# Effective Business Process Management Centres of Excellence

Vuvu Nqampoyi, Lisa F. Seymour, David Sanka Laar

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Vuvu Nqampoyi, Lisa F. Seymour, David Sanka Laar. Effective Business Process Management Centres of Excellence. 10th International Conference on Research and Practical Issues of Enterprise Information Systems (CONFENIS), Dec 2016, Vienna, Austria. pp.207-222, 10.1007/978-3-319-49944-4_16.hal-01630530

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# Effective Business Process Management Centres of Excellence

Vuvu Nqampoyi, Lisa F. Seymour, and David Sanka Laar

Department of Information Systems, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
vmanqana@gmail.com, Lisa.Seymour@uct.ac.za,
LRXDAV013@myuct.ac.za

**Abstract.** This paper explains and describes how Business process management (BPM) Centre's of Excellence (CoEs) can be effective. Thematic analysis of data collected from two large South African financial services corporations with operational CoEs produced a model based on the Integrated Team Effectiveness Model that shows the factors influencing effectiveness of a CoE. The services the CoE provides as well as the industry standards it chooses to align with were found to have the largest impact. This research provides practical value by highlighting factors organisations can include in their planning and be mindful of when establishing or improving the services of a CoE. The BPM CoE Effectiveness Model presented in this work is a theoretical contribution in this field and an extension to the ITEM model previously used in healthcare.

**Keywords:** BPM, BPM Governance, Centre of Excellence, Team Effectiveness

## 1 Introduction

Due to economic changes and pressures, organisations have become interested in how to enhance their business processes in order to improve business performance [1]. Business Process Management (BPM) is used to address this challenge. BPM refers to all efforts made by an organisation to analyse, define and continuously improve its fundamental activities [1]. Through BPM, an organisation can gain as well as sustain a competitive advantage [2].

In order to succeed in the implementation of BPM, six core elements or success factors have been suggested [3]. One of these elements is BPM governance. BPM governance allows the organisation to establish clear roles and responsibilities to ensure accountability in the implementation of BPM. The governance mechanism must provide guidance on process design and decision making for all processes in the organisation [3]. BPM governance is essential to ensure that BPM is embedded throughout an organisation [4].

Although organisations have invested significantly in BPM initiatives, there have been challenges in the implementation of BPM. One of these challenges has been how to ensure that the delivery and sustainability of implementing BPM initiatives are
consistent throughout the organisation [5]. This challenge is one that can be solved by establishing a BPM Centre of Excellence [5] which we will refer to as a CoE.

The definition of a CoE is a central organisational team that is required to market and embed BPM initiatives, perpetuating the benefits of BPM throughout an organisation. A CoE has been identified as indispensable when attempting to implement BPM governance in an organisation [6]. It is also described as an important tool for the implementation of BPM within an organisation and it is a critical success factor [7].

Yet, in a global survey [8], it was found that while organisations had established CoEs the majority of the centres were only beginning to exert some valuable influence. For example in a case study where a CoE had been established in the South African IT service sector, the CoE had not added significant value [9]. Researchers have described the recommended setup of a CoE, including the required services [3, 5, 10]. BPM methods, tools and techniques have also been covered extensively in academic as well as in the practitioner literature. However a gap exists in determining how to ensure that a BPM team provides the value that it is expected to deliver [3].

Therefore, the purpose of this research is to determine the factors that can contribute to the effectiveness of a CoE within an organisation and provide organisations with relevant suggestions to help them realise the full benefits of a CoE. Therefore the following research questions are proposed:

* What are the characteristics of an effective CoE?

* What factors support the effectiveness of a CoE?

To answer these questions, a literature review on related works is presented followed by research methodology and then the data analysis and findings.

## 2 Literature Review

The purpose of BPM governance is to ensure that the strategy of the organisation is aligned with its business processes [6]. BPM governance ensures that transparent and appropriate accountability is established with regard to the roles and responsibilities of BPM [3] ensuring that initial improvement and design efforts are coordinated and that business processes continue to operate optimally through continuous improvement efforts [11]. BPM Governance is also concerned with regulatory compliance and managing risk, increasing an organisation's efficiency and accountability as well as providing measurement for decision makers [12]. BPM governance in an organisation cannot be easily separated from managing the people, the technology and the functions that perform the business processes [6]. Therefore BPM governance is challenging to implement but is crucial for the success of business processes [12-13].

