Systems for Interorganizational Business Process Management

2011 ◽  
pp. 403-425
Author(s):  
Paul Grefen
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Business Process Management ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Conceptual Background ◽  
Service Oriented ◽  
Automated Support

This chapter is devoted to automated support for interorganizational business process management, that is, formation and enactment of business processes that span multiple autonomous organizations. A treatment of intra- and interorganizational business processes is included to provide a conceptual background. It describes a number of research approaches in this area, including the context of these approaches and the design of the systems proposed by them. The approaches are described from early developments in the field relying on dedicated technology to current designs based on standardized technology from the service-oriented context. The chapter thereby provides an overview of developments in the area of interorganizational business process management.

scholarly journals Advanced Business Process Management in Networked E-Business Scenarios

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 70-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Grefen ◽  
Oktay Turetken
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Business Process Management ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Business Networks ◽  
It Alignment ◽  
Conceptual Background ◽  
Tightly Coupled ◽  
Service Oriented ◽  
Automated Support

In the modern economy, we see a shift towards networked business scenarios. In many contemporary situations, the operation of multiple organizations is tightly coupled in collaborative business networks. To allow this tightly coupled collaboration, business process management (BPM) in these collaborative networks is becoming increasingly important. We discuss automated support for this networked BPM: automated means to manage business processes that span multiple autonomous organizations - thereby combining aspects of process management and e-business. We first provide a conceptual background for networked BPM. We describe a number of research approaches in this area, ranging from early developments to contemporary designs in a service-oriented context. This provides an overview of developments in which we observe several major trends. Firstly, we see a development from support for static business processes to support for highly dynamic processes. Secondly, we see how approaches move from addressing simple business collaboration networks to addressing complex networks. Thirdly, we find a move from the use of dedicated information technology to the use of standard technology. Finally, we observe that the BPM research efforts move through time from pushing new BPM technology into application domains to using BPM to realize business-IT alignment in application contexts.

scholarly journals Advanced Business Process Management in Networked E-Business Scenarios

2020 ◽  
pp. 638-675
Author(s):  
Paul Grefen ◽  
Oktay Turetken
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Business Process Management ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Business Networks ◽  
It Alignment ◽  
Conceptual Background ◽  
Tightly Coupled ◽  
Service Oriented ◽  
Automated Support

In the modern economy, we see a shift towards networked business scenarios. In many contemporary situations, the operation of multiple organizations is tightly coupled in collaborative business networks. To allow this tightly coupled collaboration, business process management (BPM) in these collaborative networks is becoming increasingly important. We discuss automated support for this networked BPM: automated means to manage business processes that span multiple autonomous organizations - thereby combining aspects of process management and e-business. We first provide a conceptual background for networked BPM. We describe a number of research approaches in this area, ranging from early developments to contemporary designs in a service-oriented context. This provides an overview of developments in which we observe several major trends. Firstly, we see a development from support for static business processes to support for highly dynamic processes. Secondly, we see how approaches move from addressing simple business collaboration networks to addressing complex networks. Thirdly, we find a move from the use of dedicated information technology to the use of standard technology. Finally, we observe that the BPM research efforts move through time from pushing new BPM technology into application domains to using BPM to realize business-IT alignment in application contexts.

scholarly journals Networked Business Process Management

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 54-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Grefen
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Business Process Management ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Dynamic Networks ◽  
Business Networks ◽  
Business Organizations ◽  
It Alignment ◽  
Conceptual Background ◽  
Automated Support

In the current economy, a shift can be seen from stand-alone business organizations to networks of tightly collaborating business organizations. To allow this tight collaboration, business process management in these collaborative networks is becoming increasingly important. This paper discusses automated support for this networked business process management: automated means to manage business processes that span multiple autonomous organizations. The author starts this paper with a treatment of intra- and inter-organizational business processes to provide a conceptual background for business process management in business networks. The author describes a number of research approaches in this area, including the context of these approaches and the architectures of the automated systems proposed by them. The approaches are described from early developments in the field relying on dedicated technology to current designs based on standardized technology in a service-oriented context. The paper thereby provides an overview of developments in the area of inter-organizational business process management in the spectrum from simple, static business networks to complex, dynamic networks. The author observes that the described BPM research efforts move from pushing new BPM technology into application domains to using BPM to realize business-IT alignment in complex application contexts.

