Business Process Re-engineering (BPR): Role of IT

BPR23rd March

2011

ROLE OF IT IN BPR

Submitted By

Abhinav Johnson (F09001)

Role of IT in BPR

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IT & BPR.......................................................................................6

IT Capabilities and Reengineering..................................................................................6

Phase 1: before the process is designed (as an enabler)..............................................7

Phase 2: while the process is being designed (as a facilitator)....................................9

Phase 3: after the design is complete (as an implementer)........................................13

ROLE OF IT IN REENGINEERING............................................................................................16

Principles of Reengineering by Hammer.......................................................................17

BPR – The Current focus in IT......................................................................................20

Concept of Database..................................................................................................20

Data Mining:..............................................................................................................20

Data Warehousing.....................................................................................................21

STRATEGIC USES OF IT AND CRITICALITY OF IT.............................................................22

BPR TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES..............................................................................................23

The Nature of IT Support for BPR................................................................................23

Integrated Enterprise Models.....................................................................................24

Analysis.....................................................................................................................26

Software Functionality...............................................................................................28

New ways of building models...................................................................................29

Communication and Visualization............................................................................30

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Role of IT in BPR

Intended Users...........................................................................................................30

Evaluation Criteria.........................................................................................................31

Enterprise Models......................................................................................................31

Analysis.....................................................................................................................32

Visualization..............................................................................................................32

Requirements for BPR Tools.........................................................................................32

Enterprise Models......................................................................................................32

Analysis.....................................................................................................................33

Software Functionality...............................................................................................34

Integrated Environment for Tools.............................................................................34

Model Acquisition.....................................................................................................34

Visualization..............................................................................................................35

Intended Users...........................................................................................................35

Management..................................................................................................................35

Human Resources..........................................................................................................36

Enterprise Models......................................................................................................36

Software Functionality...............................................................................................36

Degrees of Automation..................................................................................................36

IT ENABLERS OF BPR...............................................................................................................38

IT Drives BPR...............................................................................................................39

IT in reference process reengineering............................................................................40

Role of CIOs in Process Reengineering........................................................................40

FUTURE ROLE OF IT IN BPR....................................................................................................42

CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................43

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Role of IT in BPR

REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................44

INTRODUCTION

Today's environment is characterized by increasing levels of competition. Enterprises

wanting to increase their market share or obtain profits must adapt to changes in the

environment. Consequently, many changes in business methods are beginning to appear. One of

them is business process reengineering (BPR), defined as the fundamental rethinking and radical

redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary

measures of performance. Among the potential enablers of BPR is information technology (IT).

IT makes it possible to obtain improvements in BPR. Enterprises can make their tasks easier,

redesign their organization, change the way they work, and achieve spectacular improvement

using, among other enablers, IT.

Market competition is forcing firms to reconsider how they are organized to compete. As

a basis for change, they are exploring a variety of concepts, including Time-based Competition,

Quality Function Deployment, Activity-Based Costing, Quality Circles, Continuous

Improvement, Process Innovation, and Business Process Re-Engineering. Regrettably, most of

the concepts are descriptive, if not ad hoc, and lack a formal model which would enable their

consistent application across firms. Business process re-engineering is very much in the "guild"

mould of application; management consultants are the "masters" and they impart their

knowledge through "apprenticeship" to other consultants. The knowledge of business process re-

engineering has yet to be formalized and reduced to engineering practice.

Information technology (IT) has historically played an important role in the reengineering

concept. It is considered by some as a major enabler for new forms of working and collaborating

within an organization and across organizational borders. Early BPR literature identified several

so called disruptive technologies that were supposed to challenge traditional wisdom about how

work should be performed.

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Role of IT in BPR

Shared databases, making information available at many places

Expert systems, allowing generalists to perform specialist tasks

Telecommunication networks, allowing organizations to be centralized and decentralized

at the same time

Decision-support tools, allowing decision-making to be a part of everybody's job

Wireless data communication and portable computers, allowing field personnel to work

office independent

Interactive videodisk, to get in immediate contact with potential buyers

Automatic identification and tracking, allowing things to tell where they are, instead of

requiring to be found

High performance computing, allowing on-the-fly planning and envisioning.

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) calls for a radical redesign and systematic

overhauling of strategic systems and processes in an organization. In the technology-centric

business environment of today, more and more organizations are using Information Technology

(IT) tools in their mainstream organizational processes. Hence, for BPR, it is required that the

functionalities of these IT systems are modified. This paper will demonstrate the importance of

IT in one of the most prominent methodologies.

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Role of IT in BPR

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IT & BPR

The term ‘‘reengineering’’ first appeared in the Information technology (IT) field and has

evolved into a broader change process. The aim of this radical improvement approach is quick

and substantial gains in organizational performance by redesigning the core business process. In

the late 20th century, many US companies embraced reengineering as an effective tool to

implement changes to make the organization more efficient and competitive. The motivation was

usually the realization that there was a need to speed up the process, reduce needed resources,

improve productivity and efficiency, and improve competitiveness

The changing economic environment has led to an increasing interest in business process

reengineering (BPR) by progressive firms around the world. In the 1990s, significant reduction

in the cost of IT resulted in enormous investments in IT applications that have stimulated

increasingly complex organizational change. Information technology has been used to break

down communication barriers between corporate functions, to empower line workers and to fuel

process reengineering. In most cases, IT has been used to expedite office work rather than to

transform it. Top executives consider IT a potent source of competitive advantage.

Working together, BPR and IT have the potential to create more flexible, team-oriented,

coordinative, and communication-based work capability. IT is more than a collection of tools for

automating or mechanizing processes. It can fundamentally reshape the way business is done and

enable the process design. In leading edge practices, information technology makes BPR

possible and worthwhile. BPR and IT are natural partners, yet their relationships have not been

fully explored.

IT Capabilities and Reengineering

IT has penetrated the office and services environment since the 1978. The shift from

mainframe to PC based technology is breaking down communication barriers between

employees and customers. Now managers and employees from various departments are

designing and controlling complex business information systems. IT capabilities involve

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Role of IT in BPR

improving information access and coordination across organizational units. It is so powerful that

it can actually create new process design options, rather than simply support it. In his book,

Business @ the Speed of Thought, Bill Gates argues that if the 1980s were about quality and the

1990s were about reengineering, then the 2000s will be about velocity. Gates advocates complete

digitalization of all aspects of life. He argues that to be successful in the digital age, companies

need to develop a new digital infrastructure similar to the human nervous system. This new

digital system enables companies to run smoothly and efficiently, makes them respond quickly to

emergencies and opportunities, provides a mean for quickly getting valuable information to the

people in the company who need it. This in turn empowers employees to make decisions and

interact with customers.

