Untangling CBPA and CEBP

Previous articles on our site recently have described Interactive Intelligence’s approach to automating business processes using what it calls “Communications-Based Process Automation” (CBPA).  Their view is that this enhancement to others' conception of unified communications better positions a company to gain a competitive advantage in today’s business climate and in the future recovery. 

However, based on the responses we’ve been getting surrounding our articles, there seems to be a lot of confusion about how CBPA is different than the more common, similarly-sounding term, “Communications Enabled Business Processes” (CEBP). 

My view is that we have too many four-letter acronyms, and we should just get on with using UC!  But Tim Passios, Director of Solutions Marketing at Interactive Intelligence, feels that there is an important distinction that his company is making between CEBP and CBPA.  The difference is that CEBP only embeds communications into an existing business process.  CBPA actually goes one major step further and actually automates those processes, as well as embedding communications capabilities.  In other words, he feels that Interactive Intelligence not only provides the communications tools for a UC solution, but also the process automation tools necessary to really bring home the ROI. 

He gave me an example to illustrate based on a simple sales receipt and order fulfillment process with these steps: 

1. A salesperson faxes in an order
2. A sales admin pulls the order off the fax machine and manually enters it into the order processing system
3. Order fulfillment opens up the order processing system, identifies the customer’s order, picks the order from the shelf, and ships it out the door.
4. Order fulfillment checks a box inside of the order processing system indicating the order has been shipped

Then he described how CEBP would handle this process:

1. Assuming some automation, the fax is received via a fax server and an automated notification is sent to the salesperson acknowledging receipt of the fax.
2. Another notification is sent to the sales admin that a new order arrived. The fax sits waiting for the admin to open and enter it into the order processing system – human latency is still present.
3. Once the admin opens the fax, reads it, it gets manually entered into the order processing system – human error is still present.
4. An automated notification is sent to order fulfillment notifying them of a new order. The order sits waiting until order fulfillment processes it – human latency is still present.
5. After order fulfillment opens the order processing system, they repeat the existing process and manually update the system.
6. An automated notification is sent to the customer informing them the order has shipped.

Finally, he showed how CBPA would handle this process very similarly, but with additional functionality, including all the same notifications:

1. Once the order is received in the fax server, it is scanned using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to capture sales, customer and order information and automatically enters the information into the order processing system.
2. Instead of the order sitting idle waiting for one particular sales admin to open the system, it is queued and routed to the next available sales admin (based on their availability using presence) for approval. If the sales admin doesn’t process the order in a timely fashion, it is rerouted to another sales admin to ensure it is handled promptly.
3. Once the order is approved, it is queued and routed to order fulfillment based on their availability using presence. Again, if it isn’t processed in a timely manner, it is rerouted until it is fulfilled.
4. Throughout this entire process, supervisors, sales managers, executives, and anyone else can view the status of this order through a supervisory console. At any step in the process, alerts can be triggered to notify them of delays or completions.

Tim feels that CBPA differs from other UC techniques because it enables enterprises to create process automation capabilities, as well as communications-enabling them.  These GUI-designed processes establish the process flow, do database lookups, access other applications through web services, and present process steps to the user in an interface familiar to Interactive Intelligence users for their communications tasks. 

Here are some of my thoughts about CBPA.  The most beneficial implementations of unified communications generally involve applications in which the enterprise integrates communications capabilities directly into business processes (remember the UCStrategies.com definition of UC – communications integrated to optimize business processes).  In many transaction-based and process-oriented business activities, enterprises rely on workflow engines built into the specialized applications governing or facilitating the work.  Some of these have been developed by software development companies that have spent years creating applications designed for specific vertical markets in insurance, health care, manufacturing, education, and virtually every other industry, and many horizontal, more generic, applications.  We are seeing some of these software companies (especially horizontal applications like SAP and Oracle) beginning to provide either UC capabilities within their solutions or APIs or other “hooks” to allow third-party developers to create such applications.

However, many enterprises can’t afford or don’t have concentrated enough requirements to warrant investing in these specialized applications solutions, particularly for vertical applications.  For them, solutions such as those offered by Interactive Intelligence may provide a cost-effective way to introduce enough process automation capabilities to better leverage UC functionality. 

While I like Interactive Intelligence’s concept, I still have a problem with the terminology.  The UC “definition wars” are finally showing some evidence of subsiding.  CBPA is just too close to CEBP, and threatens to resurrect the issue – and just confuse the marketplace.  The responses to our earlier articles and forum (http://www.ucstrategies.com/forum.aspx?id=202&g=posts&t=4286)  are evidence that this is happening.

I suggest that there is a good alternative.  Don Brown, CEO of Interactive Intelligence, has a webinar available through the right column of the UCStrategies.com home page, “Where’s the ROI of Unified Communications.”  In it, he refers to another term, IPA or “Interaction Process Automation.”  Perhaps that term would be a good base for Interactive Intelligence differentiation (no bad IPA beer jokes, please). 

But quibbles aside, providing a way to create a process automation platform easily will be an important step for many enterprises that haven’t had such capabilities before.  This will enable them to create ways to leverage their UC tools for maximum advantage.

2 Responses to "Untangling CBPA and CEBP" - Add Yours

Blair Pleasant 6/22/2009 11:11:25 AM

Don: I agree with you that there are too many acronyms and UC definitions. While it's clear that CEBP and CBPA are two separate things, my preference would be for Interactive to use IPA for both the product and the concept (instead of CBPA).

Art Rosenberg 5/21/2010 12:20:07 AM

Good comments! However my concern is that communications processes extend beyond the enterprise and must include both business partners as well as consumer/ customers. There can be ways to insure timely notifications and alternate methods of contact escalation to cover those people who cannot be directly controlled by the enterprise workflow logic that IPA involves. But, in order to maximize contact accessibility with people wherever they may be, the flexibility of multimodal UC must be there at the individual user level. That communications flexibility must be controllable by those end users, either as contact initiator or at the contact recipient/response level. It doesn't always have to be a person-to-person conversation or even an inbound IVR application anymore!