Implementation of BPR

Thomas H. Davenport prescribes a five-step approach to the BPR model. This model can be applied to any business process. The five steps in the process are:

1. Develop the business vision and process objectives: This step involves prioritizing objec­tives and setting targets for the future. A BPR vision statement describes the ideal state of a process.
2. Identify the business processes to be redesigned: This involves identifying critical or bot­tleneck processes and averting shortcomings in them.

3. Understand and measure the existing processes: This involves identifying the current problems and setting a base line.
4. Identify information technology levers: This involves bringing those involved in the pro­cess to a brainstorming session to identify new approaches.
5. Design and build a prototype of the new process: This includes implementing re­engineered and technical aspects.

1. Implementation of BPR in Projects

The implementation of BPR in projects may be explained in the following seven phases:

Phase 1: Begin re-engineered change

Phase 2: Build re-engineered structure

Phase 3: Identify BPR opportunities

Phase 4: Understand the existing process

Phase 5: Re-engineer the process

Phase 6: Blueprint the new business system

Phase 7: Perform the transformation

Phase 1 —Begin organizational change: The first step is to take a look at how the re-engineer operates in order to assess whether dramatic changes are necessary. Everyone must under­stand where the re-engineer is today, why the re-engineer needs to change and where the re-engineer needs to be in order to survive. BPR is most effective when everyone understands the need for change, and works together to eradicate old business systems and build new ones. The various activities required to complete this phase are assessing the current state of re-engineering, explaining the need for change, illustrating the desired state and creating a communication campaign for change.

Phase 2—Build the re-engineered structure: It is necessary to develop a re-engineered structure for BPR initiatives. In some BPR initiatives, it is helpful to institute a steering committee. It is very important to have a re-engineering team with a process owner, led by an executive leader with the support of re-engineering specialists to develop an overall re-engineering strategy and to monitor its progress. The various activities required to com­plete this phase are establishing a BPR re-engineered structure, establishing the roles for performing BPR and deciding on the personnel who will re-engineer.

Phase 3—Identify BPR opportunities: In this phase, the entire re-engineering process is divided into high-level core processes rather than the usual business areas such as market­ing, production, finance, etc. It is also necessary to identify potential change levers which may lead to dramatic changes in the organization’s processes such as the use of informa­tion, the use of information technology and human factors. At this point, it is needed to find out overall, bottom-line performance metrics for the high-level processes that will help select the processes to be re-engineered. Re-engineers usually use three criteria to do this— dysfunction (which processes are the most ineffective), importance (which processes have the greatest impact on our customers), feasibility (which processes are at the moment most susceptible to accomplish a successful redesign) and prioritizing the chosen processes to re-engineer guides in scheduling the order of the re-engineering processes.

The various activities required to complete this phase are identifying the core/high- level processes, recognizing potential change enablers, gathering performance metrics outside the industry, selecting processes that should be re-engineered, prioritizing selected processes, evaluating pre-existing business strategies, consulting with customers for their desires, determining the actual needs of customers, formulating new process performance objectives, establishing key process characteristics and identifying potential barriers to implementation.

Phase 4—Understand the existing process: In this phase, there is a need to understand the underlying reasons why the existing process is carried out the way it is. When the new pro­cess objectives are clearly defined, one can measure the existing process in terms of the new objectives. The various activities required to complete this phase are understanding why the current steps are performed, model the current process, understand how technology is currently used, understand how information is currently used, understand the current re-engineered structure and compare the current process with the new objectives.

Phase 5—Re-engineer the process: The actual re-engineering begins during this phase. During this phase, the re-engineer has to move from the strategy and analysis phase into the redesign phase. The re-engineering team should consist of designers and implement- ers including a technologist, who will provide insights for applying the technology in new and innovative ways. The team members should be recruited from both inside and outside the existing process. The team must consider all process stakeholders in the redesign of a process. The various activities required to complete this phase are ensuring the diversity of the re-engineering team, questioning current operating assumptions, brainstorming using change levers, brainstorming using BPR principles, evaluating the impact of new technolo­gies, considering the perspectives of stakeholders and using customer value as the focal point.

Phase 6—Blueprint the new business system: During this phase, blue prints are created that involve modeling the new process flow and the information required to support it. The blueprints should i dentify all the necessary details of the newly re-engineered busi­ness system and ensure it will be built as intended. The blueprints should also contain models of the redesigned and re-engineered structure, detailed technology specifications required to support the new process, new management systems and values of the rede­signed area of the business. The various activities required to complete this phase are defin­ing the new flow of work, modeling the new process steps, modeling the new information requirements, documenting the new re-engineered structure, describing the new technol­ogy specifications, recording the new personnel management systems and describing the new values and culture required.

Phase 7—Perform the transformation: The first step in transforming the re-engineer is to develop a plan for migration to the new process. The new process usually requires a new re-engineer structure, skills and culture. This needs re-engineering, retraining, and retooling of business systems to support the re-engineered process.

The various activities required to complete this phase are developing a migration strat­egy, creating a migration action plan, developing metrics for measuring performance during implementation, involving the impacted staff, implementing in an iterative fashion, estab­lishing the new re-engineered structures, assessing the current skills and capabilities of the workforce, mapping new tasks and skill requirements to staff, reallocating the workforce, developing a training curriculum, educating staff about the new process and new technology used, educating the management on facilitation skills, deciding how new technologies will be introduced, transitioning to the new technologies and incorporating process improve­ment mechanisms. Box 12.3 discusses the benefits enjoyed by the Income Tax Department after the implementation of BPR.

Box 12.3 Income Tax Department Benefits from BPR

The Income Tax Department in Karnataka has greatly benefited from its BPR project that was launched in 2006. The collection of direct taxes reaching a record of Rs 314,468 million between 2007 and 2008 as against Rs 48,280 million between 1997 and 1998. The BPR project has also helped the department expand its taxpayer base to three million in the country (2007 to 2008).

The post of Directorate of BPR was created, headed by an officer of the rank of Director-General of Income Tax. The project aimed at providing better services to taxpayers, reducing compliance burden on taxpayers and improving enforcement. While these initiatives benefited the taxpayers, there remained severe operational bottlenecks.

According to sources in the Central Board of Direct Taxes, “the BPR project was conceptualized with the prime objective of identifying the bottlenecks and providing solutions in the form of rede­signed processes which are simpler, efficient and would harness the advantages of upgraded infor­mation technology. The BPR also enabled the department to remove the redundant and obsolete service processes and redesign or create new processes which are more efficient.”

The BPR project report has found solutions to meet taxpayers’ needs for information, conve­nience of filing tax returns and documents, payment of taxes and speedier issue of refunds. The project has also helped the department to achieve its objectives. The BPR project was undertaken in two phases—“as-is” study phase and “to-be” model stage—and was conducted at 15 locations— Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Nagpur, Patna, Bhopal, Mysore, Lucknow, Guwahati, Ludhi­ana, Shillong, Hajipur, Mandya and Itarsi.

Source: Poornima M. Charantimath (2017), Total Quality Management, Pearson; 3rd edition.