Elsevier

Long Range Planning

Volume 32, Issue 1, 19 March 1999, Pages 96-106
Long Range Planning

Strategic Business Process Management for Organisational Effectiveness

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0024-6301(98)00130-7Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper examines Business Process Management (BPM) as a strategic management tool based on case study research. It seeks to clarify some of the uncertainties and ambiguities of the subject. A number of key themes of Business Process Management are developed and discussed, based on the experience of more mature Business Process Management organisations. These themes have implications for organisations seeking to improve their organisational effectiveness.

Section snippets

Setting the Scene

Business Process Management in one form or another has become a feature in the language if not the actions of many organisations. Large organisations in particular have now had exposure to general quality improvement methodologies. Many large organisations have used the quality models proposed by the European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM)[1]or the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) in the States. Some may have adopted Business Process Re-engineering (BPR). Manufacturing

Strategic Overview of Business Process Management

Business Process Management presents managers in organisations with difficulties from the outset because of the question of language and meaning. Just what is a process and sometimes, when is something not a process? Moreover if it is not a process, what is it? Is it a function? But what is a function? The purpose of these questions is not to appear flippant but to confront what we have heard from managers who say that achieving a common understanding of Business Process Management is a major

The Place of Strategy

There is considerable debate about strategy. One author, Richard Whittingham[6]poses the question in his title What is strategy—and does it matter? What emerges from books and others strategic management texts is that there is not one simple view of strategy. Approaches are often characterised on a number of dimensions, for example:Prescriptive vs emergent: the view of strategy as being prescriptive, so that future events can be determined and planned for. This contrasts with strategy emerging

Strategic Choice and Direction

We have acknowledged there are many different approaches to strategic management. However, in the context of Business Process Management two views are relevant. First is the notion of strategic trade-offs[9]recognising that one entity cannot do everything. An organisation positions itself in a particular market by marking choices, for example whether to be in the cheap and cheerful or in the luxury parts of the market. Accepting trade-offs requires an acceptance that it not possible to do both

Organisation Design

When organisations adopt Business Process Management at a strategic level, they are forced to examine their form and structure. The very beginning of Business Process Management is in the conceptualisation of the organisation as a series of business processes. So change begins with a top level architecture which will now be familiar to many managers. The question raised is what do organisations do after this stage? Our findings would suggest that a number of things can happen. The processes may

Market Value Chain

The market value chain links the stages which adds value along a supply chain. For one organisation the market value chain is taken to be the conceptualisation of the core processes and activities which represent the organisation in process terms. They capture the activities which start and end in the organisation and link with other organisations in the chain (or networks as the chains become). One organisation might be a player in a number of value chains. The simplification which

Performance Management

We take the view that performance management is an integral part of using Business Process Management and consider a few issues are especially important.•The deployment of strategic goals;•Self-assessment against organisational effectiveness models such as the EFQM framework;•The trigger for major corrective action.

A key theme is performance measurement: there is recognition that single indicators of organisational performance can be dangerous if a number of stakeholders have to be addressed.

Organisational Co-ordination

A central theme of Business Process Management is co-ordination of the link between strategy and task. Here process is an organising concept that pulls together everything necessary to deliver some important component of strategic value This may be associated with the end-to-end nature of processes in the organisation in its market value chain. We can see this in major business processes such as material supply chains with their sequence of suppliers and customers around activities of

Organisational Learning and Knowledge Management

Business Process Management provides a framework for organisational learning and management of knowledge. The reasons for this follows from the previous discussions and are given greater weight if we take a knowledge based view of the firm.[8]Particularly relevant are Grants [8]assumptions about knowledge being of paramount strategic importance as a resource for adding value. Knowledge is assumed as being comprised of explicit and tacit types. Individuals are considered the primary agents in

Business Process Management Culture

Organisational culture is an ambiguous concept that is hard to define. However all organisations have some notion of their culture and whether it is changing. Hewlett–Packard talks imply of the H–P Way that captures aspects such as open door policy, management by walking about, and use of first names. British Telecom use the term Plan Do as an indication of attempting to change the way front line people work within the tight framework of procedure which is demanded by consistency and safety.

