Brainwaves , the official e-newsletter of the Business Performance Management (BPM) Forum, is distributed monthly to Forum members, content requestors and e-newsletter subscribers. Our objectives for Brainwaves are to provide relevant information, stimulate new ideas and help improve your decision-making regarding business performance management initiatives, strategies and execution. Let us know how we can improve this publication to help you achieve your goals

Welcome to the first issue of Brainwaves in the New Year. I’m happy to report that thanks to the BPM Forum’s rapid growth, Brainwaves has changed from a quarterly publication to a monthly. Now we can regularly keep you up to date on the latest business performance developments as well as give you the skinny on the numerous present and future BPM Forum programs and research initiatives.

This month we’re launching a new special interest group with the help of partner Deloitte Consulting called The Competitive Strategy Roundtable. Through original research and high-level industry discussion, the Roundtable’s first big thought leadership initiative, the Competitive Readiness Review, will explore the disruptive forces and challenges that strategy officers are facing in today’s technology industry, and how these challenges are being addressed. The objective of the Competitive Readiness Review is to provide new perspectives on how technology companies can and should improve their ability to identify and quickly react to competitive disruptions and opportunities in an era of rapid change.

As I was watching the New England Patriots beat the San Diego Chargers for their fourth AFC Championship in six seasons, I couldn’t help but think of coach Bill Belichick’s consistent, strong leadership in the face of changing competitive forces week in and week out. Here’s a guy who has methodically built an organization that carefully measures itself and the competition—and beats the opponent more times than not. Despite his questionable choice of sideline attire, it’s clear that Belichick is a master at managing the internal and external forces that drive competition. I guess it doesn’t hurt to have Tom Brady running the offense (or Peyton Manning either I guess!)

We hope The Competitive Strategy Roundtable will help you become as competition-ready as the Patriots. To help kick off the program, we have three strong articles for you in our Competitive Strategy section, including a Q&A with Deloitte’s John Ciacchella, who leads the Technology, Media and Telecommunications Practice and is well-versed in the competitive issues in tech.

In our last Brainwaves we wrote about our Business Traction from Better Decision Action initiative. The data has now been crunched, and the final report is available on our site, www.bpmforum.org. One key finding: 70 percent of respondents feel that bad decisions are having a negative impact on their businesses. Be sure to download the report and check out the archived Webinar featuring panelists from the U.S. Postal Service, New York Jets, GE Financial and Cognos.

We have a number of other thought leadership initiatives underway that are highlighted below. We hope you’ll “decide” to participate in the ones that interest you.

Enjoy the issue!

Scott Van Camp
Editor
www.bpmforum.org

While at A.T. Kearney, John participated in our 2004 “Crunch Time: Global Competitiveness Audit,” which found that two-thirds of executives had not instituted formal practices for tracking and analyzing their competition. We’re excited to have John and Deloitte on board for this program, and we recently spoke with him about the key competitive issues and what he’d like to discover this time around with the research.

BPM Forum: What kind of competitive issues are you most interested in?

John Ciacchella: First, we’re trying to stay away from the traditional view of competition—usually around markets and products—and get into more CEO level corporate strategy issues. There’s a lot of disruption going on in technology. There are technological driven big trends like broadband wireless; a big shift to a lot of client-side devices; also, we’re seeing disruptions from a business model perspective—in software, for instance ‘software as a service’ is really taking off.

So I’d like to know how companies are competing amidst these disruptions. Where are the roadblocks, and how are some companies getting beyond them?

Can you set the competitive landscape in tech for us, and how it has evolved?

In the Crunch Time study, we were honing in on a mega-shift that took place in the tech value chain. In the late 1970s there was a shift in tech from defense to business infrastructure. For the last 20 years technology has been driven by the business infrastructure end market—things like routers and servers that supported the communications infrastructure build-out and drove the success of many companies—like Cisco, for instance. You also saw the demise of companies that didn’t make the switch to the infrastructure world. So the dynamics changed and a lot of the major players changed.

