Interactive Intelligence CBPA – Workflow Management for Business and UC

Recently, there was some debate about the difference between Communications Enabled Business Processes (CEBP), a UC industry term, and Communications-Based Process Automation (CBPA), a new offering from Interactive Intelligence.  Thanks to information from Jason Gloye of Interactive Intelligence, it became clear that CBPA represents the segmentation of those business processes that are communications based, i.e. a distinction from the broader CEBP.  In that way, enterprises can address their CBPA needs without dependencies on the business application software systems and the departments that support those application software systems.  Here’s my summary of this:

Interactive Intelligence is taking a proactive stance on realization of UC and CEBP by delivering its own workflow management engine, Interaction Process Automation (IPA), to provide customers with self-sufficiency in CBPA.    

IPA is a process automation platform for the customers’ operations, orchestrating processes across people, departments, and the existing core business applications.  IPA builds on the core technologies of the Interactive Intelligence Customer Interaction Center (CIC), including:

• Intelligent queuing and routing – The technology used to queue and route calls to agents can also provide for prioritization and delivery of work to the right people in the organization.
• Presence – Just as “agent state” indicates who is available in a call center, IPA uses presence information when determining how to deliver work to people in the organization.
• WFM  (Work Force Management) – Demand forecasting and agent scheduling techniques for call centers can also be applied to staffing in other areas with a flow of incoming work.
• Recording – Capturing the communications between a customer and an agent (calls, chats, emails, faxes) can be applied to other workflows, supporting guideline compliance.
• Real‐time monitoring – Real-time visibility to monitor performance and ensure service levels in contact centers is equally valuable in workflow-centric processes. 
• VoIP – This functionality can provide location-independence, enabling employees to participate in businesses processes from anywhere in the world, when voice is part of a workflow.

These elements have been supplemented with tools for fax, e-mail, text alerts, and integration to core business applications (using existing call center and IVR modules) to provide what appears to be a fine tool for automating workflows that are communications intensive. 

Fortunately for Interactive Intelligence, there are plenty of those types of workflows, especially where business processes involve communications via voice or fax with persons outside the enterprise.  Order entry, order status updates, logistics management, field staff scheduling, emergency or crisis management, and similar events are all examples of such communications-intensive activities.  As with call centers and IVR, many of these processes require linkages with business application software packages and databases.  Of course, IPA can build on those existing modules call center and IVR interface modules.  

Additionally, as we have described in VoiceCon sessions and on UCStrategies.com, the major opportunities for high ROI UC investments are often identified by “communication hot spots”, those places where high-volume or high-value transactions are impeded by delays, errors, or duplicate work.  If IPA can be applied to those “hot spots”, rapid and significant ROI is possible.

This is very consistent with the cornerstone definition and value proposition of Unified Communications: “Communications integrated to optimize business processes.”  Clearly, automation of communications intensive workflow, including the communications elements, is exactly aligned with that definition.

This packaging and delivery of a comprehensive communications-based workflow and process automation platform, e.g. IPA, makes a lot of sense for Interactive Intelligence, for a number of reasons:

1. Interactive Intelligence has always sought to meet all of its customers’ communications system needs in a single integrated package.  Adding IPA to the existing, “All-in-One” Interactive Intelligence communications software family is a continuation of that strategy.
2. IPA builds on Interactive Intelligence’s solid experience and success in contact centers and IVR, including the modules for integration to business applications and databases.
3. This move empowers Interactive Intelligence customers to act quickly and independently to solve business problems, rather than depending on concurrence, approvals or participation from the often overbooked IT teams. 
4. This will extend the opportunity for both Interactive Intelligence and for properly trained and certified channel partners to provide Professional Services to their customers and prospects. 

Thus the CBPA initiative and the IPA platform fit well for the market, for the customers, and for Interactive Intelligence’s strategy.  We have seen similar types of opportunities succeed in the past, most notably the ability of voice messaging vendors such as VMX and Octel to expand and extend customer acceptance by including advanced IVR functions with basic workflow management tools in their voice messaging platforms in the mid-1990s.  Many customers chose to automate tasks ranging from HR recruiting to auto dealer service tracking to college student registrations and course enrollments, resulting in proven economies, improved workflows, and greater customer satisfaction. 

However, the Interactive Intelligence initiative will have some challenges, all manageable:

• There are other firms already in the Business Process Automation market (as in the workflow management consortium: http://www.wfmc.org/), some of who are focused on communications-centric solutions.  Of course, competition is always a good thing, since it challenges others in the market.
• Very few processes are communications only, so in most cases, interaction will still be necessary with the IT applications, interface and security teams.   Similarly, it will be important to interoperate with the appropriate standards, such as HL7 in healthcare. 
• Since a number of business process automation tools already exist, including offers from such firms as IBM and SUN, it may be necessary to interoperate with those tools rather than to compete with them, so that IPA is seen as compatible rather than competitive with the solutions already in place in many enterprises. 

Interactive Intelligence should be able to manage these challenges effectively, so that its customers and prospects can be comfortable with communications-based process automation based on the IPA platform.

In summary, Interactive Intelligence’s delivery of CBPA via the IPA platform should be appealing to a wide range of customers and prospects who wish to improve their communications intensive business processes, using a software product integrated to their communications system and that builds on the richness of over a decade of successful call center, contact center and IVR implementations.