Page 66 - DCAP302_ENTERPRISE_RESOURCE_PLANNING

Enterprise Resource Planning

notes 3.7.3 technology

Information technology is considered as the major enabler for spanning processes over functional
and organizational boundaries and supporting process driven organizations. However, the point
is not to use IT as an improver for existing activities, as which it often has been conceived, but as
enabler for the new organization. This includes using new technologies such as groupware, as
well as new methods for using them and an acceptance of technological changes and the fact that
information technology will be shaping the future.
3.7.4 people

The human activity system within the organization is the most critical factor for re-engineering.
While top management support for re-engineering efforts is rather simple to ensure, the real
change agents, middle management are far harder to win due to the fact, that they have to
identify change opportunities and perform them, while they are the group facing most threats,
as BPR often is used for cutting hierarchies and reducing the work force. The other crucial factor
is to align the work force with the strategies defined and to address the variable cultural and
environmental contexts within the organization. Finally, flattening hierarchies implies decision
making to be moved down in the organization and empowerment of the employees taking
them.

This requires training and education as well as motivation and trust from top management that
people are able and willing to take responsibility, a fact that is rather contradictory to the “trust
is good, control is better” way of thinking.

3.8 advantages of Bpr

BPR has/gives following advantages:
1. Satisfaction: A big advantage of re-engineering is that the work becomes more satisfying
because the workers get a greater sense of completion, closure, and accomplishment
from their jobs. The employee performs a whole job, a process or a sub-process, that by
definition produces a result that somebody cares about. The workers not only try to keep
the boss happy or to work through the bureaucracy. More important is the fact to satisfy
the customer needs.
2. Growth of Knowledge: Furthermore, the personal development within a process team
environment does not play such an important role which means climbing up the hierarchy
is a minor goal.
In this case it is much more important to get a widespread knowledge of the whole process
and there are no such things as “mastering” a job; as a worker’s expertise and experience
grow, his or her job grows with it.
3. Solidarity to the Company: Moreover, since workers in a reengineered process spend more
time on value adding work and less time on work that adds no value, their contributions to
the company increase, and, consequently, jobs in a reengineered environment will on the
whole be more highly compensated.
4. Demanding Jobs: There is, however, a challenging side to all this good news about work in
a reengineered environment. If jobs are more satisfying, they are also more challenging and
difficult. Much of the old, routined work is eliminated or automated. If the old model was
simple tasks for simple people, the new one is complex jobs for smart people, which raises
the bar for entry into the workforce. Few simple, routine, unskilled jobs are to be found in
a reengineered environment.

60 LoveLy professionaL university