On the Challenges of Business Modeling in Large-Scale Reengineering Projects

Modeling existing and future business processes is crucial to the outcome of large-scale reengineering projects. The use of parameterized or standard components does not render business models redundant, but shifts the modeling focus even more from technical aspects to the real-world business processes. In current reengineering projects, however, there is often a lack of coordination of modeling activities and the consistency of conceptual models across project activities can be threatened. There are often several models of the same phenomenon that are used by different people, in different phases, or for different purposes. This paper discusses some of the challenges of business modeling and presents a three-tier model description that explains some of the model variants found in reengineering projects. The findings from a large-scale SAP project in Europe underline the importance of a balanced business model and show how individually tailored conceptual models may hamper the formation of a common understanding of the domain and badly affect the reengineering of the business processes.