Search

(a) Situation faced: Raiffeisen Bank Kosovo provides a wide range of banking products and services to all categories of customers in the individual and business segments. Online banking channels have increased to the point at which customers do more than 80% of their transactions through e-banking, mobile phone, or ATMs. Raiffeisen Bank adopted BPM in 2006 as a systemic and structured approach to analyzing, improving, controlling, and managing processes with the goal of improving the quality of products and services. However, the questions remain: How well has BPM been adopted and implemented in the bank, and what impact has BPM had on the bank’s strategic goals? (b) Action taken: This chapter addresses these questions from two angles. First, a literature review clarifies the concept of BPM and its scope. Then data is collected from nine semi-structured interviews with participants who hold high-level positions with Raiffeisen Bank Kosovo. The research both offers an evaluation of the significant aspects of the implementation process and examines the key factors’ effects on the alignment of BPM with the firm’s organization strategy. (c) Results achieved: The study reveals that BPM is well understood and considered an important practice at the bank and its implementation is familiar to the top management. Process visualization in particular is considered a core element in BPM projects, so existing projects can benefit further from BPM by applying process ownership and defining responsibilities in the end-to-end processes in every department in which these processes are performed. This study also provides evidence that strategic objectives can be led by BPM. (d) Lessons learned: Applying BPM initiatives comes with many challenges, but once applied, BPM initiatives help firms achieve their strategic objectives. Two main challenges of implementing BPM at Raiffeisen Bank Kosovo are the lack of sufficient IT support and the lack of sufficient budget to cover staff training. BPM initiatives should be strategy-driven and treated in a holistic way by including several methodologies, such as Six Sigma, Lean, and Agile. Doing so would help the bank think about how its product and services are delivered to its customers.

In this article we propose S2C, a strategy-to-code methodological approach to integrate organisational, business process, and information system modelling levels to support strategic alignment in software development. Through a model-driven approach and under the Conceptual-Model Programming paradigm, the proposal supports the semi-automatic generation of working software, as well as traceability among the modelling levels. Via a working example, we illustrate how strategic definitions can be traced into specific software components by the integration of three modelling methods: Lite*, for modelling strategic reaction to external influences, Communication Analysis, for business process modelling, and the OO-Method, for modelling the conceptual schema of the information system. We discuss how this approach not only supports strategic alignment, but fosters the elicitation of business process performance measurement requirements, as well as its relevance considering the business and code alignment of the most recent enterprise architecture and agile software development initiatives.

(a) Situation faced: Normally, quality system management is conducted with textual documents, which makes holistic evaluations difficult for operational personnel to handle. In parallel, business planning is performed in a separate process with insufficient links to business process management (BPM). (b) Action taken: The Siemens Electronic plant in Amberg, Germany (EWA), replaced the traditional method of management reviews by introducing the Hoshin Kanri x-Matrix, which meets all international standards for management systems. A Management Review Cockpit (MRC), as the new common basis for all information, was introduced to improve the maturity of all aspects of processes, derived from the company’s strategy, mission, and vision and to define key projects and their related key performance indicators. (c) Results achieved: Over the last 2 years, business planning, management system reviews, and their related management tools were integrated into one common approach to give EWA’s management team to have a holistic overview of performance, established processes, and their impact on strategic key projects in one dashboard, the MRC. The main benefits were a strong strategic alignment between BPM and the “Business Strategy Process,” strong and aligned governance for the MRC that enabled EWA to work systematically toward process excellence in addition with an aligned and matched target-setting process for all employees (strategy orientation). (d) Lessons learned: The main lessons for us from the implementation of this new approach of combining HOSHIN KANRI with management review are: The need for strategic alignment between BPM and the Business Strategy Process The need for strong governance with MRC The need to enable EWA to strive toward process excellence The need for cultural change in performing the review

Due to the need to improve different business processes, chances are that multiple BPM projects are being conducted at the same time within the same organization. Collectively, we call the set of BPM projects within a company, including its specific management structure, a BPM program. This chapter deals with the following question: “What does it take to successfully manage a BPM program?” To answer this question, we consider BPM as an enterprise capability, at the same level as other organizational management disciplines such as risk management and human performance management. After introducing the typical reasons for BPM programs to fail, we introduce transversal aspects of BPM, such as governance and strategic alignment, and discuss how these are critical to avoid the fail reasons. Next, we organize these aspects in a BPM maturity model and show how to use this model to assess the BPM maturity of an organization.

Chapter 5 gives an introduction intro strategic planning. First, it is shown what is understood by strategies and by strategic planning. Then, the distinction between general strategic planning and issue-driven strategic planning is introduced which is important in order to understand the role and structure of the book. Finally, the chapter addresses the purpose of strategic planning. It consists in building and maintaining success potentials. After clarifying the concept, it is illustrated by the networks of success potentials of two companies.

