Due to its great importance for a successful planning, control and improvement of business processes, action management is long established as essential management process in most companies. However, there is often a strikingly large gap between claim and actual implementation of action management. While internal and external requirements for action management are continuously increasing, its actual implementation - especially in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) - is already often quite incomplete today. First, this paper introduces in the topic field of action management as part of modern management systems. In its analysis part, the paper presents the current implementation status of action management in companies focusing on SMEs and portrays software-technical implementation possibilities. Taking into account the resulting fields of action, possible strategies to implement action management in SMEs' business processes in a more profitable way are presented. In the sense of a socio-technical overall system, not only methodical issues but also information-technical and organizational aspects are discussed. By means of a developed prototype and taking into account a concrete use case from industry, the characteristics, procedure, potentials and current limits of the proposed solution are critically evaluated and recommendations for action are illustrated. Finally, the paper ends with a summary, a discussion and an outlook towards future trends
