Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to report on the results of research into the precedence of the maturity factors, or key turning points in business process maturity (BPM) implementation efforts. A key turning point is a component of BPM that stabilizes within an organization and leads to the next maturity level. Design/methodology/approach-Several years of data from over 1,000 companies in the USA, Europe, China, and Brazil that have completed a BPM assessment are analyzed to identify which components of BPM stabilize, when and in what order. Different analysis methods are employed in order to identify global commonalities and differences. Findings-The paper identifies key turning points from several different perspectives using several different approaches and develops some conclusions common to all methods used in this research. Research limitations/implications-The relationship between the components (dependencies) is only suggested but not statistically analyzed. Several data sets are also on the low end of sample size for the methods used and some parts of the research used ad hoc selection of companies of arbitrarily distributed companies into different groups. Practical implications-The results can be useful for leaders and teams that are attempting the journey to process maturity. The guide-posts, milestones, and measures can help answer the question "Where am I on this journey and what is next?" Originality/value-A plethora of maturity models has emerged that claim to guide an organization through the process of building levels of maturity that lead to competitive advantage. To date, there has been a lack of quantitative studies documenting these road-maps. The paper provides global, quantitative evidence of the critical maturity components associated at each level of maturity.

No abstract

Abstract:Key words:The ups and downs of e-business investments are related to a hype cycle. This hype cycle strengthened the statement that companies are too willing to believe in the promises of the new Internet economy without really thinking about internet-ability. According to the data in this practice-oriented survey work, SMEs are more eager to follow the e-business hype cycle. We try to give some explanations for these differences in e-business between SMEs and large companies. This requires an examination of the planning, the drivers and the barriers for conducting business processes over a computer-mediated network. We found that larger companies are mainly driven by cost-cutting to implement e-business, while SMEs attach, next to cost-savings, high importance to cooperation between their suppliers and clients. Furthermore, we can observe that larger companies see more opportunities in translating their ebusiness strategy into a formal long-term plan. This explains perhaps why larger companies are less trend sensitive for investing in e-business than SMEs. e-business hype cycle, IT investments, SME, CADIGA-rule, internet-ability