Back in 2004-2005 there was a similar shift. For example, if you look at semiconductor applications, they moved into consumer products, as opposed to business infrastructure or defense. That is a big trend. Not only was there a shift to consumer, but the consumer market was getting turbocharged because of the consumer economies coming online in China and India. The consumer end market was expanding at an incredible pace.

This year, there’s a lot of disruption going on. Much of this disruption is technologically driven—big trends like the proliferation of broadband wireless and the shift to client-side devices. And we’re also seeing disruptions from a business model perspective—in software, for instance ‘software as a service’ is really taking off.

Could you give a sector-specific example of a disruption?

If you look at the tech hardware sector, it is being challenged with the PC model—open systems and low-cost components. We are starting to see this PC model going into the test and measurement world. National Instruments is now challenging incumbent companies like an Agilent. If you are an industry leader and you are getting challenged by another company entering the space, how do you respond to that? You can go out and acquire, but when you acquire an emerging company the valuations are hard to justify from an ROI perspective, because it’s forward looking revenue.

What internal factors affect a company’s ability to deal with competitive issues?

A lot of financial and accounting systems that companies now have in place are big impediments. Another thing is the current product group organization structure. Many high-tech companies are organized into product or market-based groups, but boundaries of products and markets are much more nebulous now. For instance, let’s say I’m a hardware company, and there’s a company entering my market using software to do the things I offer on my hardware. I may not consider them a competitor, even though they are addressing the needs of that customer with a different solution set. Because of the way I define my market and product group, I ignore them, and five years later they’ve taken 20 percent of the market. So the segmentation and organization model can be an impediment.

What about from a company culture perspective?

When you have a dysfunctional or disruptive situation, it’s challenging the status quo. And because of that it requires a more risk-taking mentality. You need to have more of a beachhead mentality, actually. Tech companies do tend to think inside-out. They are marching down the price/performance curve, and they are not engaged with what the customer is doing—and how the customer might be changing what they are doing. The product may not even be that critical to the customer any more.

Are there tech segments that need to be addressed more than others?

Yes, and one would be software. It’s a low asset model and barriers to entry can be low, so the challenges and pace of ‘software as service’ and the open source movement are pretty dramatic. On the other hand, challenges in semiconductors are more muted—they are happening, but it’s more like tectonic plates moving rather than the volcano exploding.

How can companies quantify their competitiveness?

Part of it is really being in tune with what their customers are doing and what their customers are doing for their customers. And it’s not so much about what the customers are doing with the application you are selling them, but what they are doing with their process toward their customers? If you don’t spend time getting insight into what is going on downstream, you’ll never find out if there is a disruption.

What are some competitive strategies and techniques that work?

Companies should spend time doing ‘day in the life’ exercises with their customers—just understanding what their customers are doing. One mistake they make is focusing on their lead customers. Those customers are typically the most demanding—they want the latest and greatest. What happens, though, is you get into ‘overshoot.’ If you just focus on that lead set, you’re working a small portion of the market. Sometimes you want to spend time with non-customers or your least demanding customers.

These are things that, in principal, are easy to understand, but to apply them is tricky. Sales forces don’t get motivated to spend time with the customers. They get paid to sell.

What about global competitiveness issues?

The customer market is now not as isolated as it once was—it’s broader and more fragmented. Your lead customers may no longer be in the sector you cover. Globalization, increased efficiency and the lower cost of technologies are opening up the lower part of the pyramid. For example, you can take a country in Africa, cover it with Wimax, introduce low-cost PCs, and you have a substantial market.