Design and Realisation of Scalable Business Process Management Systems for Deployment in the Cloud

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Chun Ouyang ◽  
Michael Adams ◽  
Arthur H. M. Ter Hofstede ◽  
Yang Yu
Keyword(s):  
Load Balancing ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Business Process Management ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Management Systems ◽  
User Demand ◽  
Process Engine ◽  
Automated Support ◽  
Dynamic Execution

Business Process Management Systems ( BPMSs ) provide automated support for the execution of business processes in modern organisations. With the emergence of cloud computing, BPMS deployment considerations are shifting from traditional on-premise models to the Software-as-a-Service ( SaaS ) paradigm, aiming at delivering Business Process Automation as a Service. However, scaling up a traditional BPMS to cope with simultaneous demand from multiple organisations in the cloud is challenging, since its underlying system architecture has been designed to serve a single organisation with a single process engine. Moreover, the complexity in addressing both the dynamic execution environment and the elasticity requirements of users impose further challenges to deploying a traditional BPMS in the cloud. A typical SaaS often deploys multiple instances of its core applications and distributes workload to these application instances via load balancing. But, for stateful and often long-running process instances, standard stateless load balancing strategies are inadequate. In this article, we propose a conceptual design of BPMS capable of addressing dynamically varying demands of end users in the cloud, and present a prototypical implementation using an open source traditional BPMS platform. Both the design and system realisation offer focused strategies on achieving scalability and demonstrates the system capabilities for supporting both upscaling, to address large volumes of user demand or workload, and downscaling, to release underutilised computing resources, in a cloud environment.

scholarly journals From Business Process Management to Business Process Ecosystem

2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 262-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Vidgen ◽  
Xiaofeng Wang
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Business Process Management ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Service Oriented Architectures ◽  
The Social ◽  
Service Oriented

New technologies, notably service-oriented architectures and Web services, are enabling a third wave of business process management (BPM). Supporters claim that BPM is informed by complexity theory and that business processes can evolve and adapt to changing business circumstances. It is suggested by BPM adherents that the business/IT divide will be obliterated through a process-centric approach to systems development. The evolution of BPM and its associated technologies are explored and then coevolutionary theory is used to understand the business/IT relationship. Specifically, Kauffman's NKC model is applied to a business process ecosystem to bring out the implications of coevolution for the theory and practice of BPM and for the relationship between business and IT. The paper argues that a wider view of the business process ecosystem is needed to take account of the social perspective as well as the human/non-human dimension.

Benefits and Challenges for Business Process Management in the Cloud

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 80-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ute Riemann
Keyword(s):  
Cloud Computing ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Business Process Management ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Cloud Services ◽  
Cloud Infrastructure ◽  
Business Application

Business processes are not only variable they are as well dynamic. A key benefit of Business Process Management (BPM) is the ability to adjust business processes accordingly in response to changing market requirements. In parallel to BPM, enterprise cloud computing technology has emerged to provide a more cost effective solution to businesses and services while making use of inexpensive computing solutions, which combines pervasive, internet, and virtualization technologies (). Despite the slow start, the business benefits of cloud computing are as such that the transition of BPM to the cloud is now underway. Cloud services refer to the operation of a virtualized, automated, and service-oriented IT landscape allowing the flexible provision and usage-based invoicing of resources, services, and applications via a network or the internet. The generic term “X-as-a-Service” summarize the business models delivering almost everything as a service. BPM in the cloud is often regarded as a SaaS application. More recently, BPM is being regarded as a PaaS as it facilitates the creation and deployment of applications, in this case business process solutions. The PaaS landscape is the least developed of the four cloud based software delivery models previously discussed. PaaS vendors, such as IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft delivered an application platform with managed cloud infrastructure services however, more recently the PaaS market has begun to evolve to include other middleware capabilities including process management. BPM PaaS is the delivery of BPM technology as a service via a cloud service provider. For the classification as a PaaS a BPM suite requires the following capabilities: the architecture should be multi-tenant, hosting should be off premise and it should offer elasticity and metering by use capabilities. When we refer to BPM in the cloud, what we are really referring to is a combination of BPM PaaS and BPaaS (Business Process as a Service). Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) is a set of pre-defined business processes that allows the execution of customized business processes in the cloud. BPaaS is a complete pre-integrated BPM platform hosted in the cloud and delivered as a service, for the development and execution of general-purpose business process application. Although such a service harbors an economic potential there are remaining questions: Can an individual and company-specific business process supported by a standardized cloud solution, or should we protect process creativity and competitive differentiation by allowing the company to design the processes individually and solely support basic data flows and structures? Does it make sense to take a software solution “out of the box” that handles both data and process in a cloud environment, or would this hinder the creativity of business (process) development leading to a lower quality of processes and consequently to a decrease in the competitive positioning of a company? How to manage the inherent compliance and security topic. Within a completely integrated business application system, all required security aspects can be implemented as a safeguarding with just enough money. Within the cloud, however, advanced standards and identity prove is required to monitor and measure information exchange across the federation. Thereby there seems to be no need for developing new protocols, but a standardized way to collect and evaluate the collected information.

scholarly journals BPM and ECM: Similarities, differences, conceptual, and technological limits

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-105
Author(s):  
Marco Aurélio de Souza MENDES ◽  
Marcello Peixoto BAX
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Business Process Management ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Content Management ◽  
Enterprise Information ◽  
Technological Support ◽  
Enterprise Content Management ◽  
Unstructured Information

