Weak performance

According to a study by Actinium Consulting, the opportunities for improving process quality and process costs are far from exhausted. Apparently, companies are having great difficulty in their optimization efforts, as only a marginal improvement has emerged over the past three years.

The more than 300 business managers surveyed admitted in the survey that they face major hurdles in further developing process management.

They include an insufficient understanding of processes both among employees in the business units and in IT, as well as a low willingness to change and investment restrictions. In addition, in every second case there is a lack of an overall strategy for the company.

"As a consequence, this means that the business areas often go their own ways instead of seeking internal solidarity"

sums up Actinium Managing Director Klaus Hüttl.

Even in management, there is not enough active support in even half of the companies. Yet process orientation is anything but an end in itself; rather, according to two-thirds of business managers, it is necessary solely with a view to improving costs and increasing productivity.

Hüttl attributes this contrast to the fact that many companies have not yet succeeded in reconciling requirements and actual actions.

"On the one hand, the process issue is given great strategic importance, but on the other, habits and other forces of entrenchment often prevent a consistent focus."

The fact that there is a concrete need for action is shown by the business managers' critical assessment of the current benefits of the business processes in their area of responsibility.

After all, 61 percent see considerable potential for optimization in terms of quality, and a similar number are dissatisfied with process costs. But the vast majority of respondents also see important potential for improvement in terms of process productivity and transparency, as well as in process modeling. Half of the respondents do not even feel that the compliance issue is adequately covered, and the situation is even worse with regard to process integration.

"Companies with such ratios are hardly sufficiently fit for the future in view of the increasing need for digitization of processes"

is Hüttl's verdict.

In the future, highly automated and transparent processes will be even more important than before. But this is precisely where things have changed since 2013, with the level of digitization rising from 40 to 53 percent.

On the other hand, there is still a lack of sufficient integration capability for business processes, although this aspect is also of great importance for the digital future.