As global competition invades more and more markets, established companies are fighting tougher and tougher battles against commoditization. Whether their niche is business-process outsourcing, consumer electronics or air travel, management teams are asking themselves: How can our company continue to differentiate itself from our competitors? http://www.cio.com/archive/050106/applied.html

Competitor analysis (CA) has developed from a simple emphasis on gathering data about competitors, to a much greater in-depth analysis of customers' strategies and actions. The most competitive businesses are those that effectively transform data relating to competitors into "decision-relevant" insights. http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/bnet/Focus_On_Competitor_Analysis.pdf

Business Traction from Better Decision Action
As business executives face ever-mounting pressure to deliver optimal results to the board and shareholders, a new BPM Forum study shows that over 70 percent of executives polled believe that poor decision making has caused a “significant” to “degrading” impact on their companies’ performance.

In Q2 2006 the DecisionROI Institute, a special interest group created by the Business Performance Management Forum™ (BPM Forum), and underwriter Cognos launched the thought leadership initiative Business Traction From Better Decision Action, to explore the current state of decision making within the enterprise. Download the Business Traction report and check out the powerful on-demand Business Traction webinar featuring senior executives from the US Postal Service, New York Jets, Cognos and GE Commercial Finance by going to: http://www.bpmforum.org/DecisionROI/news_events.htm.

News Corp 'Does It': Makes Worst Business Blunder in 2006, According to Survey
The business world has spoken: Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. committed the worst business blunder in 2006 when it decided to produce an O.J. Simpson book and TV special by O.J. Simpson with the working title of “If I Did It”—according to survey fielded by the Business Performance Management (BPM) Forum and the DecisionROI Institute. Just over 28 percent of 150 business execs from across a variety of industries and company sizes cited News Corp’s puzzling stubbornness in moving ahead with the projects, in which Simpson speaks hypothetically on how he would have committed the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole, and friend Ron Goldman. Ultimately, public outcry and pleas from the victims’ families forced Murdoch to cancel the projects and issue a public apology—but not before considerable damage to News Corp’s reputation.

Close behind the News Corp decision debacle, at 24 percent, was the options backdating scandal story, blunders that affected numerous companies in 2006 and forcing restatements toping $5.7 billion—and a story not finished by a long shot. Rounding out the top five blunders:

3. HP’s decision to “pre-text” board members and journalists to find a leak (19 percent);
4. Google’s moved to set up a new “censored” Web site in China (16 percent);
5. and energy hedge fund Amaranth Advisors’ loss of $6.5 billion in less than a month, which ultimately put the firm out of business and investors out of luck (7.9 percent).

With the unfortunate expectation of more bad business decisions in 2007, on January 22 the DecisionROI Institute is releasing findings of its Corporate Decision Dynamics study, which encompassed interviews with a dozen top decision makers and quantitative insights from nearly 350 executives, managers and directors. The study will reveal the state of the corporate decision making strategies and processes, and will offer recommendations for improved decision making.

Comply on the Fly: Keeping Pace with the Challenges of Mobile Data Management
The results are in for our Comply on the Fly initiative. They show thatthe dramatic growth in the use of mobile devices in the workplace exposes many corporations to the risk of regulatory compliance violations and security threats. The research, sponsored by InfoExpress, Nokia and Sybase, reveals that while most businesses are integrating mobility into their organization, too few have policies in place to protect mobile device content for compliance and security purposes, fewer still have measures in place to enforce those policies and a sizable number are simply waiting for disaster to happen, in order to take action. For all of the findings, download the full report and view the on-demand webinar http://www.bpmforum.org/programs.htm#cf.

Software Economics Council (SECO)
Software in the enterprise has become the essential, common thread that automates and accelerates modern business processes across operations and geographies including, for example, communications, finance, supply chain management, sales, and customer service. Today's enterprise systems decision makers - organizations that invest billions of dollars annually in infrastructure and application software development and deployment - are very concerned about enterprise software quality, value and performance issues.

In the past, SECO looked at the state of software deployment and return on investment in today's enterprise. The Software Drain or Business Gain study measured executive satisfaction with the value of software in their organizations and examined what companies were doing to ensure that applications were satisfactorily aligned with business strategies and relevant to current needs.

