CorasWorks® rPrograms™

Enterprise-wide Program Management Application

rPrograms Business Scenarios

CorasWorks is continually working with its more than 900 customers to understand the key applications that are most valuable to a company and its employees, and most suited to a collaborative platform.  rPrograms is a direct result of this work.  In rPrograms, we have designed a product that addresses the need for enterprise-wide, distributed, cross-functional, “program” management.  It is designed to be very flexible and to be easily customized to address many different business scenarios.  The following rPrograms Business Scenarios provide some examples of the types of business scenarios rPrograms can address.

Process Improvements for Manufacturers
Process improvement is a critical part of creating business value for manufacturers.  The goal is to make process improvement programmatic, visible, and manageable.  Using rPrograms, you can have one or more “programs” that may represent a product, a technology, or a division.  Each program has various projects associated with it, each centered on a specific improvement idea.  These ideas can then be managed centrally, providing individuals at all stages of the improvement life cycle access and visibility.

R&D Product Concepts for Consumer Products
A critical driver of value for consumer product companies is generating, considering, tracking, and managing new ideas.  The goal of such a process is to capture the ideas from across the organization, provide the means for people across the organization to collaborate on the ideas, and provide visibility and structure for managing the entire end-to-end process.  In this scenario, each product would be a “program” and the new ideas associated with that product would be managed as part of that program.  Leveraging rPrograms, companies create an enterprise-wide process to manage these R&D product concepts from inception through development and ultimately to implementation.

Non-profit Grant Management
Many non-profit organizations award and administer grants.  Typically, these grants fall under a variety of areas or programs, with each area or program containing many individual grants.  Administering these individual grants can be a tedious and burdensome task, and is oftentimes very inefficient.  rPrograms provides an environment where many of the tasks and activities associated with grant administration can be centralized and streamlined, resulting in better performance of both the grantor and the grantee.  Using rPrograms, non-profits can create an end-to-end global, distributed grant management system, providing for visibility, accessibility, and accountability at all stages of the grant life cycle.  rPrograms allows you to provide a federated, low cost environment that literally covers the globe.

IT Department Program Management
IT Departments often have large programs or initiatives that involve many different sub-projects and require centralized coordination and management.  In larger organizations, the challenge is greater as an infrastructure initiative may cross departmental, division, or corporate boundaries.  Using rPrograms, IT Departments can manage such programs centrally, but allow the work to be performed locally, with real-time visibility.  All of the different offices, sites, and teams, including external contractors, can be integrated into the program to ensure visibility and accountability.

Strategic Goals/Objectives Management
Executives typically establish annual goals and objectives for their organization.  These goals cut across products, departments, divisions, and companies.  Once defined and assigned, the challenge is initiating, monitoring, and managing to the specific goals and objectives.  Within rPrograms, each corporate goal is a “program” and each of the objectives related to that goal can be managed as “projects” underneath the goal.  Establishing a structure such as this gives individuals not only a “real-time work environment” for each objective, but also gives individuals at all levels of the corporation visibility and access to the specific activities required to achieve the objectives and the higher-level goals.

Quality Management
Certain organizations may work on projects that are subject to quality requirements, such as ISO 9000 or the Capabilities Maturity Model (CMM).  To be successful and to achieve the desired certifications, there are a variety of requirements that must be addressed and met, such as defined processes, governance, and auditing.  rPrograms provides a complete system for addressing and satisfying these requirements.  And it’s more than just a “check the box” system.  rPrograms helps ensure the quality and integrity of the work itself, not just the process.   It provides the balance you need to meet the central requirements without suffocating or sacrificing the work itself.  And, the progress and results are visible to all providing the necessary responsibility and accountability.

Marketing Initiative Management
Organizations often have broad marketing campaigns that cut across various departments of an organization, involve external contractors, and progress over time.  The challenge is to effectively align these efforts for the greatest effect in the market.  Using rPrograms, you can create marketing “programs” where the initiative is centrally managed, although the actual work is performed “locally.” rPrograms incorporates the internal work, with work from across the global enterprise, with extranets for vendors.  The result is real-time status and coordination of your initiative and the ability to drive the results in real time 

Corporate Initiative Management
Organizations often have corporate initiatives that cut across the enterprise.  Examples are quality programs, new products, or goals.  These types of initiatives are typically the most challenging to manage because they cut across the complete fabric of the organization.  Using rPrograms, managers and executives centrally manage these initiatives benefiting from complete visibility and transparency.  The initiative is managed centrally, yet the teams or groups that work on various projects or work efforts can work the way that best fits there needs.

Product Management for Consumer Product Companies
Consumer product companies annually must manage a number of existing or new products.  The work on each product cuts across departments as they make their way to market.  Using rPrograms, each product can be managed as a “program” with the various projects across R&D, engineering, production, marketing, sales, and other departments part of a centrally managed environment.  This provides complete, real-time visibility into each of the areas that affect the product. 

Engagement Management for Professional Services
The business of professional services organizations is to succeed with their client engagements.   In many organizations, being able to respond to or take action on issues in advance is critical to the success of the engagement.  Using rPrograms, each customer is a “program” and managers can have a comprehensive view of the engagements they are responsible for with the ability to take action and affect the results in real time.  Individual engagements can be viewed in various ways, such as by Manager, by Practice, or by Customer without having to duplicate the information about the work.  You can also provide customers with a view of the work that you are doing or integrate your environment with third-party suppliers and vendors.

Program Management for Government Agencies
Many Government Agencies organize their work by programs.  These programs cut across many parts of the organizations and often integrate external vendors and subcontractors.  Using rPrograms, agencies can centrally manage these programs with real-time visibility into the work being performed across the organization or outside.  The flexibility of rPrograms, allows agencies to incorporate large and small vendors into the programs with minimal costs to the agency or the vendor.  This process ensures the visibility that is necessary to drive accountability across the program and the real-time work environment necessary to drive the best results.

Facility Maintenance for Utilities
Utilities have multiple maintenance programs that are comprised of many activities and “projects.”  The challenge is to see in real-time the progress and status of these maintenance programs.  Using rPrograms, you can address this need and enable yourself to have central management over all of the different types of maintenance programs within your utility.

IT Department Project Portfolio Management
A significant part of the work of most IT departments is “project-oriented.”   Typically, they have tools to plan the work.  The challenge is to centrally manage the portfolio of projects.  With rPrograms, you can have a real-time, interactive application that drives real results.  Projects are approved and then progress is tracked and accessed with real-time visibility.  This drives responsibility and accountability – which drives improved results.  No projects get buried and management is able to use the application to take action and drive the results.