Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to show how to employ complex event processing (CEP) for the observation and management of business processes. It proposes a conceptual architecture of BPM event producer, processor, and consumer and describes technical implications for the application with standard software in a perfect order scenario. Design/methodology/approach - The authors discuss business process analytics as the technological background. The capabilities of CEP in a BPM context are outlined an architecture design is proposed. A sophisticated proof-of-concept demonstrates its applicability. Findings - The results overcome the separation and data latency issues of process controlling, monitoring, and simulation. Distinct analyses of past, present, and future blur into a holistic real-time approach. The authors highlight the necessity for configurable event producer in BPM engines, process event support in CEP engines, a common process event format, connectors to visualizers, notifiers and return channels to the BPM engine. Research limitations/implications - Further research will thoroughly evaluate the approach in a variety of business settings. New concepts and standards for the architecture's building blocks will be needed to improve maintainability and operability. Practical implications - Managers learn how CEP can yield insights into business processes' operations. The paper illustrates a path to overcome inflexibility, latency, and missing feedback mechanisms of current process modeling and control solutions. Software vendors might be interested in the conceptualization and the described needs for further development. Originality/value - So far, there is no commercial CEP-based BPM solution which facilitates a round trip from insight to action as outlines. As major software vendors have begun developing solutions (BPM/BPA solutions), this paper will stimulate a debate between research and practice on suitable design and technology.
