Business Process Reengineering
(BPR)

Fundamentally reconsidering and radically redesigning of organizational processes. Explanation of Business Process Reengineering of Hammer and Champy.

Business Process ReengineeringThe Business Process Reengineering method (BPR) is described by Hammer and Champy as 'the fundamental reconsideration and the radical redesign of organizational processes, in order to achieve drastic improvement of current performance in cost, services and speed'.

 

Rather than organizing a firm into functional specialties (like production, accounting, marketing, etc.) and to look at the tasks that each function performs, Hammer and Champy recommend that we should look at complete processes. From materials acquisition, towards production, towards marketing and distribution. One should rebuild the firm into a series of processes.
 

Value creation for the customer is the leading factor for BPR and information technology often plays an important enabling role. Compare: Relationship Marketing

 

Michael Hammer and James Champy

The main proponents of re-engineering were Michael Hammer and James Champy. In a series of books including Reengineering the Corporation, Reengineering Management, and The Agenda, they argue that far too much time is wasted, passing on tasks from one department to another. They claim that it is far more efficient to appoint a team who perform all the tasks in the process.

 

A five step approach to Business Process Reengineering

Davenport (1992) prescribes a five-step approach to the Business Process Reengineering model:

  1. Develop the business vision and process objectives: The BPR method is driven by a business vision which implies specific business objectives such as cost reduction, time reduction, output quality improvement.
  2. Identify the business processes to be redesigned: most firms use the 'high-impact' approach which focuses on the most important processes or those that conflict most with the business vision. A lesser number of firms use the 'exhaustive approach' that attempts to identify all the processes within an organization and then prioritize them in order of redesign urgency.
  3. Understand and measure the existing processes: to avoid the repeating of old mistakes and to provide a baseline for future improvements. Compare: Scientific Management
  4. Identify IT levers: awareness of IT capabilities can and should influence BPR.
  5. Design and build a prototype of the new process: the actual design should not be viewed as the end of the BPR process. Rather, it should be viewed as a prototype, with successive iterations. The metaphor of prototype aligns the Business Process Reengineering approach with quick delivery of results, and the involvement and satisfaction of customers.

As an additional 6th step of the BPR method, sometimes you find: to adapt the organizational structure, and the governance model, towards the newly designed primary process.

 

Generic Circumstances that influence whether BPR is advisable

Although it is difficult to give generic advice about this, some factors that can be considered are:

  • Does the competition clearly outperform the company? Compare: Turnaround Management
  • Are there many conflicts in the organization?
  • Is there an extremely high frequency of meetings?
  • Excessive use of non-structured communication? (memos, emails, etc)
  • Is it possible to consider a more continuous approach of gradual, incremental improvements? (see: Kaizen).

Critics of the BPR approach

Reengineering has earned a bad reputation because such projects have often resulted in massive layoffs. In spite of the hype that surrounded the introduction of Business Process Reengineering, partially due to the fact that the authors of Reengineering the Corporation reportedly bought huge numbers of copies to reach the top of the bestseller lists, the method has not entirely lived up to its expectations. The main reasons seem to be that:

  • BPR assumes that the factor that limits organization's performance is the ineffectiveness of its processes. This may or may not always be true. Also BPR offers no means to validate this assumption.
  • BPR assumes the need to start the process of performance improvement with a "clean slate", i.e. totally disregard the status quo.
  • BPR does not provide an effective way to focus the improvement efforts on the organization's constraints. (As done by Goldratt in the Theory of Constraints).
  • Sometimes, or maybe quite often, a gradual and incremental change (such as Kaizen) may be a better approach.
  • BPR is culturally biased towards the US way of thinking. (see: Cultural Dimensions)

BPR compared to Kaizen

When Kaizen is compared with the BPR method is it clear the Kaizen philosophy is more people-oriented, more easy to implement, but requires long-term discipline and provides only a small pace of change. The Business Process Reengineering approach on the other hand is harder, technology-oriented, it enables radical change but it requires considerable change management skills.

 

Book: Hammer and Champy - Reengineering the Corporation -

Book: Davenport - Process Innovation -

 