In order to ensure business processes are customer focused and efficient, business process success does not depend only on improving the business processes, but also on structural changes [11]. Thus the greatest challenge for organisations is to align the existing functional structure of the organisation to a process governance structure [12]. This can be achieved using different kinds of mechanisms and the way in which
the organisation is structured affects the method of process governance [11]. One such
mechanism is the establishment of a CoE [6].

## 2.1 The Effectiveness of a CoE

A CoE is a central organisational team [5]. Teams can be multidimensional and consist of processes and structures that depend on the composition of the team, the type of work expected of it, the scope of work as well as the interactions of the team [14]. The effectiveness of a team refers to the extent to which the team successfully meets its objectives [15]. In order to measure effectiveness, high level measures such as organisational effectiveness can be used. However, these measures may not take into account the specific goals set by the team. Research has not provided a clear direction on how effective teams are created and maintained [14]. The head of a BPM team is tasked with ensuring that business performance of the organisation is improved by establishing efficient processes [16]. However, at present there are also no clear suggestions on how increased performance is measured. The organisational context directly influences the effectiveness of the team and also determines under which initial conditions the team will be effective. The resources, incentives and rewards as well as the policy and social context are also influences [14].

## 2.2 Organisational Context

Establishing a CoE requires a number of organisational changes, including the structure of the organisation [7]. The structure is changed to align with the business environment and the subsystems are aligned with the organisation's strategy to ensure the organisation performs effectively [1]. The CoE is an independent department with responsibility spanning across the organisation [1]. If the CoE reports to the IT department a misalignment with the strategic objectives of the organisation may be caused [7]. The CoE should have all the expert knowledge in a centralised place, and provide and disseminates information as well as manages requests from different areas of the organisation [7].

BPM maturity models have been developed to assist organisations achieve business process excellence [17]. BPM maturity models suggests that the level of BPM maturity of the organisation influences how the CoE is structured [18]. In organisations with high BPM maturity level, the CoE is proactive [19]. However, some researchers recommend that organisations which operate in low dynamic environments, should only aim for low BPM maturity, as the costs to setup and maintain additional BPM capabilities may not be worth the effort. Achieving the highest level of maturity may not necessarily be suitable for the environment of every organisation [18].

Another effect of implementing BPM initiatives is change in the culture of the organisation in that the attitude and behaviour towards business process improvements changes [2]. Culture is comprised of invisible values with which an organisation identifies [20]. A process oriented culture implies that the organisation values BPM initiatives and promotes business process effectiveness [17]. Organisations that value customer orientation ensure that the customer is considered the ultimate goal of business
processes [20]. To ensure their BPM success organisations strive to maintain values like customer focus, empowerment and innovation [17]. This is in contrast to organisations where business units function in silos, resulting in customer processes that the organisation does not understand well [1]. Excellence as a value in the organisation promotes the culture of a workforce dedicated to eliminating shortcomings as well as maintaining optimum performance and quality in all business processes [20]. The organisation adapts and fosters a culture that is willing to change [3].

## 2.3 Services of a CoE

Task design depends on the task type (service) and features of the task provided by the CoE. One of the services of the CoE is *Strategic alignment* which ensures that all processes are aligned to the organisational strategy. A vision and methods of achieving the vision are drawn up with milestones [16]. Strategic alignment also ensures that business processes work together [19]. The CoE needs to be well equipped to provide the strategy committee with performance information on organisational processes as well as advise the committee on different strategic opportunities [21].

With the implementation of BPM, organisations begin to view themselves from the value chain perspective and realise their performance is linked to the performance of their core processes [21]. The CoE has the ability to provide a wide variety of process measures and/or process analytics making them valuable [19]. Appropriate and cost effective methods need to be selected for collecting and analysing process performance data [21]. *Process performance*, as a service provided by the CoE, includes defining how the business processes will be measured as well as measuring, reporting and monitoring the process performance [5]. The CoE can then assist the organisation in determining why certain business processes are not performing well and is therefore in a position to suggest improvement solutions [19].

