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My previous post mentioned that Blue Prism’s new message is based on operational agility, so I thought I better explain what that means.

In today’s complex business world, front and back office customer service operations have to contend with a non-stop barrage of change.  Whereas traditional IT projects deliver systems against timescales measured in years, human beings on the front line have to react to events happening right now, today.

The long term IT strategy is generally based on what is known today with some future forecast factored in.  The business users, though, have little more idea of what is coming tomorrow than the poor EA faced with a blank sheet of paper.  Of course, the major systems still need to exist, CRM, core operational software, billing and collections etc.  It’s just that when these systems are conceived they have to be designed with a “best guess” of future requirements and this results in range of functions available to the front line that is then frozen in time.

The problem with this approach is that operational staff might need to do something new.  A merger or acquisition creates process duplication; a new product launch requires operational support with sketchy forecasts of process volumes; management want to push a certain product whilst sunsetting another; a processing error needs quickly reversing.

One of our customers had a processing problem caused by a mail strike.  Several thousand accounts were debited with a late payment penalty whilst the cheques really were “in the post”.  A decision was taken to refund these payments (very noble - glad I am a customer of this organisation!).  When the customer accounting system was designed, nobody thought that there might be a bulk requirement to selectively cancel debits applied to a range of accounts.  The traditional way of solving this problem is to take a few call centre agents off the phones for a few weeks to process these refunds manually.  With Blue Prism software the team was able to quickly piece together a new automated process flow that required no human involvement and the process was completed in one day.

Here’s the science bit.  Blue Prism retrospectively componentises the existing and legacy apps and allows you to re-purpose them into new operational scenarios and business processes.  Using point and click integration techniques (no code required), new methods can be clicked together into a process flow using a simple flowchart interface.  This gives operational staff the means to manage and react to short term change and therefore operational agility is enhanced.

Sounds like similar objectives to BPM/SOA?  Possibly some.  Except we are talking about delivery in days and weeks, not months and years.  I’ll go into more detail on this in a later post.

My daily newsfeeds bought me some mannah from heaven in the form of news that Manchester City Football Club is going to trial contactless payment technology in conjunction with its season tickets.

Access to the ground is already by contactless proximity card so making the leap to contactless payment is just like Oyster and Barclaycard really.  I criticised that one heavily for lack of ambition which just goes to show the power of fans eh?

I am not currently a season ticket holder at Man City but I do go to many of the home games using my contactless Access Card, where I merely ring up, ask for a ticket and access is authorised.  I turn up for the game and hey presto, my card let’s me in.  I won’t go into the number of times two people have been allocated the same seat but I tolerate this as a “fan”.  If that same access card could be used to buy a beer (for which I tolerate queuing for ages), a pie (ugh!), and my programme this would be great.  I then shuffle my way through to my seat amongst the thronging masses and watch City play out a drab 0-0 draw and go home to kick the cat.

A major energy company in the UK, npower, has a corporate strategy of turning customers into fans - no wonder….  At Man City, I am happy to pay for poor service again and again, and I never ever switch “suppliers”.   Btw, I am an npower customer and sadly I must report that I cannot make a valid comparison since I have never had a service problem with them.

I hear there are similar trials in the US too - I wonder if Man City fancy twinning with the Seattle Seahawks?  They had a service problem at Green Bay in last season’s playoffs - it snowed wildly - home advantage hmphhhh!

The age old CIO dilemma.  Buy vs. Build.

On the one hand, you buy in a package from a vendor.  They bring industry “best” practice.  They guarantee that your administration is as good as your competitors.  The trouble is that it is equally as bad as your competitors.  So it puts you in an equal position, not an advantageous one.  The lowest common denominator?  At the very least you are making your business subservient to the vendor’s view of the world.  Sometimes this can be good, sometimes it can be bad.

The traditional alternative is to build your own system.  For the purposes of this argument, I am placing this in the same category as buying a package from a vendor and then trying to tailor it to your environment.  The former can be very rewarding and can differentiate you greatly, but can also be very expensive.  The latter is almost always the worst of both worlds and creates expensive and long term projects, contorted business solutions, and a support headache long into the future.

So is there a third way?  I think so.

Your existing systems can adapt to changing business requirements if there is a process management layer capable of making sense of the existing infrastructure.  This can lead to business agility on a new scale if you implement it properly.

With the right tools and methodologies, new horizons are possible.  New standards in customer interaction, faster service, better compliance, process adherence, first time resolution and other desirable customer outcomes are all possible….in the short term.

Personally, I can’t think of a single reason why I might want to visit a branch of my bank (personal bank at any rate).  I much prefer to use the internet for transactional stuff and the telephone for problems and advice.

But it seems I may be in the minority because, after years of “consolidation” many UK banks are actually increasing the number of branches.  Abbey (part of Banco Santander), for example, are planning 300 new branches  with an Abbey spokesman quoted as saying that although internet and phone banking are available, many customers “prefer dealing with our staff face to face in a branch”.  In case you are wondering whether 300 branches is a big deal, it represents an increase of 43% on the existing Abbey estate.