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Recent User Comments
 - India BPR needed in Telecom Sector in India "The telecom sector in India is growing in a very fast pace. Introduction of BPR tools in the government running the telecom public sector is the need of the hour. There is an urgent need to cut operation cost and change the working environment to get optimum output."    0
Tarekegn Aberra - Ethiopia The truth and power of BPR "BPR answered me what has been a question in my heart and mind for so long time before Hammer and Champy books. It is such a powerful idea of management that it can win in any open and competitive market world."    0
abebe - Ethiopia Blueprint? "what is the difference between blueprint and bpr?"    1
Gabbie - Malaysia Kaizen AND BPR "In my opinion, the company can apply both Kaizen and BPR in an organisation. Kaizen is more to individual improvement, but ignoring in technology improvement, however, BPR is more technology-oriented. Hence, the organisation may achieve their goal with applying both methods."    2
wonde - Ethiopia BPR can be abused "I learned that BPR is a helpful tool for developing countries to break their old and unproductive thinking ans system. But I also realized that incompetent leaders can simply abuse it."    3
Best User Comments
Editor - NL Quotes on BPR "Do you know some deep, famous or funny quotes on Business Process Reengineering? Quotations? Proverbs? Please share them as a reaction to this posting and mention the author. To get started, here's my favorite: 'Reengineering must be fundamental, radical and drastic.' - Michael Hammer & James Champy 1993, American management consultants"    101
Bruce Ware - USA Costs of BPR - Any ideas? "Hoping that someone can point to some reference providing info on how much a BPR activity would cost -- some percentage of overhead expenses??"    53
Danish Noor - USA How practical BPR approach is "The underlying assumption on BPR presented in this article is "task completion through unified team effort". But how is this possible in practical business world --? There arn`t no one group of members knowledgeable enough on all business processes. That`s the core reason of existance of organization to achieve more through collective endeavours. An example a normal product design & development require cross - function participation and activities from MARKETING -- for voice of customer information, ENGINEERING -- for product specification development, MANUFACTURING -- for existing manufacturing capacity understanding, PRODUCTION -- for lead time understanding, QUALITY -- for performance excellence. "    38
Scott Chen - USA BPR: Lean business processes "Jeff Hall in Management Services, Winter2006, Vol. 50 Issue 4, encourages the adoption of a lean approach to business process improvement. Lean is about building world class processes that deliver best quality, lowest cost and shortest cycle time through the elimination of waste. With lean being applied to business process, businesses could have a single process team who would be responsible for anything involving the end-to-end ordering-fulfilling-invoicing process thereby reducing waste in the process."    26
Alemayehu Neme - Ethiopia BPR Concept "BPR is a tool for making a fundametal ,radical & dramatical change but what is most important is mental transformation required to implement it. I believe if we understand it we can bring a revolutionary chane in our work culture & solve many of our problems in service delivery. I think we need to design to bring a great satisfaction for our citizens & feel our gaps in service delivery."    24
F.N. Bhutta - Pakistan BPR Proverb "I agree with the author about BPR. In fact BPR is a good medicine for unreasonable people, but bad for reasonable people. Idea is there but it depends on your creativity how you can accomplish it. I believe BPR is "Mental, Fanatical and Caustic". -- "    19
 - UK ERP and BPR "Business process reengineering involves radically changing the status quo to fulfil customer's expectation and keep them coming back. This involves change management thinking and implementation of organisational principles. ERP helps in integrating data from functional departments into one single system, thereby giving the whole system one view of same data. I think successful implementation of BPR will not be without ERP?"    18
Abhishek - India BPR Process Types "What types of re-engineering processes can be distinguished?"    13
Dexter Borbe - USA Selective Application "Authors and consultants like Michael Hammer often present big ideas, because that is the realm they deal with as academics. I think that being a good practitioner means taking the good ideas and applying them, as opposed to applying the concepts wholesale. I would agree with Hammer very much that most organizations waste a lot of time passing on work from one department to another. What can we do to remove these artificial boundaries?"    12
Fikir Abere - Ethiopia BPR is needed in Ethiopia "I believe BPR is an important change management tool. It is a radicalist tool. You can't help all the bureacratic mess created on customers with any other tools - be it kaizen , TQM,etc. That is why the Government of Ethiopia at all levels is using this tool to streamline bureacracy and bring dramatic improvement in public service delivery."    11

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  ● Birhan (Ethiopia) BPR followed by Continuous Improvement "To have a great improvement in the organization for our customers, we need to have a continuous improvement approach after we implemented BPR."
  ●  (India) Kaizen and BPR "Kaizen basically related to the improvement in quality and continuous efforts for flawless quality whereas business process reengineering is a process which is applicable for the entire organization in all its functional areas. For the growth and development it is mandatory to implement Kaizen approach and emphasize BPR too."

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  ● Unknown (India) BPR "For some employees in the organisation, BPR stands for Blood Pressure Raiser, for others it means Blood Pressure Reliever. :-)"
  ● Binne (Ireland) What is BPR? "Accoring to Scott Adams (The Dilbert Principle), re-engineering was created as an antidote to quality programmes. In re-engineering, all of the natural incompetence stored in the firm is unleashed on a monumental scale."

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  ● Tania (South Africa) BPR "BPR consultants do not need to understand the processes in fact it is better that they do not. Documenting existing processes with the view on improving and radically redesigning them relies on the consultant or process leader having no preconcieved ideas."
  ● Mulu getahun (Ethiopia) BPR to all organization "Can BPR be applied to all organizations independent of their organizational structure?"

