• Capture information at the source . Requiring information to be entered more than once causes delays and errors. With information technology, an organization can capture it once and then make it available whenever needed. These principles may seem like common sense today, but in 1990 they took the business world by storm. Hammer gives example after example of how organizations improved their business processes by many orders of magnitude without adding any new employees, simply by changing how they did things (see sidebar). Unfortunately, business process re-engineering got a bad name in many organizations. This was because it was used as an excuse for cost cutting that really had nothing to do with BPR. For example, many companies simply used it as a reason for laying off part of their workforce. However, today many of the principles of BPR have been integrated into businesses and are considered part of good business-process management. Sidebar: Reengineering the College Bookstore The process of purchasing the correct textbooks in a timely manner for college classes has always been problematic. Now with online bookstores competing directly with the college bookstore for students’ purchases, the college bookstore is under pressure to justify its existence. But college bookstores have one big advantage over their competitors, namely they have access to students’ data. Once a student has registered for classes, the bookstore knows exactly what books that student will need for the upcoming term. To leverage this advantage and take advantage of new technologies, the bookstore Information Systems for Business and Beyond (2019) pg. 173
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