A NOVEL FRAMEWORK FOR THE IDENTIFICATION OF CRITICAL BUSINESS PROCESSES

In an organisation, Critical Business Processes (CBPs) are important for financial stability and the effective running of business operations. Many authors attempted to study the process of identifying Business Processes, yet most of these studies needed to determine an appropriate framework for identifying CBPs. Organisations have to identify which processes to keep running, delay, and even stop at a particular time. The motivation for this study is to develop a viable framework which will efficiently identify Critical Business Processes (CBPs) in the company and also detect conflicts among existing business processes. This research and framework were done and validated in a case study of an organisation in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). For this thesis, the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology collects the relevant data needed to develop and evaluate the artefact. The Critical Business Process framework data collection and artefact evaluation phases use a qualitative research approach to interview participants. In the data collection phase, the researcher performed a systematic literature review to understand best practices, then interviewed eight participants from different departments in the organisation for five rounds to find out the existing gaps and requirements regarding CBP framework development and results were analysed using Nvivo software. Finally, we built and developed the artefact by integrating the information acquired from the literature and the participants' opinions. Following this, we tested the completed artefact with participants using a conventional perceived semantic model's quality test interview. Criteria such as accuracy, relevance, completeness, and authenticity were utilised to assess the perceived semantic model quality of the proposed CBP framework. After the assessment findings have been considered, the components of the artefact that need to be modified or enhanced are discussed, and finally, we develop the final CBP Framework. The limitations of this study include its limited research geographical scope to an organisation based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, rather than internationally; hence, variables may not be factored in designing the framework. On the other hand, this study's contribution shed light on the importance of identifying critical business processes while adding extra value in considering the iterative stage of DSR. For future studies, the researcher suggests conducting a similar topic on another organisation apart from the UAE using a bigger sample size and a predominantly quantitative approach to reach similar results.