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248 Chapter 9 • Organizational Change and Business Process Reengineering

Reengineering can be traced back to the late 1800s. In those days management theory believed
that managers could establish improved and, sometimes, best processes to optimize performance.
Of course, information technology and ERP systems did not exist at the time, but as technology
improved processes, were adapted to increase profits and better meet customer needs.
Reengineering is now a business process or set of processes that essentially dismantles existing
processes into individual activities and puts them back together in a new set of business flows or sets
of business flows. This is done to increase efficiencies and improve services with greater returns.
When ERP systems are built to apply best practices, you can easily understand how BPR is likely to
occur during ERP implementation. BPR within a single unit is difficult and requires efficient and
effective change management. BPR with an ERP implementation will require crossing organization-
al boundaries and a much more extensive change management process. Resistance to change will be
high and require a significant level of change management to succeed. This resistance to change
comes from several areas, including loss or change in job and change in the power structure. In addi-
tion to that, BPR has been equated to downsizing, new technology, and quality, therefore increasing
anxiety of staff both involved and not involved in an ERP implementation. The creation of teams and
development of good teamwork is essential to making BPR changes work for the organization.
BPR Methodology

The BPR methodology, as shown in Figure 9-2, includes the following:
1. Preparation—set goals and vision, identify teams, and develop an inventory of processes
that need to be evaluated.
2. Define the “as is” process and evaluate cross-organizational issues.
3. Map out “to be” processes based on best practices (i.e., related to ERP).
4. Test and measure new processes based on meeting goals and vision.
5. Reevaluation—revise, adjust to improve processes.
BPR steps are relatively straightforward and seem on the surface to be benign. The complexity of
BPR is in its implementation. The setting up of the measurements to achieve the desired results
and the monitoring of new or modified processes are the more difficult sides of BPR. Setting up
measurements is the key to improvement. You cannot improve what you do not measure. The
following is a brief description of each phase of BPR.

Preparation The very first step in BPR is to develop and articulate what is to be accomplished
by reengineering, including goals and scope as it relates to BPR. These goals should be measurable

Document “as
is” process Map “to be”
and evaluate processes

Measure and
evaluate new Test new “to
process be” processes

FIGURE 9-2 BPR Framework.