*Process maturity* assessment is another important service in which the CoE assesses the BPM maturity of the organisation on an ongoing basis [19]. This helps in defining accurate BPM vision, strategy and a roadmap [16]. Currently, there is a wide variety of maturity models which differ in their supporting methodology, foundation in theory, depth and designs, although they are all based on critical success factors and assist with designing a BPM roadmap [19].

In order to succeed in monitoring, controlling and improving processes, an organisation first needs to understand their processes. This can be achieved via the process architecture service by defining the value chain and all the processes that are linked to the organisation's value chain and how they interact with each other, or it may be more in-depth, including performance measures, process managers and links to the organisational mission, vision and strategies [5, 16, 21]. It is advisable to have a repository to maintain links between the process artefacts and allow for easy updates [19, 21]. Some of these artefacts may be maintained by other units requiring a close link with management and modification of the enterprise architecture [19].

Another important task is *Process Improvements and Change*. These focus on designing the best version of a business process, taking into account compliance, financial impact, risk assessments [19] and improvement opportunities [5]. The CoE then
manages all process change initiatives in the organisation [5, 19, 21]. This ensures a
smooth transition in the procedures and reporting lines in the organisation [19].

There is also the *project support service* which ensures that process thinking, meth-
odology and frameworks are applied at all times during the course of projects [19].

The CoE is also tasked with providing *training and education* service to all employees, particularly process managers, equipping them to manage processes daily [21]. This task is positively related to the demand and success of BPM [19]. The CoE is the marketer of BPM within the organisation and provides information about policy guidelines, procedures, benefits realised from implementations, and how far in the BPM strategy roadmap the organisation has travelled [16].

Organisations are increasingly required to comply with process legislation depend-
ing on the industry and the country, Sarbanes Oxley being one such legislation for
financial institutions [21]. *Process Compliance* involves ensuring that legislation is
built into the process architecture and that process models are maintained and updated
regularly [21]. The CoE needs to have an in-depth understanding of the legislation
which the organisation needs to comply with, and customise BPM techniques, meth-
ods and tools to take different standards into account [19].

2.4 CoE Roles

The work performed by the CoE has been described in great depth by researchers [5, 10, 19]. However, research also cautions that the labels given to these services may differ from organisation to organisation and many of the services specified could also be offered by other teams in the organisation [19]. Various roles in a CoE have been identified and discussed by researchers, and include BPM Executive [12], Process Owner, Process Architect, Process Analyst [4]; Head of BPM, Process Expert, Process Coordinator, Process Modeller, Enterprise Architect and Change Management Advisor [16]. However some roles are not adequately supported, and the literature is still full of contradictions [2]. Further research should focus on the team composition in relation to the processes and outcomes to assist in understanding what expertise is required in a team and how it can be organised [14]. The team needs to be able to function well together interpersonally as well as technically [14].

## 2.5 Team Processes and Traits

While some researchers confirm that a positive team influences the effectiveness of
the team only a few studies explain how to create the enabling conditions [14]. A
framework for understanding the multi-dimensional relationships within health care
teams, named an Integrated Team Effectiveness Model (ITEM) has been developed
[14].The groupings and relationships in ITEM are shown in Fig. 1. Yet a gap exists
with regards to beneficial BPM team-processes and traits, although it is agreed that
the people available to support BPM affect the structure and processes of the CoE [7].
<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1. ITEM categories adapted from [14]</figcaption></figure>

## 3 Research Methodology

The research employed a descriptive and explanatory approach to describe CoE effec-
tiveness and explain the factors influencing effectiveness. A case study was performed
of 2 large South African banks with CoEs. These banks operate across the continent
and the sector operates in a very competitive environment with a constant requirement
to improve business performance [1]. The sector is well developed as the 2015-2016
World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Survey ranks South Africa 12th
globally in terms of Financial Market Development [22]. The researchers applied
judgement sampling, particularly the key informant sampling technique [23]. Table 1
lists the roles of the participants in each organisation. The codename P1-P7 is used to
identify the 7 participants but retain their anonymity. Semi-structured interviews [24]
were recorded and later transcribed. The researchers made use of notes during the
interviews to document points that might not be heard in the recording, for example,
body language. Thematic analysis was used to identify themes [25]. The first iteration
of coding yielded a total of 183 themes. The third round of coding reduced the themes
to 35 basic themes which were then categorised the themes using ITEM [14].

