Case management makes it possible to solve specific situations and achieve specific business goals. On the other hand, business process management (BPM) focuses on managing work processes that are repetitive and independent of circumstances (Kir & Erdogan, 2020). Accordingly, the main difference between case management and BPM lies precisely in the situation in which one or the other approach can be applied. Moreover, although case management is used to make decisions and achieve specific goals in specific situations, it can positively influence all processes in the company and optimize its performance.
Case management is mainly aimed at improving the quality of work and gaining knowledge in a specific area of the company. Therefore, this approach favors highly trained workers who can “deal with very diverse units of work” (Gonzalez-Lopez & Pufahl, 2019, p. 87). Adaptive Case Management provides an opportunity to accumulate corporate knowledge for its reuse. It means that the previous experience of solving cases is preserved, and templates for actions in similar situations can be developed on its basis (Herzog et al., 2019). After assessing the situation and developing a strategy to solve it, this event can move into the normal processes in the company, which BPM regulates. At the same time, the case management system is quite adaptive and flexible, which allows management to automate the processes necessary to achieve stated goals.
Case management helps to assess the level of risk of the current situation carefully and, on the basis of this, develop an action plan to achieve the desired result. That implies a prompt response to emerging situations, ensuring the company’s safety. In addition, this management approach is data-centric (Herzog et al., 2019). In collecting information about a situation or incident, a large amount of information is collected and analyzed. It can help identify problems associated with the case and other processes in the company. Detection of operational process violations at an early stage contributes to their rapid elimination, which reduces the risks to the company’s operations.
One approach to case management is the Case Management Model and Notation (CMMN). This model contains descriptions of work methods based on the processing of cases that require various actions that can be performed in an unpredictable order in response to the development of the situation (Routis et al., 2021). Some business processes in a company are well-structured and predictable. They occur according to a set order and often do not require management intervention. However, many business processes are difficult to model in advance, so case management is used in such cases. Although the solution is chosen individually for each specific situation, CMMN provides “interoperability guidelines between tools and minimum execution semantics” that can be adapted to the situation (Routis et al., 2021, p. 2091). That facilitates the development of a strategy for a case while positively influencing the level of knowledge and skills of employees.
Even though case management provides opportunities to improve the company’s performance, this approach has certain disadvantages. The main task of case management is to monitor and evaluate the situation, and often, the situation can be analyzed separately from the company’s overall activities (Gonzalez-Lopez & Pufahl, 2019). In such a case, achieving the desired results in a particular situation or circumstance may not be consistent with the company’s overall goals. Therefore, case management requires high professional skills from the leader to critically assess the situation and choose the best solution.
Case management cannot be the only way to manage a company. Applying this approach to repetitive workflows can slow down a company due to the time it takes to collect and analyze information (Gonzalez-Lopez & Pufahl, 2019). Therefore, it must be used in conjunction with business process management. The effective application of different approaches to solving various situations can increase the company’s efficiency, improve its performance, and, as a result, increase the level of customer satisfaction and the organization’s income. In addition, the joint application of these types of management helps to prevent conflicts of interest when the solution of a particular situation may adversely affect other business processes in the company.
In addition, the challenge may be the lack of preparedness of employees to work within specific circumstances. Usually, when developing a case management strategy, the manager considers employees’ professional capabilities. However, in some cases, the situation’s specifics require special knowledge and skills to solve it. Case handling relies on collaboration to reach a common decision (Herzog et al., 2019). Often, this involves interaction between different departments in an organization. However, when there are not enough internal resources in the company to solve the situation, “integration of additional resources” is possible (Herzog et al., 2019, p. 70). For example, it is possible to attract narrow specialists with more experience and expertise in a specific area needed to solve the problem. In this case, the solution requires additional financial costs. Therefore, the case manager must evaluate all options for achieving the required goal to determine the one that will have the least damage to the company.
References
Gonzalez-Lopez, F., & Pufahl, L. (2019). A Landscape for Case Models. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, 87–102. Web.
Herzog, P., Lantow, B., & Wichmann, J. (2019). Adaptive Case Management–Creating a Case Template for Social Care Organizations. Joint Proceedings of the BIR, 83-71. Web.
Kir, H., & Erdogan, N. (2020). A knowledge-intensive adaptive business process management framework. Information Systems, 95, 101639. Web.
Routis, I., Bardaki, C., Dede, G., Nikolaidou, M., Kamalakis, T., & Anagnostopoulos, D. (2021). CMMN evaluation: the modelers’ perceptions of the main notation elements. Software and Systems Modeling, 20(6), 2089–2109. Web.