Charles Møller Business Process Innovation using the Process

Synopsis Most organizations today are required not only to establish effective business processes but they are required to accommodate for changing business conditions at an increasing rate. Many business processes extend beyond the boundary of the enterprise into the supply chain and the information infrastructure therefore is critical. Today nearly every business relies on their Enterprise System (ES) for process integration and the future generations of enterprise systems will increasingly be driven by business process models. Consequently process modeling and improvement will become vital for business process innovation (BPI) in future organizations. There is a significant body of knowledge on various aspect of process innovation, e.g. on conceptual modeling, business processes, supply chains and enterprise systems. Still an overall comprehensive and consistent theoretical framework with guidelines for practical applications has not been identified. The aim of this paper is to establish a conceptual framework for business process innovation in the supply chain based on advanced enterprise systems. The main approach to business process innovation in this context is to create a new methodology for exploring process models and patterns of applications. The paper thus presents a new concept for business process innovation called the process innovation laboratory a.k.a. the Π-Lab. The Π-Lab is a comprehensive framework for BPI using advanced enterprise systems. The Π-Lab is a collaborative workspace for experimenting with process models and an explorative approach to study integrated modeling in a controlled environment. The Π-Lab facilitates innovation by using an integrated action learning approach to process modeling including contemporary technological, organizational and business perspectives. Innovation is inevitable tied into technology. Modern enterprise systems from the major vendors such as SAP, Oracle and Microsoft contain vast amounts of new concept and tools, but let's face it: quite often these wonderful tools are used (and sometimes misused) to create trivial solutions. Why is that? Maybe because we as users and organization are not able to grasp the enormous complexity of the task of changing inter-organizational processes spanning global supply chains, numerous organizational boundaries and countless IT systems. Davenport et al. (Davenport, Prusak, & Wilson, 2003) simplify the innovation process into four steps: 1) scanning and identifying ideas; 2) packaging the idea; 3) advocating the idea; and 4) making it happen. They come up with two extreme roles: the " guru " packagers and the creative " idea practitioners ". This outlines a playground for an innovator as a mediator who …