Article Preview
TopIntroduction
Companies Business process reengineering (BPR) movement that started in the last decade of the twentieth century has been adopted by organizations that undertook rapid and radical redesign of their core and value-added business processes while perusing improvements in quality, cost and decreased time to process completion (Davenport, 2013; Huang et al., 2015; Sethi and King, 1998). Having in mind that business processes often cross-functional areas, which creates difficulty during process improvements (Goksoy, Ozsoy, & Vayvay, 2012), BPR can reshape policies, systems and bridge organizational units, while reducing complexity to optimize workflows and efficiency within the organization. Hence, the significant process change empowers employees and organizations to achieve breakthrough improvements while abandoning old and unproductive ways of working.
The information and communication technology (ICT) has become one of the key enablers of business process redesign or reengineering (Aboulaid et al., 2016; Davenport, 2013; Jovanoski, Malinovski, & Arsenovski, 2017). The ICT solutions have the ability to enable the reengineered processes, while eliminating human labor or intermediaries, capture process information and provide analysis, as well as monitor process status and objects (Harmon, 2014; Jovanoski, Malinovski, & Arsenovski, 2017). Even simple ICT implementations, when combined with corresponding changes in the business process, can result in significant advantages. The technology is a powerful tool that should be taken into account during process reengineering, so it can create process design options, rather just supporting them (Aboulaid et al., 2016; Al-Mashari & Zairi, 1999; Davenport, 2013). Therefore, organizations that understand the close connection between ICT and BPR and take appropriate steps to closely align ICT governance mechanisms with organizational strategy and corporate objectives, can increase their chances for successful BPR implementation (Davenport, 2013; Huang at al., 2015; Jovanoski, Malinovski, & Arsenovski, 2017; Wu, Straub, & Liang, 2015)
On the other hand, organizations react differently when undertake BPR initiatives and their projects may fail or not reach final objectives (Abdolvand, Albadvi, & Ferdowsi, 2008; Jovanoski, Malinovski, & Arsenovski, 2017; Khoshlafz & Hekmati, 2016). Furthermore, the public sector demonstrates significantly more obstacles and difficulties in process redesign or reengineering than the private sector (Bin Taher, Krotov, & Silva, 2015; Cordella & Bonina, 2012; Hesson, 2007). With increased practices of bureaucracies, the problems of business process efficiency are often solved through purchasing of latest ICT solutions to automate, rather than to innovate the whole process. Similarly, when the top management of an organization feels it is successful at present time, they usually reject the idea of renovating business to improve their services (Hesson, 2007).