An increasingly important role of IT in many firms is to support the improvement and standardization of organizational processes. This is exhibited by the widespread adoption of enterprise resource planning systems, as well as by efforts to leverage organizational knowledge through performance support systems.
Process is at the heart of a firm's capability for sharing information internally and externally.
CISR is engaged in four projects in this area. While ERPs are expected to enable global processes, address Y2k concerns, and replace outdated legacy systems, the implementation process can be wrenching because of forced changes in organizational processes. In addition, firms looking for a payback on their ERP investments have found that implementation typically marks the beginning rather than the end of organizational process redesign. A telephone survey of 42 persons at 15 companies identified the factors that distinguished firms who were reaping performance benefits from their ERPs from those that were not. We have also issued a follow-up case study that describes the implementation of SAP at Dow Corning and the firm's efforts to reap the benefits of that implementation.