The present article is supposed to describe the research design of the process management survey which was carried out by the Institute for General Management and Organization, Graz University of Technology, in summer 2008. The study surveyed Austrian corporations operating in metal and machinery industry with at least 50 employees. Firms were selected randomly and …
The Business Process Management Conference Europe 2010 will take place in London from the 27th to the 29th of September 2010. Interesting case studies – such as from Rolls Royce, Deutsche Bank, and adidas Group – are announced. For further details, please visit the conference website at http://www.irmuk.co.uk/bpm2010.
In a process-oriented firm, people who execute the processes need to have appropriate skills and knowledge. Furthermore, knowledge of certain process improvement, process redesign and change management techniques have to be present. Do process workers have detailed knowledge of how their process is executed? Process performers must have appropriate knowledge of how to execute the …
Continue reading ‘The Characteristics of Process Orientation. Part 8: People and Skills’ »
Process orientation is also a matter of enterprise culture. The real problems when implementing the process orientation approach are of a cultural nature (Hinterhuber, 1995). The cultural fit is an important issue since people and processes must combine to produce output (Armistead and Machin, 1997). Only a culture based on teamwork, willingness to change, customer …
Continue reading ‘The Characteristics of Process Orientation. Part 7: Corporate Culture’ »
Human resources systems have to support the process approach (Hammer, 2007). In a process-oriented enterprise, the process design should drive job descriptions. Also, incentive systems should be implemented which emphasize the process’ needs. Job descriptions based on process design: The process’ design should drive role definitions, job descriptions and competency profiles. Reward systems (incentive systems) …
Continue reading ‘The Characteristics of Process Orientation. Part 6: Process-Oriented HR-Systems’ »
This article is a brief summary of the paper “The Effects of Process Orientation on Customer Satisfaction, Product Quality and Time-Based Performance” by Kohlbacher M., presented at the 29th Annual International Conference of the Strategic Management Society in Washington D.C., October 2009 (http://dc.strategicmanagement.net). The work focuses on the question whether there is a positive relationship …
“Structure follows process”: In the process approach, it is the process which comes to the fore, and not the existing organizational structure (Becker et al., 2004). A process-oriented organization has adapted its structure to the process view. Several authors stress that the organizational structure should be aligned with the organization’s business processes (Schantin, 2004; Suter, …
This article is a brief summary of the paper “The Perceived Effects of Business Process Management” by Kohlbacher M., presented at the IEEE International Conference in Toronto, September 26-27, 2009 (TIC-STH 2009). The paper empirically explores the outcomes of business process management by conducting interviews with a total of 44 process-oriented firms. Organizations were asked …
Continue reading ‘The Perceived Effects of Business Process Management’ »
This article is a brief summary of the paper “The effects of process orientation. A literature review” by Kohlbacher M., to be published in the Business Process Management Journal, vol. 16, issue, 1, 2010. The paper examines the literature to review studies that report about the influence of process orientation on organizational performance. Studies were …
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The idea of process cascades (representing internal customer-supplier relationships between business processes of an organization) was originally developed by Tipotsch (1997), Schantin (2004), and Suter (2004). The idea is illustrated in the figure below. Process A, acting as an internal customer, places an order to Process B, acting as an internal supplier. After receiving the …