What is the relation between BPR & Information Technology? Hammer and Champy

consider IT as the key enabler of BPR. Davenport argues that BPR requires taking a broader

view of both IT and business activity, and of the relationships between them. IT capabilities

should support business processes, and business processes should be in terms of the capabilities

IT can provide. They believe IT’s promise and its ultimate impact is to be the most powerful tool

for reducing the costs of coordination.

It has been argued that innovative uses of IT would inevitably lead many firms to develop

new, coordination- intensive structures, enabling them to coordinate their activities in ways that

were not possible before. Such coordination-intensive structures may lead to strategic

advantages.

IT roles can be categorized into three phases: before the process is designed, while the

process design is underway, and after the design is complete.

Phase 1: before the process is designed (as an enabler)

BPR is a strategic action and requires a clear understanding of customers, market,

industry and competitive directions. Furthermore, like any other strategic action, it requires

consistency between the company’s business strategy and vision. Defining business strategy and

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Role of IT in BPR

developing a strategic vision requires understanding the company’s strengths and weaknesses,

and the market structure and opportunities.

The activities in this phase may include:

Developing a strategic vision.

Identifying the customer’s objectives.

Establishing goals/targets related to market share, costs, revenue enhancement, or

profit margins.

Assessing the potential for reengineering.

Defining boundaries and scope of the appropriate process.

Keeping management committed.

IT capabilities can provide good insight into the existing conditions. IT is one of several

enablers, including human resources and organizational change, that all must be considered

together to bring about change in business processes. Many companies ignore IT capabilities

until after a process is designed. An awareness of IT capabilities can and should influence

process design. Michael Hammer recommends companies to redefine the process first and

automate it second.

IT can play important roles in this phase of BPR efforts as follows:

1. The opportunity IT provides is to utilize newer and better technology to develop a

strategic vision and to help improve the business process before it is designed. For

example, an important Wal-Mart vision was to eliminate unnecessary distribution steps

and cost and to provide value to customers. To accomplish this, Wal-Mart developed a

strategy that included linking its suppliers to its retail stores. IT, eventually enabled Wal-

Mart to implement this strategy. An enterprise-wide information system was developed

that directly connected all retail locations, distribution warehouses, and major supplies.

2. The capabilities of IT to track information and break down geographic and organizational

barriers are useful in understanding the company’s strengths and weaknesses, and market

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Role of IT in BPR

structure and opportunities. Communication technology helps to overcome geographic

barriers and thus enable broader acceptance of the process change. At General Electric e-

mail systems are used to speed analysis and design sharing and to hold frequent virtual

meetings between group from different regions and overseas.

3. The focus is on finding different approaches to manage a process. These approaches can

be found and be adapted from practices of companies outside of the industry. The

organization should benchmark against other industries and combine it with the

experience and expertise of the team members to adopt an entirely new process

technology.

4. BPR requires a flexible organization design. The existing rigid infrastructure of the

organization must be altered to facilitate cooperation between various departments by

using cross-functional teams instead of individuals working in isolated departments.

Flexible infrastructures adapt to changing external drivers. Therefore, the flexible

infrastructure includes processes for continuously evaluating existing tools to see what

should be removed, and continuously seeking user input about what works or does not.

5. To achieve effective teamwork, each worker should develop several competencies. The

IT organization is no exception. The demand for close collaboration with other functions

dictates the need for IT staff to broaden their portfolio of skills especially in nontechnical

issues such as marketing, customer relationships, etc. The combination of the Internet and

the Intranet services allows a collaborative team effort from around the globe.

6. Alliances and other methods of cross company coordination are becoming common-

place. In an attempt to gain market shares, many firms are teaming and collaborating with

suppliers and distributors.

Phase 2: while the process is being designed (as a facilitator)

This stage involves two activities: technical and social design. During the technical

phase, information is consolidated, alternatives are redefined, process linkages are re-examined,

and controls are relocated prior to applying technology. The social design focuses on human

aspects and involves employees who will affect corporate changes: defining jobs and teams,

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Role of IT in BPR

defining skills and staffing needs, and designing incentives are considered carefully. This stage

also requires development of test and rollout plans. After the objectives are identified, the

existing processes are mapped, measured, analyzed, and benchmarked, and then are combined to

develop a new business process. Development of people, processes, and technology are

integrated.

During the process design, accountability for development, testing and implementation

must be clearly defined. Real benefits to the business result when IT becomes involved with

more fundamental changes to the business process itself. The crucial roles that IT plays in this

phase of BPR efforts are:

1. IT can facilitate the reengineering design process through the use of project management

tools. These help identify, structure, and estimate BPR activities and help to control

contingencies that arise during the process. Project management tools along with

electronic communication, enable ongoing communication of the reengineering process

between users and facilitators.

2. Gathering and analyzing information about the performance and structure of a process is

an important step in identifying and selecting process for redesign. Mapping or flow-

charting the existing process and then measuring the results in terms of cost, quality and

time are the most successful. IT can facilitate this step with the use of tools that provide

modelling and flow simulation, document business processes, analyze survey data, and

perform structuring evaluation. Technologies such as computer-aided systems

engineering (CASE) are designed primarily to draw process models. The ability to draw

models and make changes rapidly speeds redesign and facilitates the ‘‘process’’ of

process design. At Xerox, for example several divisions are moving directly from process

modelling to automated generation of computer code. They report high user satisfaction

and improved productivity with the resulting systems. In addition, IT is capable of storing

and retrieving unstructured, multimedia information that can be useful for developing

process prototypes. The maintenance and operating workers at Union Carbide’s plant in

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Role of IT in BPR

Taft, Louisiana used flow-charting to redraw their old process and create new ones. The

results were a saving of more than US$ 20 million.

3. Computing technologies have facilitated a process- oriented approach to system

development where a database is shared in different functional units participating in the

same business process. Ford Motor Corporation, for example used databases in its

accounts payable process to cut down many intermediate steps and to overhaul a

sequential flow of paper documents among involved functions. As the project progressed,

the reengineering efforts achieved a 75% reduction in the workforce. In addition to

shared databases, imaging technology has facilitated a process-oriented approach because

in processing loan applications, for example the digitized image of an application can be

worked on by several employees directly.

4. Telecommunication technologies such as LANs, groupware, etc. have improved

collaboration among personnel of different functional units in their efforts to accomplish

a common business process. At Texas Instruments, for example, the process for new

product development was dramatically improved when a design team in different

countries used global network to work on design directly without sequential flow of

documents. As a result, the development cycle time for various products decreased

substantially (more than 30% in some cases). At Ford, the process for new car design was

improved when computer-aided design (CAD) systems were utilized. Members of design

teams share a common design database across the Atlantic to exchange design ideas,

criticism, and opinions without meeting face to face.

5. Making data digital from the start can provide a whole range of positive results. When

figures are in electronic form, employees can look at them in any detail or in any view

they desire, can study them and pass them around for collaboration. For example, Seven-

Eleven Japan used IT to not only improve inventory control, but to provide key

information to management and improve quality of sales information to make better

operation decision on a regional basis. In 1979, the company established an on-line

network and from there introduced the Electronic Point of Sale (EPoS) system in 1982.

