In the last post, “The Efficiencies of Flattening”, we explored how technological advances in computing resulted in organizations adopting enterprise software.  As the technology matured, the efficiencies of standardization were not fully realized until the standardization became global.  Furthermore, organizational flattening breaks down the barriers between functional disciplines, requiring multi-disciplinary collaboration.  The collaboration results in more data and stakeholders, creating the business need to efficiently capture and manage data from multiple origination channels in one enterprise solution.

For enterprise incident reporting and case management software, origination channels can include collaborative users, ethics hotline solutions, supply chain partners or other third-party systems that originate case records.  Methods of origination most often include configurable web forms, application programming interface connections and e-mail-to-case functions.

With the increase in origination channels, data volume increases making efficient management paramount.  Business process automation engines enable efficient data management, and configurable engines empower business users by allowing them to control the automation.  For example, an organization’s ethics hotline provider passes a "Conflict of Interest" report to the case management software.  Record data shows the caller works out of Los Angeles.  In addition, the caller reports that management is involved in the conflict of interest.  When created, a workflow routes the case to the ethics generalist responsible for Los Angeles and auto-collaborates the designated human resources investigator.  The full audit trail is transferred, and the collaborators are empowered to investigate. 

When business users are freed to do their job rather than manage a process, the end result is tighter service levels, increased productivity and decreased head count.  At the same time, increased origination channels increase the likelihood that events posing a risk to the organization are reported.  The end result is a positive impact for the bottom line.