Business engineering focuses on challenges arising from the transformation of the industrial society into an information society 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 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.
Characteristic of business engineering are as follows:
Beside the technical design, business engineering includes the political and cultural dimensions of a new business solution. The political and cultural dimensions and change management are crucial factors for the success or failure of a transformation. Therefore, business engineering is an interdisciplinary approach. It divides the design levels of a company.
Business engineering distinguishes between a strategic, an organizational and a technological design level. Contemplating different design objects on different levels enables a focused view of the individual dimensions of transformation. Segmenting task at hand into different levels provides for security and helps reducing the complexity of the transformation process.
Business engineering ensures a holistic view of all dimensions. It supports not only the design of new business models, business processes and information systems, but also their implementation. Therefore, it contemplates all dimensions of the transformation.
Business engineering refers to the method and model-based design theory for companies in the information age. Business transformations along with their technical and socio-economic aspects are far too important and complex to be realized without applying methods and models. Methods and models not only provide for transparency during the process of transformation, they also specify the division of labor, create a foundation for communication and enable the documentation of the company‘s systematic reorientation. The division of labor and application of engineering principles differentiate the “construction” in accordance with business engineering from individualistic “creation” .
Business engineering focuses on the consumer from a business perspective. As of now, this also holds true for the deep penetration of all spheres of private life with information technology (consumerization), which is equally being treated from a business and not an individual point of view.