The agricultural commodities company nowadays strive to keep transforming their business processes in accordance with the fast changing demands to survive the intense global competition. In an attempt to provide stakeholder with an insight business process, this paper investigates how to model business processes with Business Process Modelling Notation and assesses the process maturity using Gartner’s model. This research is based on an in-depth observation at purchasing and production division of agricultural commodities company. It is found the business process model presents the knowledge from business in existing context. The other findings show the maturity level of the people is on phase 1, the maturity level of IT achieves phase 3, and the maturity level of the other four factors including strategic alignment, culture and leadership, governance and methods have already arrived phase 2. These findings will help company to do big planning for improvement in the future.

This chapter deals with the long-term strategic planning and design of the supply chain. Section 6.1 explains the planning situation and the problem setting. Section 6.2 outlines the formulation of the problem as an optimization model and Sect. 6.3 the use of such models within the strategic planning process. Section 6.4 reviews case reports in the literature and Sect. 6.5 the software modules available in APS.

The previous chapters gave an insightful introduction into the various facets of Business Process Management. We now share a rich understanding of the essential ideas behind designing and managing processes for organizational purposes. We have also learned about the various streams of research and development that have influenced contemporary BPM. As a matter of fact, BPM has become a holistic management discipline. As such, it requires that a plethora of facets needs to be addressed for its successful und sustainable application. This chapter provides a framework that consolidates and structures the essential factors that constitute BPM as a whole. Drawing from research in the field of maturity models, we suggest six core elements of BPM: strategic alignment, governance, methods, information technology, people, and culture. These six elements serve as the structure for this BPM Handbook.

Strategic Alignment is one of the six core elements of BPM. In this chapter, an introduction to Strategic Alignment is given. Against the background of foundations on IT-Business Alignment, several important insights are provided for the strategic alignment in BPM. A maturity model is presented in order to assess different levels of capabilities based on key criteria to evaluate alignment maturity. Also, results from a global empirical study are presented and discussed in the light of BPM.

International audience; Current advancements in the business arena necessitate more than ever before the alignment of The Business and IT in organizations, which has been acknowledged as a complex issue to address. Our research is aimed at systematically addressing the linkage between business strategy and information systems (IS). We propose a model-driven approach for alignment, by leveraging the influence of established business strategy formulations from Strategic Management, and model-driven principles used within IS. The objective of this paper is to present the results of an empirical investigation carried out in Sweden on the linkage seeking to obtain insights from practitioners about the relevance of the problem, as well as of our model-driven proposal to address it.

This chapter investigates using strategist types to align knowledge management (KM) and business strategies in an organization. Does such type-analysis apply in an e-business or with m-commerce, as compared to traditional, paper-based organizations? E-businesses are companies and organizations with web-based operations throughout or in some parts. M-commerce refers to being e-based in a market segment and dependent on technology, such as mobile applications (mobile apps). Also, we ask how strategist-type alignment might make implementation of a KM system (KMS) faster, business processes more efficient, and decision-making more effective? Following presentation of a theoretical framework for a taxonomy grounded in KM literature, case studies are presented as used in qualitative analysis of KMSs for three strategic types of organizations: Defender, Prospector, and Analyzer. Starting with earlier research on strategic alignment in traditional companies, three types of organizations are discussed using case studies: (1) traditional organizations using KM; (2) transitional organizations converting to e-business operations in some areas; and (3) advanced m-commerce businesses operating almost totally in the mobile Internet environment. Thus, this chapter shows researchers how to validate the generalization potential of continuing to align KM and business strategies in new technological environments and shows practitioners how to investigate and plan for a KMS. We recommend determining the type of approach to strategy in an organization before aligning KM strategies and business goals by using the taxonomy presented. Research results suggest that strategic alignment and technological applications for a KMS in an e-business should support the level of strategic risk management preferred by stakeholders and in m-commerce customers should be involved in KM.

Roadmaps support strategic alignment through the creation and use of structured visual representation of the various perspectives needed for successful business and innovation. The process of roadmapping is crucial to achieving this goal, as a means of involving the various stakeholders. Workshops often form a key element of the roadmapping process, providing an opportunity for participants to share and capture views in a creative environment. Workshop methods for supporting such dialogue are described, focusing on product (innovation) level roadmapping. A reference schedule is presented as a basis for designing workshops that bring together cross-functional groups to create a first draft roadmap in a short period of time, leading to consensus-based actions.

IT pervades all sectors of today's organizations. To support efficient business solutions, business-IT alignment has been long-time discussed as a solution. Given the complexity of achieving alignment, in our research we have hypothesized the importance of one partial possible solution, namely, the fit between strategy and information system requirements. To systematically investigate the influence of widely-used business strategy formulations, such as Porter's Value Chain, Kaplan & Norton's Strategy Maps, and others, we propose a model-centric approach to strategy-IT alignment where the strategy formulations are represented in the form of models, and mapped to requirements models. The objective of this paper is to present a pilot empirical investigation assessing if strategy-IT alignment is an issue of concern, and seeking to obtain insights from practitioners about relevance of our model-based view for strategy-IT alignment. The empirical information is collected through a well-prepared questionnaire-based survey.