• BPM
• Business Process Analysis
• Business Process Management
• Business Process Optimization
• Key Performance Indicators
• KPI
• Master Data Management
• MDM
• Measurement

Business Process Management (BPM) aims to improve a company's performance by the application of various methods and tools in order to manage and optimize business processes. The optimization by means of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) starts with the definition of the objectives of the process. Based thereon, the corresponding critical success factors can be derived which then are used to define appropriate KPIs. Therefore, the kind of information required depends on the context and the objectives of the business process. Business processes in Master Data Management (MDM) deal with master data, which represent the core business objects of an organization. The main objective of MDM is to provide master data with high quality. Therefore, the processes are characterized by automatic and manual verifications and a high dependence on the human resource. To approve the elaborated theoretical concepts, a case study, which investigates an inter-organizational MDM process of a leading producer of chemical products, has been conducted. Considering the specific characteristics of a MDM process, the following KPI-categories has been identified as the most relevant ones: Cycle Time, Productivity, Quality, Timeliness and Resource Utilization. The case study has been conducted within the SAP environment, which enables the implementation of the whole procedure, from the collection of the information to the analysis and optimization of the process.