Capability-Driven Business Process Outsourcing in Utility Industries

The chapter presents the use of capability management in business process outsourcing (BPO) using a case from utility industries. Utility companies are facing a continuously changing business environment due to new regulations and bylaws from regulating authorities. Furthermore, new market roles and innovative technical solutions, like intelligent metering or grid utilization management, allow for process and product innovations. In this context, both the business processes in organizations and information systems supporting these processes need to be quickly adaptive to changing organizational needs. Business process outsourcing is an approach to tackle these challenges. The industrial case discussed in this chapter originates from SIV.AG, Germany, an independent software vendor and service provider for utility industries. One of the service areas of SIV.AG is business process outsourcing, that is, the performance of a complete business process for a business function by a service provider outside an organization. The chapter discusses the specific features of the case motivating the use of capability management, illustrative parts of the capability and context model, examples for adjustments at runtime, achieved benefits, and experiences.