PRIORITIZING AND ORGANIZING THE MODELING OF THE LONG TAIL OF BUSINESS PROCESSES

Authors

Marcus Fischer, digital& GmbHFollow
Florian Imgrund, digital& GmbHFollow
Christian Janiesch, University of WürzburgFollow

Abstract

Design activities such as process modeling always face a trade-off between quality and quantity. That is, process management initiatives typically focus on modeling and managing only a few high-value processes at a time, while neglecting processes that yield potentially lower returns. Due to complexity and resource constraints, incorporating additional processes would become uneconomical. We draw upon implications from the theory of long tail economics and its application to business process management to address these shortcomings. We cooperated with a German small and medium-sized enterprise to analyze the prioritization of their processes for modeling and management to derive generalizable recommendations. In summary, we have found that companies can use a limited number of variables to prioritize their processes. As expected, the prioritized processes show a decreasing importance and feasibility to change the processes. However, processes exhibit a uniform dysfunctionality. Consequently, we recommend companies to continue to manage a handful high-value processes centrally. However, they should supplement their approach with self-regulated and distributed modeling and management for lower-valued yet dysfunctional processes to improve them continuously.

Recommended Citation

Fischer, Marcus; Imgrund, Florian; and Janiesch, Christian, "PRIORITIZING AND ORGANIZING THE MODELING OF THE LONG TAIL OF BUSINESS PROCESSES" (2020). In Proceedings of the 28th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), An Online AIS Conference, June 15-17, 2020.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2020_rp/18