At Hewlett-Packard Co., the sales process improved drastically as 135 sales

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Role of IT in BPR

representatives were trained to use laptop to retrieve up-to-date inventory information

from the corporate database during the customer meetings. In addition, sales persons used

these laptops to communicate with their peers and superiors. As a result, time spent in

meeting decreased by 46%, travel time was cut by 13%, time spent with customers

increased by 27% and sales rose by 10%.

6. Input from employees and information on customer requirements is essential in

reengineering. IT applications allow organizations to build a data base to track customer

satisfaction, analyze complaints, and obtain employee’s feedback for ways to improve

customer satisfaction. At Frito Lay each of the 10,000 salespersons uses a handheld

computer to record sales data on 200 grocery products, reducing many clerical

procedures. The data is transmitted to a central computer, which in turn, sends

instructions (such as changes in pricing, and product promotions) to all salespersons

through their hand-held computers. This process greatly enhances collaboration between

marketing and sales and also makes weekly summaries and analysis available to senior

managers.

7. IT capabilities are used for information exchange and to improve inner organizational

collaboration. For example R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. used EDI technology in

conjunction with varied technologies of electronic commerce such as document imaging

with electronic work queues to reengineer its accounts payable function.

8. IT can also be used to help identify alternative business processes. IT can help companies

to achieve multiple objectives in redesigning processes. Expert systems and technological

databases can provide information on current and future capabilities of technology,

human resources and organization change. American Express improved quality, cost, and

time of its credit authorization process with an ‘‘Authorizer’s Assistant’’ expert system.

The successful redesign led to 25% reduction in the average time for each authorization, a

30% reduction in improper credit denials and a 7 million annual reduction in costs due to

credit losses. IT makes it possible to develop much richer processes.

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Role of IT in BPR

Phase 3: after the design is complete (as an implementer)

The bulk of the reengineering efforts lie in this phase. The reengineering efforts include

planning and managing people, processes, and technology and driving the implementation

toward the business vision. The objectives of this stage are to pilot test the new approach, to

monitor the results, and to provide extensive retraining of employees. As reengineering efforts

go forward it is important to define and redefine performance goals and objectives, maintain a

strong commitment to the vision, break the barriers between the departments, and be flexible as

the business environment changes. IT can facilitate the following processes in this phase:

1. Implementation of the new process through the use of project management and process

analysis tools. These help identify structure and estimate all associated activities. They

facilitate tracking and managing employee’s expectations against commitments.

Contingencies and problems that arise during the implementation phase can be handled

and controlled.

2. Electronic communications enable ongoing and real time communication of the process

between users and facilitators. IT helps to overcome geographic barriers.

3. Evaluating the potential investments and returns of the reengineering efforts is absolutely

essential. The reengineering team or management should have enough information to

determine the value the new process contributes to the overall performance.

4. A fundamental source of difficulties is the fact that process are reengineered but

infrastructure is not. The rigid infrastructure of the organization must be altered to

facilitate cooperation and to cross-functional barriers between departments. Cross-

functional teams must replace individuals working in isolated departments. Recently,

there has been a significant growth in collaborative computing products. These range

from software for conducting meetings on-line to complex programs that enable a

number of users to collaborate in real time, sharing documents, managing projects and

handling different tasks. These include idea generation, brainstorming, group outlining,

voting, teleconference, meet-me-service, etc.

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Role of IT in BPR

5. As other business divisions undergo reengineering process, IT organization should be

improved to meet their increasing needs. For example, in 1993 CIGNA implemented

reengineering of its 1000- person IT department—CIGNA Technology Services (CTS).

The main reason was to meet the increasing needs of the business divisions. A team

based structure resulted, and the benefits included a major change in the philosophy of

the unit. Where the unit was previously technology focused, reengineering brought about

a focus on using technology to meet business strategies. Management style changed from

control-based and functional, to leadership-based and team-oriented. The hierarchy was

flattened, increasing flexibility.

6. ‘‘Digital feedback loop’’ makes it possible to have a specific definition of success, a

specific beginning and end in terms of time and tasks, intermediate milestone and finally

a budget. IT is only useful if it helps employees do their work better and differently.

Organizations are not working with the employees in the organization to infuse

technology. Successful reengineering requires that companies first concentrate on crucial

business processes that effect competitive factors, customer service, cost reduction,

product quality and time-to-market. Obtaining greatest benefit from IT requires that

current processes not be simply automated or existing automation improved.

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ROLE OF IT IN REENGINEERING

Business process reengineering (reengineering) is a pervasive but challenging tool for

transforming organizations for radical improvement in all aspects of its performance.

Information technology (IT) plays an important role by either enabling or constraining successful

implementation of Reengineering. The role of IT in reengineering is not automating the business

process. Companies that think of IT as the tool for automating its business process cannot

reengineer. IT can be an enabler for reengineering by enabling the organization to reengineer. IT

allows the organization to do business process more efficiently. IT can also become an inhibitor

of reengineering if the organization's IT Infrastructure is inadequate or inflexible. IT

infrastructure capability includes both the technical and managerial expertise required to provide

reliable physical services and extensive electronic connectivity within and outside the firm.

Information technology (IT) has historically played an important role in the reengineering

concept. It is considered by some as a major enabler for new forms of working and collaborating

within an organization and across organizational borders

Early BPR literature identified several so called disruptive technologies that were

supposed to challenge traditional wisdom about how work should be performed.

Shared databases, making information available at many places

Expert systems, allowing generalists to perform specialist tasks

Telecommunication networks, allowing organizations to be centralized and decentralized

at the same time

Decision-support tools, allowing decision-making to be a part of everybody's job

Wireless data communication and portable computers, allowing field personnel to work

office independent

Interactive videodisk, to get in immediate contact with potential buyers

Role of IT in BPR

Automatic identification and tracking, allowing things to tell where they are, instead of

requiring to be found

High performance computing, allowing on-the-fly planning and revisioning

In the mid 1990s, especially workflow management systems were considered as a

significant contributor to improved process efficiency. Also ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)

vendors, such as SAP, JD Edwards, Oracle, PeopleSoft, positioned their solutions as vehicles for

business process redesign and improvement.

Principles of Reengineering by Hammer

Hammer (1990) considers information technology (IT) as the key enabler of BPR which

he considers as "radical change." He prescribes the use of IT to challenge the assumptions

inherent in the work processes that have existed since long before the advent of modern

computer and communications technology. He argues that at the heart of reengineering is the

notion of "discontinuous thinking -- or recognizing and breaking away from the outdated rules

and fundamental assumptions underlying operations. These rules of work design are based on

assumptions about technology, people, and organizational goals that no longer hold." He

suggests the following "principles of reengineering":

(a) Organize around outcomes, not tasks

(b) Have those who use the output of the process perform the process;

(c) Subsume information processing work into the real work that produces the

information;

(d)Treat geographically dispersed resources as though they were centralized;

(e) Link parallel activities instead of integrating their results;

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Role of IT in BPR

(f) Put the decision point where the work is performed, and build control into the

process;

(g) Capture information once and at the source.

