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business process re-engineering

’ 

(BPR)

. It was popularised through 

Business process 

management (BPM)

An approach supported 

by software tools 

intended to increase 

process efficiency by 

improving information 

flows between people as 

they perform business 

tasks.

Business process 

re-engineering (BPR)

Identifying radical, new 

ways of carrying out 

business operations, 

often enabled by new IT 

capabilities.

Term

Involves

Intention

Risk of failure

Business process re-engineering

Fundamental redesign of all main 

company processes through 

 organisation-  wide  initiatives

Large gains in 

performance (>100%?)

Highest

Business process improvement

Targets key processes in sequence for 

redesign

(<50%)

Medium

Business process automation

Automating existing process. Often 

uses workflow software (Chapter 2)

(<20%)

Lowest

Table 10.2

Alternative terms for using IS to enhance company performance

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Part 3  Implementation

the pronouncements of Hammer and Champy (1993) and Davenport (1993). The essence of 

BPR is the assertion that business processes, organisational structures, team structures and 

employee responsibilities can be fundamentally altered to improve business performance. 

Hammer and Champy (1993) defined BPR as:

the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dra‑

matic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, 

quality, service, and speed.

The key terms from this definition that encapsulate the BPR concept are:

● 

Fundamental rethinking – re‑engineering usually refers to changing of significant busi‑

ness processes such as customer service, sales order processing or manufacturing.

● 

Radical redesign – re‑engineering involves a complete rethinking about the way business 

processes operate.

● 

Dramatic improvements – the aim of BPR is to achieve improvements measured in tens or 

hundreds of per cent. With automation of existing processes only  single‑  figure improve‑

ments may be possible.

● 

Critical contemporary measures of performance – this point refers to the importance of 

measuring how well the processes operate in terms of the four important measures of cost, 

quality, service and speed.

In  Re‑engineering the Corporation (1993) Hammer and Champy have a chapter giv‑

ing  examples of how IS can act as a catalyst for change (disruptive technologies). These 

technologies are familiar from applications of digital business such as those described in 

Chapter 2 and include tracking technology, decision support tools, telecommunications net‑

works, teleconferencing and shared databases. Hammer and Champy label these as ‘disrup‑

tive technologies’, a term still used today, which suggests how new digital technologies can 

force companies to reconsider their processes and find new ways of operating. It is arguable, 

though, whether technology is commonly disruptive in the sense of achieving major changes 

such as those in the re‑orientation and re‑creation categories.

Many re‑engineering projects were launched in the 1990s and failed due to their ambi‑

tious scale and the problems of managing large information systems projects. Furthermore, 

BPR was also often linked to downsizing in many organisations, leading to an outflow of staff 

and knowledge from businesses. As a result BPR as a concept has fallen out of favour and 

more caution in achieving change is advocated.

Less radical approaches to organisational transformation are referred to as