Application of BPR in ERP implementations

Abstract

Business software systems have been in use around the world for a while now and an extension of these called ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems offers a process based view and cross functional integration to an organization with number of other features. Need for redesigning company's existing business practices with the implementation of ERP system result in number of challenges to the organization. The complex nature of ERP implementations has been the subject of many researches and the objective of this research is to critically analyze the application of Business Process Reengineering in ERP implementations./ Number of successful and unsuccessful ERP implementations for Sri Lankan and foreign organizations have been studied in detail in the research. These cases have been analysed based on a common framework that gives more emphasis towards handling business processes and related issues such as change management. Based on this the most important issues relate to BPR have been discussed and a set of recommendations have been derived that could be followed in ERP implementations. Ultimately an attempt has been made to arrive at a framework for successful ERP implementations. The idea is to discuss issues that are not given very high attention, but arc very important for overall success of ERP implementations./ An important point that was identified in the research was that the change management was the single most important issue that has not been handled properly in ERP implementations. This has result in lot of pain for all the categories of employees and lead to unsuccessful returns from investments. Arriving at a frame work for successful ERP implementations that is universally applicable is almost impossible due to the complex nature of ERP implementations. Therefore the objective of the framework prepared in this research is to highlight the most important aspects that would affect the success or failure of the implementations. These aspects need to be given high attention to make the implementation an effective one.