The major advantage of IT in reengineering lies in its disruptive power. IT has the power

to break the rules and make people think inductively and give the company a competitive

advantage. The company that used the disruptive power of IT to break all rules and gain

competitive advantage was Amazon.com. Amazon.com broke the existing rules and sold books

without a physical presence for its customers, through Internet.

Amazon.com in doing so has completely changed the book store business and broke all

the rules. The key to the effective use of IT lies not in moving the information faster but in doing

right things with it. IT has to be used to make proactive decisions to improve business

performance rather than report on it after the fact. In the design phase of implementation of

reengineering the capabilities of IT can be used to simulate a model of the design and there by

validate the new design.

Building an effective IT infrastructure is a vital factor in successful BPR implementation.

An adequate understanding of technologies for redesigning business processes is necessary for

proper selection of IT platforms. Effective overall system architecture, flexible IT infrastructure

and proper installation of IT components all contribute to building an effective IT infrastructure

for business processes. The IT infrastructure and BPR are interdependent in the sense that

deciding the information requirements for the new business processes determines the IT

infrastructure. In addition, recognition of IT capabilities provides alternatives for BPR. Building

a responsive IT infrastructure is highly dependent on an appropriate determination of business

process information needs. This, in turn, is determined by the types of activities within a business

process, and the sequencing and reliance on other organizational processes. An effective IT

infrastructure follows a top-down approach, beginning with business strategy and IS strategy and

passing through designs of data, systems and computer architecture. Linkages between the IT

infrastructure components are important for ensuring integrity and consistency among the IT

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Role of IT in BPR

infrastructure components. IT standards also have a major role in reconciling various

infrastructure components to provide shared IT services that are of a certain degree of

effectiveness to support business process applications. The IT infrastructure shared services and

the human IT infrastructure components, in terms of their responsibilities and their expertise, are

both vital to the process of the IT infrastructure composition.

One main objective of BPR is to use IT to support radical change. Some authors view IT

as the central implementation vehicle of BPR. However BPR has not really worked as its

proponents expected. Davenport and Short (1990) attribute this problem to a lack of

understanding of the deeper issues of IT. They claim that IT has traditionally been used to

increase the speed of work but not to transform it and BPR is about using IT to do things

differently. Therefore, IT plays an important role in BPR. Properly implementing IT can improve

the competitive position of organizations. But inappropriately implementing IT may create

barriers to responding to the rapidly changing business environment. Further, simply picking IT

packages cannot achieve successful BPR if it is simply used to speed up the process rather than

reengineer it. As Davenport (1993) contends:

“Information and IT are rarely sufficient to bring about the process change; most process

innovations are enabled by a combination of IT, information and organizational/human resource

changes.”

IT provides project management skills and experience, which is a key ingredient in

successfully implementing reengineering. The IT group of the company has experience in large

scale project as they are exposed to the structured demand of large scale projects. Reengineering

in a company is and should be undertaken as a project, this is the time when the project

management expertise of the IT group becomes a key ingredient in the success of reengineering.

IT can continuously reflect and reinforce bureaucratic and functional structures or IT can

help to create a leaner, flatter and more responsive organization. For example, IT tools that are

designed for functional hierarchies are primarily designed to support incremental improvements

and cannot achieve the radical change in BPR projects. While information systems provide fast

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Role of IT in BPR

processing and response, they often fail to provide the flexibility for human communication,

which can lead to serious consequences. This means IT may sometimes have a negative impact

by merely automating the existing processes. However, it could also have a positive impact if it

is deployed correctly in conjunction with the organization’s goals. IT is the enabler to reengineer

processes and is an important driving force for business transformation.

Although, BPR has its roots in IT management, it is primarily a business initiative that

has broad consequences in terms of satisfying the needs of customers and the firm's other

constituents. The IS group may need to play a behind-the scenes advocacy role, convincing

senior management of the power offered by IT and process redesign. It would also need to

incorporate the skills of process measurement, analysis, and redesign.

BPR – The Current focus in IT

Apart from the usual ways of managing a process in any business information system, it

is necessary to enhance the value of the process and also the methods used in improving the

process. Some of the concepts of information management for effective information systems are

the traditional concept of database, the emerging concepts of data mining and data warehousing.

Concept of Database

Database is a data structure used to store organized information. A database is typically

made up of many linked tables of rows and columns. For example, a company might use a

database to store information about their products, their employees, and financial information.

Databases are now also used in nearly all ecommerce sites to store product inventory and

customer information. Database software, such as Microsoft Access, FileMaker Pro, and MySQL

is designed to help companies and individuals organize large amounts of information in a way

where the data can be easily searched, sorted, and updated.

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Role of IT in BPR

Data Mining:

Data mining is primarily used as a part of information system today, by companies with

strong consumer focus retail, financial, communication, and marketing organizations. It enables

these companies to determine relationships among “internal” factors such as price, product

positioning, or staff skills, and “external” factors such as economic indicators, competition, and

customer demographics. And, it enables them to determine the impact on sales, customer

satisfaction, and corporate profits. Finally, it enables them to “drill down” into summary

information to view detail transactional data. With data mining, a retailer could use point of sale

records of customer purchases to send targeted promotions based on an individual’s purchase

history. By mining demographic data from comment or warranty cards, the retailer could

develop products and promotions to appeal to specific customer segments.

Data Warehousing

A data warehouse is a copy of transaction data specifically structured for querying and

reporting. The main output from data warehouse systems are either tabular listings (queries) with

minimal formatting or highly formatted “formal” reports on business activities. This becomes a

convenient way to handle the information being generated by various processes. Data warehouse

is an archive of information collected from wide multiple sources, stored under a unified scheme,

at a single site. This data is stored for a long time permitting the user an access to archived data

for years. The data stored and the subsequent report generated out of a querying process enables

decision making quickly. This concept is useful for big companies having plenty of data on their

business processes. Big companies have bigger problems and complex problems. Decision

makers require access to information from all sources. Setting up queries on individual processes

may be tedious and inefficient. Data warehouse may be considered under such situations.

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Role of IT in BPR

STRATEGIC USES OF IT AND CRITICALITY OF IT

Companies may use information systems strategically, or may use them in defensive or

controlled ways. More and more businesses are beginning to use information systems

strategically for competitive advantage. The speed, information processing capabilities, and

connectivity of computers and Internet technologies can substantially increase the efficiency of

business processes, as well as communications and collaboration among the people responsible

for their operation and management.

IT can also be used in one of the most important area of knowledge management.

Knowledge management has become one of the major strategic uses of information technology.

