Process Management Models in Service Enterprises: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Improvements to business processes influence the quality of services with which the customer is provided. This principle is the basis of the Total Quality Management approach. This paper presents a systematic literature review carried out in order to identify the most commonly used models in service companies to manage their internal processes. In addition, the type/size of companies that most frequently use these models are identified to find gaps in such utilization to contribute to the service science field. The review process made it possible to identify 1507 studies, 74 of which were eventually classified as primary studies. The results showed that the most widely used models are the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) for organisational management, and the Capability Maturity Model Integration for Services (CMMI-SVC), which is employed to determine the organisation’s maturity, evaluate processes and improve services. The use of ISO/IEC 20000 standards for IT service management and ISO/IEC 9001 for product and service quality management was also identified, as were proposals such as the ITIL framework with best practices in IT service management. With regard to the type of organisations that implement these solutions, large companies prevail and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are underrepresented.

Keywords

• processes management
• quality of services
• systematic literature review