In the process of digital transformation, the authors prioritize business engineering based on digital products realized by interaction among participants of a digital business ecosystem. Creating a business in a digital environment suggests compliance with the value parameters determined by the digital business model of the product in business processes. In designing and adjusting the business processes realizing digital business model, a targeted model of management should be formed, allowing consideration of the parameters of the digital business model values. Orientation on corp orate values without considering the values of the digital business ecosystem participants is an essential disadvantage of the existing approaches to development of the digital model of business management. The study presents an approach to digital transformation of business processes based on a value model. The study method includes analysis of the role of the value-oriented approach in digital transformation of companies, select ion of the ways of digital transformation of business processes of a business model, review of the methods and tools of value-oriented business management, and description of the approach to creating a targeted value-oriented business process management model. This model connects the value model and the targeted business process management model, allowing design and adjustment of business processes in accordance with the value parameters of a digital business model. The requirements for the value model are determined at the stage of designing a digital business model. These requirements should be used in developing a targeted model of managing a cross-organizational business process, arising in interaction of the participants forming the joint product in the digital business ecosystem. The prop osed approach is now being tested in the enterp rises, involved in digital transformation.
Formation and development of digital economy, the leading driver of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, based on the use of cyber-physical systems, is becoming an important strategic task for industrially developed countries. Transition to the digital economy, implying large-scale use of IT not only for data processing but also for managing enterprises is usually referred to as digital transformation (DT). The goal of DT is to raise the efficacy of companies, which will lead to improved competitiveness and adjustability to growth in a turbulent environment. One of the positive effects of DT is the possibility and necessity of existing under conditions of digital interaction among the participants of a business ecosystem(manufacturers, intermediaries, customers) based on the principles of value distribution, normally referred to as distributive economy, also called distributism.
The key idea underlying implementation of DT adopted by most approaches consists in development of a digital business model (DBM), which not only reflects the value proposition to the customer but also demonstrates the ways it is done and provided by digital technologies in the course of interaction among stakeholders.
Implementation of the DT processes generates, in our opinion, certain research challenges, namely: Underdevelopment of the methods of assessment and commensuration of values in the course of business simulation, which makes development of common DBM and distribution of values among the participants difficult; The absence of the methods of applying the value-oriented approach (VOA) to engineering of business processes (BP) in the digital environment, which complicates the perspective of DBM implementation; The absence of an approach to improvement of BPs in the enterprise and among its stakeholders under conditions of the DT based on a general structured model of values, which reduces promptness of changing the DBM under conditions of fast changes in the business environment.
The goal of the proposed study is to develop an approach to improvement of BPs of an enterprise under conditions of DT based on the model of product values. To this goal, the following problems have been solved: analysis of the role of the VOA in the process of DT of an enterprise and of the methods of DT of BPs considering the value -based parameters of the business model; the methods and tools of value-oriented management of BPs are reviewed; an approach is proposed to development of a targeted value -oriented model of BP management. 2
A digital economy is characterized by mutual dependence of businesses and the IT
aspects of their activities. It is considered that business strategies are the most significant
driver of changes for a traditional economy. For the digital economy, appearance of a
new highly effective technology, opening up business development perspectives, may
become such a driver [
Development of the technologies of social networks, the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, mobile computers and big data, as well as emergence of devices allowing operation of these technologies, creates cond itions for intense expansion of digital environment, which is understood as the totality of digital information, digital processes and digital infrastructure (digital devices and platforms), as well as actions relating to management of digital processes to wards development of a digital economy.
Modern companies based on digital platforms use digital environment to form and develop their own digital business ecosystems (DBE), a network of sustainable interactions among an enterprise, its suppliers, partners and customers (organizations and individuals), in order to provide maximu m value to all its participants. As a result of DBE development, the boundaries between a company and its environment fuse, leading to implementation of digital strategies based on t ransition to innovative DBM.
