IMDM enables real-time processing of transactions to detect fraud by maintaining all data in-memory. This results in faster detection of fraud and faster action to eliminate fraud losses. IMDM easily integrates with different applications to manage several types of telecom fraud:

1. Toll Fraud or Compromised PBX/Voicemail Systems Fraud

Compromising a PBX/Voicemail system to call toll numbers is the top fraud loss category. Within minutes operators can lose hundreds of thousands of dollars by calling toll numbers that charge $5/minute or higher. IMDM allows analyzing call detail records (CDRs) in real time using a dynamic set of rules to minimize & eliminate this type of fraud.

2. Bypass Fraud

Bypass fraud manifests many different forms but essentially involves unauthorized traffic in an operator’s network. This can be difficult to detect but IMDM makes it easier by maintaining all real-time transactions in-memory to review the source of the transactions, the destination number, the cost of the call, etc. IMDM holds streaming data in-memory to prevent a denial-of-service attack that could have led to an operator’s network becoming totally unresponsive to their customers.

3. Credit Card Fraud

Telecom organizations get hit with several different kinds of credit card fraud related to charge backs, returned checks, card holder not present, etc. IMDM enables maintaining real-time and historical transactions in-memory to quickly analyze the root cause and prevent fraud. Leading credit card organizations are already using IMDM solutions to manage their fraud.

What’s been the impact of fraud on your organization? Could IMDM solutions be an option for you?

(This blog was originally written on the Real-Time Big Data Blog and has been republished on Reality Check)

The post Eliminate Telecom Fraud using In-Memory Data Management appeared first on Reality Check.

With the release of ARIS 9.0 only weeks away, I thought it would be timely to highlight some customer successes that exemplify the power of process improvement. If your organization has similar complexities and isn’t quite sure what approach might work, reference these example as a possible solution indicator.

German Ministry of Defense: Business Process Management in Big Organizations

The Bundeswehr is a very large organization with more than 190,000 employees. This includes men and women in uniform serving in the armed services and organizational departments. Furthermore, there are approximately 125,000 members of staff working as a civilian labor force, mainly in the armed forces administration and in support areas. The existing application landscape is rather complex and consists of more than 1200 applications that have to be converted to a single integrated solution based on standard SAP software.

The German military chose to implement standardized software based on processes more than ten years ago. This marked the beginning of a comprehensive evaluation of nearly all its business processes using ARIS. Process models today depict not only the work flows related to IT implementation, but also illustrate the relevant departments by way of end-to-end target processes.

Challenges

• Process standardization
• Process adjustment
• Integrated IT- landscape of administrative and logistical systems
• Removal of legacy system by 2013

Solution

• Concept and realization of SAP- reference based process models and value-added chains
• Implementation, test and rollout for targeted processes based on SAP
• Migration/ redemption of applications and data
• Consulting services needed to support the project

The initiative has the objective to move the existing IT islands to an integrated Standard Application Software Product Family – this is also the name of the project: SASPF. Here you see the basic concept of SASPF.

Lessons Learned

• External support for complex rollout-projects recommended
• Quality of Master Data is critical
• User-Care (User-Help-Desk, Advisor) is important
• Change management must be a management discipline
• Standardization and uniform guidelines is needed
• Effective support from general management

Deutsche Telekom: Methodological Approach to Business and IT Transformation Programs

Deutsche Telekom set out to radically reduce ERP systems and simplify the associated business processes in each subsidiary. This project was steered from the beginning with strong business sponsorships for a process-driven approach and for shared IT and business goals. Deutsche Telekom chose ARIS for process documentation and standardization.

Challenges

• Different processes / IT in each country
• Different customer experiences & lack of flexibility due to complex processes
• Different data models, manual reports
• Partly manual and individual processes
• Many ERP systems

Objectives

• Cross country harmony / standardized processes / IT
• Improve unified customer experience and increase service performance
• Improve cost structure and reduce time-to-market
• Innovation leadership in individual markets and partners
• One common data model, Single Point of Truth for KPIs
• Standardize processes and create one ERP IT landscape
• Create easier implementation of organizational changes

Deutsche Telekom´s overall process  improvement Lifecycle consists of 4 phases: Define, Assemble, Execute and Control. In the first two steps, process guidance as a standardized approach was established:

• Early commitment from the business for results
• Structured and committed requirements along with business processes
• Process model serves as a binding basis (template) for roll out in all countries

The next step is to pilot an integrated BPM tool chain in the laboratory. The objectives is to establish an agility layer for end-to-end processes, to monitor process performance with Process Intelligence and to analyze process and service performance according to KPIs.

Results

• Degree of process standardization: more than 80%
• Development of a group-wide ERP data model and process for maintenance
• Group-wide ERP IT Architecture developed
• Enterprise-wide portal concept developed

Lessons Learned (Dos and Don’ts)

Dos:

• Involve the business early
• Create a common criteria for standardization of measurement
• Create translation between business process view and IT standardization view
• Involve the national companies and C level support early

Don´ts:

• Use dogma method
• Use unaligned methodical decisions for single projects
• Use IT has the lead in the early phases (conceptual design)
• Have extensive tool discussions

To conclude with a quote from the project sponsor: Dr. Karsten Schweichhart, Vice President Group Enterprise Architecture / Deutsche Telekom AG: “On the long and exhausting way towards project success, it is strongly recommended that Business Architecture and IT Architecture share the driver seat in an aligned manner. We will never drive alone!”

