MANAGING RISKS IN ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS IMPLEMENTATIONS

摘要

Two companies were at risk. One survived while the other failed after installing an enterprise system (ES), SAP R/3. At the time of its R/3 implementation, beginning in 1995, Dow Corning Incorporated was a $2.5 billion producer of silicone products. The company was facing competitive pressures as well as lawsuits worth $2 billion due to well-publicized problems with silicone breast implants. Existing systems were fragmented and focused on specific departments, making it difficult to present a common face to the customer. The company decided that its survival depended on reengineering its business processes to become a truly global company, an objective it believed could be met only with appropriate information systems. It created Business Processes and Information Technology (BPIT) to support reengineering by incorporating responsibility for business processes and IT within the same organizational unit.