Taking Another Shot at BPR
By William M. Ulrich
(Originally appeared in Computerworld Dec. 18, 2000)
Business process re-engineering (BPR), the hottest management trend of the 1990s, was aimed at streamlining and eliminating business processes to make companies more efficient. But BPR got a bad rap because it focused on layoffs and forced retirements to boost profits and stock values.
Today, e-business initiatives have made the need to streamline, integrate and automate processes even more pressing. But this time, we have an opportunity to do it right.
Companies are seeking ways to integrate redundant processes, eliminate unnecessary tasks and automate deployment of processes. The intent: Make tasks more efficient and less error-prone. Two things differentiate BPR efforts of the past from today's process integration initiatives. The first is the motivation for process integration. The second is the ability to deliver technological solutions that streamline processes and support new external e-business requirements.
The main motivator behind process integration is the need to function more efficiently within and beyond the enterprise. Consider a company that has spread its order-processing capabilities across redundant business units, processes and information systems. It could consolidate those capabilities into one center if management wants to eliminate discrepancies that arise when different people use different approaches to serve the same customers. But unlike BPR efforts, process integration must consider interfaces with various third parties, such as customers, suppliers, business partners and even competitors.
The growth of the Internet requires that companies integrate processes that can extend to these third parties. Application service providers (ASP), supply chain consortia, e-marketplaces and other Web-based relationships offer such collaboration opportunities, but only if a company can manage all processes effectively, from procurement to billing and beyond.
For example, if your company repeatedly fails to process major orders received from an e-marketplace that you established with competitors, you could lose your position within that e-marketplace. The same is true if processes are too redundant or inefficient to support relationships with your ASPs, suppliers, partners or customers. Process integration is essential to these relationships, which are essential to your bottom line.
The second factor behind process integration is our ability to deliver solutions that extend to third parties. IT plays a key role here. Early BPR initiatives ignored intricate, interwoven patterns between technology, data and business processes and downplayed IT's role. To ensure the viability of process integration projects, IT must collaborate with business units and third parties to ensure that solutions deliver value and function both internally and in third-party environments.
IT can assist in identifying and documenting where manual processes interface with redundant information systems. For example, if IT knows that two business units access redundant order systems and databases, it can relay that information to those business units. IT can also develop a knowledge base to help track process redundancies across business units.
When business units begin integrating and streamlining processes, this knowledge base can help them find where processes can be integrated, eliminated or changed.
Web-based process automation tools allow business and IT analysts to create Internet front ends that allow users to trigger or authorize a manual or an automated process. For example, an outsourced sales team could post an order from the road, and an in-house manager could then authorize internally. These tools can also invoke redundant legacy systems through common interfaces as a way to integrate systems. The fact that these tools run on the Internet means that employees, business partners, ASPs and customers can trigger processes internally and remotely.
Business process integration and automation pick up where BPR left off. Extending process integration and automation solutions beyond the enterprise delivers the efficiency that management has been seeking for decades. And e-business is the prime motivation for you to pursue these solutions now.