SAP R/3 Business Blueprint: Understanding the Business Process Reference Model

For those interested in redefining the way in which their business does its business, SAP R/3 Business Blueprint: Understanding the Business Process Reference Model is worth a perusal. Authors Curran and Keller define their central idea--business engineering--as a method by which information technology is used to design and reengineer business processes, such as sales and distribution, instead of simply automating them. And as is clear from the title, this concept is explored almost exclusively within the context of SAP R/3.

The book is broken down into four sections: "Business Engineering," "Process Engineering," "Architecture," and "Framework & Tools." These segments follow a sliding scale that goes from MBA esoterica to practical application to behind-the-scenes implementation. The first section is dedicated to such things as mapping out global goals and identifying the organization processes that need to be reengineered. Next, the authors get more fundamental, looking at ways in which SAP R/3 can enable a retooling of existing practice, illustrating this thought via case studies. Lastly, the book examines the details of an R/3 system and the tools in the R/3 arsenal. A terrific discipline-spanning volume, SAP R/3 Business Blueprint's one shortcoming is that it never addresses a world in which SAP R/3 might not be the ultimate answer to an organization's efficiency problems. But perhaps it wasn't meant to. --Sarah L. Roberts-Witt