Business Process Reengineering Essay

Introduction

“In a world where so many people are so deprived, it’s a sin to be so inefficient”

Michael Hummer

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is an important topic in the business related world. It is a topic in which there is a considerable amount of literature that has been written over the past two decades. This paper will be reviewing existing literature on the subject of BPR, with the aim to bring the reader up to date with the latest academic articles on the subject. The review will analyse the reasons for success and failures when implementing BPR into the business place.

In the 1990’s BPR was an extremely hot topic among many organisations. The markets were changing rapidly as new technologies were being introduced across

Hammer (1990) outlined that Business Process Reengineering was a business management strategy. He focuses on the designs of business processes within an organisation. His main aim is for companies implementing his strategies to become world-class competitors. Hammer wants the reader to look at processes as a whole and not just a collection of parts. Therefore, the management can choose the best way for the company to carry out the process and redesign it. In essence, he is pointing out that the managers of these firms can “reengineer” their businesses. Hammer (1990) article is called “Reengineering Work: Don’t automate, elaborate” which introduces his concepts. Hammer and Hershman (2010) develop this title further in an extract from their book where they state “Don’t Automate, Obliterate”. In 1990 there was not the computer power that there was in 2010 and Hummer wanted to redesign processes to make them faster. In 2010, Hummer and Hershman argue not to “use IT just to make existing processes faster” but to “be prepared to design completely new processes”. Hammer (1990) identifies that Taylor (1911) was incorrect in that there is no “one right way” to a task in an organisation. For example Taylor’s methodology would suggest that if something went wrong during a process, a supervisor would be brought in to make sure the job was done more efficiently. Under the BPR methodology, these mistakes

Hammer(1990) came up with the term Business Process Reengineering in his article, “Reengineering Work: Don’t automate, elaborate”. Hammer (1990) outlined that Business Process Reengineering was a business management strategy. He focuses on the designs of business processes within an organisation. His main aim is for companies implementing his strategies to become world-class competitors. The concept of BPR has developed over time with the advancement in technology.

This literature review analysed the failures of the BRP implementation and the success of the BRP implementation. Petrozzo and Stepper (1994), Cao et al (2001) both highlight how it can be difficult for the BRP strategy to be a success when implemented in a organisation. Cao et al (2001) performed a study where 70% of all organisations implementing a BRP system were failures. In the article by Al-Mashari and Zairi(1999), they showed us the five crucial factors that needed to be adhered to in order to have a successful implementation of a BRP system. When these factors were not followed thoroughly, the BRP strategy would likely not be a