The next SECO initiative will turn the attention to software quality, performance and lifecycle management within the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, and SaaS overall impact on business performance and agility. Is the full benefit of SaaS fully realized? Are organizations taking maximum advantage of process improvement opportunities with SaaS-based solutions? Are component-based software oriented architecture (SOA) enterprise initiatives and SaaS opportunities well aligned around business imperatives, or on a collision course? These and other questions will be the focus of an upcoming SECO study.

The Alert Enterprise II - An Optimal Baseline Model
What is an Alert Enterprise? What characteristics define an Alert Enterprise in today’s’ fast-paced ultra-competitive market landscape? What are its optimal functional and non-functional components, systems, processes and best practices?

The Alert Enterprise II continues and expands on the Forum’s earlier program, Accelerate How You Differentiate: The Alert Enterprise Audit, which focused on identifying and putting into perspective the challenges companies face in keeping up with the increased velocity and pace of change of today’s global environment. Not surprisingly, Accelerate How You Differentiate confirmed that business executives are indeed feeling the pressure to build a more Alert Enterprise. The study also found that these executives had increased expectations for IT to play a larger role in rapidly responding to evolving market conditions and align itself more effectively with strategic business objectives.

The Alert Enterprise II takes the next logical step and seeks to define the desired attributes of, and establish a comparative baseline model for, the Alert Enterprise. This authority leadership research program will be developed by The BPM Forum in collaboration with Factiva.

Mastering Marketing Performance Measurement (MPM)
The BPM Forum’s sister organization, the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, is kicking off the Spring Quarter of its Mastering MPM On-line Certificate Program Monday, March 5, 2007. The 10-week program concludes Friday, May 11, 2007. Consisting of online participation and independent study, the curriculum includes the completion of an MPM Self-Assessment Audit, prescribed core readings, three topical webcasts, and an MPM independent project report. The Mastering MPM Certificate program provides marketing professionals with intensive Marketing Performance Measurement training and validation of MPM knowledge and skills. Participants are able to provide immediate added value to their organizations by helping to foster an MPM culture, defining an MPM framework, and executing specific MPM tactics that will help improve ROI, marketing efficiency, and effectiveness. For more program information or to register, go to: http://www.mpmforum.org/register.asp.

The Challengers and the Challenged Summit
TBA

This Challengers and the Challenged Summit will be a powerful follow-on initiative to the Competitive Readiness Review, presented by the BPM Forum and Deloitte Consulting. During this phase of the program, the BPM Forum and top business schools will produce a World’s Most Competitive Companies Awards one-day event to recognize top competitive performances across a variety of categories, e.g. established companies entering new markets, innovations in distribution, new product introductions, new business models, business expansion, M&A activity, etc.

Please stay tuned to our website for schedule information: www.bpmforum.org

Webinar: The Audit Committee and Its Impact on Strategy
Date: Tuesday, January 23, 1:00 - 2:30 p.m. EST -- available thru April 23 (1.5 CPE Credit)
Website: Register here

Do you hear complaints that your work in risk mitigation or audit or accounting just doesn't relate to the strategic focus of the firm? Do you understand how it connects to the role of the board and the audit committee and to strategy development? Join live hosts, Eleanor Bloxham, CEO of The Value Alliance, and Dave Richards, President of the Institute of Internal Auditors, along with taped guests: Jack Bogle, Founder, Vanguard Group of Investment Companies, Jim Petro, Attorney General, State of Ohio and Keith Sherin, CFO, GE, among others for this interactive and informative presentation.

ebizQ’s BPM in Action Virtual Conference
Date: Tuesday and Wednesday, March 6-7, 10:30 a.m. ET

Want to interact with the industry experts and company reps who have built successful BPM solutions? Visit the BPMinAction Virtual Conference. Lead blogger Michael Dortch will guide you around an informative and highly interactive lineup of Webcasts, podcasts, white papers and vendor booths where you can chat with company representatives and fellow attendees. It all culminates on March 6 th and 7 th with these keynotes:

-- Real World BPM: What Changes Are In Store For IT?
Speaker: Ken Vollmer, Forrester Research

-- BPM Technology: From Best- of-Breed Tools to BPM Suites to Business Process Platforms
Speaker: Janelle Hill, Gartner

For more information and to register, Click here.

