Marc Wouters

2014

Purpose – According to several studies, organizations fall short in achieving their strategic objectives and one reason for this is that Business Process Management is missing strategic priority. This study aims to result in a mutual facilitation in areas of Strategy Execution and Business Process Management in order to end up in a stronger business performance. A case study was performed in cooperation with a medium-sized German service group. Based on a detailed and hierarchically structured process model—defined by employees and managers—improvement potential was identified. An experienced-based process was used to develop an enabling Process Performance Management System. The contribution of the development process and its deliverables to employees and managers, the organizational goals, and the corporate management were evaluated by a panel survey. Research was supported by Kaplan and Norton’s Closed-Loop Management System and Ferreira and Otley’s Performance Management System Framework. Findings: This study theoretically and empirically identifies Business Processes to be a powerful lever to strengthen the Management Cycle. In particular, the results demonstrate that a detailed and process-driven approach for a Performance Management System has the potential to support both (1) the design and use of Performance Management Systems and (2) all stages of the CLMS of Strategy Execution. The main value of this study lies in the identification of common failures of isolated literature areas and derivation of a methodology to facilitate mutual support of these research areas.