<table><caption>Table 1. List of selected participants</caption><thead><tr><td>Interviewees in Bank 1</td><td>Interviewees in Bank 2</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Head of Process CoE</td><td>Head of Process CoE</td></tr><tr><td>Value Chain Lead</td><td>Process Engineer 1</td></tr><tr><td>Process Steward</td><td>Process Engineer 2</td></tr><tr><td>Value Chain Lead</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

## 4 Results and Discussion

This section discusses the findings of this research supported by quotes from the par-
ticipants and from the documentation that was used. In the data analysis it emerged
that some themes were more prevalent than others. Figure 2 shows the resultant BPM
CoE effectiveness model. Included in the model are the basic themes with the number of quotes or empirical observations for each theme across all data sources. The model and themes will now be discussed.

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 2. BPM Centre of Excellence Effectiveness Model</figcaption></figure>

**4.1 Team Effectiveness**

The literature on team effectiveness has failed to clearly specify what teams are ex-
pected to be effective at and has not taken into account the specific goals that a team
sets for itself [14]. However in the findings of this research the objective outcomes as
well as the subjective outcomes of the CoE are very clear.

**Objective Outcomes.** With regards to the objective outcomes the most prevalent theme is *Customer Experience* where the better the Customer Experience the more effective the CoE. Thus the CoE is required to engineer the best customer experience for the client:

"One of the key things we are always trying to drive is customer experience" (P1),

"We're trying to get to a point where we deliver consistent customer experiences obviously consistently great" (P2).

Another prevalent theme that emerged is *financial impact*. This means if the CoE is
effective it should translate into cost savings or revenue generation to the organisation,
as the processes of the organisation are more efficient:

"People in corporate really want to hear that's how you're going to make money.
And we were able to link having a process Centre of Excellence to this money"
(P1).

"So the performance is measured based on the targets that have been set which is
primarily cost reduction and what are the savings to the bank" (P2).

A large part of the work of the CoE is to ensure that there are *efficient processes* to
support the business of the organisation. Thus, efficient processes are used as a sub-
jective outcome to measure effectiveness of the CoE:
"By making it more efficient, by increasing the levels of automation, by giving our dealers and our salespeople more capacity" (P5),

"We as a team will drive efficiencies across all the operations" (P7).

Enabling business was found to be a measure of effectiveness of the CoE. This refers to enabling the business team to attract more customers with the same number of staff. This objective works hand in hand with efficient processes.

"We are sort of the enablers to the business" (P5),

The last objective outcome for the Effectiveness of a CoE is *delivering value*. A CoE cannot be seen as effective if it is not seen to be delivering value to the organisation.

"you're kind of dead if you start thinking about capability without delivery" (P1),

"because in business what happens is once they see especially if they start to see delivery then they get excited and then they give you more" (P2)

**Subjective Outcomes.** The CoE can also evaluate its performance based on subjective outcomes. *Measuring performance* of an internal process is done and is used as an outcome of the CoE.

"*So the simple measurement for process Centre of Excellence really it's the effectiveness and the efficiency of the processes that we design*" (P4).

"*Whether the process performance is improved so where we have dashboards we can say okay productivity was at x and the baseline and now it's at y*" (P5).

*Managing the value chain* across the organisation is another subjective outcome that emerged from the research. It is noted in the literature that with the implementation of BPM, organisations begin to view themselves from the value chain and realise that their performance is linked to the performance of their core processes [21]. The CoE designs and manages the interactions and processes along the value chain.

"*So our role is really to look at all the initiatives we are trying to drive across the value chain*" (P4).

"*thing is that we actually need them to use the stuff to actually help us to manage the whole value chain (Training)*" (P1).

