Business process reengineering (BPR) is a business management strategy that focuses on analyzing and redesigning workflows and business processes. The goal of BPR is to help organizations fundamentally change how work is done to improve customer service, cut costs, and enhance competitiveness. BPR seeks to help companies radically restructure by focusing on ground-up redesign of business processes and empowering employees. Case studies on BPR implementation in Indian Railways and Mahindra & Mahindra show benefits like increased revenues, improved productivity, and optimized operations. Key success factors include top management support, strategic alignment, change management, and overcoming resistance from employees.
2. OVERVIEW
• Business process re-engineering is a business management strategy, originally
pioneered in the early 1990s, focusing on the analysis and design
of workflows and business processes within an organization.
• BPR aimed to help organizations fundamentally rethink how they do their work in
order to dramatically improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become
world-class competitors.
• BPR seeks to help companies radically restructure their organizations by focusing on
the ground-up design of their business processes.
• Business Process Reengineering is also known as business process redesign, business
transformation, or business process change management.
3. DEFINITIONS ….
• the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to
achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary modern measures of
performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed.
• encompasses the envisioning of new work strategies, the actual process
design activity, and the implementation of the change in all its complex
technological, human, and organizational dimensions.
4. FACTORS RESPONSIBLE FOR BPR FAILURE
• One department may be optimized at the
expense of another.
• Lack of time to focus on improving business
process.
• Lack of recognition of the extent of the
problem
• Lack of training.
• People involved use the best tool they have
at their disposal.
• Inadequate infrastructure.
• Overly bureaucratic processes.
• Lack of motivation.
• BPR team composition.
• Business needs analysis.
• Adequate IT infrastructure.
• Effective change management.
• Ongoing continuous improvement
FACTORS IMPORTANT FOR BPR SUCCESS
5. THE ROLE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Information technology (IT) has historically played an important role in the reengineering concept.
• 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 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.
6. WHY???
A BPR initiative is a risky undertaking and several factors have to be considered for a
successful effort.
A very important success factor is the top management sponsorship. A BPR Project
usually requires many resources, money and leadership, which can be assured only
by a strong and consistent top management sponsorship.
Another important success factor is the alignment of the transformation effort with the
organisation’s strategic direction demonstrated from the perspective of financial
performance, customer service, associate employee value, and the vision of the
organisation.
BPR IMPLEMENTATION METHODS
7. THE HAMMER/CHAMPY METHODOLOGY
• A BPR effort changes practically everything in the organization: people, jobs, managers and
values, because these aspects are linked together.
• They believed that instead of first defining a problem and then seeking and evaluating
different solutions to it, it is more efficient to first recognize a powerful solution and then
seek the problems it might solve.
• Earlier Hammer and Champy consider poor management and unclear objectives as the main
problems to BPR success , but then they acknowledge people’s resistance as a major obstacle
to a successful BPR undertaking.
8. HAMMER/CHAMPY 6-PHASE METHODOLOGY
Introduction into Business Reengineering:
The first step in reengineering is to prepare and communicate the “case for action” and the “vision statement”.
The “vision statement” describes how the organization is going to operate and outlines the kind of results it
must achieve.
This qualitative and quantitative statement can be used during a BPR effort, as a reminder of reengineering
objectives, as a metric for measuring the progress of the project, and as a prod to keep reengineering action
going.
Identification of Business Processes:
During this phase, the most important business processes are identified and are described from a global
perspective using a set of process maps.
The output of this phase is a number of process maps reflecting how these high-level processes interact within
the company and in relation to the outside world.
9. Selection of Business Processes:
It is unrealistic to reengineer all the high level processes of an organization at the same time.
Therefore, it has to be decided which are the processes to be redesigned.
According to an organization‟s strategic objectives more criteria could be defined for selecting
processes for redesign, such as whether a process contributes to the organization‟s strategic
direction, has an impact on customer‟s satisfaction e.t.c.
Understanding of Selected Business Processes:
Before proceeding to redesign, the reengineering team needs to gain a better understanding of
the existing selected processes, concerning what they do, how well or how poorly they
perform, and the critical issues that govern their performance.
The objective is the provision of a high level view of the process under consideration, in order
for the team members to have the intuition and insight required to create a totally new and
superior design.
10. Redesign of the Selected Business Processes
This is the most creative phase of the methodology, because new rules and new ways of work
should be invented. Imagination and inductive thinking should characterize this phase.
Implementation of Redesigned Business Processes:
The last phase covers the implementation phase of the BPR project. Hammer/Champy believe
that the success of the implementation depends on whether the five preliminary phases have
been properly performed.
11. DAVENPORT’S AND SHORT’S METHODOLOGY
Davenport and Short position IT at the heart of BPR. They recognise the
existence of a recursive relationship between IT capabilities and BPR.
