The Role of BPM in the IT Value-Chain:Exploring how managing business processes can decouple business and IT

Business agility and innovation is a challenge that traditionally has been hindered by the Enterprise Information Systems. In the recent years the technologies and the architecture of the Enterprise Information Systems have undergone a drastic change. Vendors like SAP, Oracle and Microsoft have spent considerable resources on reorganizing their systems and offerings towards more being flexible platforms. Simultaneously companies have embarked on various Business Process Management initiatives.This paper analyzes the role of Business Process Management in the managing Enterprise Information Systems. This is studied through an analysis of the emerging architectures in four recent cases of BPM adoption in large enterprises.The cases are analyzed using an IT value chain framework. The cross case analysis suggest that a stable pattern emerges and the new role of BPM in managing the IT value chain is discussed. This paper suggests that research and the management of the IT value chain is an important emerging topic.