Many companies are building knowledge management systems (KMS) to manage organizational

learning and business know-how. The goal of KMS is to help knowledge workers create,

organize, and make available important business knowledge, wherever and whenever it’s needed

in an organization. This includes processes, procedures, patterns, reference works, formulas,

“best practices,” forecasts, and fixes. Internet and Intranet web sites, groupware, data mining,

knowledge bases, discussion forums, and videoconferencing are some of the key information

technologies for gathering, storing, and distributing this knowledge.

For any business process the criticality of Information Technology has to be analysed.

Information systems can be used in business process reengineering when large software systems

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Role of IT in BPR

grow old, when there are limitations in construction tools, when there are millions of lines of

code are to be maintained etc.

BPR TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES

Market competition is forcing firms to reconsider how they are organized to compete. As

a basis for change, they are exploring a variety of concepts, including Time-based Competition,

Quality Function Deployment, Activity-Based Costing, Quality Circles, Continuous

Improvement, Process Innovation, and Business Process Re-Engineering. Regrettably, most of

the concepts are descriptive, if not ad hoc, and lack a formal model which would enable their

consistent application across firms. Business process re-engineering is very much in the "guild"

mold of application; management consultants are the "masters" and they impart their knowledge

through "apprenticeship" to other consultants. The knowledge of business process re-engineering

has yet to be formalized and reduced to engineering practice.

This Part of our report deals with vision for BPR tools and also specifies criteria for the

valuation of these tools.

The Nature of IT Support for BPR

We can consider any software tool for BPR as having five aspects:

Integrated enterprise models

Analysis (problem-solving capability)

Software functionality

Visualization and Communication

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Role of IT in BPR

Intended Users

These properties address two major themes:

What tasks do the tools perform?

What support do the tools require?

The following sections consider more detailed questions for each of these aspects of BPR

tools. We will then present some preliminary ideas for the nature of BPR tools for each stage in

the framework, and propose requirements for these tools.

Integrated Enterprise Models

An enterprise model is a computational representation of the structure, processes,

information, resources, goals, and constraints of a business, government activity, or other

organizational system. It can be both definitional and descriptive, spanning what is and what

should be. The role of an enterprise model is to achieve model-driven enterprise design, analysis,

and operation.

Usually a “second generation knowledge engineering" approach is used for constructing

the enterprise models. Rather than extracting rules from experts, they are "engineering

ontologies." An ontology is a formal description of entities and their properties, relationships,

constraints, behaviours. It provides a common terminology that captures key distinctions and is

generic across many domains.

The approach to engineering ontologies begins with defining ontology’s requirements;

this is in the form of questions that ontology must be able to answer. It is called the competency

of the ontology. For any task in which the ontology is to be employed, the task imposes a set of

requirements on the ontology. These requirements can best be specified as a set of queries that

the ontology should be able to answer, if it contains the relevant information. The competency

questions are the basis for a rigorous characterization of the information that the ontology is able

to provide to the task. Competency questions are used to evaluate ontology in the sense that the

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Role of IT in BPR

ontology must be necessary and sufficient to represent the tasks specified by the competency

questions and their solution. These are also the tasks for which the ontology finds all and only

the correct solutions. Tasks such as these can serve to drive the development of new ontologies

and also to justify and characterize the capabilities of existing ontologies.

An integrated enterprise model provides the language used to specify an explicit

definition of an enterprise. For reengineering, it is needed to explore alternative models in the

design of enterprises spanning organization structure and behaviour. In order to reason about

alternative designs for enterprises, it is necessary to explore different possible sets of constraints

for enterprises within the language. Some questions should be asked like-- can a process be

performed in a different way, or can we achieve some goal in a different way? Can we relax the

constraints in the enterprise such that we can improve performance or achieve new goals?

A related problem is the use of benchmarking in the reengineering process. In

benchmarking, performance is compared between enterprise and then adopting processes and

practices from enterprises which are the best performers. However, not all practices can be

adopted from other enterprises; the key is to realize that to identify opportunities for

improvement by analyzing the successes and failures of similar enterprises. Herein lies the

problem -- what is a similar enterprise? What is compared among enterprises when we use

benchmarking? It is difficult to compare the goals and activities among enterprises unless all

constraints and assumptions about the enterprise and its environment are made explicit.

By representing the enterprise as a set of constraints using the ontologies, all of the above

questions can be considered as either constraint satisfaction or logical entailment problems in

first-order logic. All of the relationships among the different constraints within the enterprise are

therefore made explicit.

An enterprise is defined by the following set of constraints:

definitions of the activities performed by the enterprise.

constraints on resources required by activities performed in the enterprise.

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Role of IT in BPR

constraints among organizational roles, positions, and agents within the enterprise. This

includes constraints on the behaviour of agents.

constraints defining the goals to be achieved by the enterprise.

constraints on products, including product design requirements, quality constraints, and

product standards.

Rather than manufacture and distribute products, many enterprises provide services to

their customers, and there is a requirement to model these enterprises within the

framework. This requires ontology for services, where a service is intuitively an activity

performed by agents within the enterprise to either change the properties of some

resource (e.g. delivering packages, painting buildings, dry cleaning, repair) or to provide

information to customers. In this case, the definition of the enterprise must specify a set

of constraints on products and information that define the activities the enterprise

performs as services.

set of constraints on activities in the enterprise. This includes policies and performance

constraints, such as the following examples:

o All deliveries must be made within 15 minutes of placing the order.

o When an order is made, a copy is sent to the regional office.

set of constraints defining the external environment of the enterprise, dealing with

customers, markets, suppliers, and competitors. This also includes the definitions of the

activities performed by agents external to the enterprise (e.g. suppliers, subcontractors),

but whose effects are required by the activities within the enterprise.

Using this framework, it is possible to characterize classes of enterprises by sets of

assumptions over their processes, goals, and organization constraints.

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Role of IT in BPR

Analysis

A necessary first step is the precise definition of the analysis tasks performed by different

tools in the environment and the ways in which they interact. This specification is independent of

the algorithms used to solve the tasks – it is needed to specify the problem and what constitutes

a solution to the problem. In this way will define the functionality of each tool; this will require

the definition of what is the appropriate input to each tool and what is the correct output. The

specifications of these tasks for the tools will serve as competency questions for the different

ontologies that are being designed.

Each advisor is a constraint-based problem solver - given a set of goals and constraints, a

tool searches for a solution that optimizes the goals and satisfies the constraints. Tools also have

the ability to generate more than one solution, thereby the enabling the consideration of

alternatives and trade-offs.

The tasks for each advisor fall into three main groups:

evaluation

analysis

guidance

Evaluation tasks are either decision tasks (does the enterprise model satisfy some set of

requirements, such as ISO 9003 compliance) or property evaluation of an enterprise model (what

is the cost associated with some set of activities). This requires the ability to compare two

different enterprise models along some dimension, such as cost or quality. In addition, the

distinction must be made between evaluation of the enterprise model (static set of activities) and

the evaluation of a plan or schedule at some point in time.

