Business Process Re Engineering (BPR)

Business processes are: simply a set of activities that transform a set of inputs into a set of outputs (goods or services) for another person or process using people and tools. We all do them, and at one time or another play the role of customer or supplier.

So why business process improvement? Improving business processes is paramount for businesses to stay competitive in today's marketplace. Over the last 10 to 15 years companies have been forced to improve their business processes because we, as customers, are demanding better and better products and services. And if we do not receive what we want from one supplier, we have many others to choose from (hence the competitive issue for businesses). Many companies began business process improvement with a continuous improvement model. This model attempts to understand and measure the current process, and make performance improvements accordingly.

Definition of BPR. Corporate Reengineering The most common definition used in the private sector comes from the book entitled, Reengineering the Corporation, a Manifesto for Business Revolution, by MIT professors Michael Hammer and James Champy. Hammer and Champy defined business process reengineering as: The fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to bring about dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed. (Reengineering the Corporation, Hammer and Champy, 1993) The major emphasis of this approach is the fact that an organization can realize dramatic improvements in performance through radical redesign of its processes. This is in contrast to the notion of streamlining processes in order to achieve a measured level of performance.

Another aspect to the Hammer/Champy definition is the notion of breakthroughs. This approach to reengineering assumes the existing process is not sound and therefore needs to be replaced. A properly reengineered process will provide quantum leaps in performance, achieving breakthroughs in providing value to the customer. Even though these definitions focus on different strategies of implementing change, the common element is that the change occurs across the whole process. THE BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING (BPR) VISION

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is based on a vision of the future that is increasingly shared by enterprises around the world. It is evolving into the sum total of everything we've learned about management in the industrial age recast into an information age framework.

The impact of BPR on organizational performance The two cornerstones of any organization are the people and the processes. If individuals are motivated and working hard, yet the business processes are cumbersome and nonessential activities remain, organizational performance will be poor. Business Process Reengineering is the key to transforming how people work. What appear to be minor changes in processes can have dramatic effects on cash flow, service delivery and customer satisfaction. Even the act of documenting business processes alone will typically improve organizational efficiency by 10%.