How IT helps streamline Organizational processes?

Background:
I happen to have experiences working in an organization with very little use of Information Technology for a very very long time. And this I am talking of a $10b manufacturing firm in India that too until 2001 when I left the firm. Now coming out of that world, it is obviously exciting to realize how IT in general and an ERP systems in particular can help such an organization. The benefits of implementing such a system are very well documented and widely publicized over than last couple of decades in US. However I would like to take a stab at it again and try to justify the investments from a different perspective. This is targeted more towards firms who are still able to do business in circa 2009 without rudimentary IT infrastructure such as an ERP system.

Organizational Challenge:
Historically organizations consist of several departments which are supposed to function coherently to satisfy the expectations of all the stakeholders (customers, investors, employers, suppliers) in the most efficient fashion. Departments such as Finance, HR, Manufacturing, Legal, Logistics etc. consists of groups of people with similar skills. People with such skills can form a team, understand each other, hire new employees and these are the benefits of having departments. However one of the key objective of organization is to satisfy the customer demand and fulfill certain processes such as Order management (OM), Customer delivery etc. These processes however cut-across several departments. For example OM involves Sales, Manufacturing, Finance etc; each of which (in general) operate under their own umbrella. Internal efficiency in an organization can be achieved when these processes can function seamlessly across the departmental silos. This is possible only when incentives of employees working across departments are tied together to achieve the common objective and thereby effectively breaking the barriers that exist among these departments.

How IT helps?
And this is where an ERP system comes into picture. By automating the OM process, people across multiple departments are forced to coordinate and ensure that the Order is effectively managed to satisfy the customer. By systematically aligning processes, firms reap the benefits of not only effective information sharing, but also tearing the organizational silos apart. Even though it is relatively difficult to quantify this benefit, I think this is one of the major benefits of investing in automation systems.

Am I the ONLY person who is able to visualize this?
Certainly not! Even though benefits are obvious, managers brought up in such a world do not necessarily feel the pressure to pursue such changes. One of the key reasons being lack of competition in the market and tremendous support from government to keep these firms running and keep more than 150,000 employees in the payroll. 'Accountability' for efficient use of tax-payer's money is a concept which simply does not exist in any form in Indian government or bureaucracy. Hence the resultant high prices to run the business is basically passed on to the customers who have to pay for having a monopolistic government vendor.

Comments are welcome!
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