Analysis tasks involve prediction, monitoring, identification, and explanation with

respect to an enterprise model. Prediction is the determination of the value of some proposition at

points in the future. Monitoring is the determination of the value of some proposition after

executing some set of activities, and comparing this value to the predicted value. Identification is

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Role of IT in BPR

the task of finding objects that satisfy certain properties in an enterprise model. Explanation is

the task of determining why a proposition has a certain value at some point in time; this requires

deciding what set of event occurred and what propositions hold that entail the value of the

proposition in question. For example, we may want to predict the cost associated with some set

of activities and then monitor and compare the cost of the execution of the scheduled activities.

We may want to know why a particular product has a given cost, or why the activity took so long

to complete; these tasks require some mechanism for explanation. Another analysis task may be

the identification of the resource bottlenecks within an enterprise model, or the anticipation of

resource conflicts.

The explanation tasks illustrate the relationship between evaluation and guidance for the

tools. If a particular enterprise model fails to satisfy some property, it is needed know why it

fails. This in turn suggests ways in which augment the enterprise model so that it does satisfy the

property. For example, an enterprise may not be ISO 9003 compliant; the explanation task would

recommend that the appropriate quality control processes be included in order to satisfy

compliance.

Finally the guidance tasks for these tools, in which the tool suggests alternatives. The tool

must be able to represent and model the current status of a process and assess potential changes.

For static models, this requires the ability to generate different models. This is also related to the

evaluation tasks of the tools; if a process fails to satisfy certain requirements, the tool suggests

alternative models of the process which do satisfy the requirements. Comparing and evaluating

the different alternative futures and possibilities for the processes in an enterprise with respect to

the execution of plans and schedules requires a mechanism for hypothetical reasoning.

Software Functionality

These are the capabilities of the tools that are independent of the reasoning tasks required

for analysis. They deal with properties of the implemented ontologies and analysis tasks, and can

be roughly categorized as follows:

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Role of IT in BPR

Tool integration environment

Enterprise model management tools

Enterprise model construction

Project management tools

Integration of Enterprise Models and Tools

A major theme in the BPR framework is the creation of an integrating environment for

different tools. Toolkits for spot solutions exist, but there is no consistency among tools. In order

to address the problem of integrating different BPR tools and the different enterprise models that

support the tools, any IT environment for BPR should use integrated enterprise models spanning

activities, resources, organization, goals, products, and services. These integrated enterprise

models would then serve as a common repository accessible by multiple tool sets.

Further, these enterprise models must be extendible, allowing the incorporation of new

classes of constraints and the specialization of concepts and constraints for a particular

enterprise.

It is vital that the enterprise models and BPR tools used by different organizations within

the same enterprise be shareable and usable across these multiple organizations. Enterprise

models also provide representations that are reusable in other stages of BPR. Tools may be

defined with respect to a general class of enterprises or environments. To be useful, these tools

must be customizable, both to the class of problems and the class of users, whether they be

managers, consultants, or engineers.

Model Management

To address the problems of managing the different enterprise models to support the tools,

it is needed to provide synthesis of multiple views of the enterprise. The tools must provide

flexibility in information gathering, managing different kinds of data at different levels of

formality and representing the enterprise at different levels of abstraction.

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Role of IT in BPR

In the construction of enterprise models, the tools must opportunistic in providing

information by tracking the information that is required at the appropriate time. The tools must

also be able to support partial models, and then combine these partial models into an integrated

model of the entire enterprise.

New ways of building models

Any environment that we design to support BPR must provide new ways of building

enterprise models, particularly in the acquisition and validation of an enterprise model. Such an

environment must therefore have the following properties:

The process of constructing an enterprise model must be interactive and dynamic.

An environment for enterprise model design must support storyboarding.

Communication and Visualization

Communication

Tools to support BPR must facilitate communication of the properties of an enterprise

design or redesign. Minimally, there must be annotated enterprise models. We must also be able

to extract multiple pieces of the model in order to explain their interaction.

Ability to produce summaries of the intelligence gathered to support various types of

communicating and reporting but retaining linkages to the sources of data.

Visualization

Another aspect of BPR is that the customers (subjects of the BPR endeavour) are learning

about their enterprise through the process of modelling the enterprise. The BPR tools should

therefore support this learning process for the customers.

The first objective is the development of a symbology that depicts terms and concepts in

the associated enterprise models. The symbology should be precise and general enough to

support visual programming for performing the modelling task.

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Role of IT in BPR

For those tasks that require multiple enterprise models, the primary issue will be the

design of graphical interfaces that capture the dimensionality of the interdependencies and the

possibility of merging the visualizations of the relevant models.

Intended Users

The BPR tool may vary with the kind of user -- external consultant, internal consultant,

manager, employee. The difference in the tool can include any of its properties, including the

analysis tasks, software functionality, and visualization.

There is also the following distinction in the kind of BPR endeavour which must be

reflected in the functionality of the tools:

Tools that support BPR as a single intervention in an enterprise.

Tools that support BPR within an architectural framework for a process-oriented

enterprise, and which enable possible future BPR endeavours.

One issue that needs to be explored further is whether there are implementation

constraints that should be accepted in the tools. Related to this is the question of what technology

is available to different users, which may determine the functionality of the implemented tools.

Model acquisition may best be done using a notebook computer, while analysis of the model is

done using a more powerful workstation.

Evaluation Criteria

In this section we present a set of questions which can be used to evaluate BPR tools with

respect to the BPR framework.

Enterprise Models

1. How is a particular enterprise modelling language useful for supporting BPR at a

particular stage in the framework?

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Role of IT in BPR

2. What requirements must the enterprise modelling language satisfy in order to support

BPR at some stage?

3. Identify the enterprise modelling language required to support the analysis tasks

identified for a particular stage of BPR.

4. Specify the terminology required to specify a particular stage of BPR. This means

defining the terms used in specifying that stage, as well as constraints on the meanings of

these terms.

Analysis

1. What kind of analysis is applicable at a particular stage of BPR, if any? Specify these

analysis tasks.

2. What enterprise models are required to support the analysis?

3. How do the analysis tasks change with the intended users? In particular, consider the

following questions:

4. Are there different tasks for single intervention BPR endeavours as opposed to BPR

projects within a process-oriented enterprise?

5. Do managers require different analysis tasks than engineers or consultants?

6. What kind of analysis is being performed by the particular tool that we are evaluating?

This should be specified in terms of input and output.

Visualization

1. What needs to be visualized?

2. How is the necessary information being visualized?

3. How is the visualization related to the kind of analysis task?

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Role of IT in BPR

Requirements for BPR Tools

Tools for this stage of BPR can be characterized primarily as enterprise model acquisition

tools. We first define the requirements for all tools supporting this stage, and then propose an

initial set of tools.

