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Chapter 9 • Organizational Change and Business Process Reengineering 259

and the informational level includes day-to-day operational activities in a firm. ERP is at the
functional and informational levels, and BPM system is at the corporate level. ERP does not satis-
fy all the process management requirements, but the BPM software aids and enhances ERP. BPMS
not only supports workflow methods in ERP systems but also connects processes in other applica-
tions. BPM software records process performance metrics and also helps in automation and
integration of processes throughout the organization, but ERP doesn’t perform these functions.

EXAMPLE 1

At the City of Fresno, California, the link between ERP system and BPM software permits workers
to create requests for leave electronically. Workers then use BPMS for checking the requests’
status and receive notification e-mails. ERP alone cannot carry out this function. 35

EXAMPLE 2

In 2009, SAP started working on integrating BPM and ERP, that is, including Net Weaver BPM
as a component in ERP suite, to serve the SAP customers better and also provide greater agility
to the ERP business processes. SAP is also working on merging BPM and BI to improve the
monitoring functionalities. 36
ERP system implementations aid in thorough redesigning of the business processes and the
deployment of new software to support the newly developed business processes (Robey et al. 2002;
Ross and Vitale 2000). Estimates suggest that the adoption of ERP is about 75 percent among
medium to large manufacturing firms, 60 percent among service organizations, and about 80 percent
among Fortune 500 firms (META Group 2004). The ERP system implementation caused greater
change with huge impacts on employees, basically changing the nature of workflows and tasks. The
importance of understanding change management procedures for implementing ERP is very critical
because data indicated that the rate of ERP failures is greater than 60 percent. 37
ERP software is a great asset in interconnecting the business processes and people and
enabling access to latest information among the different divisions and locations. ERP system
enables planning, scheduling, and monitoring of the entire manufacturing process. It also helps
the organization to centralize the information fed into the system so that it can be shared across
different departments like marketing and sales, material management, production planning, and
finance and accounting. Thus ERP system provides the firm a chance to reduce costs, turn much
more efficient, and reduce the manual intervention and automate the business processes to suit
the dynamic business conditions. The ERP included modules like production planning, material
management, quality assurance, sales and distribution and financial accounting. The ERP
systems bring in great business benefits like increasingly visible operations, integrated business
operations, and increased revenues. 38

35 Ibid.
36 Kemsley, S. (October 26, 2009). SAP NetWeaver BPM: A 1.0 Product With Promise. Intelligent Enterprise—Online;
Manhasset (1524–3621).
37 Morris, M. G., and Viswanath, V. (March 2010). Job Characteristics and Job Satisfaction: Understanding the Role of
Enterprise Resource Planning System Implementation. MIS Quarterly (0276–7783), 34 (1).
38 Rajendra Chaudhary The ERP Effect. (May 3, 2010). Express Intelligent Enterprise. http://www.expresscomputeron-
line.com/20100503/expressintelligententerprise02.shtml (accessed Mar 28, 2011).