Cable & Wireless: From Process Infancy to Enterprise BPM

Process Excellence is at the core of Cable & Wireless’s vision to be the mission-critical communications integrator. They elevated BPM from IT to a more strategic business level in the organization, and shared their experiences going from process infancy to Process Excellence. This customer story is interesting because of how Enterprise BPM factors into their plans, and what lessons they learned for strategic, transformational BPM programs.

Cable & Wireless simplifies process excellence to 5 components:

1. End-to-end process model: A single process asset with documentation standards. All processes housed in a central repository.
2. Process ownership: Every process has an owner who is held accountable for the measurement, control & outputs of this process.
3. Process control: All processes are held under a change control method balanced between central authority and local delivery.
4. Process measurement: Clearly defined efficiency & effectiveness measures are tracked for every process.
5. Performance improvement: A consistent and continuous improvement methodology to prioritize and execute a portfolio of inter- and intra-process improvement projects.

Cable & Wireless signed off on an investment in an enterprise-wide deployment of webMethods BPMS to implement and improve their critical processes based on these criterias:

• Criteria 1: Generate a positive ROI à Result: >£1M annualised hard benefits
• Criteria 2: Demonstrated demand beyond Quick Start à Result: 2 qualified projects – one from a quick start sponsor
• Criteria 3: Effective cross functional engagement during test drive à Result: IT BPMS Team and Process Excellence practice joined forces to deliver to internal customers

Best Practices

• Process Excellence is about the balance between effective process design, management and improvement
• Don’t lose focus of the two key Process Performers: People (owners & operators) & Technology (BPMS, Data, Development)
• BPMS is not about building new capabilities or installing a new IT platform – it is all about improving business performance
• BPMS may be an IT platform but it is NOT solely an IT initiative
• Agile Process – is not simply IT Agile Development it is about Rapid (governed) change from the business

To conclude with quote from the project sponsor, Mark Zirbser, Head of Operational Excellence at Cable & Wireless Worldwide: “Process Excellence is all about balancing effective process management on a daily basis with a drive for the improvement of process effectiveness & efficiency.”

You can see from these customer successes, process improvement solves many challenges and delivers real process improvement to all kinds of organizations. How has process improvement helped your organization? Did it help your organization deliver high quality IT solutions to meet business demands?

The post How Organizations Achieve Real Process Improvement appeared first on Reality Check.

As a result, more and more online gaming companies are turning to in-memory computing. Ditching disk-bound databases, they’re storing game objects and event data in ultra-fast RAM because — thanks to plummeting RAM prices — there’s no longer an excuse for forcing players to endure the annoyance of waiting for games to talk to a traditional database. In fact, at Terracotta, we’re seeing online gaming companies use BigMemory, our flagship in-memory data  solution, to address three of their biggest Big Data challenges:

1. Better, faster gameplay: Great games personalize their experiences based on a player’s preferences and gaming history. They also deliver complex interactions between the player, the environment, and other players. Top game makers are now using BigMemory to manage the exploding volume of data associated with these objects in machine memory, virtually eliminating slow disk interactions and greatly improving performance.

2. More realistic graphics: Online game makers traditionally relied on caching to deliver in-game graphics. Unfortunately, caching keeps only a small subset of a game’s landscape in memory to be served up quickly. Gaming companies have turned to BigMemory to store ALL of their maps and frames — terabytes of data — in memory for instant access. The result is dynamic frame generation based on events and player actions, adding freshness and excitement each time a game is played. .

3. Platform portability (with Java): Java is attractive to game makers because it’s easily ported to any JVM-supported OS, but Java has not traditionally been the preferred choice for gaming engines due to performance concerns, especially around garbage collection. With BigMemory, garbage collection performance problems are a thing of the past, and game makers can finally take full advantage of Java’s ubiquity. An in-memory, Java-based development environment greatly reduces development costs while opening up new revenue streams on previously unsupported platforms.

Terracotta’s flagship in-memory data solution, BigMemory, has been successfully deployed by several global online gaming companies to deliver seamless gaming experiences with lightning-fast performance. If you think your game and/or gaming platform might benefit from in-memory technology, please send me a note at gagan@terracotta.org or write a comment below. Also, check out this video — and beware: When you start using BigMemory, it can drive competitors crazy!

The post 3 Ways Online Gaming Scores with In-Memory Computing (and a cute video) appeared first on Reality Check.

In its report “In-memory Computing: Lifting the Burden of Big Data,” Aberdeen arrived at some pretty exciting conclusions about the link between in-memory computing and Big Data success. The report examined 196 organizations worldwide that are currently dealing with Big Data, of which 33 reported implementing in-memory computing solutions. These companies represent a large cross-section of industries and sizes, and deal with business data ranging from a handful of terabytes to multiple petabytes. In aggregate, the organizations that implemented in-memory computing were able to process over 3x the data at over 100x the speed versus organizations that had not done so. Interestingly, overall employee satisfaction at these organizations also increased, contributing to better business growth and results.

At Terracotta, we have observed similar results first-hand at organizations that have implemented our own in-memory solutions. The key differences between the report’s data set and ours is that our deployments have been even more varied (in terms of enterprise size and breadth of verticals) and have typically been completed in 60 to 90 days.

With data growth accelerating, in-memory computing is attracting increased attention as a key strategy for making the most of Big Data. To learn more, download Aberdeen’s report.

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