This chapter reveals the role of business process reengineering (BPR) in the modern business world, thus illustrating the theoretical and practical concept of BPR, the applications of BPR, the drivers of BRR (in terms of internal drivers and external drivers), the critical success factors of BPR (i.e., egalitarian leadership, collaborative working environment, top management commitment, supportive management, information technology, change management, project management, and cross-functional coordination), the implementation of BPR, and BPR software tools. BPR is a systematic approach to helping an organization analyze and improve its processes in digital age. BPR is a continuum of change initiatives in order to deliver better business performance standards through establishing sustainable process capability in modern organizations. BPR has become a popular tool to dealing with rapid technological and business change in the global competitive environment. Applying BPR will greatly improve business performance and reach business goals in global business.
TopBackground
BPR has been studied since the 1990s (Davenport & Short, 1990; Hammer, 1990), and continues to be one of the top five management aspects for IT executives (Luftman & Ben-Zvi, 2009; Luftman & Zadeh, 2011). Hammer (1990) introduced the concept of reengineering as a radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements on critical measures of performance. Davenport and Short (1990) defined BPR as analyzing and designing work flows and processes within and between organizations. Davenport (1993) changed the BPR definition to a procedure which interferes with organizational boundaries.
Talwar (1993) defined BPR as a procedure in which organizational value is created and delivered by focusing on reconsideration and concentration of business structures, processes, methods of working, management systems and external relationships. BPR became as popular as in mid-1990s (Rigby & Bilodeau, 2005). BPR involves business process-based thinking and innovation, fundamental rethinking, radical redesign, dramatic improvement, and technology enablement (Hammer & Champy, 1993) have largely been adopted by the private sector and remain to be still valid (Harmon, 2010). Various techniques and tools have been exploited to speed up and enhance the process (Chan & Spedding, 2003; MacIntosh, 2003). Rethinking and redesigning business processes tend to obtain dramatic and sustainable improvements (Revere, 2004).
TopRole Of Business Process Reengineering In The Modern Business World
This section illustrates the theoretical and practical concept of BPR, the applications of BPR, the drivers of BRR (in terms of internal drivers and external drivers), the critical success factors of BPR (i.e., egalitarian leadership, collaborative working environment, top management commitment, supportive management, IT, change management, project management, and cross-functional coordination), the implementation of BPR, and BPR software tools.