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  ● Solomon A. (Ethiopia) Changing the Mindset is most Difficult "Reengeenering organizations is a simple task, except for changing the mindset of the people in it. When an organization is able to transform its personel, I think the whole system is transformed. Human beings can not easily be manipulated via any organization organogram. It needs a lot of work, but it can be made if done with great care."

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  ● Russell Duru (Nigeria) BPR "This is true. It involves radical changing of the status quo. BPR will ensure direct line of sight between the customer and the organisation."
  ● Titus Osikoya (Nigeria) ERP and BPR "Absolutely Ade, ERP facilitates a seamless process flow which makes process frustrations easily noticeable. Improvement costs become less and easy to implement...bottom line, greater value is created for the customers via resource optimization. I somehow believe in SAP, the embedded controls take me to the dream lands quicker. Thanks"

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  ● Tsegay Tafere (Ethiopia) BPR in Ethiopian Government "I feel that BPR is a penecea for the kind of sickness like the Ethiopian bureaucratic system is in. As the country is striving to get out of where she is now, it is a true means or tool to fundamentally rethink the status quo and bring dramatic improvement. To this effect, I suggest that it has to be done with good knowledge. However, BPR is not a nuclear science. One should not be a top notch scientist in management in order to engage in it. I believe that it is the pain that is the main driving force in reinventing the obsolete work process. When I think of how it started, it was in the actual work and by the actual leaders of businesses with the intention of creating a responsive system. I don't think those peaple had been fully knowledgeable with BPR or so."
  ● Tsegay Tafere (Ethiopia) BPR getting momentum "Ethiopia is in a state of transformation by building responsive, customer focused, flexible, empowered generally seamless public service. To this effect the model used to bring about such result is Business Process Reengineering. It is used in all the public sectors including higher education and financial institutions. The progress so far is so encouraging and some institutions are about to start implementation having finished the studies. When implemented, I am sure the institutions are going to score dramatic improvements and satisfy citizens who get served by them."
  ● Kevin Murithi (Kenya) BPR a management tool in turbulent enviroment "I find BPR the way forward for firms in highly competitive markets.Management in such firms should answer the question,what are the current enviromental changes?and change appropriately."
  ●  (Ethiopia) BPR-the remedy "I do believe that especially the poorest countries, like Ethiopia, benefit from the BPR effort & output if they are able to carry it out wisely. Undoubtedly, it can radically pull them out of their poverty within a glimpse of time."
  ● El Cubano Chino (Ethiopia) Successful BPR countries? "From the current job culture our country Ethiopia can make a difference by establish a BPR. But it is useful if we stand positivly (BPR leader, participants) and are knowlegeble of the process, so nobody will risk to be kicked out from the job. We must think about the improvement of the organazation not about politics, ethinic and so on. My question is please tell us in which countries BPR is implemented and the benefits of it.""
  ● Terefe (Ethiopia) BPR in Ethiopia "BPR is the most important factor for Ethiopia to bring radical change or development, because BPR needs attitude/mental change in all aspects but it is not politics. However to implement BPR fully the country must focus the use of information and communication technology (ICT). Without IT, BPR will not implement fully; people/authorities do not hesitate to use ICT it will bring radical change if BPR is designed properly. Please do not mix BPR with politics, BPR is science. "
  ● Wondwosen Hailu (EthiopiaECS) BPR is essential for Ethiopia "It is essential for organizations and countries in some years interval like 20 to 25 years to conduct BPR. This will help them to assess the effectiveness and the connectivity between business units which have been set many years before with good or poor reasons, but often unnecessary at this time. Otherwise it is a human nature to feel secure living in the current environment even if there are some indicators that the system is performing poor. That is why Ethiopia is committed to BPR at this time"
  ● Endris Umer (Ethiopia (EMI)) BPR is the best tool for most of our problems in Ethiopia "The extent and depth of bureaucracy in Ethiopian civil service organization is sometimes unbelievable. So BPR is, in my opinion, the best tool to start with. However, it needs honest actions. Are we ready to accept the consequence of BPR even if it affects our position/benefits in our organization (specially as a leader)? I doubt, here the reality is different! CAUTION ! We have to be commited to pull out ourselves from poverty no matter what BPR prings to our individual life."
  ● Dejenie Nigusie (Ethiopia) Bahir Dar Univeristy will be a best model "The need of change in Ethiopian higher institutions is unquestionable and BPR is the best option to bring the desiered change. So let's be optimist and work together."
  ● Abiyot (Ethiopia) BPR is being misused "BPR is the a fine tool in some business areas and in those countries which have ICT infrastructures. However, here in Ethiopia where we don't have ICT infrastructure, applying BPR to ALL businesses is going to be a failure."
  ● Abebe Bikila (Ethiopia) BPR in Ethipia is abused "BPR is politicized in Ethiopia and abused and I think that it won't bring about any change. Rather a political frustration between the government and the people."

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