According to [
However, in a digital economy, a business model becomes not only an element of
business planning but also a mechanism of managing an enterprise and the processes
of its digitalization. In this regard, the radical shift of the paradigm of enterprise
digitalization should be noted: whereas at the starting st age of the digitalization era,
research based on an information model was the basic approach to development of
information systems, followed by automation of BPs, now, at the time of movement towards
the digital economy, design and realization of DBMs are viewed as the basic approach
[
In developing a DBM, dynamic features of the DBE should be considered, which,
according to [
Relating to business models, the issues of values are considered in the course of
designing a value proposition by comparing the factor of benefit for the customers to
their needs and the necessity of fulfilling a task or solving a problem [
It is evident that the concept of the value is much deeper than the utility of products. One can identify cultural, ethical, aesthetical, economic, material, financial and other values. Being different in nature, values are united by a common property: they are used as principles in decision-making. Traditionally, in developing a DBM, economic values are primarily used. There are two approaches to their estimation: the user value (utility) and the exchanged value (cost, or commodity cost). However, due to the necessity of distributing values in the DBE and of maintaining the balance among stakeholders, the use of values in the DBM has not only the evaluating but also operational nature.
Now DBMs are used as an inseparable element of DT realization. In literature,
certain frameworks are provided, describing the DT process in a DBE [
For practical use of this approach, Internet engineering [
A business model is an idea to be implemented. According to [
The DT process produces certain requirements for design and management of BPs: targeted management, required to maintain the proportions of the value model under conditions of network interaction; promptness of deployment of making changes, attributed to the dynamic nature of bus iness models in a DBE. These requirements may be realized, based on the modern concept of BP management (BPM) and of the system of the BPMS class.
The key principle of the BPM concept is creating values for customers by forming customer-oriented BPs, the efficacy of which is evaluated on the basis of customer satisfaction using approved tools: a map of the value creating chain, ABC analysis, statistical control methods, etc. BPMS software complexes, automatically generating business applications based on an IT platform are an environment for promoting the BPM concept. Such powerful tools are a necessary condition for BPs in DT but it is not a sufficient condition, as implementation of BPs of the network business in a DBE has a number of features: distribution; dynamism, and the necessity of realizing the set parameters of network values. The status -quo requires application of an operation approach to value-oriented management of BPs, to ensure better control of delivering the value to the customers and of distributing the values in the network.
In this regard, the concept of the product value in relation to BP management should
be specified. In the BPM-discourse, this concept is often misinterpreted, and a certain
thing (for example, a commodity or material) is often identified with a value, which in
fact is a “metaphysical” category, manifested in the attitude of an individual or a group
to the product proposed to him/them. Hence, according to [
These ideas should be considered, to ensure correct development of a targeted model
of managing BPs, oriented on customer values and containing mechanisms of aligning
the values and objectives of a BP. It is to be noted that the issue of building a targeted
model of BP management corresponding to customer values is not sufficiently
investigated. In particular, questions arise relating to the metho ds of selecting values, their
assessment and co-measurement, the principles of establishing ties between values and
objectives and determining the role of a value in assessing the efficacy of BPs in terms
of the end result. In the context of enterprise eng ineering, these issues are investigated
in [
There are publications which contain recommendations on applying values to the management processes in finance, enterprise engineering, designing enterprise architecture and BP management. An important area of value-oriented management is taking managerial decisions, presupposing the choice of the best decision among many alt ernatives based on the value criterion.
Essential contribution to the theory of value-based decision-making was made by
Ralph Keeney and Howard Raiffa, who developed the multi-attribute utility theory
(MAUT) [10, pp, 5-7], in which they proposed a paradigm for analyzing decisions,
consisting of five steps: preliminary analysis; structural analysis; uncertainty analysis,
analysis of utility or value; the optimization procedure. In this, a decision -making tree
is built, consisting of decision nodes and case nodes, for which probabilities are found.
Then the decision-maker (DM) finds the numerical equivalents for utility (value) for
the effects related to a certain decision and then finds an optimal decision by maximi
zing the expected utility. The authors of the theory proposed a paradigmof value-focused
thinking (VFT), based on a value-based decision-making approach. This approach is
compared to the commonly used approach of alternative -oriented decision-making
[
In building a value-oriented model of decision-making (the value-oriented model), the following components are identified: Values of the DM, used as principles for choosing a set of objectives; Objectives, indicated in the context of strategic decis ions and organized as a hierarchy; Goals oriented on achieving objectives and organized as a network; Alternatives from which a decision is selected; Attributes of goals, allowing quantitative estimation; Criteria allowing the degree of goal achievement to be assessed; Compromises allowing comparison of contradictory goals; Restrictions used for eliminating unacceptable alternatives.