*Managing change* that occurs as a result of the CoE is another theme that emerged as a subjective outcome. Managing change can also refer to the culture change that may be occurring in terms of the enhancements the CoE is trying to achieve.

"*the change management that's what we are actually driving as well*" (P4).

"*other departments in the organisation focus on running the bank initiative, the CoE takes care of change in the bank*" (P6).

"*it's the mind sets of people so we have to start with the DNA or the culture change*" (P5).

"*We also look at measuring people on the success of Lean for managers, so that's the culture change how many change managers actually identifying and implementing initiatives*" (P5).
## 4.2 Task Types

It emerged that the task types of the CoE team greatly depends on the kind of services delivered. Literature states that the governance mechanism must provide guidance on process design and decision making for all processes in the organisation (3). The services that emerged included process modelling, process design, process improvement and increasing the process maturity level of the organisation. Some of these services are as a result of aligning to industry standards.

"we then design processes to say this is how you could provide the service that you want to provide to the customers" (P4).

"so that's basically part of our continuous improvement function" (P2).

"check if there are any as-is processes currently on the system if there's no processes then get those mapped" (P3).

"We said we would move from where we think we are Bank 1 level 1.5 to level 4 where you get standardised processes consistent in 36 months" (P1).

The Task Type also depends on the Scope of Work. The importance and challenges of BPM governance increases with increasing scope of the business processes and the greater the number of functional units that are impacted by a business process the greater the challenges [11].

"your big projects which are your transform projects...technically span more than 6 months" (P2),

The type of work was found to depend on how the work is broken down and varies depending on the service.

"So where you are introducing incremental change you do a CI project" (P2).

Also, the Task Type is affected by the CoE outputs, in terms of the documents such as business cases that are produced. It depends on how the work is broken down in order to deliver those services.

"we will prepare documents, which are required with all the findings" (P7).

Lastly, Innovation has an influence on the type of work that the CoE produces. The CoE personnel are required to be innovative in how they think of the processes of the organisation and this informs the type of work that they produce.

"Will be competition within the bank so all the process improvements will be approved over there and the best project will win" (P7).

"those guys are innovating across process lines not across product lines" (P1).

## 4.3 Task Features

Task features refer to the characteristics of the work being carried out and many studies have overlooked how these affect team functioning [14]. In this research, a number of factors have been discovered that contribute to the task features. One of these is aligning to industry standards; the use of industry standards seems to ensure that everyone on the team has a clear understanding of what needs to be done. Good practice recommends defining process standards and linking business processes to information technology [4]. There is great emphasis on the use of well-known methodologies to perform the work of the CoE.
"we have pretty much had to align if you think about the generic standards" (P1),

"defined methodologies that we apply like lean and lean six sigma" (P5),

The use of tools within the CoE ensures that the work is guided and uniformly performed. Tools also help with aligning to industry standards

"We're currently using ARIS," (P3),

"primarily the modelling systems are used so one would be System Architect" (P6),

"we had to get a whole lot on the tools side, get proper process mapping tools" (P1).

Another important characteristic of the work of the CoE is providing accessible information. This refers to availability of information that is required for the work of the CoE,

"a SharePoint kind of system where the guys share information" (P1),

"Intranet has got in terms of information on how to do some stuff so one could always go in there and look at information" (P2),

Autonomy of roles is another feature of their tasks. It refers to the ability of each role within the CoE to make own decisions and work independently of the team.

"Each individual works on his project, you can take your decision because you're the right person on the project" (P6),

"where we are right now the guys are quite comfortable to really make decisions without consultation" (P4),

## 4.4 Team Composition

The Team Composition is one of the factors that influence the effectiveness of the CoE. This refers to the capabilities of the team and the capabilities the team requires. The literature referred to roles rather than capabilities within the CoE, however from what has emerged in this research it seems to be the capabilities within the team that are required and not the roles.

"We kind of sourced a lot of these guys from manufacturing companies" (P1),

"I am not a permanent employee of bank 2, so I am a contractor" (P6),

"it's got different kinds of people with different kinds of experiences, different backgrounds" (P3),

"to have process thinking people, people with logical thinking, people who can really build relationship by doing the right things and flexible people" (P4).

