In this 34’00” podcast episode, MWD Research Director Neil Ward-Dutton talks to Adrian Blair, Head of Professional Services and ICT at business process outsourcing provider Vangent about its use of BPM technology and techniques at UK local government authority London Borough of Southwark.

Vangent has used BPM technology and techniques as an integral part of an innovative customer service offering to London Borough of Southwark residents called OneTouch. OneTouch enables customer service representatives to proactively assist residents with complex service requests and issues, and is delivered seamlessly across multiple channels – leading to a huge improvement in reported customer satisfaction levels.

This podcast is the audio portion of an interview that MWD conducted as part of its online, on-demand event “Reinventing customer experiences with BPM”, which is sponsored by Pegasystems, Appian, Global 360 and Nimbus Partners. You can find more content on this topic at the event website: http://www.mwdadvisors.com/events/bpmcxi/.

In this 29’26” podcast episode, MWD Research Director Neil Ward-Dutton talks to Paul O’Neill, Head of IT and New Developments at Irish Life Corporate Business about the company’s BPM initiative.

Irish Life Corporate Business has used BPM technology and techniques to make significant improvements in its customer service processes, with major productivity uplifts as well as big improvements in reported customer satisfaction levels.

This podcast is the audio portion of an interview that MWD conducted as part of its online, on-demand event “Reinventing customer experiences with BPM”, which is sponsored by Pegasystems, Appian, Global 360 and Nimbus Partners. You can find more content on this topic at the event website: http://www.mwdadvisors.com/events/bpmcxi/.

In this 35’15” podcast episode, MWD Research Director Neil Ward-Dutton talks to Paul Swinson, Programme Manager, and Niki Quick, IT BPM Manager at mortgage servicing provider HML about the company’s BPM initiative.

HML has used BPM technology and techniques to significantly improve the efficiency and quality of the credit management processes it operates on the behalf of multiple financial institution clients.

This podcast is the audio portion of an interview that MWD conducted as part of its online, on-demand event “Reinventing customer experiences with BPM”, which is sponsored by Pegasystems, Appian, Global 360 and Nimbus Partners. You can find more content on this topic at the event website: http://www.mwdadvisors.com/events/bpmcxi/.

In this 33’29” podcast episode, MWD Research Director Neil Ward-Dutton talks to Chris Jones, Head of Business Operations at leading technology retailer Carphone Warehouse about the company’s ‘How2’ initiative.

Carphone Warehouse has used BPM technology and techniques to create a knowledge sharing tool for use by sales staff in its retail stores. How2 provides an interactive reference guide for sales staff and ensure that the customer experience is consistently excellent.

This podcast is the audio portion of an interview that MWD conducted as part of its online, on-demand event “Reinventing customer experiences with BPM”, which is sponsored by Pegasystems, Appian, Global 360 and Nimbus Partners. You can find more content on this topic at the event website: http://www.mwdadvisors.com/events/bpmcxi/.

In this 29’23” podcast episode, MWD Research Director Neil Ward-Dutton talks to Matt Brook, Head of Infrastructure at Pinnacle People about Pinnacle People’s BPM initiative.

Pinnacle People has used BPM technology and techniques to create an operating platform for the company that helps ensure Pinnacle People is able to deliver – and demonstrate – service excellence and continuous improvement in helping the unemployed in the UK back to work.

This podcast is the audio portion of an interview that MWD conducted as part of its online, on-demand event “Reinventing customer experiences with BPM”, which is sponsored by Pegasystems, Appian, Global 360 and Nimbus Partners. You can find more content on this topic at the event website: http://www.mwdadvisors.com/events/bpmcxi/.

This is the sixth in our Software Delivery InFocus series of podcast episodes, starring Bola Rotibi - the Principal Analyst of MWD's Software Delivery competency area. In this episode, she explores the issue of software security - and how security can be "baked in" to applications during the development process - with guests John Colley (EMEA Managing Director for (ISC)²) and Alessandro Moretti (Executive Director of IT Security Risk at UBS Investment Bank).

In today's environment, security is a precious commodity that influences at multiple levels – from organisational to national and international concerns. We are now in an age where communications, online connections and software technology have broadened the reach of our social and business interactions, and have enabled new types of software applications to emerge. With the rise of Internet usage, workforce mobility, use of mobile devices and the pervasiveness of software applications in all aspects of our modern life, software security becomes a top line consideration that impacts both the safety of software and the ability to prevent cybercrime. Ultimately, delivery of secure software code should be as much a software quality focus as is the delivery of core functionality.

