ABSTRACT
The specialisation of labour was the origin of the business process and the birth of the process world. Process engineering in the process world became indispensable, and in large and complex businesses a focus for improvements that would underpin growth and competitive edge. In the process world, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are a global transport system, automating the flow of business processes. Decision making and decision implementation are poorly understood and even more poorly supported in the process world. Systems exist that support the planning process Specific systems control internal processes like manufacturing, finance and human resources. Other ERP systems like customer relationship management (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM) manage processes that extend outside the organisation. Inside the organisation, transactional communication was common and preferable to action-based communication. However, many organisations were beginning to reject a transactional relationship in favour of a more human relationship.
