BPR was first formalized by Hammer as a completed concept in 1993. The first definition presented is said to describe the root of BPR. This research sticks to the basic definition of BPR as based on Hammer and Champy’s view.
BPR can be seen as a part of management science. Its concept is complex. According to James Champy (1995), BPR is related to several sections, such as the leadership management, the knowledge management, process management, organization behaviour and human resource management, Information Technology and so on. Due to the limited time and resource, this report just focuses on process management, and IT development.
- Literature Review
The concept of business process re-engineering can be traced back to the 90s, where re-engineering has become the most fashionable and potentially detested management concept (Rohit, 1994). What is the business process reengineering? There are many answers to this question as there are commentators. The basic concept of re-engineering was most visibly coined by Juran (1964). Although he used the term ‘breakthrough’ instead of ‘re-engineering’, there is little doubt that his meaning is virtually the same. In 1990, the term ‘re-engineering’ was first introduced into common business usage in a Harvard Business Review article: Reengineering work: Don’t Automate Obliterate. The article’s author was Michael Hammer. Hammer, together with James Champy, went on to develop the concept of re-engineering further. He then provided the following definition:
“Reengineering is the fundamental rethinking and redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed.”
BPR was first formalized by Hammer as a completed concept in 1993. The first definition presented is said to describe the root of BPR.
BPR can be seen as a part of management science. Its concept is complex. According to James Champy (1995), BPR is related to several sections, such as the leadership management, the knowledge management, process management, organization behaviour and human resource management, Information Technology and so on.
Paker (1993) also gave another definition of reengineering. However, Hammer and Champy’s definition is more exact. It is also a business-oriented discussion on BPR, and most widely used in current day. So it represents a well-known starting point. In this research, the author adopts this definition of re-engineering. And use the existing case studies to illustrate the right understanding of BPR definition will contribute the successful of BPR.
There are five steps to implement BPR according to Henry and Patrick (1993)
Step 1: Discover: what are the company’s strategic aims?
Step 2: Assess: which processes are to be improved?
Step 3: Analyze: the current process
Step 4: Redesign-design new process
Step 5:Implementation- of the new design
The implementation of BPR in the several existing case studies will be discussed according to the above five steps.
The role of IT plays an important function. According to Hammer (1990), “ we should re-engineer our business: use the power of modern information technology to radically redesign our business processes in order to achieve dramatic improvements in our performance.” IT is the key enabler to achieve BPR success. Similarly, the role of IT will be assessed in the chosen case studies to see how the theory meets the practice. That is, the ability of IT to break the rules that makes it critical to companies looking for competitive advantage.
- Research methodology
4. 1 Data collection method
There are two types of data to be collected: secondary data and primary data.
The main method of gathering secondary data for the purpose of this research is through books, journals and articles available. Using secondary data may have fewer resource requirements; may be unobtrusive; longitudinal studies may be feasible; could provide comparative and contextual data; and could result in unforeseen discoveries and performance of data. (Mark Saunder, Philip Lewis & Adrian Thornhill, 2000, page 199-200). For this topic, the data in the Literature Review section will be all gathered from this method.
In gathering the primary data, the main methods to be used are interview and questionnaire. Due to the nature of the chosen topic, it is difficult to get a person who will agree to be interviewed for the purpose of gathering first-hand data. If an interview can not be done, questionnaires will be handed out and sent through electronic mail to the middle managers, who closely monitor the progress of the reengineering applied to the company. The questions are related to the following:
- Understanding about the definition of BPR(Somebody misunderstanding BPR with Total Quality Management)
- Justify the role of IT
- Positive and negative factors that contribute to the successful implementation of BPR.
- Problems met in BPR implementation
- Suggestions for achieve the BPR success in the organisation
Sampling techniques provide a method that enables the reduction of the amount of data to be gathered, by considering only data from a sub-group rather than all possible cases or elements. In this research, the result of sampling is to select the typical case studies from all the organization cases, which have undertaken BPR. There are three existing case studies selected for the purpose of the project: “Kodak”, “Ford”, and “Taco Bell”.
The secondary data research method is one of research method employed in the research project. The use of secondary data, such as newspaper, internet and articles, helps to get relevant and efficient information. Most of data can be found in University Library and City Council Library. And some journals and previous researches done on BPR can be viewed via the Internet.
To approach the proposed objectives the case study methods have been adopted. According to Jankowicz.A(1995), case study is a appropriate approach when your thesis focuses on a set of issues in a single organization, and you want to identify the factors involved in an in-depth study of the organization or single department within it. In this research, several case studies from Europe and North America will be considered. Analyzing the existing case studies attempt to compare theory and practice of BPR implementation in relation to literature review part: how they fit with the definition of BPR in theory, how the IT play the role in the BPR implementation, what changes brought by the use of IT, and so on. And through analysis of the case studies, the major positive and negative factors that contribute to the success of BPR project will be identified, then the recommendation for the successful implementing BPR will be given for the purpose of meeting the objectives of the project.
The great advantage of this method in comparison with other methods is that it attempts to be more comprehensive, and it involves describing and analyzing the full richness and variety of issues about BPR in the organization, which let the reader get greatly understanding of the chosen topic in the case company.
4.2. Methods of analyzing data
For the purpose of the project, the data gathered from the different case studies will be transformed into tables and diagrams. For example, the role of IT function will be examined by listing the function of IT in each chosen case studies in one table. Then relate to the theory in the literature review part to determine the difference between theory and practice.
5. Limitation of research
There are quite a few limitations that will be expected to be encountered on this research.
First, due to the topic of the project, there is limitation of research methodologies. It is quite difficult to conduct interview. Finding a company who had successfully performed reengineering and is willing to be interviewed is difficult. People in the business world all are busy, it is not easy to make appointment to interview them. For one, time is limited. The company may also not agree to release vital information which is sensitive to the company’s future direction. And also it is impossible to use other methodologies, like experiment, ethnography, and etcs.
Second is the limitation of secondary data (book, internet, journal). The book is written by someone for his or her own purpose. So collected data may not be consistent with the particular objective. The author should decide which data to use to addressing the objectives of the project. Books and journals were published several years ago. Some concept might no longer match the current situation of the present days. Some of the information gathered might be outdated.
Third involves the existing case studies. Due to limited time and resource, the author can only choose a limited number of case study to serve the purpose of the report. It can’t represent all companies in all fields. Therefore, conclusions drawn are limited to companies studied or companies closely related to case companies.
Fourth, due to the limited time and resource, this report just focuses on process management, and IT development.
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