It seems that HBOS and HSBC are making similar moves.  Maybe my dream of being able to run my life through my mobile phone is being hampered by the old fashioned attitude of the UK consumer.

I was at a large telco last week chatting to the manager of a 1,000 seat call centre.

We were talking through the inconveniences that agents have to go through in terms of navigating through a variety of systems just to give the customer what they needed, in this case upgrading their contract.

The problems were obvious in terms of the corporate systems.  Like any other enterprise, these were divided into functional silos paying little regard to the business process.  However, additional difficulty had been added by the use of complex spreadsheets as workarounds for missing system functionality.  Am I painting a grim picture?  Not at all - I see this in every large call centre, not to mention back office.  This is the norm for operational managers - they come to expect it.

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There’s a mood of change at Barclaycard.  Once seen as the problem child of the Barclays Group, it appears to be much more loved these days.  A recent trading update advised of strong profit growth in the UK division and the US arm on course to make a profit in 2007.

It’s not just improvement in bad debt provisions.  A more independent focus and innovation (rare in financial services) is driving the brand forwards.

I criticised Barclaycard for lack of ambition when they launched the One Pulse card.  I feel absolutely certain that their recent decision to invest in mobile payment market testing, is a direct response to my post. 

Of course, it is impossible for any organisation, no matter how large, to do this on their own.  But all the technologies already exist and it only takes some co-operation on the technical as well as commercial side between the different parties to make things work for the customer.  In this case the parties are Barclaycard (banking), Nokia (handset manufacturer), O2 (mobile network), TfL (Transport for London), Visa (card issuer), TranSys (consortium that runs the Oyster proximity payment system).

What a fabulous piece of joined up thinking!  I’d love to be one of the guinea pigs.  Furthermore, I am already a customer of every one of these organisations.  The bad news?  There are only 500 trial places available.  Anyone know how I can get on the list???

Whilst on the subject of mobile technology this morning, I was not surprised to stumble across a piece reporting that the launch of Apple’s iPhone in the UK appears to be flopping.

I opened this weblog in Feb 2007 with a post extolling my disinterest in the iPhone.  Sure, Apple is a master of design, especially the user interface and experience, but price is a big buying factor too and, to be frank, Apple has overestimated how much people are prepared to pay for these advantages.

The deal offered to operators (only O2 was brave enough to take it up) was vastly over-priced and smacks of arrogance.  Apple is in danger of losing its cool image if it continues to expect its customers to fork out such huge sums for products that are, at best, marginal enhancements on existing technology.  And worse, although I haven’t used one myself, I hear that SMS text messages are really tricky, and the iPhone cannot even access 3G services.

Personally, I may look into the price of an iPod Touch but I won’t be bothering with this version of the iPhone.

In the unlikely event that you were thinking of buying me an iPhone for Christmas, could I ask you to think again and perhaps bring a bottle of wine instead?

I am still not sure how I ever got onto this soap box, since there is no specific implication for Blue Prism. I just think it’s common sense that if I have to carry my mobile phone everywhere I go, why can’t I also use it as my wallet?

Membership cards, physical access, small payments, car key, house key, TV remote control are just some of the many applications my current mobile phone could probably already be adapted to manage, if only the interaction was enabled by the various vendors agreeing standards and commercial terms.

At least contactless small payments (surely one of the simplest applications) is finally on the way in the UK.  It’s good to see that Royal Bank of Scotland heard my plea and is starting to pilot this technology in Edinburgh.

I don’t know why I have such an interest in this topic but having just read this Finextra report I am still pining for a leap forward in contactless payment technology.  Or not so much a leap forward in technology, as a bit of joined up thinking and collaboration.

I don’t want a VISA key fob, a payment card or a calculator with proximity technology.  I don’t want anything new to carry round.  Quite the reverse, I would like to greatly reduce all the crap in my pockets, so please my I have my contactless payment technology installed in my mobile phone?

If we are really in a so-called technological revolution, why do I still need a wallet, or a key ring for that matter?

My dream of using my mobile phone to replace all the useless tangible items in my wallet (like cash, credit cards, debit cards, memberships cards, receipts, loyalty cards etc) is clearly some way off, in the UK at least.

Royal Bank of Scotland is the latest UK bank to offer a contactless payment card.  But targeting 12 McDonald restaurants in London by October as being capable of taking the payment?  Exactly what use is that?

Come on UK banks - we need more ambition here.  The technology is surely available to jump the next 14 tiny steps and take one giant leap into the 21st century by enabling us to use our mobile phones as wallets?

Maybe APACS needs to get together with the mobile phone manufacturers and create some standards?  Or maybe we need to think more widely.  Is this a job for Monitise?  I suppose Monitise are too payments focussed, so to get loyalty/membership cards in the mix perhaps Nectar need to get involved too?

Or maybe there is a new business venture here - perhaps a spin-off from a major tech company, a mobile phone manufacture or even a forward thinking bank?

Surely the rest of the world is miles ahead of the UK here - can anyone enlighten me?