Process Modeling Challenges in Emerging Economies: A Case of Citizen Services in India

While emerging economies present business opportunities for global organizations, the differences and challenges in extending the existing business processes to the emerging economies are significant. These differences come from new strategies adopted for emerging economies, by the firm, the business environment of the host country and the existence of institutional voids. It is critical to examine the how business processes can be modelled to handle these requirements. A specific business process designed for the same objectives can turn out to be very different in a developed and an emerging economy. These differences are even more pronounced for the service industries. In this paper, we discuss the several characteristics of emerging economies which can influence the process design, architecture and infrastructure. We use the example of a citizen service, viz. 'passport issue process in India' to illustrate the differences. The element of manual work involved in this example helps to highlight many aspects which may not be so apparent if a completely IT-enabled industry were chosen. Here the e-government services help identify the issues of modelling services process and the challenges of an emerging economy.