Business Process Management (BPM) Platforms and Tools have become an enticing option among IT experts within commercial business entities and more recently Government Agencies. The Return On Investment (ROI) for organizations can be dramatic when reviewing just some of the components of any BPM platform. One of the highest priorities for ensuring ROI for organizations is to decrease application delivery-time, which all BPM’s accommodate. However, when one considers all components and tools offered by a particular BPM platform vendor, the actual ROI becomes apparent with a major element being the cost expended for maintenance.
When reviewing BPM platform options, an IT decision maker must ask: “Can we substantially increase time-to-delivery while also reducing the cost to maintain the system(s)?“ With Pegaystem’s (PEGA) BPM platform the answer is a resounding YES! Pega is a no/low code platform with a tool suite based on Agile development. In addition, the ability to train in-house subject matter experts to develop and maintain applications, along with streamlining licensing costs with hosting creates cost efficiencies over what would be incurred if the tools and platform were managed separately.
As a corporate executive with a 35+ year background in software development and Program/Project Management experience, this blog will share my reasons that the PEGA BPM will lower overall maintenance costs.
A Single Platform to Enable Agile Development for Rapid Delivery
Pega is a low/no code BPM platform centered on the Agile SCRUM Methodology. While it is becoming increasingly accepted to adopt Agile for system development, by pushing smaller and more frequent releases into production faster and efficiently, an Agile approach is also a major benefit in system maintenance, often referred to as “DevOps”. The PEGA BPM platform weaves in guidelines and “models” coupled to Agile principles which significantly enables choices and decreases time-to-delivery for system modifications.
Pega is a “Single Platform,” which contains model-driven code components, a standardized database architecture for all hosted systems, case management tools for requirements building, and the operating system which ties everything together. All modifications to the platform, falling under Adaptive and Preventative Maintenance activities, are done as part of PEGA BPM platform upgrade releases and consider the impact of changes for any components that reside on the platform.
System Modification – No/Low Code
In the Pega platform, application code manipulation, database design, and implementation have been drastically simplified and do not require staff to have a specialized computer language or Computer Science Degree. This feature alone is a cost game-changer, when compared to looking at a Legacy System written in a software language no longer current or supported. Corrective maintenance costs in these situations will require reverse-engineering no matter what platform the system will be housed on! But, if the target for the re-engineered specifications resides on a supportable and modern platform going forward, like PEGA BPM, the future maintenance costs will become way more manageable, predictable, and sustainable.
Coding implementation is significantly optimized with Pega’s No-Code/Low-Code platform. Development tools and the Pega Agile Dev Studio are robust, comprehensive, and intuitive to use. Training/Certifications are offered by Pegasystems and are extremely comprehensive allowing professionals to become quickly competent on the BPM platform.
User Interface – Responsive Maintenance Support
In addition to updating actual application code as part of maintenance, developers and testers must validate the potential impacts to the User Interface (UI) given newer delivery platforms, browsers, tablets, laptops, and mobile platforms. The Pega Omni-Channel UX™ is a responsive, standards-based UI that reduces the time and cost to design and deploy today’s multi-channel applications. The process built into the platform employs a “Design once and Deploy everywhere” capability. Screens automatically adapt to the user’s device type and screen size, tailoring the experience to them. This eliminates a tremendous amount of development and testing to ensure maintenance updates are supported on various devices and sizes, allowing the team to focus on other areas, thus saving time and reducing cost across all UI channels including mobile and social.
System Reengineering
For system reengineering efforts teams typically focus on building processes into specifications and then implementing those into the system. Even among the most efficient software teams this identification and implementation phase often becomes chaotic and much time is spent on validating and tracking these processes through configuration management and version control. PEGA has incorporated features into the BPM platform where Instead of creating many processes to meet various situations, you create one process that is automatically tailored to each situation, reducing time to delivery and once again the cost of maintenance. The Pega Situational Layer Cake™ automatically specializes processes to match a current situation, adjusting the solution by any number of dimensions, such as customer type, product, channel, department, geography, language and time, all of this while providing reusable functional logic for adaption to other requirements when needed. Pega efficiently delivers repeatable, differentiated solutions by first capturing those policies and procedures that are common and shared, and then specializing them to meet the diverse needs of the business solution being addressed.
Maintenance Workflow Management
The PEGA BPM platform greatly assists organizations automate work, handling, receiving, routing and reporting across multiple channels and organizational silos. The Adaptive Decision Management features allow business users to leverage big data for intelligent business operations that adapt and improve in real time and goes beyond workflow to retrieval of relevant data and decisions. These are key factors that focus activity on the solution by business stakeholders who can act independently of software engineers and not require specialized data views and reports since they can view these on their own. Case Lifecycle Management features, within the platform organize work by goals, stages, and steps instead of complex processes and transactions, which allow greater understanding and comprehension among stakeholders and leads to faster identification of modification requirements and implementation.
Conclusion – Pega Reduces Lifecycle Costs for System Maintenance
The PEGA BPM platform was created to reduce time-to-delivery, optimization of system implementation activity using an Agile methodology, automation, business process capture, code and process reuse, resource optimization, and system sustainment. It certainly delivers on all fronts. What is especially encouraging is the positive impact this platform is going to have on modernization efforts, particularly for Government organizations, for converting long-standing legacy systems and maintaining them going forward. The IT industry is persistently evolving to new platforms to lower costs of development and sustainment, while keeping the functionality we’ve had in place. We must transition to smarter, faster, and innovative ways of conducting business and when necessary, re-engineer to move forward. I believe the professionals in our industry are up to the challenge, and if armed with the right tools, will succeed! The PEGA BPM platform provides those tools.
If you would like to learn more about using the Pega BPM platform to modernize your enterprise for low cost on-going maintenance, please contact us.