Enterprise Models

The enterprise models must provide definitions and constraints for the following terms:

enterprise, corporation, key process, vision, strategy, objective, goal, core competency,

enterprise performance criteria, process performance measures, environment, customer,

customer needs, expectations, requirements, market, opportunity, competitor capabilities,

sponsor, expected outcome of process, critical success factor for process, ownership of process

By using an enterprise modelling language, a normative model of the enterprise can be

constructed. This creates semantics for the enterprise and an extendable model that can later be

refined, and which allows semantic transformations between different contexts. It can also create

a network of relationships, keep track of what is linked and to whom, and explore and navigate

through this network.

It is needed to integrate global and local views of the enterprise. In particular, there is a

need to provide structural frameworks for high-level understanding and integration:

Mapping organizational metrics (business model) to the process perspective (process

model).

Diagnostics for best practice (benchmarks). In this way, it is possible to drive out insights

for opportunities.

An enterprise model also provides us with mental modelling tools that assists participants

for communicating and coming to an agreement.

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Role of IT in BPR

In using enterprise models, it is also needed to be aware of possible limitations for the

enterprise model used by tools at this stage. In particular, how do we handle fuzzy issues, such as

political culture?

Analysis

The primary analysis tasks for this stage are:

Determining the completeness of the set of constraints defining the enterprise.

Model integrity checking -- determining the consistency of the constraints.

Rationale for objectives and performance criteria -- have the linkages and dependencies

been made explicit?

Formal specifications of the competency questions for these analysis tasks must be

provided.

Software Functionality

The essential capabilities required for model acquisition tools are concerned with the

construction and editing of the model for a specific enterprise.

There are also several aspects of this stage which require that we represent BPR as a

project (endeavour) within the enterprise. In this case, the tools must support the management of

the endeavour.

Integrated Environment for Tools

The tools should be able to maintain consistency among themselves and the enterprise

models, not necessarily uniformity. There may be the problem that the customer language is

different than the tool language. In this case, we must provide an environment that can represent

the different meanings for terms used by different people ("meaning mapper"). This also

involves identifying the relevant assumptions used by different people, tools, or enterprise

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Role of IT in BPR

models. and the ability to capture multiple synonyms and utilize them in translation to various

audiences.

Tools must be portable, able to access existing information that is available in different

forms and correlate the output of different tools.

Model Acquisition

At this stage of BPR, the one of the primary tasks is the acquisition of the model for a

particular enterprise. Any tool must therefore specify how we gather enterprise models, as well

as provide some mechanism for a model repository.

Visualization

The challenge at this stage is to design the appropriate interface for model acquisition

tools. The relationships among goals, activities, and organizational roles are made explicit in the

enterprise model; these relationships must also be explicitly visualized in the tools through the

symbology of the associated enterprise models.

There is also a requirement to represent the current enterprise in order to communicate

the problems and characteristics of the enterprise, as well as informally demonstrating that the

enterprise model is complete.

Intended Users

At the stage of setting the context for the BPR endeavour, it is essential to make the case

for moving forward with the BPR endeavour. Any tools must therefore be able to effectively

communicate the problems and any preliminary solutions.

Management

The necessary functionalities for tools to support management are similar to those for the

Operate stage of the BPR endeavour. Both must provide mechanisms for describing and

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Role of IT in BPR

communicating to each affected employee any change requests, potential problems, and potential

solutions.

The tools must also define architecture for a process-oriented enterprise by providing a

repository for the following:

Standards for consistent descriptions of processes, process strategy and plans.

the framework of entities necessary for effective process management

linkages showing how each employee's job contributes to the building and delivery of

value to the enterprise's customers.

Human Resources

Enterprise Models

To characterize human resources, we must identify the essential properties of agents

within the enterprise. For example, we must represent the capacity of agents and behavioural

aspects of agents within the enterprise, such as motivation, culture, incentives, and adaptability.

We must also represent the constraints on the behaviour of people, such as policies and

preferences and provide linkages from the process measurements to the organizational

incentives.

Software Functionality

Provide a simulation environment to support interactive training of change agents and

people affected by new changes.

Degrees of Automation

The analysis tasks (problem solving capability) of tools can be evaluated on a continuum

of the degree of automation in the tool and the interface between the user and the tool that is

considered as an assistant.

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Role of IT in BPR

At one end of the continuum, there are tools which are simply visualizations of the

enterprise models that facilitate communication and provide insight into the enterprise and its

problems. By providing a mental model of the enterprise, the tool supports opportunity

identification as participants gain an understanding of how the enterprise succeeds or fails.

As we move along the continuum, we encounter BPR tools that provide analysis of a

given model through evaluation, identification, and monitoring of different properties of the

enterprise. In these different forms of analysis, we are considering alternative enterprise models,

which includes alternative plans or schedules for activities, alternative organizations, or

alternative sets of policies for people in the enterprise. We are also considering alternative

explanations for different properties of the enterprise, and alternative predictions for possibly

hypothetical behaviour of the enterprise.

Given this characterization of alternatives, the analysis tasks may simply compare

alternatives models/explanations/predictions in a given set produced by the user of the tool. This

is type of analysis performed by current simulation tools.

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Role of IT in BPR

IT ENABLERS OF BPR

Over the decades it has become evident that one of the most important ways to facilitate

effective organization redesign through process engineering in organizations is through the use

of information technology (IT) as an enabler of change. In fact, some have been willing to go

beyond that by saying that IT is not only a key enabler of change, but also an initiator and a

facilitator.

However, while IT played a significant role in changes in the nature of work

responsibilities in organizations, the results achieved over the years appear to be more often than

not to be slightly incremental and linear in nature. In other words the momentum of traditional

business practices developed over the years overshadowed any ability of technology to shift

work methods in a different direction or onto another plane. While information technology did

indeed change work methods in terms of its nature, quality, speed and location that led to a

reduced need for human labor, multi decade lags between adoption and significant redesign

existed.

While inventions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries such as the telegraph and

telephone were well suited to expedite the business demands of the time, they did very little to

actually change business practices in an immediate way. However, after decades of the simplistic

use of the telephone, the insight of the concept of call/contact centers revolutionized elements of

the service industry into high growth, multi-billion dollar industries. Therefore, more was needed

than just innovation which was enabled by technology. What was needed and was seen to evolve

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Role of IT in BPR

eventually was a philosophy that technology should be a supportive supplement to go along with

a drive to improve work processes and the overall system.

The full extent of “world flatteners” were only truly employed after there was an

emergence of managers, innovators, technology specialists and workers who were comfortable

with the horizontal collaboration and value creation processes developed by these new ideas and

technological advancements. Therefore, both ideas such as BPR and IT should work in tandem to

achieve desired radical redesigns of work processes and structure based on a comprehensive and

coherent strategy and goals. It is generally believed that change efforts should never be driven by

technological goals alone. While the idea to continually introduce technological advancements

that became essential elements in work methods was desirable because of their usefulness and

usability, the concept of BPR was seen as a way to more fully capitalize on them as enablers for

process innovation. For example, productivity that has been achieved from computers is really a

function of their combination with new business processes and new types of skills that go with

them versus the fact that they are readily available for various applications.

