Integration of Individual Processes and Information Demand Patterns: A Conceptual Analysis

Abstract

Abstract. Individuals need a variety of information when performing their personal processes. However, companies typically know little about the underlying individual demand patterns in these processes. Conceptualizing information demand patterns of individuals is expected to allow for using these as foundation to extend the traditional internal information logistic perspective of companies. Digital options could then be used to align individual and organizational information leading not only to new product and service offers, but also to new work structures in organizations. Thus, we extend prior literature regarding business process management and information logistics by highlighting how information demand patterns (IDP) have to be adapted to individual processes. Our exploratory approach is to demonstrate conceptually the conditions and implications of individual IDPs. Keywords: Individual process model, information logistics, information demand analysis, information demand pattern. Relevance of Individual ProcessesBusiness process management (BPM) has received an enormous attention in research and industry during the last twenty years and is considered as a key technology to increase efficiency in organizations [1]. An important aspect within BPM is the distribution of information between employees in processes with divided responsibilities [2]. During the last decade, research in information logistics has been addressing the aspect of optimized information supply (see Section 3). Advantages attributed to information logistics (ILOG) are to avoid wrong decisions due to missing or incomplete information and to increase efficiency with regard to searching information [3]. 62In the past, both BPM and ILOG have predominantly taken an organizational perspective with BPM focusing on improving processes and ILOG on improving information flow for the roles in an organization. However, with an increasing penetration of IT, social media and mobile devices in basically all situations of private life, it becomes more and more important for companies to understand individual needs to improve processes [4], [5]. In the center of this understanding is the perspective on processes of individuals independently from an organizational role [6]. Modeling these individual processes is important from a marketing and service management perspective, as these contextualize the customers' behavior when selecting products and services which support their activities best [7]. Starting from the individual perspective provides new insights how customers behave beyond existing products and services.In this article, we focus on integrating individual processes (IP) and information demand patterns (IDP) with the purpose of showing conceptual feasibility and motivating future work in the area. The research approach taken is an exploratory investigation with argumentative, deductive elements. The main contribution of the work is (1) to show the relevance of integrating IP and ILOG, (2) to identify which changes would be required in IDPs for...