Supply Chain Information Technology by Olson David L

Author:Olson, David L....
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-04-24T07:15:54.830000+00:00

The change implicit in BPR has many risks. Even advocates of BPR cite failure rates of 50 to 70%.1 Reasons for difficulty in implementing BPR include the following:

• Employee resistance to change

• Inadequate attention to employee concerns

• Mismatch of strategies used and goals

• Lack of oversight

• Failure in leadership commitment

Best Practices

One of the primary features of the SAP ERP product has been best practices. Business process reengineering is an activity designed to identify a best practice. Once a best practice is identified that would seem applicable to most organizations, it can be incorporated into an ERP system. SAP spends considerable research efforts to identify the best way of doing conventional ERP tasks. They had 800 to 1,000 best practices included in their R/3 software.2 Consultants often develop further specialized expertise that firms can purchase. A best practice is a method that has been judged to be superior to other methods. This implies the most efficient way to perform a task.

A related concept is benchmarking. Benchmarking is comparing an organization’s methods with peer groups, with the purpose of identifying the best practices that lead to superior performance. Best practices are usually identified through the benchmarking phase of a business process reengineering activity. Best practices thus often change the organizational climate and attempt to bring about dramatic improvements in performance.

Vendors attempt to be comprehensive and to be all things to all people. But missed deadlines, excessive costs, and employee frustrations are common in the implementation of ERP. A more participative design approach could help in implementing ERP. If a client implements the entire suite of SAP modules, as well as their tools for system implementation, SAP can ensure timely implementation within budget. However, this approach disregards the human factors of the client business culture.

While business process reengineering was designed to consider human values and business purposes, these factors are clearly neglected in BPR application. Care needs to be taken to consider human factors in new processes. The human factor costs of training and obtaining cooperative participation is the key to the successful implementation of ERP.

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