A study on the adaptive approach to technology-driven enhancement of multi-scenario business processes

Abstract

PurposeProcess-oriented organizations are compelled to be innovative and continuously implement changes to meet customer requirements and gain a competitive advantage in accordance with the business process management approach. In the digital age, organizations develop business process support systems using agile methods and introduce adaptation skills in order to support their core business. Seamlessly integrating both practices into a coherent and practically applicable solution supporting multi-scenario processes infallibly remains a challenge. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe workshops identifying the key issues in an international capital group that consolidates facility management companies, as well as a related research review, have fueled a two-cycled Canonical Action Research (CAR) study.FindingsThe paper extends the current understanding of IT-enabled agility, proposing an adaptively improved infrastructure with a catalog of digital options that facilitates the composition of multi-scenario business processes.Research limitations/implicationsThe CAR was limited to the members of management board and the managers constituting the focus groups. The agile business process management (ABPM) model proposed focuses on adding novel functionalities/building new processes, leaving functionality lifecycle out-of-scope. ABPM empirical validation is limited to a single business/technical case.Practical implicationsReal-life solution for supporting dynamic business processes was delivered, as rigid IT solutions do not support quick assembly of customized business processes with abundant number of scenarios. The infrastructure enables composition of customer-tailored services based on re-usable digital options directory as well as enhances business process discrepancies/software bugs detection, reducing the cost of maintaining IT infrastructure for entire customer portfolio. A number of issues resulting from building IT solutions within a series of isolated projects with no coherent overall development strategy are mitigated.Originality/valueThe ABPM acts as a reference model for focusing on developing critical functionalities and limiting resources consumed by redundant features.