A Batch of Lombardi News

March 6, 2009

A bunch of cool Lombardi-related news bits came out last week.   I’ve been a bit slow on the uptake so I thought I’d put them together into one entry.

Lombardi Announces ’08 Results

A cause for celebration!

A cause for celebration!

Last week we announced results for last year (our fiscal and calendar years are the same).  It was our best year yet and particularly cool was that fact that our software sales grew 47% year over year.

My favorite quote from the release was from our president Phil Gilbert,  “[customers] need to lose fat while building muscle. Lombardi helps our customers do both.”

And of course I’m biased but my favorite bullet from our release was:

  • SaaS Adoption: Surpassed 4,500 companies using Lombardi Blueprint, an on-demand process-documentation tool that is used to collaboratively map an organization’s business processes, identify problems, and prioritize improvement opportunities, making it the most widely used Software as a Service (SaaS) BPM product.

Cap Gemini goes with Lombardi

Under the heading “with a little help from our friends” (especially the ones who are big Systems Integrators), we announced that Cap Gemini’s Business Process Outsourcing Platform “will deploy Lombardi Teamworks as the standard process framework for all of its BPOpen 2.0™ BPO managed processes and will make it available to both existing and future customers as a way to help drive further efficiencies in their businesses.” (And for those of you prefer your announcements in French, voila).  (Or Dutch).

Gartner 2009 BPMS Magic Quadrant released

And under the heading “everyone’s favorite 2×2 matrix,” Gartner released its ’09 Magic Quadrant for Business Process Management Suites.  (Man are there a lot of players in the space these days!)  Lombardi was very pleased to find itself in the leaders quadrant once again.  To see exactly where, click here.

All in all, a good week last week 🙂

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Lombardi Science Fair ’09

February 23, 2009

Last month we held our company kick off where all 200+ of our employees from all around the world gathered here in Austin for meetings to get set for the upcoming year.  One of the highlights of the three days was the 4th annual Lombardi Science Fair.

The official progarm and ballot.

The official program and ballot.

Each year, people are given a couple of weeks during work time to work on a project that extends the base platform of Blueprint or Teamworks in some cool new way.  As the official Science Fair rules state:  “Anyone at Lombardi can enter… all you have to do is think up a project, register the project on the wiki page  build the project, and show up ready to pitch your project on January 27!”

Two of the four winners, Scott and Allison and MC Phil previewing the grand prize.

Two of the four winners, Scott and Allison and MC Phil previewing the grand prize.

This year there were close to 40 projects and awards were given in three different categories as well as one project that was picked as “Best in Show.”    The winners received iPod Nanos and the Best in Show was the recipient of $1,000 in cold hard cash.  Not only that, but all of the winners will be show cased at Lombardi’s upcoming customer event, Driven.

The Fair commences.

The Fair commences.

Everyone Wins

The real cool thing for customers, Lombardi and the entrants is that a lot of these out-o’-the-box  projects find their way into the products over the coming year.

This was my first time at Science Fair and I was really impressed with, given the size of Lombardi, how elaborate the whole shebang was.  Nice way to keep innovation pumping.

Pau for now…

Craig pitching his innovation.

Craig pitching his innovation.

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Posted by Barton George

West Bend Insurance uses BPM and Process Mapping to Create New Offerings and Streamline Operations

January 14, 2009

Over the the holiday break I chatted with Stacie Kenney, a Business Process Analyst with West Bend Mutual Insurance. West Bend is located in Wisconsin and has been around since 1894.  They offer property/casualty insurance for businesses, homes, autos, and personal property through independent agencies in six states.

stacie_westbend-edited1Stacie and I discussed how she worked over the last year to help create a small commercial offering which, before BPM and process mapping, had not been practical to offer.

We also discussed the role that process mapping played in the recent IT department re-org, helping to streamline processes and breakdown silos.

West Bend Business Analyst and Blueprinter, Stacie Kenney

Take a listen:

>> My talk with Stacie (7:17): Listen (mp3) Listen (ogg)

Some of the Topics we tackle:

  • West Bend’s “Smart Business” offering and how it leverages new technologies like services, content generation tool and Teamworks.
  • Given that the “Smart Business” premiums were small, the goal was to de-complicate the process so that the agencies could set up the policy with very little time up front.
  • Before Blueprint, the BA’s leveraged Visio for flows along with a “mammoth” spec doc in Word.  The biggest issue with this approach was keeping the content in sync.
  • West Bend was drawn to Blueprint by its collaboration and document generation capabilities.
  • The “Road To Excellence” and the IT re-org, breaking down silos and centralizing the BA’s.
  • Using process mapping to document the flow of work coming into the BA group from the business, categorize it and then deliver it back on a monthly basis.

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

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