Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Understanding organisation-CRM system misfits and their evolution : b a path to improving post-adoption CRM system usage

PhD ThesisSince the late 1990s, organisations have been increasingly investing in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to support their sales, marketing and customer service operations. Despite the significant growth in the acquisition of CRM systems and the widely accepted concepts of a CRM strategy, academics and practitioners repeatedly point to the high failure rates of CRM initiatives. Improving CRM systems’ use can provide organisations with considerable benefits. However, limited research has been directed towards understanding post-adoption CRM systems usage behaviour. This is an important and topical subject at a time when CRM has edged past Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) as the top application software investment priority and is expected to drive Enterprise System (ES) spending in 2013 and 2014. Using a multiple case study design methodology and Grounded Theory (GT) as the data collection and analysis technique, this process study strives to accomplish four primary research objectives. Firstly, it proposes a post-adoption CRM system usage process consisting of three phases (adaptation, exploitation, and benefits realization) and seven sub-phases (training assimilation, basic functionality discovery, basic functionality appropriation, advanced functionality discovery and appropriation, individual productivity enhancement, individual job objectives achievement, and company business objectives achievement) along which individual CRM system users can be placed. Secondly, it identifies ten misfit types (communication, supervision, user support, skill sets, commitment, functionality, data, strategy, organisation, and IT/business alignment) explaining for usage discrepancy among the user population. Thirdly, it looks at the evolution of those ten misfit types, and finds that their influence varies across the three post-adoption usage phases. For example, tool related misfits (e.g. functionality) appear early but tend to disappear by the end of the adaptation phase or the beginning of the exploitation phase, while company related misfits (e.g. communication of benefits, silo organisation) appear later in the exploitation phase, but seem to widen over time and significantly impact usage when not appropriately addressed. Finally, it identifies the organisation’s leadership style as a potential root cause explaining for CRM system usage behaviour