Abstract: The Assn. for Information and Image Management (AIIM) predicts a 50% annual growth for the workflow market and estimates that the total market for workflow products and services will amount to about $3 billion for 1997. The AIIM survey reveals that there are three trends driving this growth: business process redesign, open architecture or integrated systems, and imaging. In addition, World Wide Web capabilities are bound to contribute to the market expansion predicted. Those who are considering to buy their own workflow products and services should assess their own needs first, study their business processes from start to finish, compute complete costs of workflow and make sure that workflow software includes standards for open enterprise and cross-enterprise workflow.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1997 Penton Publishing Inc.
After annual growth of 30 to 40 percent for the preceding five years, the workflow market took a breather in 1995; however, Thomas Koulopoulos, president of Boston's Delphi Consulting Group, believes the market is ready to roar again.
"As new applications are rolled out and new standards evolve to support enterprise workflow, we now see renewed growth," says Koulopoulos. The Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), Silver Spring, MD, has forecast a 50 percent annual growth, estimating that the combined market for all workflow products and services will reach almost $3 billion for 1997.
A November 1995 AIIM survey of 500 users cites three major factors spurring future growth: business process redesign; movement towards open architecture or integrated systems; and increased use of imaging. Mr. Koulopoulos believes Web capabilities will contribute to this growth by facilitating movement of work to any place at any time, and shortening business cycles.
The benefits managers reap from their investment in workflow parallels current corporate priorities: faster access to information, more efficient information processing, more automation with lower staff counts, greater productivity, and reduced paper use; however, the vast potential market for workflow applications is still untapped. For many nonusers, skepticism and an insufficient level of knowledge remain barriers. A lack of common understanding of the terms work flow and business process redesign (both are perceived as buzz words) is another hurdle. Vendors compound the problem by defining workflow in terms of the features of their offerings.
Among users, an organization's first step is to identify its problems and develop improvement goals. The next step is to establish a common understanding of work-flow. In its broadest sense, workflow signifies a method of performing a task involving a number of sequential or concurrent steps or operations. Mr. Koulopoulos defines workflow as a proactive toolset for the analysis, compression, and automation of a business process, and one that encompasses both technology and people.
Monique Attinger, senior consultant of Workflow Solutions Group in Toronto, says work flow software enables an organization to develop and manage business processes, rather than the information. That information is managed by software that addresses specific applications - document management, imaging, COLD, OCR, EDI - which can plug into workflow programs to accomplish specific business process.
Ms. Attinger observes that many software vendors claim to offer complete workflow solutions, but their claims often blur distinctions. "So many features are available that buyers often don't know what they're buying," she says. Differences in workflow products are important because users' requirements vary so widely.
* Understand your own requirements first, advises Ms. Attinger. Collect data on what you do now, how you do it, and how much in order to create a baseline against which to measure results.
* Examine a business process from beginning to end, not by individual parts. If your examination is too narrow, it may overlook or adversely affect linked processes. After determining your business requirements, explore your technology options.
* Calculate complete costs of workflow. The Delphi Group observes that implementers tend to come under budget for software and hardware, but not for implementation (i.e., development, training, integration, and application support). Implementation can run four to five times as much as costs of software.
* Workflow software should accommodate major existing and proposed standards for open enterprise and cross-enterprise workflow, such as those proposed by the Workflow Management Coalition (ODMA). Ideally, workflow should operate over all platforms and should manage information without dictating sources or formats. With an increasing number of vendors offering workflow and document management via the Internet, it will be important for users to learn to initiate, access, and track workflows in repositories located anywhere and to implement it over E-mail using MIME protocols. While the market is poised for further growth, the overall pace will be determined by how well nonusers absorb the concepts and realize potential benefits, especially in using the Web, to transport information from desktop to desktop - anywhere.
John Dykeman is principal of Office and Business Technology Services, Lyndhurst, OH (JB [email protected]; Internet: http://www.marketek.com/obts.