## 4.5 Team Structure

Team Structure emerged as one of the characteristics not accounted for in ITEM although reference is made to the fact that a team is made up of structures. In a 2015 survey clear responsibilities was a top 5 ranked success factor [26]. This assertion is supported in this study in that the team structure has an influence on everyone understanding their role and responsibilities and is an important influence on the effectiveness of the CoE. The team structure consists of the way the team is structured, allocated and their reporting lines.
*“We currently report to the head of enablement basically an operations executive that sits on the management board” (P5)*

*“We have structured them by value chain horizontal rather than by products” (P1)*

*“People are allocated across different spaces, in different domains” (P7).*

## 4.6 Team Processes

Team processes are positively associated with perceived team effectiveness [14]. The most prevalent theme that emerged is that of training for the team, although in the literature training is only suggested as a service that the CoE provides. Aligning to Industry standards results in required training for the team on those industry standards.

*“basically we trained everyone on Lean six sigma black belt” (P5)*

Avenues for collaboration is another prevalent theme, where the team has frequent meetings and forums to discuss issues, get support and share what each member of the team is working on. Social media tools have created alternative ways of collaboration.

*“We have a WhatsApp group where we collaborate...” (P2)*

*“we have a working session on a Thursday, which is like for 3 to four hours” (P3)*

*“through our weekly forums ... they present their stuff” (P4).*

Stakeholder involvement in the work of the CoE is an important team process that impacted CoE effectiveness. This is supported by a 2015 survey identifying integration of important stakeholders as one of the top 5 success factors [26].

*“key part of our role is to make sure that we manage expectations” (P2)*

*“we work with the operations people... the heads of business units” (P5)*

*“We like to think of these internal people as really stakeholders you need to manage” (P1).*

The style of management affects the way in which the team works together and how decisions are made within the team, and generally how issues are resolved.

*“As and when there is something we need to talk about we just gather at each other's desk and then we pick up the conversation and then we deal with that” (P4)*

*“You can address them with your manager especially if its availability of stakeholders where you would then have to escalate” (P3)*

*“we've got open door policy like all the way up to the Head” (P2).*

Communication, project prioritisation as well as conflict resolution were also themes that emerged from the data. Positive communication patterns and low conflict levels are characteristics of effective teams [14]. The data revealed that there were many channels for communication and that communication in the team can be done at many levels.

## 4.7 Team Traits

Team traits are practices that have been internalised by the CoE and that have stabilised over time. Team Traits that emerged included accountability, team culture and team understanding. A clear understanding of the responsibilities of the CoE and what each role in the centre is accountable for is required.
"The process steward basically runs the task so to speak and they hold the business relationship" (P2),

"process engineer for each of the departments is responsible for that whole process" (P5),

The team culture was referred to as process driven and delivery focused:

"So we are delivery focused" (P2),

"I mean we are more a process driven department and we try to really entrench the culture of process thinking within the organisation" (P4).

The team understanding refers to unspoken rules and procedures that the team knows. These form part of the team traits. The team had a tacit understanding of when approval and formal methods were not needed.

"your value chain lead will give you the project so you don't necessarily need approval in that sense because they have already discussed it with business" (P3),

"depending on the complexity of each initiative we can follow the full methodology or in some cases we just do a rapid assessment and you get to the solution you implement it" (P4).

## 4.8 Organisational Context

While organisational structure and culture affect the team's outcomes, few studies have focused on context [14]. Firstly factors within the organisation that drive the need for a CoE were classified as CoE drivers.

"the only way you get a predictable, consistent, standardised customer experience is if you actually engineer the processes to deliver it" (P1),

"that team basically looks after the target states where you want to take the organisation" (P4).

The second factor was *clear goals* set by the organisation for the team and then cascaded down to each individual within the team.

"Main target or goal for us is to get the bank self-driven in running these efficiencies" (P7),

"so we said we would move from where we think we are Bank level 1.5 to level 4 where you get standardised processes consistent in 36 months. (Five stages of BPM Capability)" (P1).

