Routinizing change: Does business process management technology have unintended firm-level consequences?

Business process management systems have demonstrated benefits at the process level, but evidence of firm level effects is inconclusive. We argue that as BPMS utilization grows, its use could become more routinized. Routinization tends to minimize search and can lead to competency traps. Furthermore, as more processes are managed within a BPMS framework, there will tend to be more shared modules and more shared information flows between the processes, making them more interdependent. This increased interdependence would tend to reduce flexibility for the organization as a whole. Ironically, our model predicts that the increased use of BPMS could increase firm-level inertia and reduce firm-level agility.