The Coronavirus pandemic only accelerated what was already happening: more and more companies automating their document-based processes and collaborative workflows. The not-so-subtle difference is that now it had to be done quickly, very quickly. The continuity of operations of many organizations was based on allowing their teams to work remotely. And that required deploying these solutions in a matter of hours/days, rather than weeks/months. This is the unique and differential feature of Flokzu Cloud BPM and Workflow Suite, easy and agile enough to deploy a process in hours; but also powerful enough to make that process evolve and meet the needs of a large corporation.
SourceForge interviewed Juan J. Moreno, CEO of Flokzu, to learn about the most notable process automation applications and how their customers have implemented them in a very short time. Moreno also offered some recommendations for making automation efforts a competitive tool as well. Finally, they comment on how innovation and process improvement is also useful for the motivation and retention of the best talent in companies.
Q: To begin, what is workflow and BPM all about?
The discipline of Business Process Management proposes four main stages The first consists of formally modeling the process, using some notation, where BPMN is the universally accepted standard. The second is to automate that process in a tool with a process engine and put it to work so that the people of the company can receive their pending tasks, complete them, and each instance of the process advances towards its objective. The third is to measure how these processes are working, through KPI’s that can be contrasted with the business objectives. The fourth, and perhaps most important, is to analyze the results of the previous stage, introduce improvements to the process and restart in stage one.
Q: Why is process automation in the spotlight? What benefits does it provide?
The main benefits of automating a process are:
- Increased efficiency, eliminating manual and repetitive tasks and allowing people to focus on tasks that add value.
- Unique definition of processes, formal, and not dependent on each person’s interpretation. In the new reality of remote work, this becomes essential.
- Collaboration of people throughout a process that can be long in time, where each person receives the task to be performed and the complete context to do it (information, attachments, deadlines, comments from other people, etc.)
- Ability to manage by objectives, contrasted with KPI’s obtained automatically; key tool in the management of remote teams.
Q: Can you tell us a little more about Flokzu? How did the company come about? In how many countries do you have clients?
A: The founders of Flokzu have been working in process automation since 2001, when we founded our first BPM company. We started with old IBM Lotus Notes technologies, then Java, and never stopped evolving. Until 2015 we focused on on-premise solutions for large companies, government and universities. That year we decided to take advantage of all the knowledge generated and launch a spinoff, which we called Flokzu. We seek to democratize these technologies, making them available to all companies around the world, in a simpler and more accessible way than traditional BPM Suites.
Currently, Flokzu is a global leader in the low-code / no-code BPM and Workflow space. We have more than 10,000 subscribed organizations, from +120 countries in 6 of the 7 continents (we have not yet managed to have clients in Antarctica :-).
Q: What industries do you serve and who are your customers?
A: Flokzu is a horizontal tool, useful for any organization that has administrative or document-based processes, whether electronic or paper-based. As such, our clients are in all industries. Therefore, we prefer to talk about departments or business areas, and in that sense we have seen notable cases of use in Human Resources, Purchasing and Acquisitions, Legal, and Product Development departments for example.
We have also had many customers who have chosen to migrate from their traditional BPM solutions, which involved very high costs to implement new processes and to maintain existing ones. In these cases, there is a gradual transition to a more agile solution such as Flokzu.
Finally, we have many clients in the academic area, who besides using Flokzu for their internal administrative processes, use it as a tool for the practices of their Process Management courses.
Q: How do you take advantage of the knowledge generated in so many clients around the world?
Based on having seen hundreds of cases, we have built a library of predefined processes. These processes serve as a starting point, allowing a customer to accelerate the construction of a process and its deployment. The library provides a form with the typical fields of that process, plus a workflow of the process in BPMN Notation. The customer can then extend and add all the details particular to their own business and deploy the process to begin using it.
In addition, we have generated a knowledge base with good practices and recommendations, as well as suggestions of what not to do to have healthy processes. All that information is public, so every client can take advantage of it, without requiring external consultants or additional costs.
Q: How do you manage to serve so many clients simultaneously?
The key point is that each client is autonomous, and that they do not require our advice to automate a complete process, and above all, to make it evolve in the future. To do this, first of all, our tool is hyper intuitive and simple to use. It does not require technical knowledge, and of course neither programming.
But in addition, we offer without additional cost a complete set of resources to learn and get the most out of the technology. In addition to the library of predefined processes and the knowledge base already discussed, we offer video tutorials, best practice articles, and even a complete course in Udemy, free of charge.
Of course, when customers are faced with more complex situations, which they cannot solve, our expert process analysts help them, solving doubts or establishing joint working sessions on the processes.
Q: Can you explain a couple of concrete use cases of Flokzu?
In a company that manufactures products, the design of a new product is a complex, long and collaborative process. In Flokzu this process can be modeled, with all the tasks that are necessary, from the technical design of the product, the market analysis, price definition, marketing strategy, to the confection of the promotional materials. Many of these tasks will be sequential, while others will be simultaneous. There will be deadlines, with alerts in case of delay. Attached files with the designs or specifications And tens, maybe hundreds of people who will work on the different stages. Automating this process will also allow us to measure the times in each stage, and detect bottlenecks to later optimize the process.
Another example that we have seen with much success, is in the area of human resources. Training request processes, from the interested party request, its analysis, expense approval, and the evaluation of results. The same with requests for promotions or position changes. In some clients, electronic forms are used to give notice of unexpected absences, their accounting and subsequent analysis.
Finally, the example of purchase request and approval, although typical, is very current. It allows automation from the purchase request to the verification of satisfaction. It can include the automatic generation of RFP, as well as the reception of offers from suppliers and the automatic issuance of the PO to the chosen one.
Q: Did you mention that process improvement initiatives also help retain talent?
Yes, of course. The most talented people hate repetitive work and going back to the same situations over and over again. Instead, they will actively engage in initiatives that automate those tasks, and ensure that the outcome of each process meets established quality standards. Needless to say, talented people want to work in high performance teams, where their time is used in high value-added tasks. And this is a fundamental outcome of every process improvement and automation initiative.
Last but not least, collaborative process modeling is a highly demanding task, which also allows to take advantage of experience and knowledge to generate new and better processes.
About Flokzu
Flokzu is the leading low-code / no-code cloud-based BPM suite. It is part of a corporate group created in 2001, with customers in 6 continents, from small businesses to Universities, Fortune500 companies, Banks, U.S. government entities and global corporations. Flokzu specializes and focuses exclusively on business process automation, through the disciplines of BPM and Workflow Management.
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