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The US Department of Defense (DoD) is engaged in a multi‐year transformation of logistics planning and execution, known as the Future Logistics Enterprise (FLE). It is currently being defined in policy documents and an implementation plan known as the Future Logistics Architecture (FLA). The systems strategy for the FLE is still emerging, but it is anticipated that commercial standard software will play a significant role in the enablement of the new logistics business processes. A number of products are available for implementation, but this paper focuses on mySAP.com from SAP AG. We show the strategy for aligning the SAP reference hierarchy and the associated reference business process models with the FLA. The result of the mapping and associated analysis is an SAP reference model for the FLE, which can be used as a guide for the software vendor for future product development strategies. This paper reports on the development of the FLA, its alignment with mySAP.com and the development of the SAP reference model.

While organizations have learned to understand the importance of developing business process management (BPM) capabilities, digitalization now transforms business processes, and introduces new challenges. Extending prior research examining the value of BPM capabilities in organizations, this study examines the associations of BPM capabilities across direct and indirect digitalization benefits.

Drawing from the capabilities perspective of strategic management, the dynamic versus ordinary classification was used to classify eight BPM capabilities. An empirical investigation of associations between the eight BPM capabilities and 20 digitalization benefits is presented based on data collected from 165 BPM professionals across four continents. Factor analyses were performed to verify the framework measures for BPM capabilities and digitalization benefits. The Kendall's tau-b (τ_b) correlation coefficient was used to measure the strength and direction of associations.

Overall results confirm positive associations between BPM capabilities and digitalization benefits, but the relationship was less dominant for ordinary BPM capabilities and indirect benefits. Furthermore, relationships between individual BPM capabilities and specific digitalization benefits vary both across and within the categories.

These findings support the moderate capability-based view that puts ordinary and dynamic capabilities on equal footing in dynamic environments, while also providing insight for managers focused on specific outcomes with digitalization efforts.

This study reveals that the strength of associations between BPM capabilities and digitalization benefits varies. This highlights the relevance of ordinary-dynamic and direct-indirect distinctions, and the value of a more fine-grained understanding to better inform practice.