Manfred Reichert was invited keynote speaker at the 16th International Conference on Business Process Management (BPM 2018), which took place in Sydney from 9 to 14 September 2018.

BPM 2018 was the 16th conference in a series that provides the most prestigious forum for researchers and practitioners in the field of Business Process Management. Over the past decade, the conference has built its reputation by showcasing leading-edge research of the highest quality together with talks, tutorials and discussions by the most renown thought leaders and innovators in the field. The BPM conference series embraces the diversity and richness of the BPM field and serves as a melting pot for experts from a mix of disciplines including Computer Science, Information Systems Engineering, and Management.

In his keynote presentation, Prof. Reichert discussed the role and opportunities of BPM for the ongoing digital transformation. He emphasized that BPM will only create a significant impact in the digital era, if  a stronger focus is put on process automation (i.e. process engineering and execution). In this context, he provided profound insights into flexible BPM execution platforms (i.e. data-centric and adaptive process engines devleoped by his group), which deliver the ability to manage work while dynamically adapting processes according to a contextual awareness and understanding of content, data, business and events. He provided impressive examples of a successful practical transfer of these platforms and gave examples of their combined use with emerging technologies (e.g. blockchain, smart devices, AR / VR), which will open up opportunities to totally rethink processes and their automation.