The CUNA Mutual Group implemented a major integration project that applied standard methods of business process modeling, requirements management, project management, change management, and organizational design.

Peter Gilbertson is a Process & Quality Consultant at CUNA Mutual Group in Wisconsin . His primary focus is establishing corporate standards for process design and improvement methods as well as supporting large corporate strategic projects.

CUNA Mutual is the leading provider of financial and insurance product and services to credit unions and their members worldwide.

In addition to the hard benefits of improving employee productivity and reducing cycle time, BPMS offers the strategic benefit of agility, meaning enhanced responsiveness to the continual shifts in both the competitive landscape and regulatory compliance environment. BPMS fosters agility by allowing new cross-functional process solutions to be developed and deployed quickly, and by enabling the rules that drive them to change with minimal development effort.

Polaroid was a company in recovery, needing to balance the Sales & Operations Planning functions in order to save money and resources. Ideally, planners could continually adjust SKU/sub-SKU demand and production while matching the business to marketplace realities. Polaroid with IBM created a solution to provide management with a continuous view of the future, enabling them to provide conscious, top-down direction.

Mark Payne is Vice President of Operations for Polaroid Corporation.

It has been almost three years now since BPM was first conceived as a breakthrough technology and transforming strategy so why is it that many organizations have still not fully implemented BPM technology let alone developed an enterprise BPM strategy? One key factor is the lack of focused IT support. Who supports BPM in your organization? Most organizations will answer – “Well, there really are multiple people…” and those are the ones who don’t just give you a blank stare.

The $20 Billion Dow Chemical Company merged with the $6.5 Billion Union Carbide Corporation in 2000. The combined company had to merge thousands of operations worldwide in a short time. Stephen Graham was in charge of the merged supply chains. He analyzed the work processes, sub-processes and associated activities so the merger would work from the first day.

Dow Chemical used the “Most Effective Technology” (MET) concept, with alignment to the business strategy, the metrics, and the organization.

Graham pointed out that over 60% of mergers and acquisitions fail to create value.