*Support from management* at ExCo level is a reinforcement of the two factors above, as it highlights the importance of achieving these goals. Top management support was identified as the key enabler of success in BPM in a 2015 survey [26].

"I also form part of the strategy ExCo which is very important so that this is seen as very strategic and you part of shaping the strategy" (P1),

"so the top management we'll discuss the challenges we'll discuss the objectives and approach the management once we'll get a buy in from them" (P7).

It is common for organisations to provide training to all members that work with processes, including managers at the operational level, in order to equip them to manage processes daily [21]. Although training for the organisation is only described as a service that the CoE provides, it affects the effectiveness of the team. Training creates awareness and provides a conducive environment for the CoE to operate in.
"what the Process Centre of Excellence does is to conscientise people around doing things better" (P2),

"so the leadership programmes, there's programs for middle managers, there's programs for newly appointed managers, you've got programmes for staff as well, that's just internal programme" (P4),

"going forward we will be training each and every team or each and every individual within the bank so that they can run their own efficiencies" (P7).

## 4.9 Resultant Model

The research identified that the effectiveness of the CoE is determined by a number of interrelated factors. This is shown in Fig. 2. *The Organisational Context* lays the foundation for the CoE and provides the reasons for its existence. It sets the goals that need to be achieved by the CoE and ensures that the Centre has the necessary support required from senior management in order for it to be effective. The Organisational Context influences the task design as well as the team structure.

*The Team Structure* influences the work that is done in the team such as the task Design. This is not in ITEM but describes the reporting line of the CoE and how the resources are allocated.

*The Task Design* includes the type of work that the CoE performs, how the tasks differ from other tasks, what capabilities that the CoE has and how the team works together. The services provided by the CoE and the alignment with industry standards are the dominant elements in task design. This research suggests that capabilities of the team are more important than their roles due to the fact that different roles can be used for the same capabilities. The Task design in turn affects the team processes, traits and effectiveness.

*The Team Processes* are processes that are unique to the team. They directly affect the effectiveness of the team. Collaboration, training and stakeholder involvement are the most important processes of the team. The team processes also affect the team traits and team effectiveness.

*The Team Traits* are unspoken rules in the team. The accountability, culture and team understanding are all embedded in the team and are part of the makeup of the team. The team traits affect the team processes and the perceived team effectiveness.

*The Team Effectiveness* is measured and identified by how the CoE views itself and how the team is viewed by the organisation. The organisation has certain expectations of the CoE that convince the organisation of the effectiveness of this team, the dominant factor being customer experience. The members of the CoE also have their own measures that ensure that the team is working optimally and is effective such as measures of process performance.

**Generalisability and Limitations.** The model presented in this paper focuses on the effectiveness of the CoE team and is limited in that it does not extend to other potential factors such as business strategy and IT infrastructure which would also impact the CoE team. This is a limitation. In this study factors were identified from 7 partici-
pant interviews and theoretical saturation was not reached. Hence these themes are not
necessarily complete. Clearly the sector the organisation operates in would have a
strong impact and that was the contextual factor that appeared to have the strongest
impact. It seems reasonable considering financial sector maturity in South Africa that
this model can be extended to other organisations in developed financial sectors.

5 Conclusion

This paper has investigated the factors that influence the effectiveness of a BPM CoE.
The results indicate that the effectiveness of a CoE depends on a number of interrelat-
ed factors including the organisational context, team structure, task design, team pro-
cesses, team traits, and challenges. Together, these factors produce a model which
explains factors influencing effectiveness of a CoE. For practitioners, this will be
particularly useful when establishing a CoE. From a theoretical perspective the ITEM
categories and relationships which were developed to explain the effectiveness of
health care teams were found to be valid for CoEs within the financial sector with all
the relevant themes presented. The model was extended to include the Structure cate-
gory and all basic themes relevant for a CoE were derived from the case. This presents
a new theoretical contribution. The context of this study was the financial sector in
South Africa, further quantitative studies could validate this model and confirm
whether these factors are applicable in other contexts. This research also highlighted
the key role of process owners in BPM effectiveness and further studies are recom-
mended that explain the organisational models that enable stronger collaboration be-
tween process owners and COEs.

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