The role of IT in business process-oriented organisations

The scope of this work is to investigate the role of information technology (IT) in business process-oriented (BPO) organisations. Moving away from the traditional organisational structures based on functional departments towards the adoption of a Business Process Orientation, organisations have to consider the significant effect on IT/IS systems designed to serve individual departmental requirements. The aim of this paper is to propose a model for the role of IT/IS supporting companies moving towards becoming BPO organisations. The model broadly encompasses three levels. The first level stresses the need for an appropriate strategy portfolio that will be formulated based on the principles of the business process concept. The second level highlights a portfolio of IT/IS features that Business Process-Oriented organisations should seek. Finally, the third level proposes some technologies and applications that can assist the realisation of the IT/IS features of the second level.