Business process improvement opportunities and redesign options: a systematic literature review

Purpose Continuous improvement of business processes is essential for organizations that seek to maintain efficiency and competitiveness. Existing research on process improvement predominantly adopts a singular focus by either proposing process improvement frameworks for identifying opportunities, focusing on a specific industry or on methods for process redesign. Consequently, there is a lack of an overviews that systematically categorize improvement opportunities alongside applicable redesign options grounded in case studies. Design/methodology/approach This study addresses this gap by conducting a systematic literature review of 205 scholarly articles. Findings A total of 80 distinct improvement opportunities are identified, each paired with one or more of 64 viable redesign options. Practical implications The structured overview can aid process analysts by providing a catalog of improvement opportunities and corresponding redesign alternatives. By enhancing the decision-making process for process improvement initiatives, this work supports analysts with implementation of business process improvements. Originality/value These pairings are systematically organized according to process levels (process, fragment, atomic) and process perspectives (activity, control-flow, resources, data objects).