This model allows decision-making focused on values. To consider the risks, interchangeability and multiple criteria, it is reasonable to apply the mathematical methods developed in the framework of the MAUT theory. The MAUT value model, unlike attributes, which provide a measure for achieving a specific objective, ensures a common structure for uniting various attributes. Depending on the situation, during decision-making a value model may be either a function of measured preference or a utility function.
The possibilities of applying the VOA to management of BPs are now actively dis
cussed in literature. In [
In [
An approach to value-oriented BP engineering is proposed in [
The above approaches are focused on achievement of corporate goals and do not directly take the values for customers and other participants of digital interaction into consideration. However, conceptual ideas obtained in these studies may be used in developing an approach to value-oriented targeted business management (VTBM) in digital business transformation. 5
Currently, significant expertise has been accumulated in the area of practical applica tion of VOA, in particular, in the IT industry, where the use of VOA in BP management has become a norm, which is reflected in certain standards of IT management: Val IT Framework, The Open Group IT4IT™ Reference Architecture, and COBIT 5. In particular, the business model of COBIT 5 indicates that creating a business value for the customer based on adjustment of the stakeholder needs to the high -level objectives of an enterprise is one of the principles of applying this standard.
Another practical application of VOA is electronic business. In [
Examples of practical application of VOA in the framework of the VDEE concept
to realize the procedures of architectural analysis of DT options and of risk manage
ment are provided in [
In [
This confirms the necessity of applying VOA to creation of a networked e -business; however, the issues of using the value models are localized as part of designing and testing business models and are not brought to engineering of BPs realizing the business model. The latter essentially restricts the role of the value model in the process of e business management.
To sum up, the value-oriented approaches of business management are actively developing in the framework of traditional busines s, where the value model is focused on achievement of corporate goals. At the same time, in the framework of network e -business, the significance of the value model is recognized, though its use is restricted to designing business models.
In our opinion, the joint use of these concepts will allow implementation of an approach to DT of business processes in the framework of implementation of comple x digital business models, ensuring compliance with the parameters of the stakeholders’ values distributed in the network. In the process of DT, in designing a digital product, it is necessary to develop a VTBM, meant to ensure realization of a value concept and the possibility of making prompt changes considering the market behavior. The principle of creating a VTBM model is shown in Fig. 1 (with EPC-notation). VTBM (the lefthand part of Fig.1) contains a model of values, management objectives and means -ends. The means-ends are adjusted to the functions of the business process model (the righthand part of Fig. 1).
Creation of such a model should proceed in the course of developing a digital product at the stages of designing the business model and of organizational design of the digital product. The approach to creating a VTBM model in the context of developing a digital product proposed by us is shown in Table 1. The requirements for the value model are determined at the stage of designing a digital business model, containing requirements for the value proposition for the customer and economic value for the participants of creating the digital product.
These requirements should be used in developing a targeted model of managing a cross -organizational BP, arising in interaction of the participants forming the joint product in the digital business ecosystem. The following conclusions are made: 1) Selection and testing of a DBM, which has to be analyzed in terms of distribution of values among the participants of digital collaboration, is becoming the key stage of planning in the process of DT of enterprises; 2) In designing and adjusting the BPs realizing DBM, a targeted model of management should be formed, allowing consideration and control of the parameters of the DBM values; 3) Orientation on corporate values without considering the values of the DBE participants is an essential disadvantage of the existing approaches to development of the digital model of business management. Based on that, the authors propose an approach to develop a VTBM by identifying the connections between the functional goals of the business processes and the value model; the process of building a VTBM in the context of business design is described. The use of such a VTBM will allow control of compliance with the parameters of the DBM values and prompt adjustment of business processes to its changes. The proposed approach is now being tested in the enterprises of the air transportation industry and in the organizations of the financial and educational sectors involved in DT.