ABSTRACT
A reader of the business press or an observer of organizations will notice three recurring themes being played out in highly competitive companies. These companies are:
• Focusing on core business processes that lead to customer satisfaction • Tearing down functional boundaries that inhibit cooperation, frag-
ment processes, and discourage communications • Linking, integrating, and controlling processes with the use of power-
ful information technology, known as ERP systems
Proponents of various business process engineering approaches assert that the ineffectiveness of most organizational processes stems from a “division of labor” mentality held over from the industrial era where processes remain fragmented through overspecialization and spread across departmental boundaries. As a result, operations require more effort to coordinate, and it is often difficult to determine who is responsible for the entire process. Management interventions such as reengineering seek to eliminate process fragmentation, organize work around key business processes, and exploit the enabling technologies of modern information technology (IT) to link the core processes of the enterprise.
