let theorists break their heads. And for the customer is a system that solves his problems :)

Is the box suitable for you?

This question can be answered with confidence: “Yes!” At first, the EDS out of the box (with the necessary settings for the implementation, but without deep customization) will perfectly cope with the large volume of typical tasks in any organization. Because working with organizational and administrative documents is basically the same everywhere. Specificity begins when you invade some business processes, at least in a contractual activity. Although the Civil Code is the same for all of us, organizations work with contracts in different ways - because management accounting is a very creative process. Behind the contracts, you may have more wishes, as was the case with Alliance Oil Company and other Haulmont customers.



Do I need to immediately set the task to finalize the system, if all organizations are unique? Is not a fact. Not having learned how to use the standard capabilities of the SED, you can “set it up” with your requirements in such a way that support will then be very expensive (again we recall the Solow paradox). Start using standard features, let people get used to working with electronic documents. In parallel, you can conduct a survey and design of new business processes and refinement of the system.



The Agile methodology, which is widespread in software development, is quite applicable to business: increase functionality gradually, step by step. Plan the improvement and development of the system - the PDCA cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act) will help you! And you will not notice how from the standard EDS you will have a system that is precisely tuned to the needs of your business.