Week 5 – Basics of BPR (1)

Source / Reference:

1.    Davenport-BPRCritics-ComputerWorld-2003

2.    GroverMalhotra-BPRTutorial-JOM-1997

Subject:

What are the advantages of applying Business Process Reengineering to enterprises?

Response:

     Business process reengineering comprises of several ideas. First, IT is utilized into business processes. Business processes are cross-functional, cross-departmental and cross-enterprise. Improvement and radical redesign are involved in work. The view of organization will be less hierarchical and more horizontal. Finally, business process provides value to customer repetitively.

        There are several advantages of applying BPR. Enterprises which apply BPR has significant productivity, quality improvements. Another benefit from BPR is that cost is reduced as the processes are simplified. The efficiency and effectiveness of BPR increases as IT is involved in processes, processes can be implemented in a parallel way, hence the duration of cycle-time of processes decreases. As the process cycle-time is reduced, it leads the growth of business.

        The following example shows that BPR can streamline Invoice Verification processes.

The original processes:

The original processes are slow, low efficiency and low effectiveness. Error and delays may occur when there are hand-offs. Processes have higher cost as much paper are consumed.

The processes after BPR:

         The above figure shows that Information Technology such as database is used to manage data. This increases the management efficiency of data extraction and store.The processes changes from serial to parallel, thus stakeholders can manage data in well-organized way. Processes cycle-time decreases, thus without the same time-period, more cycle can be iterated.

        To conclude, business process reengineering helps to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of company, therefore productivity, service and product quality increases.