11.7. Summary

Key Takeaways

  • The advent of information technologies has had a huge impact on how organizations design, implement, and support business processes.
  • From document management systems to ERP systems, information systems are tied into organizational processes.
  • Using business process management, organizations can empower employees and leverage their processes for competitive advantage.
  • Using business process reengineering, organizations can vastly improve their effectiveness and the quality of their products and services.
  • Integrating information technology with business processes is one way that information systems can bring an organization lasting competitive advantage.
  • An ERP system stores all data in a centralized database that is made accessible to all programs and departments across the organization.

Review Questions

  1. What does the term business process mean?
  2. What are three examples of business processes from a job you have had or an organization you have observed?
  3. What is the value in documenting a business process?
  4. What is business process reengineering? How is it different from incrementally improving a process?
  5. What is a transaction processing system, and how is it different from an enterprise system?
  6. List and describe the types of enterprise systems.
  7. What components or functions are contained in an ERP system?
  8. What are some benefits and concerns of an ERP system?
  9. What is a supply chain and how can a supply chain management system improve a supply chain?
  10. How can the internet be used to improve supply chain activities?
  11. What tasks can a CRM do, and how does this impact the customer relationship?
  12. Why is knowledge management a good idea?

Assignment

Overview
This assignment requires you to document a business process and discuss whether automation of this process can be beneficial .

Assignment

  1. Think of a business process that you have had to perform in the past. How would you document this process? Would a diagram make more sense than a checklist? Document the process both as a checklist and as a diagram.
  2. Consider whether this process could be automated and what benefits would be experienced from automation. Discuss some potential challenges with automation as well.

License

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Information Systems for Business and Beyond Copyright © 2022 by Shauna Roch; James Fowler; Barbara Smith; and David Bourgeois is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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