Digitalization of Business Processes: Methods and Frameworks for Project Selection and Implementation

Abstract

Digitalization, which relies on the ever-faster adoption of digital technologies, fundamentally changes societal conventions and organizational routines. The omni-presence of digital technologies entails an opportunity-rich, fast-moving, and connected environment, which is characterized by the availability of new data sources, the fusion of the digital and the physical world, and the pervasive connectivity of individuals, organizations, and real-world objects. For organizations, these changes pose threats and give rise to new opportunities alike. Besides advantages related to product and service offerings, digitalization enables the more effective and efficient handling of business processes. Despite the great number of promising opportunities, organizations still struggle with systematically embedding digital technologies into their business processes and deriving value from digitalization. Against this backdrop, this doctoral thesis is cumulative and consists of five research papers located at the intersection of digitalization, business process management, and project management. It investigates the digitalization of business processes by providing well-founded methods and frameworks that help organizations derive, prioritize, and implement process improvement ideas in line with digital technologies. Thus, the thesis does not only cover a scientific perspective, but also gives practical guidance, being relevant for both academics and practitioners alike. In times of digitalization, the business process management discipline faces new challenges requiring to manage business processes in multiple contexts simultaneously. As the status quo of existing methods reveals an overall lack of context awareness, the thesis first provides a method on how to assess and select business process management methods in a context-aware manner (research paper1). In response to this call for context-aware methods, the thesis further presents a method that supports organizations in the identification and prioritization of suitable digital technologies for their business processes (research paper #2). As the method’s application to real-world processes revealed a substantial lack of knowledge regarding the existence and opportunities of digital technologies, additional frameworks are provided. First, the thesis presents a taxonomy and nine archetypes of digital technologies to improve their understanding (research paper #3). As these archetypes are independent of specific domains and contexts, they are contextualized to a specific discipline, revealing a framework of digital technology affordances in intra-logistics (research paper #4). Finally, the thesis enhances the project management perspective and investigates the successful implementation of selected digital technologies. Therefore, existing success factors of Process Digitalization Projects (PDPs) are compiled, validated, and refined in multiple case studies. Being aware of the final framework and its PDP success factors, managers – or other persons responsible for the…