BPR IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS: AN ANALYSIS OF KEY SUCCESS & FAILURE FACTORS

Prepared By:

Sana Fatima

Anum Iqbal

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Intense world-wide competition has forced organizations toreengineer their old fashioned processes to achieve newheights of success. However, business process reengineering(BPR) implementation is a difficult task and manyorganizations have failed to achieve the expected results.Through reorganizing, eliminating some processes and findingnew ways of doing things, BPR helps organizations to changetheir old fashioned structures into innovative processes.Successful implementation of BPR brings many benefits tothe organization.

Business process reengineering is dramatic change thatrepresents the overhaul of organizational structures,management systems, employee responsibilities andempowerment, performance measurements, incentivesystems, skills development, and the use of informationtechnology. BPR assists in increasing productivity throughreduces process time and cost, improved quality andcustomer value. 2

BPR SUCCESS FACTORS

LEARNING POINTS

FACTORS RELATED TO CHANGE MANAGEMENT

SYSTEMS AND CULTURE

Establish positive attitude in adapting change and learningorganizational culture.

As a part of BPR effort staff should be motivated through areward program.

Communication is needed throughout the process; Effectivecommunication should be done inside and outside theorganization

Responsibility and accountability should be defined

All employees must have proactive approach and should beactively involved.

Training and development of skills is one of the mostimportant element of successful implementation of BPR

Establish such culture where people share same goals, andtends to do teamwork

People should not be reluctant to change4

FACTORS RELATED TO MANAGEMENT SUPPORT

Strategic and effective leadership is required

BPR team must be able to persuade top

management to understand the need of change

and implement BPR

Top management should continuously assess the

risk involved in acceptance of change and plan

strategies to handle risk

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FACTORS RELATED TO ORGANIZATIONAL

STRUCTURE

Organizations should follow process based approach,

Job and labor integration should be followed so that

series of task would be done effectively

BPR team should have expertise, creative and

competent. They should be have the empowerment as

well

After the implementation of BPR, management should

inform employees regarding new redesigned job duties

and responsibilities

Carefully align corporate strategy with BPR strategy

Proper planning should be timely done with efficient use

of project management technique6

SETTING PERFORMANCE GOALS AND MEASURES

Adequate resources, knowledge and sufficient budgetshould be effectively used.

Disciplines approach and sound methodology should beused.

Assessment and measurement of customer changingneeds and competitive analysis is required.

Consultant helps to bring skills expertise and experienceto organization. Though this activity is time consumingbut it is effective.

Long-term, clear and creative vision for BPR bymanagement is needed.

Continuous improvement like TQM is suggested to beintegrated with BPR to achieve drastic change.

BPR value can be achieved by focusing in findingopportunities 7

FACTORS RELATED TO IT INFRASTRUCTURE

IT infrastructure and BPR should be aligned with each other

Adequate understanding and identify enabling technologiesfor redesigning business process

While making the decision of sourcing IT, the level ofsupplier’s IT expertise, skill and deployment cost should beconsidered.

Multi sourcing is effective if strategic IT components areinsourced and non critical components are outsourced

Information should be timely , consistent, complete andaccurately shared.

IT structure should support BPR effectively, Informationsystem (IS) should be effectively used to the fullest potential.

To improve BPR productivity software tool contributes inresulting higher quality

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BPR FAILURE FACTORS

LEARNING POINTS

FACTORS RELATED TO CHANGE MANAGEMENT

SYSTEMS AND CULTURE

Lack of communication, hiding uncertainties, poor andinadequate communication between BPR teams and other crossfunctional department cause hindrance in the implementation ofBPR.

If the employees are reluctant to change and they fear about theirjob security, losing the control and responsibility they currentlyhave, then they will resist towards the change of BPR.

Lack of coordination from cross-functional departments, lack ofskills and determination by the management or if the employeeshave not identified yet the need of change management.

The management should not underestimate the role of politics,tendency of copying others and organizational culture. Ignoranceof the value of employee’s, lack of trust between managementand employees can lead to failure.

Though BPR is implemented but if the employees are not trainedand developed their skills, then the implementation will beineffective.

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FACTORS RELATED TO MANAGEMENT SUPPORT

Commitment and support from top management to

line managers is needed.

BPR require huge investment, viable sponsorship

from senior management is essential.

Choosing the right BPR leader is itself a challenge

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FACTORS RELATED TO ORGANIZATIONAL

STRUCTURE

Difficulty in identifying appropriate BPR team

members.

Unless the BPR teams are properly trained and are

assigned with the responsibility they will not be able

to execute the BPR strategies.

Inflexible organizational structure

Lack of authority provided to BPR team

Conflict between BPR team responsibilities and

functional team responsibilities due to unclear job

defined and insufficient communication between

them12

FACTORS RELATED TO BPR PROJECT

MANAGEMENT

Inability of management to control BPR efforts

Management focus on incremental change rather than radicalprocess

Problems faced due to improper planning and projectmanagement

BPR is long term procedure which requires time. If enoughtime is not provided for planning, developing, and executingBPR strategies it will ultimately lead to failure.

If the employees are unclear about objective for BPR project

Organizations are unaware or find it too difficult to measureBPR project performance and tend to go for easy measuresno matter they are reliable or not

Organization have narrow focus, emphasis on short termgoals rather than strategic view and lack of BPR vision

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Emphasis on automation of existing process withoutredesigning the processes

If organization has unsound financial condition

In sufficient resources for BPR project

Inadequate determination of core process and scope ofchange

Organization is expecting too high or unreal scope byimplementing BPR

Did not allow external consultants’ support

Choose inappropriate consultants for BPR

Organization holds insufficient knowledge regardingmethodologies of BPR

Wrong sourcing decision made 14

FACTORS RELATED TO IT INFRASTRUCTURE

Insufficient telecommunication, database

infrastructure, IT infrastructure

Failure in developing right information system

Inability to change current information system due

to lack of human and IT expertise

Inadequate understanding by the employees

regarding IT infrastructure

Reluctant to not to learn new technology

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