Towards Business Process Modeling in Business Contracting – Analyzing Collaboration Contracts as a Field of Application for Process Models

Becker Jörg, Heddier Marcel, Knackstedt Ralf

Abstract
Today's rising quantity of business collaborations increases the relevance of business contracting between companies. This leads at the same time to more complex and incomprehensible business contracts. We state a need for new approaches to handle this complexity. Business process modeling is a well established methodology of business process management (BPM) that can be used to handle complexity in business processes. In this paper we argue that conceptual models can improve comprehensibility of complex contracts by modeling those parts of business contracts that regulate specific procedures. Based on a contract analysis we indentify different contract content types and their potential for process modeling. The results show great potential in some content types and less in others. Based on our findings we propose the design of a software-based recommendation tool that could facilitate business contract design and the comprehensibility of these contracts.

Keywords
business process modeling; contract design; collaboration contract