Decision enhancement and business process agility

PhD ceremony: Ms. M.R. Amiyo, 14.30 uur, Academiegebouw, Broerstraat 5, Groningen

Proefschrift: Decision enhancement and business process agility

Promotor(s): prof. H.G. Sol

Faculty: Economics and Business

Business Process Agility (BPA) is the ability to ‘swiftly’ and appropriately adjust business processes in response to identified internal and external changes in the business environment, even when there are no predefined guidelines of dealing with the change. Increasingly, organisations are seeking to become agile in their operations in order to cope with their dynamic business environments. This increased demand for BPA has led to a shift in Business Process Management (BPM) to technologies that emphasize Continuous Business Process Improvement (CBPI). The main objective of the research by Amiyo was to identify the challenges facing stakeholders in the BPA decision process and build an artefact to addressed them in order to enhance the BPA decision process. She concludes that the BPA Decision Enhancement Studio (BPA-DES) contributes a new theoretical and useful approach for achieving BPA that directly focuses on BPA decision process. The new approach to business process agility provided by the BPA-DES, combines collaboration, workflow analysis, simulation, communication, and risk assessment decision enhancement services, packaged as suites with guidelines to support the BPA decision process. Therefore the BPA-DES goes beyond providing technological support but also aligns the technology to the people involved in the BPA decision process through the guidelines on how to explore business process improvement alternatives. This enables the stakeholders to flexibly and efficiently participate in the BPA decision process to select suitable business process improvement solutions. The BPA-DES therefore enhances BPA by enabling continuous business process improvement