Is BPR a thing of past? Does it have any value in the highly globalised world of today? Yes, I strongly believe that BPR is all more essential for today’s businesses. There are three significant factors warranting the need for BPR:
1. Evolution of Technology:
Technology continues to undergo changes at rapid pace. The evolution of cloud computing, virtualisation and on-demand computing are changing the way businesses operate. Technology, to be more specific IT, has gained prominence in CEO’s agenda. Organisations have been investing a lot in replacing the old technologies with the new ones and expect a giant leap in its progress. There are couple of main reasons behind this change:
• To upend how the business is done
• To develop insights using information gathered
The overarching question, at least from CFO’s point of view, is whether new technology delivers the ROI promised. Can these innovations in technology re-engineer the way the operations of the businesses? There are few caveats here. For one, it can help only in small stepped change if the organisations are just looking for replacement, albeit a better version.
These IT products, both off the shelf and custom, can help in facilitating and managing the processes. However, in order to get the synergy between the business process and technology, the underlying business processes on which IT is build need a serious look. This is where BPR is all more essential. BPR focuses not just on governance i.e. managing the process but also on the dynamics of the whole process including the collaboration between business units, hand-offs between core and non-core business processes.
2. Shared Services Phenomena:
Shared services concept has gained an overwhelming presence in the last decade or so. However, the problem begins post the first phase deployment of shared services. Organisations try hard but struggle to optimise and refine the process further. As a result, the initial business justification for the Shared services operating model becomes weak. One of the fundamental reasons for such roadblock is because Shared Services are deployed using a push strategy. i.e. driven top-down and with that follows an opposite, if not equal, resistance from bottom-up. Using BPR as tool, the Shares services leader can engage the stakeholder to address the drivers instead of resistors and thereby achieving:
• Increased buy-in from all departments
• Valuable inputs from users of processes
Once the buy-in from stakeholders is obtained, the BPR leaders can work collaboratively working with departments to develop the mindset towards standardisation of the processes. Post which, they can apply divide, conquer and consolidate methodology to target each function and plug in the best practices from Shared services seamlessly. By breaking down by functionality and diving deep within every process, BPR leaders along with key stakeholders can move the shared services model towards operational excellence. Through operational excellence, then organisation can channelise its focus towards providing better customer service.
3. Economic situation:
With current economic malaise, companies are continuously on the search to identify strategies to re-establish its hold in the market place. The common denominator for such strategy is the core business processes within the organisation. With employees more receptive to positive change during this time, Organisation can take this opportunity to shake the waste out of its processes and revamp the operating model using BPR.
In my experience, I have heard organisation questioning as to why we need BPR when we follow Total Quality Management (TQM) or Continuous Improvement (CI) techniques. My question is whether that is enough. Whilst TQM and CI have its own benefits, they work on the assumption that the businesses processes are fairly streamlined and strive to provide small improvements.
All these three factors bring a business justification on why BPR is an important leg in current challenging business environment. BPR, done correctly, will not just bring cost reduction and efficiency but also provide transparency and accountability. In addition, BPR can work in tandem with technology to offer right insights about the business operations.
