ERP Vs BPR - Differences and Concept

ERP is Enterprise Resource Planning and BPR is Business Process Reengineering. EPR integrates the primary business applications and provides a customized solution. It covers areas such as human resources, sales and distribution, quality management, production management, accounting, project management and plant maintenance. Business Process Reengineering is redesigning of the business process for improvement of performance. It aids to eliminate wasteful tasks and reorganize procedures to prevent unnecessary expenses.

The process involves defining the work order and restructuring of the redundant tasks. It helps to streamline the business process which enhances the performance of the company. One has to study the current business process for redesigning and reengineering. ERP vs BPR is different even though they bring in improvements in the business processes and information. A company can go with both the processes as it can reduce the time and effort for bringing in the changes. BPR is done prior to implementation of an ERP since the software to be designed according to the new changes is helped by BPR. The investment and the challenges needed for both the processes are similar so they should be implemented by proper planning.

The features of ERP that support BPR is the configurability, the integrative feature and the scope. If you look for implementing BPR before ERP, the organization needs to study the existing processes and identify the non value adding activities. BPR is an important aspect in the implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning. The results of BPR will be the basis for the implementation of the ERP software. The study based on this will show whether ERP implementation is required or not. If it is, then ERP will be implemented to cover the gaps present in the BPR study.

BPR is used to analyze the business process and thereby take the necessary steps to realize the potential growth of the organization. ERP on the other hand is an application used to meet the potential growth by integrating the various functional departments of the organization. The various functional departments are productions, accounting, sales, etc. BPR is used to identify the trouble areas of the process and ERP is used to handle these troubled areas in simple terms.

ERP vs BPR is different but both the tools are important as each is different and has its own advantages. Both are actually interrelated and yet have their own roles. BPR is for analysis whereas ERP is for integration of the business process. BPR also aids in suggesting steps that have to be followed for enterprise resource planning to be implemented in the organization. The success of the implementation of the Enterprise Resource Planning depends on how the organization solves the Business Process Reengineering problems. Therefore it can be said that the BPR forms an important part of implementing the ERP in a company. BPR is not only essential for ERP implementation but also for any business process. It can be considered as the initial step to be taken in the process of the ERP implementation as BPR is done to perform feasibility study and restructuring.