e-Procurement: From Strategy to Implementation

Back-End Systems and the Modern Organization

Despite the fact that the IT revolution has been with us now for nearly three decades, the more fundamental restructuring that was promised (and feared) in terms of the replacement of people with systems, has been far less dramatic than expected. This is because, until recently, the effect and focus of IT systems tended to be limited to office automation and accounting. It was only with the introduction of the massive and sophisticated ERP systems that organizations began to use IT systems to fundamentally restructure the way they did work. ERP systems became the backbone and nervous system of the modern organization, responsible for capturing, organizing, and presenting the vast amount of financial, ...