Value-based Business Process Management

Although digital technologies threaten traditional business models, organisations find it difficult to identify and exploit the opportunities they offer. Therefore, innovation processes are needed that are specifically tailored to the possibilities of digital technologies. We develop such processes in our research. In addition, organizations will have to focus more strongly on the exploration of new opportunities (opportunity management) in order to survive in the highly competitive digital economy with short product life cycles. At the same time, they must not neglect their existing business – a mistake made by many organizations. The ability to manage the existing business efficiently while exploring new opportunities is called ambidextry. In our research, we develop practical concepts for this with a focus on processes.

In the digital economy, more data is generated than ever before. This is an opportunity for science and practice. In process management, data can be used to measure and forecast the performance of processes. In this way, positive and negative deviations can be identified and controlled even before they occur. At the same time, event logs can be generated, which in turn are the central basis for process mining. In addition to the analysis and prediction of process performance, our work focuses on data quality management of event logs.

For a long time, process management followed a one-size-fits-all approach. Accordingly, the organizational context in which process management is embedded was neglected. However, this includes the characteristics of relevant processes as well as internal and external factors. In the digital economy, many organizations also operate in several contexts simultaneously. In our work we therefore focus on the design of context-sensitive process management concepts as well as on specific contexts such as smart services, digital production and digital innovation.

It has long been known that processes are intertwined. In the digital economy, process networks are increasingly forming across organizations. Up to now, process dependencies have primarily been used for descriptive purposes, e.g. for the modelling of process architectures. For decision making purposes, dependencies have hardly been used so far, which is why we deal with them intensively in our work. Thus, we are building methods for process portfolio management as well as for process prioritization under consideration of dependencies.

A central task of process management is process improvement and innovation. For this reason, we are working on methods for systematic process improvement. These include methods of process industrialization along the dimensions of automation, flexibilization, standardization and sourcing on the one hand, and methods of digital process innovation on the other, in which the application potential of digital technologies is used to improve existing processes or to develop processes for new “jobs to be done”.

The digital age not only changes how customers and organizations interact, but also what employees expect from processes and their IT support. In our work, the customer’s perspective is therefore central. Thus, we take an outside-in perspective on processes with the omnicanal and customer journey analysis, develop heuristics for customer-oriented process design and investigate the possibilities of the Internet of Things. In addition, we analyse deviant behaviour in processes (process deviation) and develop tools for its detection and control (e.g. by means of digital nudging).