BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING & ERP

Process A specific ordering of work activities across time and space, with a beginning, an end, and clearly identified inputs and outputs: a structure for action.

Business process Reengineering It is the fundamental rethinking and radical re-design of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality service and speed.

BPR continued… It is the analysis and design of workflows within an organization. It is not just change but dramatic change and dramatic improvement. It Is the basis for many recent development in organizations.

Different phases of BPR Begin Organizational Change. Building the reengineering organization. Identifying BPR opportunities. Understanding the existing process. Reengineer the process. Blueprint the new business system. Perform the transformation.

Begin Organizational Change Assess the current state of organization Explain the need for change Illustrate the desired state Create a communication campaign for change

Build the reengineering organization Establish a BPR organizational structure. Establish the roles for performing BPR. Choose the personnel who will reengineer.

Identify BPR opportunities Identify the high level process. Gather performance metrics within and outside industry. Prioritize selected process. Consult with customers for their desires.

Understand the existing process Model the current process. Understand how technology is currently used. Understand how information is currently used.

Reengineer the process Question current operating assumptions. Evaluate the impact of new technologies. Consider the perspective of stakeholders.

Blueprint the new business system Define the new flow of work. Model the new process steps. Model the new information requirements. Describe the new technology specifications.

Perform the transformation Develop a migration strategy. Reallocate workforce. Educate staff about the new process. Implement in an iterative fashion.

Difficulties in implementing BPR Employee resistance to change. Inadequate attention to employee concerns. Failure in leadership commitment. Mismatch of strategies used and goals.

Ways to implement reengineering… Clean slate Reengineering:- Everything is designed from scratch. Technology enabled reengineering:- Constrained by selected system. It is cheaper but require a lot of training.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) It integrates internal and external management information across an entire organization, embracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and services etc.

ERP continued… Affects all organization- irrespective of their size and nature. Forces the competition to change their strategies and process. Change the nature of jobs in all functional areas. Implementation is very costly.

ERP continued Packaged software designed for a client- server environment. Use an enterprise wide database that typically stores each piece of data. Allow access to data in real time. Process a large variety of organization's data.

Comparison… ERP v/s BPR BPR focuses on transformation aspect of the business process whereas ERP focuses on the automation aspect of the business process. Both have different approaches in achieving the same goal. BPR is the fundamental step taken prior to ERP implementation.

What to change Business Process or Software Probability of success is higher when there is minimal change in business process and erp software. Change in process is likely to have risk such as lack of organizational adaptability, incorrect choice of the appropriate practices to implement , resistance to change etc.

Continued… Most changes can be made in software but the organization has no ability to implement such large IT project , which leads to failed implementation. Large change in both process and software can affect probability of success.