Scalable enterprise systems: Quality management issues

Enterprises in today’s business environment conduct transactions beyond the traditional boundaries of their physical locations. Many organizations offer services and/or finished products through a combination of delivery methods. Some of these delivery methods involve the Internet, the sales staff on the physical site and/or on the calling centers (own or outsourced). Organizations with such parallel delivery methods face great complexity in business structure and in the dynamics among different business functions. Such organizations are designated as Scalable Enterprise Systems (SES). The complexity of SESs means additional business challenges to stay competitive and maintain sustainable profitability. The main objective of this paper is the identification of a reference framework for quality management (QM) and business process reengineering (BPR) with the ability to constantly learn and the flexibility to adjust to concurrent changes of the SES and the environment. Key elements from QM and BPR are examined and selected, compared and extrapolated to SES. An example is provided to illustrate the relevance of QM and BPR in SES. Future research for SES as it relates to the adaptation of QM and BPR is highlighted. r 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.