This is the fifth in our Software Delivery InFocus series of podcast episodes, starring Bola Rotibi - the Principal Analyst of MWD's Software Delivery competency area. In this episode, she explores the emerging topic of Software Product Lines with guests James Cezo of Lockheed Martin and Dale Churchett of HomeAway (a leading vacation rentals company).

The concept of Software Product Lines (SPL) is designed to help organisations identify and manage variation and commonality in software deliverry - so that it's possible to efficiently deliver multiple variations of a software product or service, each of which shares common elements.

Here, Bola talks to her guests about the concept of SPL; what each company is doing with SPL and how they're making SPL work for them; and what the main challenges that they've each experienced in implementing SPL.

This is the fourth in our Software Delivery InFocus series of podcast episodes, starring Bola Rotibi - the Principal Analyst of MWD's Software Delivery competency area. In this episode, she discusses the thorny issue of software quality. This is something the IT industry has talked about for decades - so why is it still so patchy? Bola's guests are Madelyn Bryant McIntire, Principal Group Manager, PQO Product Quality Management, Microsoft; and Justin Spencer, Development Manager at Lend Lease (a large publicly listed international property group). Producing quality software code is undoubtedly a desired goal of any software delivery team - irrespective of whether the delivered application is for commercial sale or internal business use. Software quality is regularly placed in the top five demand requirements of the software delivery team, yet the quality of software is regularly highlighted as a major failure point and the basis for much end user dissatisfaction. Here, Bola talks to her guests about the main points of failure in software delivery processes; the actions that Microsoft and Lend Lease take to improve the quality of delivered software in a business-driven environment; where the next challenges will come from; and what tools suppliers could do better.

This is the third in our Software Delivery InFocus series of podcast episodes, starring Bola Rotibi - the Principal Analyst of MWD's Software Delivery competency area. In this episode, she discusses the opportunities and challenges associated with using cloud-based software development services. Bola's guest is Debbie Ashton, Product Director for CODA - a provider of both on-premise and SaaS-hosted financial management applications.

Although there is a lot of hype surrounding the concept of "cloud computing", there also appears to be real value to be gained in some usage scenarios. The obvious financial benefit of renting software service (being able to remove up-front capital expenditure and instead account for software as an operating expense) is coupled with the scalability that's possible (you can pay as you go, and pay as you grow) and together it looks like cloud-based offerings will be especially attractive in the tougher economic climate that nearly all of us look likely to be experiencing for quite a while. Many organisations today are tempted to think only of the quick advantages of Cloud – partly as a result of the hype coming from the vendor community. However, whilst the potential and advantages are well documented and clear for people to see, the disadvantages or the challenges of use are not. In this podcast we look specifically at the challenges of developing applications for delivery from cloud-based software platforms. What practices if any should organisations take on board in developing applications and solutions using cloud-based development services? What processes and methods should organisations be putting into practice to get the most out of cloud development services?

As with all the episodes in this podcast series, we've also published a companion report which summarises the discussion and "key takeaways". You can find it here, and it's free to download for all MWD's Guest Pass research subscribers (joining is free).

Following the first Software Delivery InFocus podcast which we published in September, October sees Bola Rotibi's second podcast episode, in which she discusses a series of questions focused on the topic of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM). Her guests are John Leegte (ICT Architect at the Dutch Tax and Customs department, Belastingdienst) and Steve Jones (Head of SOA and SaaS for Capgemini’s global outsourcing business).

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is a topical subject that has garnered significant column inches in recent months, as many of the leading players in the market have launched new versions of their ALM solutions, and make strategic announcements concerning future directions and customer services and support. Over the last few months we have either heard about or seen previews of products from the likes of Borland, Compuware, HP, IBM, Microsoft, MKS, Polarion and Serena, to name but a few. Software is seen by many organisations as a key enabler of business value - whether that be through improving operational efficiency, competitive differentiation or business/ product innovation. With this in mind, an ad hoc approach to software application lifecycle management cannot provide the predictability, visibility and traceability that organisations require of a process that has such a significant impact on the balance sheet. So - how relevant and applicable is ALM now and in the future, particularly in light of the above challenges?

The episode is slightly longer than normal (clocking in at 41'55"). There was so much good material in the conversation, we didn't want to cut anything!

As with all the episodes in this podcast series, we've also published a companion report which summarises the discussion and "key takeaways". You can find it here, and it's free to download for all MWD's Guest Pass research subscribers (joining is free).