Management Guidelines for Better Application of Business Process Management in SAP ERP projects

The SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is a leading software solution for corporate business functions and processes. Business Process Management (BPM) is a management approach designed to create and manage organizations’ business processes. Both promise an improvement of business processes in companies and can be used together in organizations. In conjunction with the SAP ERP system and BPM approach, BPM maturity models can be used as diagnostic tools that allow an organization to assess and monitor the maturity of its business processes. The aim is to investigate and analyse the interaction between the use of the SAP ERP software package and the utilization of BPM. Findings derive from an analysis of eleven semi-structured expert interviews and a validation of the guidelines via an online survey with 151 participants that use SAP, BPM and/or BPM maturity models. This research analyses the complex relationships between SAP, BPM and BPM maturity models and develops management guidelines for improved use of BPM in SAP ERP projects