Society of Corporate Compliance & Ethics
Compliance Workshops
www.corporatecompliance.org/events/workshops.htm

These two-day programs are designed to provide the practical information on crucial topics required to create and maintain successful compliance programs in a variety of industries.

SCCE workshops are an invaluable resource for compliance professionals, corporate counsel, outside counsel, and government attorneys who deal with compliance issues. They also appeal to CEOs who have a basic understanding of compliance concepts who are considering incorporating compliance programs.

To provide access to the greater compliance community, the SCCE will be holding the workshops in four locations throughout the country.

Chicago, IL | March 15–16 (optional CCEP exam on March 17)
New York, NY | March 22–23 (optional CCEP exam March 24)
Los Angeles, CA | April 12–13 (optional CCEP exam on April 14)
Dallas, TX | May 17–18 (optional CCEP exam on May 19)

PMA AnnualL Marketing Conference: "This Changes Everything" & Reggie Awards
Date: March 21-22, 2007
Location: Hyatt Regency, Chicago, IL

Marketers today are operating in an environment of constant change. Companies now more than ever need to be able to adjust or they risk losing relevance to their customer base. The vision of this conference is to help you as a marketing professional to:

1. Realize that we are in a time when everything is changing and to understand what it means to you professionally
2. Understand and embrace the changing world in order to compete
3. Learn what you need to do to market successfully, not just for today, but for years to come

Annual Conference Cost: PMA Members $ 1,195. Non-Members: $1,695.
REGGIE CEREMONY ONLY : PMA Members $250. Additional Member $ 225, Non-Members: $ 295.

For further info or to register, please call the PMA at (212) 420-1100, or go to www.pmalink.org.

NOTE: If you register for the full annual conference the Reggie Awards ceremony is included in your ticket.

The 2007 Summit on Business Process Management
Date: March 26-28, 2007
Location: Miami, Florida
Presented by the American Strategic Management Institute, with Steve Towers, CEO, BPM Group; author Sandra Kemsley and many more.

Whether you are new to BPM or already implementing in your organization, this summit has something for you. Featuring four tracks to help leaders overcome the challenges in effective process management, as well as sessions on how to effectively make the case for BPM and gain senior leadership support in the process. ASMI’s 2007 Business Process Management Summit is your chance to acquire the skills and techniques necessary to implement an effective BPM strategy in your office. Hear from the leading experts in the field and emerge with strategic advice and plenty of best practices you can implement immediately. Call us at 703-894-0481 or visit us online at www.ASMIweb.com to reserve your spot today!

WCBF - Six Sigma Solutions  
Date: March 28-30, 2007
Location:Circus Circus Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas
Website: http://www.wcbf.com/quality/5073

5th Annual Six Sigma in Healthcare Conference
The BPM Forum is an Official Association of this event, and has secured a 20% discount for BPM Forum members. To claim your discount, please quote registration code BPMWCBF20 when booking.

