The authors discuss the role of business process re-engineering in implementing enterprise resource planning systems in their article. The very term BRP goes back to the 1980-s, when it was created by MIT experts to denote the change of business from function based to process based. It is different from another highly-efficient management tools due to its ability to assess structured and non-structured problem models that require quick solutions. BPR falls under the pressure of globalization and reaches beyond both intra and inter-organizational collaboration.
In order for the re-engineering to take place ERP systems are used for sharing common information between all the parties involved in the business. Internet is used very often as a universal tool for information sharing, however Intranet has a huge advantage of higher level of security, allowing keeping the information safer. The IT-based BRP involves seven steps of implementation, all of them following in the strict hierarchy based on the significance. The success of the IT-based BPR systems depends on a few factors. One of them is gaining flexibility for the company to be able to work in diverse and changing environments. Personnel selection is another factor of significance since employees have to be highly professional and prepared to meet a variety of challenges caused by the shifting environments. Also, when using ERP systems, only one process should be changed at a time, as multiple change of processes may lead to ERP malfunctioning.
The BRP involves critical approach to rethinking and redesigning of the business processes in order to achieve new improved business solutions. Due to the common database availability the process of data exchange accelerates and becomes very little time consuming. Despite of the system chosen for implementation the costs are lower compared to traditional approach since alterations to the system are minimal, but this only works for big enterprises. EPR systems are very easy to be implemented and thus used for improving the functionality of BRP, which may use ERP as an alternative of its internet environment. BRP allows tracking the effects of the ERP systems implementation and collected data analysis provides an opportunity for final tuning of the systems. Scholars argue a lot on the dependence between BRP and ERP, as since in case of BRP being a consequence of ERP the entire sense of re-engineering becomes lost. Another important improvement to the system development is making it web-based.
ERP systems highly improve the company performance, but even in the best case they are only 80% efficient. Depending on the type of re-engineering company might need to make minor changes like adaptation to the software, while more global changes involve changing both software and the processes for meeting the end goal. There may be variations, involving different ratio between the software and processes changes. ERP systems were proved to be very helpful in maintaining many processes, however they still have a number of drawbacks, including lacking intelligence and not enough sufficiency. Researchers do not have a single opinion about the future of the ERP systems, but one thing is definite – they would be in high demand due to their potential of application to the numerous processes. ERP got more developed with deeper research in the area of artificial intelligence and related spheres of knowledge. BRP systems still require further technological advance before their full implementation in the business processes. Combining of ERP and BRP systems turns out to be a universal solution when redesigning the business processes.