Purpose Enterprise systems integration (ESI) is necessary for today’s business environment to access real-time data and quickly respond to fluctuating market demand. business process change (BPC) as a significant prerequisite of ESI encompasses various challenges that must be tackled by employing success factors, techniques and approaches. The purpose of this paper is to focus on BPC challenges and develop a conceptual framework for addressing BPC challenges in ESI. Design/methodology/approach BPC challenges and their success factors were first identified through a literature analysis. Then, the findings from the literature were thematically analysed and qualitatively validated through 35 unstructured interviews for developing the conceptual framework. Findings The findings from the literature suggested 17 BPC challenge along with their success factors. During the validation process, 15 BPC challenges were accepted by all interviewees, while most of the respondents disagreed with the two challenges of “consolidation of information system re-engineering with BPR”, and “customization”. Moreover, “risk” was suggested as a BPC challenge by several interviewees. Thus, the study offered a modified list of BPC challenges, which was empirically validated. Originality/value The study proposes a conceptual framework for addressing BPC challenges in ESI that enables enterprises to design their systems integration roadmap, based on an understanding of BPC challenges and their success factors, as well as supporting solution providers to develop solutions for effective and efficient BPC. Furthermore, the framework will act as a basis for BPC and developing a similar framework for other related contexts, such as smart cities.

For developing smart cities, it is necessary to integrate all components of a city as a system of systems. This is facilitated by urban computing as a technology to address the complexity of providing adequate services to citizens through various city sectors/systems. Since business processes across city sectors/systems should be aligned with the objectives of urban computing, Business Process Change (BPC) is also a significant prerequisite of city systems integration for Smart City Development (SCD). However, there is limited research on understanding of BPC and its challenges in SCD, while in the private sector, the BPC best practices for Enterprise Systems Integration (ESI) have already been recognised and implemented. By considering city as an enterprise, this research aims at providing an understanding of similarities and differences between BPC challenges in the two contexts: SCD and ESI. This study collects data through literature analyses, interviews, and document analyses and suggests that many BPC challenges in SCD have an equivalent from the ESI context. In addition, the findings provide new insights through some challenges that are only relevant to the SCD context, so-called unsolved challenges. Consequently, the study developed a comparison framework, which indicates that the learnings from ESI could be utilised for the SCD context, in order to address BPC challenges. This will assist city authorities in designing their SCD roadmap, prioritising BPC challenges based on the efforts employed for ESI, and thinking about addressing unsolved challenges; as well as smart city solution providers to develop solutions for changing city processes. INDEX TERMS Business process change, smart cities, smart city development, systems integration, urban computing.

Smart city development is a response to address the issues of urbanization and need for flexibility and agility in delivering services to citizens. City as a complex system of systems needs to be efficient, inter-operable, and integrated. Thus, similar to systems integration in enterprises, integration of city systems provides flexibility and access to real-time information for creation and delivery of efficient services. In addition, Business Process Change is essential for systems integration in smart city development. Similar to business process change in the private enterprises, there are a number of challenging dimensions in smart city development. This conceptualization research considers a city as a large-scale enterprise and attempts to design a business process centric model for city's systems integration.

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Cross-sectoral city systems integration is a necessity for Smart City Development (SCD) to provide real-time services to citizens. However, there is scant knowledge about integrating city systems, while the existing literature is replete with learnings on systems integration from private enterprises. Hence, the wisdom of Enterprise Systems Integration (ESI) can be utilised to integrate systems for SCD. Yet, there is limited knowledge on the association between these two contexts. This research aims to develop an innovative model, referred to as ‘AdaptModel’, that enables the adaption of the ESI learnings for SCD based on the differences and similarities between city and enterprise through qualitative research utilising literature analysis, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis. The findings show that the difference between cities and private enterprises from a systems integration viewpoint is in degree rather than in kind. Hence, using ESI learnings for the SCD context is valuable and informative, but it would be more complex, bureaucratic, time-consuming, and expensive. The research offers guidance in addressing the systems integration challenges associated with SCD based on interrelations between SCD and ESI; this is carried out by applying a novel approach of contextualising and modifying the ESI learnings to support cross-sectoral city systems integration.