Implications for Managers

The story of the practical use of Business Process Management in different organisations is one of diversity and of effective outcomes. The response managers give to the question What does business process management mean for your organisation? has many different emphases. In British Telecom BPM emerged out of TQM and BPR to arrive at an integrated process-based model of the business. TNT developed Business Process Management by using the EFQM Business Excellence Model to identify clearly key

Dr Colin Armistead is the Royal Mail Chair of Business Performance Improvement, Professor of Operations Strategy and Management, Head of the Department of Strategic Management and Head of Research in The Business School at Bournemouth University, U.K.

References (16)

  • C. Hakes, The Corporate Self-assessment Handbook for Measuring Business Excellence.Chapman Hall...
  • C. G. Armistead, P. Rowland, Managing Business Processes: BPR and Beyond. Wiley ISBN 0-471-95490-X...
  • C. G. Armistead, Business Process Management. Self Assessment, pp. 9–14, ISSN1356-9627 October...
  • T. Conti, Organizational Self Assessment. Chapman Hall, ISBN 0 412 78880 2...
  • D. A. Garvin, Leveraging Process for Strategic Advantage. Harvard Business Review, September–October pp. 77–90...
  • R. M. Grant, The Resource-based Theory of Competitive Advantage: Implications for Strategy Formulation. California...
  • R. S. Kaplan, and D. P. Norton, The Balanced Score Card—Measures that Drive Performance. Harvard Business Review,...
  • R. M. Grant, The Knowledge-based View of the Firm: Implications for Management Practice. Long Range Planning 30 (3),...
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (120)

  • Improving Mobilization Times of a Specialized Neonatal and Pediatric Critical Care Transport Team

    2022, Air Medical Journal
    Citation Excerpt :

    Raising awareness was a crucial step during project implementation and helped involve team members who were key stakeholders in the project. A systematic approach to data collection and interventions to address delays might help improve the MT. It was important to ensure that we were consistent in our MT measurements because this would be important for accurate benchmarking and, ultimately, improvement.14 After the standardization of data collection, we sought to understand the reasons for delays in mobilization.

  • The relation between BPM culture, BPM methods, and process performance: Evidence from quantitative field studies

    2020, Information and Management
    Citation Excerpt :

    Most participants were employed for more than five years, indicating that sufficiently detailed knowledge on the organization and its culture were available. To measure presence of BPM culture, that is, an organizational culture supportive of BPM [25–28], we used a validated reflective-formative hierarchical measurement model based on four cultural value constructs with two subconstructs for each value [12] (Table 4). Each subconstruct is measured with five items, which adds up to 40 items for the measurement of the BPM culture construct (see Appendix A for the full instrument).

  • Group technology: Amalgamation with design of organisational structures

    2018, International Journal of Production Economics
    Citation Excerpt :

    The focus on process is particularly found in business process re-engineering and the related concept of business process management. For example in the context of business process management, Armistead et al. (1999, pp. 100–1) refer only to restructuring along process lines (its meaning is not clarified), the necessity for matrix organisations (again a hierarchical solution) and pro-functions (again not very well defined, except that is aims at achieving a reduction in employees). Another instance is the work of Li (1997) who focuses on centralisation and decentralisation as a key dimension.

View all citing articles on Scopus

  1. Download : Download full-size image
Dr Colin Armistead is the Royal Mail Chair of Business Performance Improvement, Professor of Operations Strategy and Management, Head of the Department of Strategic Management and Head of Research in The Business School at Bournemouth University, U.K.

  1. Download : Download full-size image
Jean-Philip Pritchard currently works as a Planning Process Analyst within Royal Mail’s Business Strategy Department.

  1. Download : Download full-size image
Simon Machin is a Business Development Manager with Autoglass and was previously a management development adviser with The Post Office.

View full text