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" Knoa® Software is leading the performance management industry with end-user experience management solutions that
reach beyond infrastructure and application performance to monitor, measure and manage how end-users are utilizing the application to optimize end-user performance and business process execution."
Source : Knoa software
End-User Experience Management and Performance
End-User Experience Management and Performance (EPM) is also known as :
end user experience management,
end user experience monitoring,
EPM for enterprise applications,
EPM management,
EPM performance,
EPM planning,
EPM process,
EPM software,
EPM solution,
user experience,
EPM system,
EPM product,
EPM project,
EPM project management,
EPM implementation,
user experience application performance management,
user experience application performance management software,
user experience application performance monitoring,
user experience applications for the application life cycle,
user experience applications for the entire team,
user experience applications in real life,
user experience architecture ERP.
Also stood for:
Entreprise Project Management.
But, I Thought the ERP System Was Going to Help Us With That!
How one company focused on end-user performance to bring their ERP reality
back into alignment with their vision.
Here's an all-too typical scenario. The management team at a multi-national
corporation has made the decision to implement one standardized Enterprise
Resource Planning solution across the company. The company has grown rapidly and
the existing systems aren't well integrated, aren't providing good visibility
into core processes and are consuming IT resources at an increasing rate.
Operational efficiency needs to improve to sustain additional growth.
The management team expects to cut costs, bring products to market sooner,
comply with regulations, and improve core end-to-end processes, like the
order-to-cash process. The business case is built on the fact that the new ERP
system will have paid for itself and begun putting profits into the company's
coffers within 18 months of deployment. For the executive team, the decision to
go ahead with the purchase is sound, but something unexpected happens along the
way to realizing that ROI. Months after the 'go-live' fundamental
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) have not improved
as planned.
What Do You Say When the CEO is Asking Why Your Company Didn't Reduce the
"Order-to- Cash" Cycle Time by 10 Percent, As Planned?
Even if your company has an effective, integrated ERP system, chances are you
won't have a good answer. Because, even the 'best of breed' ERP systems don't
give the business stakeholders sufficient visibility into the actual execution
necessary to ensure performance improvements. This Executive Brief details a
scenario where a billion-dollar heavy equipment manufacturer who used the
end-user performance insight delivered by Knoa EPM to evaluate a shortfall in
reaching a corporate performance objective ' reducing the order to cash cycle.
Corporate performance management is all about understanding the difference
between what you've planned and what actually happens. If that understanding
stops short of the end-user performance, this critical link in corporate
performance is ignored. With Knoa EPM, the company discovered that the OTC
process was compromised by ineffective and inefficient transaction execution
The most critical factor determining your long-term business results from an
ERP application is the ability of your end-users to effectively execute your
business
'ROI Isn't Real Until It's Realized
What do you say when the CEO is asking why your company didn't reduce the
"order-to-cash" cycle time by 10 percent, as planned? Even if your company has
an effective, integrated ERP system, chances are you won't have a good answer.
Because, even the 'best of breed' ERP systems don't give the business
stakeholders sufficient visibility into what's actually happening to ensure
performance improvements. Are employees actually using the right transactions to
execute the business process? Are they using them in the right way? Are the
employees efficient, or are they making significant errors? Are the transactions
effective, or are they cumbersome, requiring employee-invented workarounds?
It's the end-users of the enterprise applications who execute the
transactions that drive the processes that drive the business. The most critical
factor determining your long-term business results from any ERP application is
the ability of your end-users to effectively execute your business processes.
This means that each of your end-users must:
- Adopt and use the
application
- Be able to effectively execute the key functions for their
specific role
- Reach a level of proficiency where they can execute
efficiently
There's a new generation of solutions that can give you those answers and not
leave your CEO hanging: end-user experience and
performance management (EPM). EPM solutions give organizations a new
focus on end-user adoption, utilization and performance, uniquely capturing a
complete picture of the end-user experience and behavior, including:
- Comprehensive application utilization metrics: which transactions are used, in
what sequence and for how long?
- Actual user-experienced response time
metrics: which transactions are slow and inefficient leading to unproductive
employees?
- Comprehensive system, application and end-user error
metrics: What critical errors do users encounter? Where are users having
specific issues, and what training is required? Which individual users need
specific assistance?
To understand the impact of this insight, consider the following scenario
concerning a billion-dollar heavy equipment manufacturer in Georgia. One core
priority for this manufacturer was to improve the
order-to-cash (OTC) process. This process comprises a number of unique
business processes, from order entry to cash receipt. Because most companies are
functionally managed, the order-to-cash process usually touches multiple
enterprise applications and departments including sales, order entry, order
fulfillment and accounting. Therefore, it is important for each department to
complete its part of the overall process error free and transfer correct
information across functional boundaries.
