• Can Fish Survive in Pure Water? An IT-driven Organizational Change

Abstract

Monsters, Inc. is a distributor of fitness equipment. Due to the inefficiency of business processes and external environment change, Monsters suffered serious problems. The firm decided to reengineer business process by ERP implementation. Enabled by the real-time information and synchronous process of ERP system, Monsters optimized its business processes. While organizational change prevented a variety of drawbacks in sales process, it limited the incentive of sales persons at the same time.

Firms hope to reengineer business processes by introducing an information system. The change could lead to a new power structure, resulting in internal resistance to the change. Therefore a successful information system requires careful change management. Triggered by the ERP implementation, the case company rationalized its business process in the same time. The change, however, negatively impacted on the motivation of sales persons, making the company facing a dilemma. As mentioned in Dong Fang Shuo Biography, “no fish can survive in pure water,” which means excessive pursuit of system rationalization may have negative results. This case helps students to understand why build an information system may lead to a business process change, and how the change may arise negative impacts to the organization. Firms must evaluate the pros and cons of the change and get a trade-off between risk and return.

Keywords: ERP system implementation, organizational changes, profit center, and business process reengineering