IT Drives BPR

In any organization worldwide, IT is the biggest enabler and driver of Business Process

Reengineering.

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) aims at enhancing customer service by improving

productivity, eliminating waste and reducing the cost. The drive for BPR is to realize dramatic

improvements by fundamentally rethinking how an organization’s work should be done instead

of mere process improvement that focus on functional or incremental improvement.

Reengineering involves “radical improvements” and not any incremental changes. In this

sense, reengineering without an IT support is nearly impossible. The evolution of IT provides

multiple options for process execution that were not possible erstwhile, which opened the

possibility of reengineering in the first place.

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Role of IT in BPR

IT system helps in process automation, integration of multiple processes and ensures

consistency, thereby improving productivity and quality of the processes and reducing the cost.

IT is an enabler of process reengineering and not a substitute for it.

Role of IT in BPR is quite significant and continuous update on technology will help. IT

enabled BPR ensures achieving larger target, reducing the risk and providing measures in

sustaining results over a longer time. IT had a major role to play in BPR. The reason for that is

very simple—IT is perhaps the only department in any organization which has a holistic view of

the organization from a process perspective—from the perspective of what are the bottle necks,

choke points, etc. Few years back, IT used to provide support to the business, then it started

playing the role of an enabler, and now it drives the business. It is tough to think of BPR without

IT, as the contribution of IT in these processes is around 80%-90%. IT also helps to improve

business and enhance customer expectations. The need of IT, especially in today’s slowdown

scenario, is more and thus there is more expectation from it.

IT in reference process reengineering

IT will have an increasing role to play with reference process reengineering. It is not a

one-time exercise, it needs to be done, say every three-four years, since different IT

developments provide new and disruptive options every few years.

IT is the enabler of implementation of reengineered business processes; and in a few

cases IT could also be a driver. This is typically experienced during the deployment of new

technology solutions. Business processes can be reengineered without IT support and this is true

for processes which do not currently depend on IT for their outcomes. In the case of Shoppers

Stop, IT has been the key driver of some of the reengineering projects even though the

reengineered processes did not always have IT dependencies.

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Role of IT in BPR

Role of CIOs in Process Reengineering

The function of IT in any business needs to be externally oriented. The CIO needs to

continuously keep a tab on new developments in the arena of IT. They need to have a thorough

knowledge of the business wherein they can map the new IT developments to the current and

future opportunities for executing business processes in a new, more efficient manner.

As IT has a holistic view of the organization, the CIO can do the homework and present

to business managers an analysis of processes and give his views on possible areas which are

candidates for BPR.

While IT is an enabler in BPR and most of the BPR in today’s time would involve IT, it

should be kept in mind that BPR is done from business process perspective and not IT. In simple

terms, CIOs need to understand the business challenges, put themselves in shoes of business

managers, and then discuss what changes should be done.

A CIO’s role can be effective in all stages, viz. planning stage, execution stage,

realization stage and continuous improvement stage. For example, a CIO can contribute in the

decision of choosing appropriate technology, implementation, flow of information system for

effective deployment, project management and so on. CIOs can also take the lead towards

facilitating BPR exercises within their enterprise as they have visibility across all functions and

interdependencies. Since most IT organizations are typically not aligned to any specific function

and thereby seen as politically agnostic, they are in an advantageous position to seize this

opportunity. CIOs need to have in-depth knowledge about various departments, communities and

even industries. They should adopt the best practices and solutions that have relevance to their

business, as the adoption of IT depends on the nature of the business and vary from one

organization to another.

CIOs need to involve key business leaders into IT so that the ideas for reengineering

emerge out of a well aligned exercise between the business and IT. An IT mind is typically

“operations oriented” one wherein the tendency may be to follow the conventional path most of

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Role of IT in BPR

the times. IT leadership should consciously attempt to come out of it. A CIO also needs to

facilitate setting up a cross functional team to carry-out inter-dependant collaborative exercise to

generate ideas of process reengineering.

Every BPR project should have clear cut target and recourses for effective

implementation. In today’s times when IT is all pervasive and entrenched in all processes in any

organization, it is almost impossible to reengineer without support of IT.

FUTURE ROLE OF IT IN BPR

With IT advancing at a rapid pace every day the future role of IT in reengineering

becomes more critical. In the survey conducted by Prosci Research and Publishing Company

among CEOs of 205 companies across the globe. The future role of IT has been identified into

three main categories.

1. Participate as a member of the reengineering team, but do not take control of the project

2. Define technology solutions to enable new business processes and take time to educate

operational managers about new technology.

3. Implement technology needed to support the new business processes. Be sure to set

expectations and define deliverables clearly

IT managers and staff have to become business analysts, knowledgeable of business

needs and able to combine a business orientation with technical expertise. This will help in

integrating business knowledge with technical skills.

With the advent of Internet and e-commerce, businesses are getting closer to the

customers. In future Internet will change the way business is carried out. E-commerce will affect

reengineering more than present day IT. E-commerce initiatives will be business led activities

with an implicit acceptance of process change and often involving the use of high-energy change

initiatives like reengineering.

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Role of IT in BPR

CONCLUSION

It is not possible to reengineer without IT support. IT is not only an enabler for

reengineering it has also become an essential and integral part of all reengineering efforts. In the

implementation of reengineering IT is crucial and it provides the skills and tools that are needed

to effectively reengineer.

1. IT provides project management skills that are important in the successful

implementation of reengineering as a project.

2. In the design phase of implementation of reengineering the capabilities of IT can be used

to simulate a model of the design and there by validate the new design.

3. The disruptive power of IT helps in the design phase of implementation of reengineering.

The disruptive power helps organizations to break all the rules and think inductively

about the business that they are in to gain competitive advantage.

4. If not used properly IT can become an inhibitor of reengineering if the organization’s IT

Infrastructure capabilities are inadequate or inflexible.

5. IT capabilities of the organization should not directly influence the IT solutions that are

needed for the company.

6. IT is an indispensable tool in implementation of reengineering in the way that IT supports

redesigned business process and facilitates cross-functional workflow.

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Role of IT in BPR

Companies have to understand that the role of IT in reengineering is not to automate the

business process.

In future companies will not be able to reengineer without involving IT department of the

company. The staff of the IT department will become the members of the reengineering team.

REFERENCES

http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20090406/management01.shtml

http://www.springerlink.com/index/W290659N0L600875.pdf

http://www.eil.utoronto.ca/grpdoc/bprtool.html

www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1746936&show=pdf

http://www.anterron.com/cgi-bin/white_papers/docs/Role_of_IT_in_BPR.pdf

http://jobfunctions.bnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=165413

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