Eighteen months after this company had implemented a new ERP application to
improve process efficiency, the order-to-cash cycle had not improved. And no one
could really pinpoint the root cause of the performance shortfall. The company
implemented an End User Experience and Performance Management solution to "take
the guess work" out of managing the ERP application. Executives discovered,
within weeks, that the OTC process was compromised by ineffective and
inefficient transactional execution
There's a new generation of solutions that can give you those answers and not
leave your EO hanging: end-user experience and performance
Tripping Through the Potential Points of Failure
The sales reps weren't using the Sales Force Automation
(SFA) functionality to manage their pipeline. Instead, they created
prospect records near the end of the lengthy sales cycle. That meant that
materials management wasn't getting long-term visibility into upcoming demand.
An unexpected upsurge in demand could blindside materials planning and
production, with customer orders placed on back order. Add six days to the OTC
cycle time!
The order-entry processes of the new application were cumbersome. Although it
had been heavily customized, it didn't give the customer service associates a
streamlined way of calculating the shipping cost. Associates were actually
exiting the application and using a spreadsheet application to calculate the
shipping cost. This inefficiency dampened productivity, and each day ended with
a backlog of un-entered orders. Add one day to the OTC cycle time!
There were similar problems in order fulfillment. To ensure no backlogs in
the fulfillment process, the company assigned each employee a unique user ID,
with two dedicated workstations for each inventory associate. However, it had
become the norm that the employee with the first transaction of the day signed
on, and everyone else used that active workstation to execute his or her order
and fulfillment transactions. That led to a perpetual queue, and each day would
end with a number of unfulfilled orders. Add one day to the OTC time!
Finance and accounting was one area that actually worked. Invoices were
entered without any errors in a timely and efficient way. DSO variance reporting
was effectively executed, and the cash remittance process was working the way it
was meant to
Suddenly See the Forrest and the Trees
Consider what happened when we added end-user experience and performance
metrics to the mix. In sales, utilization metrics about sales reps' use of the
opportunity management transactions of the SFA application quickly showed
management how little the reps were using the system and which reps, managers
and geographies hadn't fully adopted the application With this knowledge,
management was able to take remedial action.
The EPM solution identified the precise point when the order-entry associates
exited the primary application to execute the user-defined workaround using a
spreadsheet application. Once this ineffective function was identified, the
application engineering team modified the ERP application and obviated the
employee-invented workaround.
With order fulfillment, EPM utilization statistics exposed the fact that the
employees were sharing a single user ID, and managerial oversight soon put a
stop to it.
And in finance and accounting, EPM workflow and end-user error metrics made
it obvious that everyone had adopted the application and was using it
efficiently and effectively to execute the core business processes. Knowing
where you don't have problems is as valuable as knowing where you do, because it
frees you to give priority attention to the real problems.
Peter Drucker, one of the most influential business thinkers of the past
century, said, "You cannot manage what you cannot measure." The phrase has
become a common business bromide, but at the time, it was the kind of insight
that raised the bar for professional corporate performance management. It's time
to raise that bar once again ' by delving deeper and measuring the experience
received and the performance achieved by the end-users of the enterprise
applications that deliver the business results.
Corporate performance management is all about understanding the difference
between what you've planned and what actually happens. If that understanding
stops short of the end-user performance, this critical link in corporate
performance is ignored, and no enterprise application will achieve its full
potential. End-user experience and performance management solutions let your
organization realize that potential by delivering an end-to-end analysis
capability for an end-to-end corporate performance management strategy.
'Executives discovered within weeks, that the OTC process was compromised by
ineffective and inefficient transactional execution.'
About Knoa
Helping Business and IT Perform Better Together
Knoa Software is the leading provider of end user experience management
solutions ' the "single source" for end user and application performance metrics
from the perspective of the enterprise end user.
Our innovative solutions go beyond infrastructure and application performance
to monitor, measure and manage how end users actually use the application to
optimize business process execution.
Reduce Application Support Costs&8230; Improve Application Performance&8230; Drive
Adoption&8230; Ensure Compliance&8230; Target training to build efficient and effective
end users.
Knoa customers not only know if core enterprise applications are delivering
an acceptable user experience, but also, if application users are executing key
processes effectively and efficiently ' the key to achieving business value and
ROI. And that's the ultimate goal of any Business Service Management.
5 Union Square West
4th Floor
New York, NY 10003
212-807-9608
www.knoa.com