Abstract—Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is an essential tool before an information system project implementation. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) projects definitely require the standardization and fixation of business processes from customer order to shipment. Therefore, ERP implementations are well proven to be coupled with BPR, although the extend and timing of BPR with respect to ERP implementation differ. This study aims at analyzing the effects of BPR on ERP implementation success. Basing on two Turkish ERP implementations in pharmaceutical sector, a comparative study is performed. One of the ERP implementations took place after a BPR implementation, whereas the other implementation was without a prior BPR application. Both implementations have been realized with the same consultant team, the case with prior BPR implementation going live first. The results of the case study reveal that if business processes are not optimized and improved before an ERP implementation, ERP live system would face with disharmony problems of processes and processes automated by ERP. This suggests a definite precedence relationship between BPR and ERP applications Keywords—Business Process Reengineering, Enterprise Resource Planning. I. INTRODUCTION S markets become more competitive, organizations seek for new business opportunities to enhance their competitiveness. While doing so, organizations race with time in terms of agility. Many organizations have implemented Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), but not all of them had a Business Process Reengineering (BPR) implementation before ERP. That is why ERP fails so often. Although, the vitality of BPR is well known, and even in the list of critical success factors in ERP implementation, it is usually omitted. Business performance depends on how well a company manages its internal processes. Companies with effective business process management in place are able to analyze key performance indicators to monitor efficiency of day-to-day activities and employees against operational targets. As the business world evolved it was no longer adequate for companies to merely offer their goods for sale, in order to stay viable they had to keep their competitive advantage [1]. • in the ’60s industry concentrated on how to produce more (quantity), T. Erman Erkan is with the Industrial Engineering Department, Atılım University, Ankara, Turkey. (phone: 0090-312-586 8351; fax: 0090-312-586 8091; e-mail: ermanerk@atilim.edu.tr). • in the ’70s how to produce it cheaper (cost) • in the ’80s how to produce it better (quality) • in the ’90s how to produce it quicker (lead time) • in the 21st century how to offer more (service) II. BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING BPR is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed [2]. BPR takes place from the conceptual design of the product to its final stage and even in sales and distribution of it [3]. Jacobson [4] describes a business process as; ‘The set of internal activities performed to serve a customer’, Bider [5] suggests that the BPR community feel there is no great mystery about what a process is - they follow the most general definition of business processes proposed by Hammer and Champy [6] that a process is a ‘Set of partially ordered activities intended to reach a goal’ There are many BPR methodologies. As mentioned above their objective is same. The selected ones of . Feldmann, Harrison and Mayer are: Methodology of Feldman [7] • Develop vision & strategy • Create desired culture • Integrate & Improve enterprise • Develop technology solutions Methodology of Harrison [8] • Determine customer requirements and goals for the process • Map and measure the existing process • Analyze and modify existing process • Design a reengineered process • Implement the reengineered process Methodology of Mayer [9] • Motivating reengineering • Justifying reengineering • Planning reengineering • Setting up for reengineering • As Is description and analysis • To be design and validation • Implementation As Muthu, Whitman and Cheraghi [10], had designed, a comprehensive methodology could be obtained as: Prepare for BPR • Build Cross functional team BPR Effect on ERP Implementation: a Comparative Case Study Turan Erman Erkan A World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Economics and Management Engineering Vol:3, No:6, 2009 1143 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 3(6) 2009 scholar.waset.org/1307-6892/15646 International Science Index, Economics and Management Engineering Vol:3, No:6, 2009 waset.org/Publication/15646