Abstract Enterprise information architectures still do not deliver all the value that comes from integrating structured and unstructured information. Enterprise Content Management and Business Process Management were developed as autonomous disciplines. Thus, Enterprise Content Management still occurs without formally considering the business processes that generate and manipulate content, while Business Process Management initiatives arise without a documented treatment of materials produced by the processes. The non-integrated approach to these disciplines collaborates to reduce the potential benefits expected in Organizational Change Management programs. In such context, the article discusses the interrelation between Business Process Management and Enterprise Content Management, approaching from a historical view of these disciplines, their conceptual limits, technological support, and dialogues that would benefit both initiatives. The paper contributes to clarify a question still vague in the field of Information Management, which is how to integrate Business Process Management and Enterprise Content Management treating structured and unstructured information in a unified manner. It discusses how to approach this issue in a broad scope of IM by combining the concepts of Enterprise Content Management and Business Process Management. Based on a literature review, the paper analyzes and synthesizes experiences in Enterprise Content Management and Business Process Management acquired in the context of a project carried out in a Power Sector Company. The article reveals problems in separating approaches to Enterprise Content Management and Business Process Management. It shows the importance of an effort for integration and presents three instruments that promote the linkage of the two initiatives, approximating process offices and analysts’ information.

A theory of contingent business process management

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 1291-1316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Zelt ◽  
Jan Recker ◽  
Theresa Schmiedel ◽  
Jan vom Brocke
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Business Process Management ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Theory Development ◽  
Process Performance ◽  
Research Strategies ◽  
Content Type

Purpose Many researchers and practitioners suggest a contingent instead of a “one size fits all” approach in business process management (BPM). The purpose of this paper is to offer a contingency theory of BPM, which proposes contingency factors relevant to the successful management of business processes and that explains how and why these contingencies impact the relationships between process management and performance. Design/methodology/approach The authors develop the theory by drawing on organizational information processing theory (OIPT) and applying an information processing (IP) perspective to the process level. Findings The premise of the model is that the process management mechanisms such as documentation, standardization or monitoring must compensate for the uncertainty and equivocality of the nature of the process that has to be managed. In turn, managing through successful adaptation is a prerequisite for process performance. Research limitations/implications The theory provides a set of testable propositions that specify the relationship between process management mechanisms and process performance. The authors also discuss implications of the new theory for further theorizing and outline empirical research strategies that can be followed to enact, evaluate and extend the theory. Practical implications The theory developed in this paper allows an alternative way to describe organizational processes and supports the derivation of context-sensitive management approaches for process documentation, standardization, monitoring, execution and coordination. Originality/value The theoretical model is novel in that it provides a contextualized view on BPM that acknowledges different types of processes and suggests different mechanisms for managing these. The authors hope the paper serves as inspiration both for further theory development as well as to empirical studies that test, refute, support or otherwise augment the arguments.

Social business process management

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 191-211
Author(s):  
Patricia Bazan ◽  
Elsa Estevez
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Business Process Management ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Implicit Knowledge ◽  
Social Software ◽  
Social Business ◽  
Content Type

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess the state of the art of social business process management (Social BPM), explaining applied approaches, existing tools and challenges and to propose a research agenda for encouraging further development of the area. Design/methodology/approach The methodology comprises a qualitative analysis using secondary data. The approach relies on searches of scientific papers conducted in well-known databases, identifying research work related to Social BPM solutions and those contributing with social characteristics to BPM. Based on the identified papers, the authors selected the most relevant and the latest publications, and categorized their contributions and findings based on open and selective coding. In total, the analysis is based on 51 papers that were selected and analyzed in depth. Findings Main results show that there are several studies investigating modeling approaches for socializing process activities and for capturing implicit knowledge possessed and used by process actors, enabling to add some kind of flexibility to business processes. However, despite the proven interest in the area, there are not yet adequate tools providing effective solutions for Social BPM. Based on our findings, the authors propose a research agenda comprising three main lines: contributions of social software (SS) to Social BPM, Social BPM as a mechanism for adding flexibility to and for discovering new business processes and Social BPM for enhancing business processes with the use of new technologies. The authors also identify relevant problems for each line. Practical implications Some SS tools, like wikis, enable managing social aspects in executing business processes and can be used to coordinate simple business processes. Despite they are commonly used, they are not yet mature tools supporting Social BPM and more efficient tools are yet to appear. The lack of tools preclude organizations from benefitting from implicit knowledge owned by and shared among business process actors, which could contribute to better-informed decisions related to organizational processes. In addition, more research is needed for considering Social BPM as an approach for organizations to benefit from the adoption of new technologies in their business processes. Originality/value The paper assesses the state of the art in Social BPM, an incipient area in research and practice. The area can be defined as the intersection of two bigger areas highly relevant for organizations; on the one hand, the management and execution of business processes; and on the other hand, the use of social software, including social media tools, for leveraging on implicit knowledge shared by business process actors to improving efficiency of business processes.

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