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Utilizing Business Process Management (BPM) for Performance Improvement: A Case Study of an Express
Company in Taiwan

a financial company’s billing process to enhance efficiency (Hammer and Champy, 1993).
Over time, BPM has been utilized to improve the performance of sales and manufacturing
processes, which are key primary processes within organizations (Hammer and Stanton,
1999; Khosravi, 2016). According to Porter’s (1985) definition of value chains, support

processes are business activities that do not directly add value to products or services
but are essential for enabling primary processes. Similarly, the Association of Business
Process Management Professionals (2013) emphasizes that while primary processes

directly deliver value to external customers, support processes are specifically designed to
assist primary processes and therefore do not directly create value for customers.
The purpose of this research is to examine whether organizations can improve support
process performance by applying the PDCA life cycle of BPM to the HRM process. The
PDCA life cycle, also known as the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, is a systematic and iterative

framework designed to promote continuous improvement in processes (Deming, 2000).
It involves four key stages: Plan, where goals are set, and strategies are formulated; Do,
where the planned actions are implemented; Check, where the results are monitored and

evaluated; and Act, where adjustments are made to refine and enhance the process.
To achieve our goal, we develop the following two research questions: (1) What are
the appropriate stages to apply the PDCA life cycle of BPM to support processes, taking
the HRM process as an example? (2) With the existing methodologies that are applied to
primary processes, what should be adjusted when applying these methodologies to support

processes?
By addressing gaps in the existing literature, this research enhances the body of
knowledge in BPM by exploring the application of the PDCA life cycle within Taiwan’s

express delivery industry. It contributes to a broader understanding of BPM practices and
responds to calls for further validation to support generalization across diverse contexts.
The findings provide valuable insights for practitioners aiming to implement BPM
projects to drive performance improvement and can serve as a reference for applying these
approaches in express delivery industries in other regions. The study first defines research

purpose and proposes research questions. Section 2 examines prior studies on business
processes, BPM, and the BPM life cycle. Next, company records are collected and a case
interview is conducted, focusing on the life cycle of applying BPM to support processes.

Finally, we draw the conclusions.

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