BPM Study 2025

How companies manage their business processes and what AI changes about that: the study shows which methods, roles and tools are actually in use in process management today, how mature this management is in practice, and where artificial intelligence is already having a concrete effect.

Key data

Description

Process management has been firmly established as a management discipline in companies across the DACH region for years, serving as a frame of reference for transformation, digitalisation and regulatory assurance. The Institute of Business Information Technology at the ZHAW School of Management and Law has been studying this development through regular surveys since 2011 (2011, 2014, 2015, 2023) and therefore holds a robust time series on maturity, perceived benefits and tool adoption in BPM.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence raise a new question: are large language models, AI-supported analysis and agentic automation already having a tangible effect on process management, or does their use remain experimental for now? At the same time, practical experience suggests that the bottleneck lies less in the technology than in organisation and governance: data protection, traceability, roles and competencies. Solid empirical evidence on this interplay is still largely lacking.

The project pursues three objectives. First, it aims to systematically capture the current state of business process management in companies across the DACH region. Second, it analyses the role of AI in the BPM context: where is AI being used today, which technologies are being applied, and what potential and challenges do companies perceive? Third, it enables comparisons with the preceding studies in order to make developments over a period of 14 years visible.

The questionnaire is developed jointly with BOC Group and the SGO Verein and follows earlier surveys closely, in some cases verbatim, in order to safeguard comparability over time. The survey addresses companies from a range of industries and size classes; results are evaluated in aggregate and, for key questions, additionally broken down by company size and industry.