BR: Business Reengineering

BPR Objective à  is significant improvement to a business process, or for radical change in, or complete replacement of, such a process.

ERP Objective à is to integrate solution for executing operations and strategic information availability to right people at right time.

BPR + ERP = BR i.e. Business Reengineering

The critical question facing the organizations is what to do first – should the processes be reengineered first and then improved processes are automated or planning to implement BPR and/ or ERP.   Select from “menu” of supposedly world class best practices offered by the ERP packages and avoid BPR altogether or reengineer them after implementing ERP.

BPR & ERP - Inseparable Twins: 

 “Reengineering Work: Don’t automate, Obliterate “, defined BPR as “use the power of modern information technology to radically redesign business processes in order to achieve dramatic improvements in their performance. “  For BPR to succeed or achieve the intended benefits information technology has a critical role to play as the key enabler of business processes.  Organisations have following options:

1. Reengineer business processes before implementing ERP 
2. Directly implement ERP and avoid reengineering 

In the first option of reengineering business processes, before implementing ERP, the organisation need to analyse current processes, identify non value adding activities, redesign the process to create value for the customer and then develop an in-house applications or modify an ERP system package to suit the organisations requirements. In this option employees will develop a good sense of process orientation and ownership. This would be a customized solution considering the organisations structure, culture, existing IT resources, employee needs and promises relatively less disruption to routine work during the change program. It is likely to have a high probability of implementation. But the reengineered process may not be the best in the class, as organisation may not reengineered process may not be the best in the class, as organisation may not have access to the world-class research and best practices.  Moreover, this may be the only chance to radically improve in near future and going for less than the best may be a costly mistake. Plus developing an in-house application/ implementing a modified ERP can take lot of time. 

In the second option of implementing ERP package with minimum deviation from the standard settings i.e. “one size fits all “. All the processes in a company should conform to the ERP model and the organisation has to amend its current work practices and switch over to what the ERP system options offers. This option offers a world-class efficient and effective process with built in measures and controls and is likely to be quickly installed (need not necessarily be quickly implemented fully). But if the employees do not have clarity of existing processes and good understanding of their internal customer needs or current processes are not well defined and documented, it is quite possible that while selecting the standard process from the ERP package, employees may not be able to perceive the difficulties likely to be encountered during implementation stage.  Employees would lack process ownership and orientation. Other than technical issues like organisation structure, culture, lack of involvement of people can lead to major implementation difficulties and full benefits of standard ERP package may not be achieved.  Situation may arise that after implementing ERP, organisation may have to reengineer its processes. This could be a very costly mistake. 

Theoretically the third option of reengineering business processes during implementation of ERP also exists. It may sound to be the best option but being an ideal situation it does not seem to be practical option and is likely to cause maximum disruption to existing working. It should not be forgotten that during BPR & ERP initiatives, routine work is still to be carried out and customers served. 

      

As we see, there are no right and easy answers. Each approach has its pros and cons. Implementing ERP system and/ or BPR is an organisational revolution process itself. Decision to embark upon BPR and/ or ERP is a strategic decision and would largely depend on the objectives the organisation has set for itself to achieve and the time and resources it is willing to commit. Prior to start it is essential for the top management to arrive at a consensus on the approach so as to fully exploit the built in potential of BPR & ERP package.