Business Process Reenginerring

Running head: BPR AND IT

Business Process Engineering

and the

Importance of Information Technology

Jane Doe

Nobody’s University

Abstract

This paper is written to show how information technology is not the most influential component of Business Process Reengineering. Contrary to what some business leaders may think, IT is not always the main factor in a firm’s restructuring of its processes. After reviewing five selected journals and articles on BPR, I will show how IT is not the most significant part of a business’ restructuring of its processes to obtain its organizational goals.

Introduction

Does Information Technology (IT) play a leading role in Business Process Reengineering (BPR)? Many executives and business managers have believed that IT was the driving force of the growing phenomenon of the restructuring of businesses’ processes today. If it is, then why is it that some firms are successful while others fail? Numerous studies have been conducted to compare the restructuring of businesses worldwide to find out the similarities and differences in their reengineering projects.

What exactly is BPR? There are many definitions, but I believe that Hammer and Champy (1993) defines it best. “BPR is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary measurements of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed.” My personal definition of BPR is the realignment of business processes to better achieve success. On the other hand, ____ gives a specific definition saying: BPR is the radical change a firm makes to reorganize its business processes to better utilize information technology to achieve the organization’s strategic goals. This statement is not true. Businesses do not have to revamp daily processes just to better utilize IT in order to achieve long term goals.

Article 1

Whitfield and Szeto researched a project of a small manufacturing company, based in Hong Kong, who applied BPR techniques to its operations. This company was growing and their organizational needs were substantially changing. For further and future growth, the company had to streamline and systematize their operations. BPR provided an excellent vehicle for this company’s organizational needs. However, this company as well as other small companies cannot afford nor do they need a major overhaul of its organizational processes to administer BPR initiatives. In this case study, it was better for a small business to rely on upper management teams to delegate responsibilities to handle specific problems as they occur. This study also showed how it is neither important nor wise for small businesses to focus on IT. Making IT the focal point of a small business’ BPR would be too costly and needless for any small growing business.

Article 2

In a journal by Hengst and Vreede, Nine BPR projects were executed and analyzed in detail, leading to 87 identified themes in regards to the effectiveness and efficiency of the project. In the themes, 12 categories of lessons learned were developed to later be titled the Collaborative business engineering (CBE) approach to BPR. The authors combined CBE and BPR processes to address reasons for BPR failure. This study focused on two particular factors as to why BPR projects fail: poor stakeholder involvement and poor business process analysis.

Poor stakeholder involvement occurs when you have insufficient involvement of top and middle managers. This can happen when you have the wrong individuals with opposing ideas or individuals with no creativity