Gartner’s recent report, “Predicts 2016: Business Transformation and Process Management Bridge the Strategy-to-Execution Gap,” compares business transformation to a journey.1

Like a train that assumes all passengers are taking the same path to get to their destination, best practices have, in the past, defined a single business process for all users. For this reason, the business process itself and execution of the process are often viewed as the same thing, when in reality, they’re quite different. Users, like passengers on a train, sometimes require different journeys for the same destination, and if the train they’re on doesn’t take them the way they need to go, they look for other ways to get there. The same holds true with business processes.

Gartner concludes that “to accelerate business transformation – particularly for digital business and customer experience – your enterprise must accept that it won’t be in the driver’s seat.” Instead, to be competitive and ensure fast, incremental releases, businesses need to start using other modes of transportation and explore non-traditional IT development methods. “The most successful business processes,” according to Gartner, “will rely on intelligent business processes – rather than standardized business processes – to manage process variation at scale.”

GARTNER’S PREDICTIONS FOR 2016: WHAT DO THEY MEAN FOR YOUR ENTERPRISE?

THE CLOUD IS READY FOR YOU, BUT ARE YOU READY FOR IT?

So what are Gartner’s predictions for 2016, and what kind of digital platforms should companies look for to prepare?

PREDICTION: PLATFORM-AS-A-SERVICE (PAAS) FOR TRANSFORMATION

The first prediction is that “by 2018, model-driven, high-productivity PaaS will be the dominant technology platform for transforming into an adaptive and responsive digital business.” Gartner estimates that more than 60 percent of enterprises will adopt PaaS models because they are more “responsive and adaptive to changing market needs.” While this is a large percentage, companies should also keep in mind that 40 percent of enterprises will have not yet moved to a PaaS model. And for those that do, security concerns may prevent them from moving everything over, creating a hybrid infrastructure that comes with a whole new set of challenges, such as additional business silos between cloud and on-premises systems.

To overcome these potential pitfalls, companies should look for agile, adaptive PaaS models that can seamlessly bridge cloud and on-premises IT systems. This will put them in a good position for the future while also allowing them to easily navigate the present, whether that is breaking down business silos within their own hybrid infrastructure or conducting business with other companies that haven’t yet made the move to a virtual environment.

FAST, LEAN AND MEAN: THE NEW WORLD OF BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION

PREDICTION: INVEST IN FAST, LEAN BUSINESS OPERATIONS EXPERIMENTS TO ACCELERATE TRANSFORMATION

Gartner also predicts that “by 2018, 70 percent of bimodal efforts will invest in fast, lean business operation experiments outside IT to accelerate digital business transformation.” This is already happening with the bring your own apps (BYOA) trend, as business users engage with third-party cloud application services to manage their work, like Box™, Dropbox™, Google Docs™ and CloudOn. Some companies are taking this one step further with low-code cloud app platforms that make it possible for non-technical users to build their own apps to help them manage their daily workflow. However, implementing apps outside of IT’s control can create security concerns for IT departments as they work to keep sensitive data secure.

Enterprises can get ahead of these concerns by looking for customizable, intelligent low- to no-code PaaS platforms with reusable design components. Minimizing custom code will allow businesses to stay ahead of users’ needs with the ability to digitize processes quickly and efficiently, and easily modify them as the needs of the business change. Drag-and-drop design

tools allow business users to take over business processes, if necessary, with the blessing and oversight of IT. To minimize security concerns, enterprises are best positioned looking for apps that comply with their existing compliance and security measures, such as maintaining the permissions of underlying systems and tracking all changes made to a workflow through built-in audit logs and reports. In this way, businesses can ensure that information is delivered to the right people or updated in the right systems, at the right time, without having to worry about data leaks or manual audits.

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE: THE NEXT BIG THING

PREDICTION: IMPROVE CX WITH BUSINESS PROCESS MODELS

Gartner’s third prediction is that “by 2018, 30 percent of large organizations will improve customer experience by integrating customer journey maps with business process models.” Customer journey maps allow organizations to get feedback on what is working and what isn’t, so organizations can determine how processes need to change and put together a model of the desired output. However, traditional process modeling is paper-based and static, which can slow down the process of change rather than expedite it, particularly with small customer-based initiatives that need to be rapidly executed. With agility and efficiency crucial to improving the customer experience, this may be an area where organizations can use other “modes of transport,” as Gartner calls it, and “explore development outside traditional IT.”

Low- to no-code app platforms provide an ideal solution for these smaller initiatives – an executable designer that allows organizations to take a model-and-run design approach. Rather than using a traditional, static process modeling tool, these designers provide visual, executable process maps that give companies the flexibility to quickly make updates to a business process or solve individual process needs. If changes are in order, the process map is tweaked directly in the designer using visual, drag-and-drop tools. Companies can then immediately test the new process instance and quickly gain feedback from customers, employees and partners, so the changes can be put into effect as promptly as possible. For larger initiatives, pure process modeling tools are generally used and encouraged. By using design and modeling tools that support business process management (BPM) as an output, these app platforms can import these process models as a starting point for further modeling in the designer.

“ The most successful business processes,” according to Gartner, “will rely on intelligent business processes – rather than standardized business processes – to manage process variation at scale.”

©2016 SourceCode Technology Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved. SourceCode software products are protected by one or more U.S. patents. Other patents pending. SourceCode, K2, the four squares logo, K2 blackpearl, K2 smartforms, K2 connect and Appit are registered trademarks or trademarks of Source-Code Technology Holdings, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks or product names are property of their respective owners.

K2 APPS: A NEW MODE OF TRANSPORTK2 provides a low- to no-code app platform with the agility and flexibility that today’s businesses need. K2’s executable designer allows processes to be quickly built and deployed, while advanced workflow capabilities make it easy to use K2 apps to support simple to complex business processes across the enterprise. K2 apps provide deep integration with cloud and on-premises line-of-business systems, such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft SQL Server, Salesforce, SAP and Oracle, as well as generic integration via Web services and REST K2 adapters. K2 also integrates with cloud file-sharing services, such as Box, Dropbox and Google Drive™. Using K2 apps, information from these systems can be pulled into intelligent forms that deliver the information to the right people or systems via a workflow.

K2 apps can be used to digitize backend and customer-facing processes and are great at making touchpoints simple and easy for end users to interact with, such as one-click email approval on documents or requests for information. And with more and more customers engaging with companies through smartphones or tablets, K2 simplifies the customer experience even further with apps that can be built once and run on any device, even when offline. K2 can be implemented on premises or using the PaaS model, ensuring that your company has the right mode of transport in place for when 2018 rolls around.

For more information about K2’s services and platform, visit K2.com.

1Predicts 2016: Business Transformation and Process Management Bridge the Strategy-to-Execution Gap, 30 November 2015, Elise Olding, Michele Cantara, Bruce Robertson, Rob Dunie, Olive Huang, Samantha Searle