Business Process Reengineering (BPR) – Meaning, Steps, and Examples

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) Meaning
Business Process Reengineering (BPR) Meaning

Organizations must be able to overcome difficulties and find a method to turn them into opportunities to stay ahead in the business world. Take a step back and reconsider your company’s core activities rather than forcing something to happen the way you want it to. It may imply starting from the ground up and deconstructing how everything works.

Because of habits and prior investments in outdated technologies, making adjustments to the process becomes increasingly tough as your business expands. However, you can’t improve processes without making adjustments. Processes must be carefully reengineered because mistakes and tests create a lot of uncertainty.

Proper implementation of Business Process re-engineering may significantly impact any company. Business process reengineering(BPR) can make incredible changes on a failing or stagnant firm, increasing profits and boosting development if handled correctly.

What is Business Process Reengineering (BPR)

Business Process Reengineering, or BPR, is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of entire business processes to achieve dramatic performance improvements. BPR is not a technology implementation project but rather applies business analysis and systems thinking techniques to redesign business processes. BPR should improve customer service, faster cycle times, reduce costs, and increase profits.

Typically, it involves evaluating company processes, the discovery of low-quality or inefficient procedures, and their remediation.

Business process reengineering (BPR) vs business process improvement (BPI)

Many people are confused between Business Process re-engineering (BPR) and Business Process Improvement (BPI). While BPR may be more radical, it should not be confused with BPI as it applies techniques such as Lean Six Sigma to optimize current processes. The goal of BPI is an improvement, while the goal of BPR is transformation.

BPR is about starting from scratch and radically redesigning processes to achieve dramatic performance improvements. BPI is applying techniques such as Lean Six Sigma to optimize current processes.

On the other hand, BPI is a more holistic approach that considers the broader picture. BPI does not buck the trend. It identifies process bottlenecks and suggests improvements in certain functions. When we use BPI, the process framework is largely similar. On the other hand, when BPR is utilized, the conventional procedures are often rewritten from a high-level management viewpoint and take an unusual approach to fix processes.

The BPI survey is similar to upgrading the exhaust system on your project automobile. Business Process Reengineering, or BPR, is to rethink the whole process.

Five steps of business process reengineering (BPR)

To ensure that business process reengineering is fair, open, and efficient, stakeholders must thoroughly know the steps involved. Although the procedure varies from one firm to the next, these stages provide a good overview:

1. Map out your current business processes in detail

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) begins with a process map describing the current state of your processes. Business Process Mapping is more than just drawing lines and boxes on a sheet of paper; it’s about identifying essential inputs, outputs, activities, roles, responsibilities, information flows, and metrics for each step in every process.

2. Examine them and look for any process gaps or disconnects

Once the current state is mapped, it’s time to analyze and find any process gaps or disconnects. This could result from different areas working in isolation from each other, siloed data, or redundant processes. Gaps can also exist between what you say your business does and your customers experience.

3. Look for places where things can improve and test them out

When you identify the gaps, it’s time to look for improvement opportunities. Not all improvements will be viable, but that’s okay – you need to validate them before moving on. Ideally, the Business Process Reengineering (BPR) team should include people with process knowledge and domain and technical expertise.

4. Make a cutting-edge future-state process map

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is not only about making processes better; it’s also about ensuring that the process continues to work in the future. Business Process Reengineering (BPR) teams should be familiar with emerging technologies and trends to incorporate them into their new processes.

5. Make future state changes and be cautious of dependencies

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) initiatives are often complex and involve several interconnected workflows. It is difficult to understand the dependencies between these processes and how changes in one area could impact other areas of your business process.

A Real-life example of BPR

During the 1990s, many businesses attempted BPR to restructure their operations, including Ford Motors, GTE, and Bell Atlantic. They implemented a reengineering strategy that significantly improved efficiency while minimizing expenses and improving performance against rising competition.

An American telecommunications firm that had several departments to handle customer service issues relating to technical snags, billing, new connection requests, service termination, and so on. Customers were forced to contact each department to resolve issues, which was a major waste of time. The firm spent millions of dollars to guarantee client pleasure, but smaller firms with fewer resources put their business at risk.

