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BPR : Business Process Reengineering | Rajesh Timane

Rajesh Timane

Home About Resume 10 June 2010 ~ 27 Comments BPR : Business Process Reengineering Academics What is a Business Process? A process is an activity which provides an output by adding value to an input. This process invariably includes any action which would result into a better and value added key performance indicator (KPI).

A business process on the other hand is a collection of related activities that produce a specific output for a

particular customer within the parlance of a business, company or industry. The first characteristics of Business Process is that it must be Specific; i.e. have a definite boundary, input and output.It should have a definite Order i.e. must consist of activities that are sequenced. Next, any business process must have a definite Customer i.e. there has to be a recipient of the outcome of the business process. Further, it should be Integral and Adding Value to the business. By adding value; a transformation must take place within the process which shall of importance to its customer. By being integral; the process doesnt exist by itself, but is actually embedded in an organisational structure. What is Re-engineering? The term engineering implies the application of technology to modify something; say; a design, process, product, system, etc. Now, after this application, some value should be created out of it. It boils down in giving a re-thought. This process of rethinking out a process to change it to generate value can be called as re-engineering. In general, it focuses more on reinventing the processes rather than making incremental improvements or just revamping the process. Michael Hammer, who coined the term re-engineering, defines it as the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business process to achieve dramatic improvements in the (critical contemporary) measures of performance such as cost, quality, service and speed. What is Business Process Re-engineering (BPR)?

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BPR : Business Process Reengineering | Rajesh Timane

BPR is about taking a tough look at why, what, when, how and where the organisation does the things; the way it does. It is related to the fundamental rethinking about various processes in a business (organisation) and questioning their utility; whether they are required at all or not. This redesigning (re-engineering) of processes should ultimately result into significant enhancements in the critical measures of performance of an organisation. Thus, it can be stated that, BPR redesigns core processes of an organisation by means of customising them to suit the unique business model of that organisation. Business Process Improvement (BPI), on the other hand, deals with the incremental improvement in the business processes. Simply put, it is a technique in which an organisation optimises its processes for better results. It defines the as-is process of an organisation and streamlines it to the to-be output. BPI solutions are the results of business process mapping; which is a technique for process excellence. Need of BPR The business dynamics today is governed by factors like new technologies, new competitors and again, new rules of competition. In such an ever-changing business environment, BPR is needed for the following reasons.

One, the rapid change in everything itself warrants product development in lesser time, faster product life cycles and hands-on environmental scanning. Secondly, the customer is well informed today and further; the organisations need to delight the customer rather than just satisfying. Lastly, todays intense competition demands the business processes at par with the best practices prevalent in the industry.Also, the business models have to be focused on individual market segment the organisation is targeting. The need for BPR thus can be assigned to three Cs viz.; Change, Customer and Competition. BPR in USA, Europe and India USA & some countries in Europe are termed as developed economy today while India is a developing economy along with other emerging economies like China, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Turkey and Indonesia. Historically, as we have seen earlier, Michael Hammer from USA promoted the cause of BPR, being one of the earliest advocates of this theory. American companies were enjoying monopoly in the days of mass production factories with their huge assembly lines. Japanese threatened this monopoly with their superior quality products
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BPR : Business Process Reengineering | Rajesh Timane

offered at cheaper prices. This led to a re-thinking process in US which ultimately resulted in the development of

BPR methodology. The European industry on the other hand is supposed to quality conscious from the beginning. The stringent norms in Europe made it possible for their manufacturing industry to be ahead of their counterparts in US. This has been apparent with Automobile Industry in Europe following stringent Euro-II Norms. Off late, the Indian Automobile Industry also caught-up with them by adopting the Euro-II Compliance. Indias quality movement is dominated by adoption of ISO 9000 and TQM by large number of business houses. The open competition with other global companies has brought in a lot of innovation in the business model of Indian companies. Lately, we have seen the acquisition of British companies like Land Rover and Jaguar along with Anglo-Dutch Corus by TATA from India. Other Indian stories include Tata Tea taking over Tetley, Infosys acquiring Axon, Mittal Steel merging with Arcelor etc. What all this suggests is there has been always a change dynamics; unpredictable to follow. The businesses today are more competitive, face stiffer global competition, then again face a very thoroughly informed customer; justifying the need of BPR. Reverse Innovation (Business Model Re-engineering) It has been introduced in the Harvard business review article by Mr. Vijay Govindrajan along with Jeff Immelt of General Electric and Chris Trimble. Therein the traditional Glocalisation Model is given as innovating high-end products in developed countries and bringing in their stripped-down version into the developing countries. This has been the practice so far with the western world. Glocalisation thus being coined as: the localisation of globally successful technologies. This model now needs to be changed to a new one, coined as reverse innovation (RI). Reverse Innovation has been stated as Developing value products in Developing Markets (Indian / Chinese) and sell them or their modified versions to Developed Markets (US / Europe). Now, the whole discussion about Reverse Innovation seems futile if we look at the BPR Model. Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra are following a Reverse Innovation Model so to say, rather, their quest for excellence and desire to give the Indian customer a quality product might have resulted in their surge against their counterparts in US and Europe. This satisfaction of producing world-class product at competitive price was apparent on the faces of Tata Motors Engineers when they were called on stage by Ratan Tata on the launching of NANO. So, is it not radical thinking and redesign on the part of Tatas and Mahindras applied to their respective Business Models rather than to say, processes? To conclude, the so called Reverse Innovation can be coined as Business Model Reengineering (BMR). Other Posts ___________________________________________________________________________ Operations Research Techniques: Operations Research Theories Replacement Basic Example: Replacement Theory Algorithm Present Worth Factor (pwf) : Replacement with Time-Value of Money Operations Research Software: TORA, SIMNET & LINDO
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Product Inspection to Business Excellence: History of Quality Control Inventory Introduction: Inventory Control 27 Responses to BPR : Business Process Reengineering

