Interview with Michael Rosemann on ambidextrous business process management

Abstract

Purpose -More than two decades after the early works about Business Process Management (BPM) were published by the discipline's thought-leaders of that time, the authors were interested in getting an assessment of what BPM has been able to achieve so far, what promises have been fulfilled, and where BPM should be heading in the future. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the above issues. Design/methodology/approach -The authors conducted an interview with Professor Michael Rosemann, one of today's authorities in the BPM field, who shared with us his thoughts on ambidextrous BPM. Findings -According to Michael Rosemann, the BPM community has, since its conception, put much effort in mastering exploitative BPM that focusses on analyzing and automating single processes as well as on improving such processes step-by-step. However, explorative BPM, which emphasizes radical process change, process innovation and the enabling of new business models, still is in its infancy. Professor Rosemann therefore calls for ambidextrous BPM integrating exploitative and explorative capabilities, more interdisciplinary as well as a closer collaboration between academia and practice. Originality/value -In this interview, Michael Rosemann points to directions of future development for the BPM community, particularly with respect to explorative BPM. Michael Rosemann also highlights the skillset explorative BPM researchers and professionals should have.

Customer Process Management: A Systematic Literature Review

“…From 3 book chapters in English only 2 articles discuss the customer process management topic, which are Ouyang and Jung (2014) It was observed that 7 results from the proquest database, using keyword "customer process management" and research for peer-reviewed articles. Moreover, only 3 articles using the term customer process management in their papers, which is Trkman et al (2015), "From business process management to customer process management", Prajogo et al (2012), "The effect of different aspects of ISO 9000 implementation on key supply chain management practices and operational performance", Kohlborn et al (2014), "Interview with Michael Rosemann on ambidextrous business process management".…”

“…In other words, the birth-to-date value chain as the ultimate business process and the ultimate form of customer-centered process design. Kohlborn et al, (2014) wrote a viewpoint paper. The purpose was getting an assesment of what BPM has been able to achieve so far, what promises have been fulfilled, and where BPM should be heading in the future.…”

The prioritization and categorization method (PCM) process evaluation at Ericsson: a case study

“…Rosemann (2014) further points out that the weaknesses of exploitative BPM have negative impacts on industries exposed to disruptive digital technologies and emerging new class of competitors. As a result, explorative BPM has been put on the research agenda as a new direction for BPM development and application in organizations (Rosemann, 2014;Kohlborn et al, 2014). Explorative BPM research goes back to the core of BPM that is proposed by the classical strategic management approaches to promote the uptake of BPM in business (not only in IT), for examples, Hammer (1990) and Davenport (1993).…”

“…Methods for continuous process improvements and prioritization have traditionally been designed based on exploitative BPM (Rosemann, 2014;Kohlborn et al, 2014). Porter (1980) defines an organization as a combination of primary and supporting processes.…”

“…In recent years, more and more IS researchers have begun exploring new thinking and principles for managing business processes and challenge the traditional exploitative BPM paradigm (Kohlborn et al, 2014;vom Brocke et al, 2014;Rosemann, 2014), which BPM paradigm focusses on methodological challenges related to how to model, analyse, simulate, automate and mine business processes, and the development of tools, systems, and techniques that can be implemented by firms to achieve operational excellence. However, exploitative BPM fails to address more strategic or cultural challenges facing BPM managers, in addition to ignoring contextual, industrial and institutional factors that play a role in innovating business processes, as well as the capability required.…”