What value can business process re-engineering bring to your business?

Business process re-engineering (BPR) is the remodelling of business procedures for scaling up. Before a company uses BPR, they should align expectations for the process and acknowledge the risks.

What companies try to achieve with BPR

Clarity and transparency

Business processes determine ways in which resources are connected with the chain of actions that delivers value to customers. The probability of success in a variety of business areas increases if companies have a clear view of their processes and the ways in which they are aligned.

Having a transparent outline of processes allows the pinpointing of bottlenecks, redundant steps, and alignment mishaps. Moreover, a clear understanding of how things work enables the faster application of new resources into the process, which in turn results in quicker outcomes.

Efficiency of business process reengineering

All companies are constantly looking for opportunities to save costs, which can be translated to ways in which they can use resources more efficiently. Business processes reengineering is where a company identifies cost optimization possibilities without harming the quality of the result.  

Optimization possibilities might bring in the potential launch of new initiatives. The core benefit is that if your people have time and opportunity to deal with more valuable activities and sophisticated problem solving, this will take your business further.

Agility

In times of economic turbulence, market needs change quickly, and customers require better products and services with high levels of reliability. This adds significant pressure for companies to adapt new ways of working in a short timeframe. Clarity of business processes and a defined understanding of customer demands enables quick fixes and speeds up the delivery of customer value.

Compliance

In the modern business environment, there are very few companies whose businesses are not required to meet industry standards and follow legislation or internal compliance regulations. Fulfilling these requirements in business operations, in a way that doesn’t affect efficiency or agility, is the subject of reviewing business processes that need to apply or deliver in accordance with the compliance rules.  

Quality

The perception of product or service quality comes from design and customer experience. Quality standards stand at the core of the delivery process of products or services and are under constant quality assurance monitoring and are the subject of ongoing improvements. Continuous improvements are to sustain and/or evolve requirements of performance standards necessary to better respond to customer expectations and market or technology changes.

Where to start with BPR? 

The very first step is to define what you want to achieve:

• Do you want to reduce the cost of production?
• Do you want to pay extra attention to quality?
• Do you need to apply regulatory requirements to your business? 
• etc

The second step is to determine whether what you want to achieve is something that is primarily dependent on your business processes? Probably it is, since processes define how a business operates. 

Take the core process attached to this need and don’t forget the dependencies with connected processes.

Things to acknowledge before beginning BPR

Risks of business process reengineering

When implementing BPR, a company should consider the possible impact of changing current processes. A redesign means that something will change, something or somebody will act differently in the process, and the impact chain may affect other dependent processes and actors, as well. Work through the entire process chain and use change management throughout the project.

Costs of business process reengineering

Every change companies make is an investment into a better future of the organization. Buying in services and technology is one kind of cost which is clear and visible. But another cost, sometimes is not considered, is your own people’s time. Your people will be involved in analyzing the current state, planning the future state, and finally, implementing the changes. 

Usually, the costs will be already estimated in the beginning of the project. 

Ask yourself: 

• What is the total cost of the change?
• Is this change worth pursuing?
• Can you afford it? 

Expectations

It’s obvious that time is money. Very often we recognize the need for change when it’s too late. For that there are high expectations already before the BPR project starts and outcomes are expected and desired to take place ASAP.

Consider:

• How big is the change we are striving for? Is it complex?
• Does it involve many people in the organization?
• Does it depend on any external factors? 
• Is it one process or does it involve several processes?  
• Is this a realistic expectation?

BPR is complex and requires time and resources.

From our experience working with clients from a variety of industries over 27 years, we have solved challenges that re-engineering processes bring. We have analyzed and designed more efficient business processes that took various companies further. We can do the same for you. Share your challenge with us.