Business Process Reengineering

Challenge

Many companies believe the answer to their ongoing business challenges is using technology to make them "better and faster". Unfortunately, "throwing technology at the problem" rarely makes a company better, and only occasionally makes them faster. Even when it makes a business "faster", this approach often takes a bad business process and makes it worse at a faster rate.

Once a company realizes that technology alone is not the solution, it needs to understand where effort should be focused. Often the answer is Business Process Reengineering. Unfortunately, it is often not well understood by the companies who could benefit most from its use. The most common misconceptions are that Business Process Reengineering is:

Automation

Cutting Fat

Downsizing

Fixing

Improving

Total Quality Management (TQM)

Outsourcing

Business Process Reengineering is none of the above, although it may result in some of the above.

Solution

According to Dr. Michael Hammer, a co-creator of Business Process Reengineering, "Business Reengineering is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed."

Business Process Reengineering means not only change -- but dramatic change. What constitutes dramatic change is the overhaul of organizational structures, management systems, employee responsibilities and performance measurements, incentive systems, skills development, and the use of information technology. Business Process Reengineering can potentially impact every aspect of how a company conducts its business.

Successful Business Process Reengineering can result in enormous reductions in cost or cycle time. It can also create substantial improvements in quality, customer service, or other business objectives. The promise of Business Process Reengineering is not empty -- it can actually produce revolutionary improvements for business operations. It can help an aggressive company to stay on top, or transform an organization on the verge of bankruptcy into an effective competitor.

At the most basic level, successful Business Process Reengineering will produce one or more of the following results:

Reduce the overall time required to complete tasks

Reduce the number of tasks that need to be completed

Improve the quality and consistency of the overall work process

Success Story

Challenge

A rapidly-expanding, international B2B (Business to Business) eProcurement and eServices company was struggling with the quality and timeliness of its new product releases. The application development organization was constantly distracted from developing new products and enhancements by having to troubleshoot and fix problems with existing products. Customers were complaining about the problems with existing products and requesting new features. The marketing and sales organizations did not have a thorough understanding of the company's products and often promised enhancements to customers without knowing when and if they could be delivered.

Solution

Using Business Process Reengineering, the company was able to quickly correct its problems and begin delivering high-quality product releases on schedule. The dramatic changes that the company undertook were sponsored and supported by the CEO, CFO, and CIO. Every department participated in assessing the existing situation and developing the solution. The following processes were created or radically enhanced:

Product Definition - structured approach that was inclusive of all departments

Marketing Communications - tightly coupled with Application Development team

Sales Communications - improved effectiveness by teaming with technology organization

Application Development - tested and implemented Rational's development methodology

Application Support - segregation of new product development from support team

Change Control - formalized processes and controls to improve product reliability

Version Control - processes and tools to track and enhance all development efforts

Vendor Management - code escrow of externally developed components and applications