Norbert Ahrend, Konrad Walser and Henrik Leopold
tion, Austria continuously builds up competence centers for maintaining, and also modeling support processes. Consequently, these centers are in charge of process management and also of the roll out of specific support processes as for instance IT services.
3.4 Tools
All three countries maintain different tools for supporting the BPM initiatives. Germany has introduced a socalled National Process Library( NPB). It is the first attempt at implementing a comprehensive crossinstitutional and cross‐level approach. A conscious decision was made not to enforce( standardized) restrictions with regard to tools or methods, in order to make sure that at least this aspect does not restrict the exchange of process expertise. The initiators of this endeavor are aware of the fact that standardization is unavoidable in the medium or long term. However, the intention is to let this standard take shape in an open process in which suitable methods and tools for the different aspects of the process management can establish themselves. In this context the xProzess interface of XÖV( project for standardization of XML in public administration) deserves special mention. This interface makes it possible to integrate existing and future registers( for example, there are plans for connecting the federal state of Saxony and its process library to the NPB). Furthermore, all BPM tool manufacturers in the German‐speaking region will implement this standard and integrate it into their tools. Through the bidirectional usage options for tools and manufacturers that this offers, the establishment of the BPM approach in public administration is supported significantly.
Now, after the first wave of standardization, Switzerland is following a logically consistent path by setting up and providing a process exchange platform to allow exchange of process expertise across all institutions and levels. The platform http:// www. ech‐bpm. ch / de( in addition to www. ech. ch) already makes some content available( project guidelines for BPM implementation, BPM starter kit, etc.). The focus lies on the distribution of the eGov BPM starter kit.
The development of eGovernment in Austria began in the nineties with the creation of portals and the introduction of business process management for finance. The initial purpose of eGovernment was the reduction of costs and the efficiency enhancement of the Austrian administration. As a result from introducing forms for administrative services, the first process repositories were build up. Today, Austria maintains portals for enterprises and citizens, so‐called One‐stop‐Portals. These portals play an important role in facilitating process integration. They implement the previously discussed input variable concept and thus help to avoid media disruptions.
3.5 Challenges
The main challenge in all three countries is to increase the interlocking of business and IT. For Germany, it can be said that BPM is currently still, to a large extent, initiated either by the business or the IT departments of the individual administrations and, on the other hand, the support provided by the executive personnel is not adequate. The initiatives mentioned in this article do not change this basic finding in any way. Thus, Germany needs to integrate the IT and business perspective accordingly. In Switzerland the continuous harmonization with the corporate architecture management, which falls in the area of responsibility of the Federal IT Steering Unit( FITSU), is of central importance. The current initiatives in the fields of BPM and architecture are mainly technology‐driven and are only inadequately being supported by the management of the administrations. This is one of the possible reasons for the slow progress of BPM in public administration, as many executives do not give full commitment to such initiatives and BPM thus does not become a strategic initiative of the respective administrations. Furthermore, the BPM and architecture initiatives are being pushed by the Federal IT Steering Unit( FITSU), which is associated more with informatics than with management in the public administration. Especially, for Austria the interlocking of business and IT represents a significant challenge.
A further common challenge is given by the externalization of process expertise. As described in the process management system from Section 2.2, the employees of the administrative unit are actually both, affected parties and participating parties. Accordingly, they play a significant role. They provide expertise and are users of the respective systems. In the field of knowledge management in general and in process management in particular, the externalization of process expertise can be seen as a huge challenge.
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