Business engineering

Business engineering (BE) is the development and implementation of business solutions, from business model to business processes and organizational structure to information systems and information technology (cf.).

Business engineering focuses on developing innovative business solutions that take a sociotechnical systems (STS) approach. The STS approach addresses an enterprise as a total system in the same manner as an airplane system or an industrial facility, since they possess a similar level of complexity.

Business engineering combines knowledge in the fields of business administration, Industrial Engineering, as well as information technology and connects it to all aspects of transformation, from means of presentation to process models to cultural and political considerations (cf. Baumöl/Jung).

Business engineering focuses on challenges arising from the transformation of the industrial society into an information society (cf. Winter), that is the digitization of enterprises, economy, administration and society. Through the ongoing consumerization digital services for individuals have also become a crucial part of research (cf. Hess/Legner). Because of the major importance of information technology, business engineering is often held to be a subfield of Business Informatics, although it is also sometimes regarded as a form of Organization Development for its emphasis on Change Management.

Engineering Management is a very close discipline which overlaps significantly with Business Engineering; the main differences are that Industrial Engineering focuses primarily on the goods sector (less on services), on technical systems and the interface between those systems as well as the users from a production point of view.

Österle/Blessing characterize business engineering as follows:

At the Business Engineering Forum in St. Gallen, experts from science and business annually discuss new developments within the discipline.

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