Information technology: BPR tool and organization building block

Information Technology has been central to the development and implementation of redesigned business processes from the first appearance of the term "Business Process Reengineering". Yet, IT has also been found to be the principal impediment to the realisation of redesigned processes, in practice. This paper examines the role of IT, both as a BPR project support tool and as an infrastructural enabler of realigned enterprise processes. It presents an holistic view of the organizational infrastructure needed by redesigned processes and explores the difficulties of developing process based information systems.