Directions for future research on the integration of SOA, BPM, and BRM

Abstract

Purpose Digital transformation has been changing the economic environment of enterprises in recent years. To remain competitive, they rely on an extensible software architecture, flexible workflow execution, and automated decision management. The concepts of service-oriented architectures (SOA), business process management (BPM), and business rules management (BRM) provide an adequate, yet isolated means of addressing many of these requirements. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach This study adapts from established research frameworks to structure the current state of research on the integration of SOA, BPM and BRM. The authors highlight the current research scope, point to disregarded topics and sketch out multidisciplinary research approaches. Findings While the three concepts are often discussed only in isolation or pairwise, approaches that integrate them are scarce. Against this backdrop, this study defines three types of research opportunities and identifies several directions for future research that should be explored from a technological as well as organizational perspective. Given the breadth of open questions, the authors present sources for each area of our research framework, which can serve as starting points for future investigations. Practical implications Except for well-established support for separate tasks and technologies, there is a lack of integrated standards, methods and platforms, which for example enable integrated decision-making across BPM and SOA. Originality/value Our contribution builds on established frameworks and clearly shows that the discussion on the integration of SOA, BPM and BRM cannot yet be regarded as sufficient. The research agenda highlights which areas explicitly benefit from a more precise consideration.

Analysis of Service-Oriented Architecture and Scrum Software Development Approach for IIoT

“…Also, there are many challenges like stakeholders' involvement, business and IT alignment, and reuse of assets. To overcome such type of problems, agility and service orientation are better integrated [34,35]. It is notable that Scrum and SOA share similar concerns, such as responsiveness to change, new ways of working, flexibility, and business understanding [36].…”

Process Management and Robotic Process Automation: The Insights from Systematic Literature Review

“…In recent years, the changes taking place, referred to by researchers as the digital transformation, are revolutionising both individual organisations and entire industries, changing the economic environment of organisations. Organisations consistently focus on innovative strategies, look for new ways to develop business processes, thus creating their uniqueness (Anagnoste, 2018a;Fischer et al, 2019;Thomas, 2020;Siderska, 2020). For this, they focus on flexible workflows, 88 automated decision management, and evolving software architecture (Onar and Ustundag, 2018;Fischer et al, 2019;Ranerup and Henriksen, 2019).…”

“…Organisations consistently focus on innovative strategies, look for new ways to develop business processes, thus creating their uniqueness (Anagnoste, 2018a;Fischer et al, 2019;Thomas, 2020;Siderska, 2020). For this, they focus on flexible workflows, 88 automated decision management, and evolving software architecture (Onar and Ustundag, 2018;Fischer et al, 2019;Ranerup and Henriksen, 2019). However, despite the rapid wave of the application of new technologies, the planned success is not always guaranteed (Brocke et al, 2018).…”

Human factor in business process management: modeling competencies of BPM roles

“…For these reasons, we refer to BPM as business process management and BPMS as business process management suits or systems. Fischer et al (2019) focused in their research on the integration of BPM into service-oriented architectures (SOA) and business rules management (BRM). Bach et al (2019) studied the relationship between business intelligence (BI) and BPM on a sample of various organizations.…”