The situation was complicated. The organization recognized that it needed a comprehensive solution to simplify things and that there was a need for drastic action to simplify things –a single address for all client inquiries. It elected to combine the departments into one to cut down on handoffs and establish a nerve center for customer support to deal with all concerns.

They then set up a customer care center in Atlanta and trained their repair staff as ‘front-end technical experts to handle the new, more comprehensive work. The business supplied the team with updated software that allowed them to access the client database and instantly process almost all sorts of requests.

Whats the outcome after BPR

Customers can now query and provide feedback on the call quality while they’re still on the phone with a push-button phone. They may also have an erratic dial tone fixed or establish a new service request without contacting another number. Customers could use the push-button phone menu to connect directly with another department to ask questions or provide commentaries about their service experience.

This is an example of a business process that successfully streamlined its operations using Business Process Reengineering (BPR). The company was able to improve customer service and resolve complaints more quickly without contacting different departments. As a result, the customer’s experience was improved, and the company saved money on workforce costs.

The company’s new goals were achieved due to the redesigned customer-contact procedure.

  • Reduced costs and cycle time by reorganizing the groups.
  • Improved information flow, reduced errors, and prevented reworks by speeding up the process.
  • Customer service quality and client happiness have both improved.
  • Within the reorganized team, defined clear ownership of procedures.
  • Facilitated team evaluation by providing immediate feedback.

When should you consider BPR?

Business processes may be difficult to measure, but they might need BPR if you are having any of these issues:

  • You are not meeting customer needs or expectations
  • Your processes are no longer efficient or effective
  • You are having difficulty scaling your operations to meet increasing demands
  • You are not able to keep up with changing technology or trends
  • When You are experiencing high costs or inefficiencies related to your Business Processes (BPs)

If you relate to any of these issues, Business Process Reengineering (BPR) may be the solution for you.

Related: What is Enterprise Resource Planning Software

How Business Process Reengineering works:

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is a strategic approach to management and organizational change designed to achieve dramatic improvements in business performance. BPR helps companies fundamentally rethink how they do their work to dramatically improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become world-class competitors. Business process reengineering involves radical redesigning core business processes to achieve dramatic performance improvements.

A BPR transformation is a major change project with five key stages that management must go through:

  • Re-emphasize company ideals in the context of client requirements.
  • Use information technology to enhance core operations, particularly in the areas of procurement and inventory management.
  • Reorganize a company into cross-functional teams responsible for the entire process from start to finish.
  • Rethink basic employee and personnel concerns

Companies use Business Process Reengineering to:

  • Reduce operational expenses and cycle times. Business Process Reengineering lowers costs and delays by eliminating wasteful procedures and the persons who execute them. It is easier for teams to solve problems and make decisions since they operate independently. On the other hand, management layers restrict processes and information flow, resulting in errors and rework at multiple handovers.
  • Improve quality. By reducing work fragmentation and establishing clear process ownership, Business Process Reengineering enhances quality. Workers are given control over their output and may evaluate their performance based on timely feedback.
  • Increase employee satisfaction. Business Process Reengineering eliminates the need for co-ordination and reporting to multiple superiors and repetitive assignments that do not add value. Employees are responsible for their tasks from start to finish, with freedom to make decisions and apply creativity in problem-solving. Business process reengineering can boost morale by providing employees with ownership and responsibility.
  • Improve customer service. Business Process Reengineering can shorten cycle times and improve quality, allowing companies to serve their customers more effectively. Business process redesign often leads to developing innovative new products and services that reflect customer needs and wants.
  • Keep pace with technology changes. Business Process Reengineering enables a company to use information technology (IT) to its best advantage by applying it to core Business Processes (BPs). Business process redesign allows a company to do things differently and perhaps more effectively using automation than before.

Conclusion:

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is a management approach that can help your company achieve dramatic performance improvements. BPR helps companies fundamentally rethink how they do their work to dramatically improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become world-class competitors. Business process reengineering involves radical redesigning core business processes to achieve dramatic performance improvements.