Despite their emphasis on innovation and technology, they recognise the
importance of organisation and human resource issues as to change
management, and suggest the use of traditional management approaches like
planning, directing decision making and communicating.
Believing that BPR should be integrated with approaches like Continuous
Process Improvement (CPI) , Davenport and Short suggest that the redesign
effort of an organisation involve five major steps.
12. 5 MAJOR STEPS
The first three steps are very similar to Hammer‟s methodology:
Develop Business Vision and Process Objectives.
Identify Processes to Be Redesigned.
Understand and Measure Existing Processes.
Identify IT levers:
IT is a powerful tool not only for supporting processes but also for creating new process
design options.
13. Design and Build a Prototype of the Process:
The final step in a redesign effort is the design of the new process. The actual design of the new process
should be viewed as a prototype and successive iterations should be expected.
Three key factors and tactics are considered in process design and prototype:
1.using IT as a Design Tool .
2.understanding generic design criteria.
3.creating organizational prototypes.
14. INDIAN RAILWAYS PROBLEMS
• Long queues for ticket booking.
• Long waiting to know the confirmation.
• Mismanagement.
• Dissatisfaction among passengers.
•Miscommunication.
•Untimely delays in train arrival.
•Longer queues at inquiry counters.
CASE STUDY : BPR IN RAILWAYS
150 years old.
17 lakh workers.
12000 trains every day.
Carries 1.4 crore passengers & 16 lakh tonnes of goods everyday.
16. FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE
Growth of 17.30 % in one year
Major increase in the income achieved due to
• licensee catering
• quantum jump in internet ticketing
• tourism activities
2007-2008
Total Income : Rs. 527.66 Cr
2008-2009
Total Income: Rs. 618.77Cr
17. USAGE OF IT IN RAILWAYS
A large complex Infrastructure System with Large Geographical Dispersion such as the
Indian Railways can benefit greatly from the intelligent use of IT
-Freight Operations Information system ( FOIS)
-Passenger Reservations System (PRS)
-Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS)
-Instant voice response system (IVRS)
-Rail Net
-E- Ticketing
18. REENGINEERING SERVICES PROVIDED
Passenger Information
Railway Reservation and ticketing
Retiring rooms facilities at Stations
Railway claims and refunds
Catering and vending services
19. M&M'S PROBLEM PLANTS
• In the mid-1990s, India's largest multi utility vehicle (MUV) and tractor
manufacturer M&M was facing serious problems at its Igatpuri and Kandivili plants
in Maharashtra. The plants were suffering from manufacturing inefficiencies, poor
productivity, long production cycle, and sub-optimal output.
• During this period, M&M was in the process of considering the implementation of a
Business Process Reengineering (BPR) program throughout the organization
including the manufacturing units.
• The programe was first implemented on an experimental basis at the engine plant
in Igatpuri. Simultaneously, an exercise was initiated to assess the potential benefits
of implementing BPR and its effect on the unions.
CASE STUDY: BPR @ MAHINDRA & MAHINDRA
20. BPR IMPLEMENTATION
• In 1994, a major restructuring exercise was initiated as part of a BPR program.
M&M introduced a new organizational model, in which various divisions and
companies were regrouped into six distinct clusters of related businesses, each
headed by a president.
• M&M's core activities, automotive and tractors were made autonomous
business units.
• The other activities of the group were organized into infrastructure, trade and
financial services, telecommunication and automotive components.
• According to company sources, the whole exercise was intended to develop a
conceptual map to provide direction for the future growth of various business
lines.
• It was decided that, in future, the group would confine its expansion to the
identified thrust sectors.
21. FEAR FORM HUMAN FACTOR:
• Fear of downsizing
• Several jobs were combined into one.
• Management accepting union demands every time.
• Inflexibility of workers.
• Idle time available to workers due to unorganised process.
22. HURDLES:
M&M's management was not surprised to learn that the unions expressed extreme
displeasure at the decision to implement BPR and soon went on a strike.
But the management made it clear that it would not succumb to union demands.
Soon, the workers were surprised to see the company's senior staff come down
to the plant and work in their place.
COUNTER MEASURES:
Once the workers knew that their resistance won’t make a difference, they agreed
to accept the change.
• Training and motivating the workforce.
• Identifying leaders.
• Creating conducive environment and changing work culture.
23. OUTCOME
• Productivity change- 100 employees produced 35 engines against 1200
produced 70 engines before BPR.
• Productivity of Nasik plant improved by 125%.
• Value added per employee- 0.46 against 0.3.
• Better inventory control, better sourcing, etc. are additional benefits.
• Anand Mahindra said, “Let me put it in a simple way. If we have
facilities in Kandivili today, which are not just surviving but thriving, it
is all due to BPR”
24. “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most
intelligent, but is the one most responsive to change.”
“Revolutions don’t last, but Evolution does”
Thank you