Sheetal 7 July 2010 at 12:23 Permalink please write some more on bpr in europe, us and india. we have this question for 16 marks. Reply

Rajesh 7 July 2010 at 15:58 Permalink @ Sheetal The content on the post is sufficient for a short question. You can elaborate the same by writing detailed account of: 1) Perspectives on concerned-persons like Hammer, Deming, Ford, Tatas etc 2) Detaililng of Techniques / Standards like Mass Production, Euro-II Standards, ISO 9000, TQM, Reverse Innovation etc You can eaisily find the most of it on Wikipedia. Reply

Sheetal 8 July 2010 at 14:53 Permalink Thank You Sir!! Reply

megha 3 March 2011 at 23:39 Permalink need for BPR is insufficient.rest is well presented and documented. Reply

Alok Kapadia 19 March 2011 at 23:47 Permalink Sir, Can you elaborate on Reverse Innovation and its relation to BPR? Reply

Rajesh 20 March 2011 at 00:45 Permalink @ Megha, Need for BPR can be found in lot of your texts or even online resources. Reply

Greg 30 April 2011 at 22:59 Permalink I think you must include a video to the write-up so as to make it a lot more fascinating. Reply

Rajesh 19 May 2011 at 11:49 Permalink Sir,

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BPR : Business Process Reengineering | Rajesh Timane

I too want some details on Reverse Innovation in Indian Context. Reply

Anant 20 May 2011 at 15:52 Permalink Something on reverse innovation there is a paper compitition on 2nd june. Reply

Rajesh 25 May 2011 at 19:53 Permalink @ Alok, Rajesh & Anant, Added few thoughts inside this post on Reverse Innovation. Reply

Vippi Vertailu 29 May 2011 at 00:24 Permalink Basically superb energy right now there maintain it on their way! Reply

Horton Nathan Jersey 29 May 2011 at 17:19 Permalink Thanks buddy ! Reply

Rajesh 3 June 2011 at 20:24 Permalink @ Vippi & Horton, Thanks! Reply

Reid 5 June 2011 at 21:52 Permalink Would you update your blog with more information? It should be extremely helpful for me. Reply

Adam 13 June 2011 at 14:04 Permalink thanks buddy. Reply

Charlie 28 June 2011 at 02:24 Permalink very nice blog and a good article too. Reply

Darren 1 July 2011 at 10:30 Permalink Terrific submit thanks.

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BPR : Business Process Reengineering | Rajesh Timane

Reply

Dr. Sepich 17 July 2011 at 17:34 Permalink Rajesh, can you elaborate on few queries of mine. 1) What is the scene with BPR in India? 2) Few Scholars / Researchers or names of few Companies presently engaged in the area of BPR in Manufacturing Industry. 3) Your take on Reverse Innovation vis-a-vis BPR/BPI. Reply

Sherley Steinler 24 July 2011 at 15:53 Permalink Excellent read, I just passed this onto a friend who was doing some research on that. And he actually bought me lunch as I found it for him. Thank you for lunch! Reply

Pawan Sangani 21 September 2011 at 14:00 Permalink sir its excellent Reply

vinay 31 January 2012 at 18:32 Permalink hello sir i m vinay from DBM college looking for notes on following units of BPR Unit II: Process Analysis Identify business process to be redesigned, Measure the existing process; Customer, Competition, Cost and Technology as Drivers. Unit III: IT and Learning in Organizations Information- A source of knowledge, Integration of knowledge & information. Unit IV: Cultural Factors in Managing Process Improvement Understanding LPG, Managing people with multicultures and ethnic groups in process improvement. Unit V: Redesigning Business Processes Identifying key issues, breakpoints, Selecting the leader and team, technology, designing the process. regards vinay Reply

Rajesh 8 February 2012 at 18:58 Permalink @ Reid, Adam, Charlie, Darren, Sherley, pawan, Thank You ALL ! @ Dr. Sepich, Please refer to link in here: http://www.rajeshtimane.com/222/academics/bpr-business-process-reengineering.html @ Vinay, Will write few next posts as per your requirement. Reply

rohan 22 February 2012 at 15:23 Permalink

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BPR : Business Process Reengineering | Rajesh Timane

Sir wanted to know What is LPG in BPR unit4. Reply

Rajesh 24 February 2012 at 13:02 Permalink @ Rohan, liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation. Reply

Jimmy Tatel 13 March 2012 at 21:53 Permalink Thank you for this wonderful source of information. Reply

ajay 6 April 2012 at 20:15 Permalink thankkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk uuuuuuuuuuuu sir Reply

Michael Turner 10 April 2012 at 18:16 Permalink I just added this site to my feed reader, excellent stuff. Reply Leave a Reply Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website

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