Analysis Process Model (APM)

This topic discusses the Analysis Process Model (APM) that is part of the Banking Process and Services offering. It presents the Analysis-level Business Process Models and documents how they assist in process reengineering or improvement initiatives, for example, a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) engagement in the banking sector.

Process Models provide banking business processes content to address areas such as business process reengineering. Process reengineering or improvement is critical for those organizations seeking operational efficiencies through increased automation, lower cost, increased customer service and enhanced regulatory compliance. In order to achieve these efficiencies, the commonality of the processing across the diverse systems and lines of business (LOB) needs to be understood so that those common elements can be re-engineered, ideally, into non-interruptible automated processes. This approach will require financial institutions to rethink their strategic vision and define solutions not in the standard product silo manner but commence to define commonality across products and systems.

The purpose of this guide is to:

  • Present the objectives, structure, scope and content of the Analysis-level Business Process Models
  • Present guidance and documentation patterns for use with the Analysis-level Business Process Models
  • Present an overview of moving from process analysis to process design on a project engagement
  • Present a detailed description of the Analysis-level Business Process Models and their interaction with other IBM assets.

This section contains essential information for those wanting to understand the principles of the Analysis-level Business Process Models in order to:

  • Fast track and optimize functional scoping
  • Fast track and optimize requirements gathering and process reengineering and improvement
  • Facilitate an understanding of processing commonality across LOB
  • Assess process content suitability for a given application and extend its scope or level of detail
  • Identify and specify reuseable service candidates and show interlock to the Integration Models (analysis and design phases of SDLC)

This publication may be used both as a guide and a reference and addresses the needs of:

  • Business Strategists

    These are individuals responsible for defining the strategies of the financial institution.

  • Business Analysts

    These are individuals responsible for the detailed analysis of subsystems and the documentation of top-down business requirements at a business level.

  • Business Object Modelers

    These are individuals responsible for defining models at the level of detail required to describe business specific needs. Specifically, those personnel involved in documenting candidate service analysis requirements in the Financial Services Business Object Model (FS-BOM)

  • Subject Matter Experts

    These are individuals who have expert knowledge in a particular area of the business and provide detailed business information on a project.

  • Architects

    These are individuals who are responsible for the global information architecture of a project, and coordinate subprojects derived from the global application architecture and ensure integrated functioning of the total architecture.

  • Application Designers

    These are individuals responsible for putting mechanisms in place to ensure that the physical system maps correctly to logical business requirements.

  • Project Managers

    These are individuals responsible for planning, organizing, directing, and managing the activities of a project or subproject.

This topic explains the high level objectives of the Business Process Models in the banking sector, presenting the rationale behind its scope, content and structure.

Business Process Models are a subset of the overall offering by IBM's Industry Models Group and are the result of years of experience modeling the financial services industry.

The BPS models relate directly to the banking sector and is the primary focus of discussion in this document. The process models support those organizations that want to optimize their process reengineering or process improvement phase of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), thereby supporting operational efficiencies within their organization.

The Banking Business Process and Service Models

The Foundation Models assist in the definition of functional and data scoping and in the identification of the dependencies between individual projects that may otherwise have been overlooked. In addition the Foundation Models provide the basis on which all other Industry Models offerings are built.

The functional classifications of the Financial Services Function Model (FSFM) help strategize the pain points within the organization and, most importantly, define the project scope, for example, defining the boundaries for a payments project. In addition, the FSFM provides the basis for further specification of business requirements, such as the process catalogs within the business process models and the business components of the Financial Services Interface Design Model (FS-IDM).

The data classifications of the Financial Services Data Model (FSDM) provide the business concept definitions upon which information flows are documented in the process models. In addition, the FSDM provide the business concept definitions upon which the Unified Model Language (UML) class structures of the Financial Services Business Object Model (FS-BOM) and FS-IDM are based.

The activity, trigger and verb definitions of the Financial Services Workflow Model (FSWM) provide the standards that support the definition of the business process model and allow the identification of reusable units of work across the enterprise.

The Business Process Model plays a critical role in the definition of a Service Based Architecture. It is only through analysis of the processes that support the operations of a financial institution that the service candidates that will best support those processes can be identified. Gaining a comprehensive understanding of the duplication of processing efforts across different products and LOB is the key to successful implementation of transformation strategies. This duplication of effort is becoming more evident in an era where financial organizations are seeking to gain market share through mergers and acquisitions. If this duplication of effort can be identified, then technology can align with business to provide a more customer focused set of products and services delivered in a timelier, more cost efficient and effective manner.

The primary benefits of the Banking Process Model is to provide a generic and flexible model facilitating process improvement across the enterprise, specifically in the context of the financial services' industry. The models can be further used for a number of different objectives, for example, business transformation, regulatory alignment or process automation.