Hidden Giant: Ultimus, Creates Business Process Management

Photo and story by Lindsey Chester

In this installment of our Hidden Giants series, we travel down Weston Parkway to visit with Chris Adams of Ultimus.

Worldwide Headquarters on Weston Parkway

Ultimus is situated in the Weston Business Park in Cary, home of their North American headquarters. The Cary office employs a staff of 25, and over 200 work around the globe.

The business, founded in 1994 by Rashid Kahn, has always been in Cary, originally up the street a bit from their current location. Before starting Utimus, Kahn worked at Cary’s MTS, and oversaw their production floor.

He created a system”work flow” which monitored work processes so that all the players in a business can see the real time status of job completion. As each piece is done, it is entered into the system.  The next person in the chain of action knows your piece is done, and they are ready to do their part.

Business Process Management

Chris Adams is now the Vice President of North America/ Technology. I had the opportunity to meet Chris this past week in their sunny offices. I asked him what do they sell? And he explained they sell a system called Business Process Management (BPM ).

Every business conducts their day-to-day operations using processes.  Ultimus’ BPM Suite is an evolution on earlier Workflow technology which allows companies across industries to take their processes and workflows and make them smarter.  Companies in health care, consumer goods, banks, legal services, energy insurance, and the public sector all make use of Ultimus’ products.  By employing Ultimus’ BPM technologies, companies better understand how their own processes work and what resources are needed to make their processes execute more efficiently.

2000 Clients

Two thousand clients span six continents and include: Bauch and Lomb, Johnson & Johnson, Rubbermaid, Nike, DHL, Zurich, Bayer, Frito Lay, Progress Energy and Siemans.

Banks were early adopters of their BPM program. Because banks are very process-oriented, paperwork-heavy and time-constrained, they quickly realized the benefit. BPM allowed them to track the flow of loan processing so that rates could be met and deals closed in a timely fashion.

The business forecast looks rosy as more large corporations realize the value of improving their processes.

Ultimus employs an online training tool which clients can access from work or home to complete their course. The training introduces concepts for each worker’s own involvement with BPM, to do their current job through the use of the system. They don’t need to learn the whole program, just their part. He explained it is an open system, so for instance if you are adding data, others that need access to this can also see it, and add info as well – that way everyone is constantly kept up to date.

Are They Hiring?

Impressed, I asked “Are you hiring?” And if so, what type of people work here?

Chris answered that they have just a hired a marketing person, who had no previous technology experience. They hire based on the job needed. Current employees range from sales staff, to marketing professionals and professional services to handle all the front office, as well as the programmers and computer folks. See current openings at Ultimus Careers.

Cary Neighbors

Chris said they have begun an initiative to “Get to Know Our Neighbors.” He was surprised to learn recently that RailInc is up the road off Weston Parkway. He would like to see more partnership between Ultimus and other businesses in town.

As a business that has been in Cary a long time, they are ready to get out and play a larger role in the community. I’m betting you will be hearing more about this Cary-based company.

Another Hidden Giant revealed.

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Read about more interesting companies in and around Cary in the Hidden Giants series.