Benefit from this conference by finding how to:

• Integrate Lean and Six Sigma 
• Implement  successful organizational culture change strategies for Six Sigma
• Align Six Sigma with your organization’s strategic objective
• Use  Six Sigma for compliance with core measures
• Improve  patient throughput
• Engage  medical staff

Keynote address by: Glenn A. Fosdick, FACHE , President and Chief Executive Officer, The Nebraska Medical Center

2nd Annual Hospital Operational Excellence Summit 2007
Date: April 16-18, 2007
Location: Chicago, IL

Healthcare providers are under tremendous internal and external pressures to streamline operations and accommodate the community. IQPC & Healthcare IQ have crafted a cutting edge information exchange with top healthcare leaders to address the most crucial and pressing issues threatening the quality of the healthcare they provide . If your hospital is in danger, Hospital Operational Excellence will provide the path to recovery. For more information, please visit http://www.iqpc.com/NA-11355-001 or call 800-882-8684. Redeem your EARLY BIRD discount by February 23rd!

BPM Group

The BPM Group ( www.bpmg.org) would like to invite you to hear the latest thinking in Business Process Management from Steve Towers and Terry Schurter. Attend one of these conferences to hear the word on [OUTSIDE-IN] thinking, why the CUSTOMER is driving the real value of BPM, and what you can do to leverage BPM to create success in your organization.

February in San Diego: Gartner Business Process Management Summit
( http://www.gartner.com/2_events/conferences/bpm3.jsp)

March in Miami: ASMI BPM 2007 Summit
( http://www.asmiweb.com/events/b192.html)

March in London: Gartner Business Process Management Summit
(http://www.gartner.com/2_events/conferences/bpme2.jsp)

Oh, and make sure you take the time to introduce yourself to us if you attend one of these!

BPMG is the largest BPM community in the world with over 20,000 registered members and 1.5 million+ hits (from over 80,000 unique visitors) per month on their website, www.bpmg.org. BPMG is a global community with 124 countries represented in its membership. The organization provides a wealth of resources to the BPM community including BPM training, seminars, conferences and consulting across the globe. The organization is currently engaged in an aggressive expansion of content and resources to support the rapid growth of corporate BPM adoption.

Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) is the authority on wireless issues, developments and trends in Canada. It represents cellular, PCS, messaging, mobile radio, fixed wireless and mobile satellite carriers as well as companies that develop and produce products and services for the industry.

ebizQ is the definitive venue for business and IT professionals, vendors, and industry analysts with the need to exchange information on business integration technologies, problems, and solutions. ebizQ is singularly focused on business integration, providing the most comprehensive and timely information available on vendors, products, market directions, best practices, and any other industry element that comes into play. ebizQ communicates with its audience through the ebizQ Web site, the Virtual Integration Conference, and the Integration Insider magazine. All of ebizQ's content through each of its channels is freely available to subscribers.

GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.) offers an integrated platform of powerful online market research tools that serve both market research firms and corporate market research and marketing departments. Their Enterprise Research Management (ERM) solutions create a single repository of past and present research studies, designed to enhance productivity, cut costs, and reduce repetitive tasks, allowing enterprises' investment in market research to focus on the business insights, not the process. With offices located on six continents, GMI serves numerous Fortune 1000 companies and 21 of the top 25 global market research firms. GMI provides integrated software for market intelligence, global panels that reach 5.5 million double opted-in consumers in 200 countries and territories, and a cost-effective, offshore service bureau that operates 24x7x365 and offers the most efficient approach to market intelligence and enterprise research management.

The BPM Forum encourages its members and web site guests to share articles or white papers that relate to current issues and developments in corporate governance, compliance (Sarbanes-Oxley, Six Sigma, etc.) and topics associated with business performance management strategies, execution and results. Approved content will appear on the BPM Forum’s web site and/or will be featured in an upcoming issue of Brainwaves.

If you would like to submit an article or recommend one, please follow these guidelines:

• Business performance management focus: people, process, policy, technology, methodologies, best practices and business innovation
• Pictures, illustrations and charts to support your submission are welcome
• Include a brief biography with relevant credentials
• Maximum 850 words

Email content submissions to: scottvc@globalfluency.com

Email this issue of Brainwaves to senior executives in finance, operations, technology and business innovation roles who are interested in or expert with business performance and sustainability. Subscribe to Brainwaves>>.