Category: Process

At the heart of current matters, the topic of company competitiveness is a very lively one. Even though companies tend to consider innovation with a costs and performance-oriented approach, it remains an essential factor of competitive differentiation. Olivier Bourrouilh, CEO of ROK Solution, a collaborative intelligence platform aiming to promote innovation and performance optimization for companies, shares his point of view on competitiveness. Hello Olivier and thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. Let’s start with a simple one: When we talk about competitiveness, what is truly at stake for companies? Olivier Bourrouilh: Today, competitiveness is about perimeters. Companies follow the logic of globalization, custom barriers are falling, and competition is fiercer than ever. Gaining a competitive edge is crucial for companies to survive in this constantly evolving environment, and all companies, SMEs and larger CAC 40 companies alike, need to integrate this concept into their organization. This advantage can be achieved with two different approaches: Cost-driven competitive advantage: Optimizing costs is an essential factor for competitiveness. If the cost for prime materials increases, so will overall expenses. Wage costs follow the same logic. In a number of cases, cost reduction cannot depend only on management. In order to decrease overall expenses, companies need to produce better and more efficiently. Processing, managing, measuring and optimizing organizations becomes essential. Innovation-driven competitive advantage: In a market environment where competition is constantly evolving, innovation is essential to gain and keep a strong competitive edge, by offering unique services, or better-performing production processes. Can you tell us about ROK Solution? ROK Solution is a Collaborative Intelligence software solution aiming to improve company competitiveness, by acting on two essential aspects: organization optimization and innovation. ROK may be one among many other business applications on the market, but unlike others, it is based on SaaS Cloud technology, which allows it to adapt better and provide more flexibility to client companies. ROK is also an integrated solution that seeks to improve, drive and manage all the existing company applications, thus breaking barriers and silos between various company departments. ROK Solution makes it easier for all business operators to integrate the solution into their system without needing any IT intervention (iBPMS approach). In other words, ROK is an integrated collaborative intelligence solution that provides both financial and technological flexibility, involving little to no change management. What makes ROK Solution so innovative? ROK Solution is innovative both as a concept, and as a technology. An innovative concept: ROK’s innovative concept provides a new approach to collaboration. Often seen only through the prism of web 2.0 tech and social networks implemented just for the sake of it, collaboration only makes sense for ROK if companies are able to model relations between individuals in an ecosystem. Modeling relations between individuals means using workflow tools on a collaborative platform (lighter client), which also needs to include BPM, BPA and VoIP tools. ROK shifts paradigms: the ability to model relations and provide business references (ROK Store) is now a prerequisite to building a successful social network. Innovative technology ROK Solution has already gained a head start on the market, and our teams have worked relentlessly on light client interfaces. As an example, ROK was one of the first solutions developed on Silverlight, at a time when Microsoft’s solution was still in its early stages. Similarly, ROK has developed a tile view interface module, similar to Windows 8’s today. Innovation is at the heart of ROK’s philosophy, down to its actual kernel. Our organic and systemic approach is present in our kernel’s patented architecture. This approach is different from all the existing IT methods, and offers unequaled performance, particularly in terms of rights management. How can ROK help companies promote innovation? Innovation can consist in sitting down by a tree and waiting for apples to fall on your head (innovation driven by randomness), or in an organized brainstorming, with collaborators of varied skills, pooling their knowledge together to meet a specific goal. Everybody brings their experience and vision to create new ideas that individuals could not have come up with alone. The main flaw in the existing collaborative solutions on the market is their lack of structure. ROK, on the contrary, allows to innovate by creating the conditions for efficient knowledge sharing, facilitating synergy and translating this knowledge (guidelines) into application components. Collective knowledge becomes collaborative, generating real value, and helping to reach competitiveness goals. Thank you Olivier for these answers. Contact ROK Solution now for a free demo of their platform. Tune in for our live web conferences on important business topics. Thank you for your attention, and see you soon!

In the current context, too many rigid IT solutions do not allow companies to adapt fast enough. It is time we gained back operational control over company processes. Processes today are the cornerstone of an organization’s performance. Modeling processes can allow to structure, organize and visually execute company activities, and efficiently manage the following aspects: Actor collaboration on extended processes Information System Management Company risk management Performance monitoring and organization optimization Competitive constraint pushes companies to favor optimization, innovation and flexibility as much as possible. In fact, the definition and management of organizations itself must rest on flexible and innovative methods that support collaboration. ROK provides a clear answer to this question and revolutionizes process management with their collaborative intelligence platform, which manages to simplify the whole procedure: Model and deploy: You can model and deploy your processes in a few clicks from Word and Excel files, or with a simple copy-and-paste. Link tasks together intuitively with your mouse or fingers on a touchscreen. Collaborate: ROK’s management tool allows you to simply execute and follow your processes as workflows. Collaborate in real time on shared processes linked to your transaction systems (SAP, Oracle, Dynamics…). Control: Thanks to our solution, you can ensure synergy between risk mapping and operational processes, and model your own auditing method, relevant indicators and aspects that need monitoring, into integrated workflows. Perform: You can precisely measure how each process performs, relay the relevant info and build target-oriented action plans to improve process efficiency. Innovate: Create and implement Corporate Social Networks that can be dynamically managed according to the relevant contexts. Switch to Collaborative Intelligence! ROK Solution provides you with the keys to success in 2013. Contact us now for an online demo!

In an environment of highly tense market conditions, it is time for companies to take initiative and gain a competitive edge to keep leading the race. Improve transversal process productivity In an environment of highly tense market conditions, it is time for companies to take initiative and gain a competitive edge to keep leading the race. Too many promises yield too few significant results. Many General Managers are starting to run out of ideas to keep their company competitive, and hesitate to promote new and daring initiatives. Projects stagnate, status quo becomes the norm and competitiveness decreases. Olivier Bourrouilh, ROK Solution CEO shares his point of view on competitive companies “for dummies”. “Competition strategies need to undergo a complete overhaul!” Drop promises, switch gears to control your company’s competitive advantage sustainably. Join our clients, switch to ROK Solution. Gain control over your operation thanks to collaboration and processes intuitively integrated into transaction systems (SAP, Oracle, Dynamics, …) Boost productivity and reduce costs in a few weeks’ time, by reorganizing collaboration between teams on all relevant company activities. Gain flexibility and harness the constant evolution of your working environment. Promote innovation through Collaborative Intelligence, lead your collaborators and partners by giving them access to knowledge and activities optimized for their relevant tasks, generating value and creating new patents. ROK Solution, acclaimed by their clients, and awarded by Microsoft Finance Innovation and Red Herring 100. ROK Solution is a Collaborative Intelligence platform with a state-of-the-art architecture, recognized as the most efficient on the market. ROK Solution has won the Microsoft Finance Innovation 2012 award and has been selected among the Red Herring Europe top 100. ROK Solution’s low service costs, easy integration and overall flexibility are decisive arguments to ensure fast return on investment: Reduction of costs and delays related to financial processes (closing, budget, management control) up to 40% Optimization of logistics and transaction times on local and global operations by 60 to 80% Improvement of internal and client services, better client satisfaction and retention Improved control over transversal processes that generate risks and inefficiency: HR, special projects, transformation, merger-acquisition-divestitures… Faster market integration for products, with no additional costs, amounting to several weeks’ worth of turnover savings Improvement of operational and administrative production potential, identification of tasks with no added value, and other ineffective processes Knowledge sharing leading to the creation of new, optimized processes and decisive patents