Case Study of the Implementation of Business Process Management in Public Administration in Germany, Switzerland and Austria
Norbert Ahrend 1, Konrad Walser 2 and Henrik Leopold 1
1 Humboldt‐Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, Germany 2 Bern University of Applied Sciences, Morgartenstraße 2a, Bern, Switzerland
norbert. ahrend @ hu‐berlin. de henrik. leopold @ wiwi. hu‐berlin. de konrad. walser @ bfh. ch
Abstract: In the private sector business process management is a common and well‐established practice. In the public administration in Europe, this does not hold true to the same degree. However, currently we observe some considerable challenges. Important keywords such as eGovernment, networking, interoperability, compliance and governance and their relation to the administration processes are getting increasing focus. As a result, process management is gaining importance in public administration, especially where the execution of business activities or electronic integration of the process handling is concerned. However, many insights about the successful implementation of process management cannot be directly transferred to public authorities, as there exist important differences to the private sector. For instance, traditional process reengineering approaches cannot be applied in public authorities due to the legal and political conditions. Further, public authorities often face other challenges than industrial enterprises. The wide range of services which are typically offered by public authorities represent a particular challenge in this context. Hence, this paper focuses on the different implementation strategies of BPM in public administration. We investigated and compared the approaches to business process management in the public administration of three countries, namely Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. We conducted 13 interviews in the respective countries and examined the different ways in which these countries handle process management. The goal of the paper is to provide insights on how process management can be successfully introduced in public authorities. As there exist almost no insights on the implementation of process management in public authorities, our findings represent a first step towards a solid understanding of how BPM can be successfully brought to public authorities.
Keywords: business process management, public administration, BPM strategies, success factors
1. Introduction
Nowadays business process management( BPM) and business process modeling are well‐established practices in the private sector( Ahmad et al. 2009). However, considering the public authorities in Europe, it turns out that the process orientation in the public administration is still in its early stages. Nevertheless, due to new demands and budget cuts at the same time, business process management is also gaining more and more importance in public authorities( Becker et al. 2006).
While some insights about the successful implementation of process management might be directly transferred to public authorities, there are also some important differences, which need to be taken into consideration. First, the legal and political conditions in public authorities often prohibit the application of traditional process reengineering approaches as for instance proposed by Hammer and Champy( Hammer and Champy 1993). Second, the specific challenges in public authorities partially significantly vary from those in industrial practice( Palkovits et al. 2003; Scott et al. 2004). Taking for instance a look at the service portfolio of municipalities, there are more than 1000 interconnected and interdependent service processes( Becker et al. 2006). Hence, the overall question is how BPM can be successfully implemented in the context of public administration.
Accordingly, the goal of this paper is to shed some light on the question how BPM can be successfully taken to public authorities. Building on prior work( Ahrend et al. 2012), our contribution is a list of success factors resulting from the comparative analysis of three case studies from Germany, Switzerland and Austria. As there are, to our knowledge, almost no insights on the successful implementation of BPM in public administration, we consider our findings to be an important first step towards a solid understanding of implementing BPM in the public authorities.
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