Business Process Management in an Accounting Firm

Market pressure for cost-efficiency is forcing, and the implementation of XBRL is enabling, accounting firms to optimize their business processes to become more cost-efficient. While the manufacturing industry has benefited much from available BPM methodology for becoming more agile, leaner, cost-effective and customer-focused, it is still unsure how BPM should be applied in the services industry and especially in knowledge-intensive organizations for benefiting from digitalization and standardization. A case study research is performed to investigate how, and which, BPM principles can best be applied for the utilizing digitalization and standardization in knowledge-intensive organizations in the financial services industry. The case study research entails a process analysis, simulation and improvement of a business process from an accounting firm. The research suggests that existing BPR principles and Lean Management offer concrete support for improving these types of business processes using XBRL, but that it is difficult to quantitatively validate these improvements. To improve the possibilities for adequate quantitative validation of process improvements, future research should be focused upon identifying measurable indicators for the efficiency and quality of knowledge-intensive business processes (in the financial services industry).