Companies vying in the same market can be distinguished by the manner in which they carry out their business operations, be it the way they assess the market, build or package a product or the way they reach out to their customers.

In other words, the processes that the company adopts make them what they are. Thousands of these processes interact with each other, the people and the environment to give the business operation its identity.

With technological progress (and hence changes) occurring by the minute, the success of IT companies is fast depending on adaptation. The advent of each change forces companies to restructure their business processes to accommodate the latest technology/ trend.

Success is related to how smartly you manage your business process. This is where Business Process Management (BPM) tools enter the scene.

Companies like IBM solve the problem at a higher level by coupling BPM with their Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions. Within the context of ECM, these document-centric BPM tools help deliver the right information at the right time, thus accelerating the pace and improving the quality of decisions and processes.

FileNet  is IBM's Business Process Manager that interfaces between people and systems to create and manage processes that are up-to-date in content and are human-intensive. Thanks to its early foray into business processes, FileNet has been managing business processes long enough to be able to produce optimal solutions in a dynamic environment.

Information within a content management system (even the previously unstructured ones) is readily available. FileNet interacts with content management tool and uses its comprehensive process management features to analyse, simulate and design processes that enhance productivity and assist in decision making.

Components of FileNet  are:

IBM FileNet Process Analyzer

The process analyzer in FileNet deals with interpreting data within the ECM and delivering useful data that can add value to the business.

FileNet's user-defined fields give flexibility to select and specify workflow fields that should appear in reports. It provides easy- to-use reports in familiar formats based on Microsoft Excel thus doing away with the training required for traditional reporting packages. It is compatible with other Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) tools and also enables specialised reports based on calculations of different OLAP data.

IBM FileNet Process Simulator

FileNet's Process Simulator helps create virtual business scenarios and deploy processes to get in-depth understanding of the consequences of the processes, thereby enabling improvements and optimisations.

Process simulation helps retain the integrity of new process models by speeding up their deployment in an organisation. It reduces risk in mission-critical processes by creating/offering alternate optimal options prior to deployment.

IBM FileNet Process Designer

FileNet's Process Designer is a graphical web-based user interface that helps  design and build processes.

Through the cyclic use of Process Analyzer, Simulator and Designers, organisations can continually tune their business processes, ensuring optimal utilization of tools at all times.