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BPR to BPM

Business process reengineering in 1990s created a hype which was as farreaching as the concept it self was. But was reengineering successful? The

answer is both yes and no. No, because the number of companies thatattempted and failed to reengineer their processes was much more thanthose who were successful at it. Yes, because, B! in general has put theemphasis on organi"ing wor# around processes, rather than around tas#s.$lso automation got prominence as a means to impro%e businessperformance and not &T performance. This shift in focus was the real gain forthe industry.

B! gained popularity during times when the industry was in a '( in the faceof constantly changing en%ironment. )ore or less the companies found theirbac#s to the wall. Brea#through impro%ement was the bare re*uisite of the

day for established companies in corporate $merica to sur%i%e against thenimble startups and competiti%ely superior o%erseas 'rms. +ac# of endtoend process perspecti%e and style of wor#ing which suited times of a bygoneera pro%ided the platform from which the brea#through impro%ements canbe launched. $nd the e%ol%ing power of &T, which was only inade*uately andsuper'cially being used in the industry, pro%ided the fuel to embar# onreengineering -ourney. The promise of discontinuous impro%ements alsore*uired discontinuity in the way wor# is conducted anything less than aperfect score on this account is a sure road to failure and this was thegeneral e(perience of the industry.

B) tools ha%e ta#en the ad%antage of the B! e(perience and conceptuallyare more /e(ible in terms of e(panse and intensity. nli#e B! which targetsendtoend process by radically redesigning it, B) tools can be applied partby part to the whole enterpri"e at a time, by adopting much moremanageable and smaller changes in the process. This way the in%estments,ris#s and amount of change are minimi"ed but at the same time the tangibleimpact is much more modest than what was a possibility with B!. Yet B)tools for automating processes ha%e their basis on the fundamental conceptsthat were emphasi"ed by B!, such as

• 2imple processes deli%ering on the metrics of *uality, ser%ice,

/e(ibility

• 3ocus on eliminating non%alue adding acti%ities

• 4ecisions becoming integral part of the process

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B) uni'es discrete tools through e(tension of technologies li#e B!, 5$&,6or#/ow automation and any other business application pac#age in such aform where the implementation and upgradation is much easily handled andunderlying business process are e7ciently managed. &n addition to thestrength inherited from B! that B) is built around business processes and

not business applications per se, yet another promising feature of B) is thatit is based on mathematical process models. 6hich means that businessprocess performance can be continuously impro%ed and optimi"ed during theoperations.

8ey aspects on which B) diers B! is shown below

Marked diference between BPR and BPM

Aspect BPR BPM

Level o change

!adical, onestep change

5%olutionary :continuous

Time taken orimplementatio

n+ong

2hort time andsmooth ta#eo%er

Starting point 4rawing board;urrent processes and

automation le%els

Implementation

small or

ma-or processes

Methodolog"!edesigning of 

businessprocesses

rocess and decisionmodels

nablingtechnolog"

rimarily &Trimarily process

technology

InvolvementBusiness and

process e(pertsrocess e(perts and

all related people

Risk 

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