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522 Part Four Building and Managing Systems

BUSINESS PROCESS REDESIGN

Like MoneyGram, described in the chapter-opening case, many businesses today
are trying to use information technology to improve their business processes.
Some of these systems entail incremental process change, but others require
more far-reaching redesign of business processes. To deal with these changes,
organizations are turning to business process management. Business process
management provides a variety of tools and methodologies to analyze existing
processes, design new processes, and optimize those processes. BPM is never
concluded because process improvement requires continual change. Companies
practicing business process management go through the following steps:

1. Identify processes for change: One of the most important strategic
decisions that a firm can make is not deciding how to use computers to
improve business processes, but understanding what business processes
need improvement. When systems are used to strengthen the wrong
business model or business processes, the business can become more
efficient at doing what it should not do. As a result, the firm becomes
vulnerable to com petitors who may have discovered the right business
model. Considerable time and cost may also be spent improving business
processes that have little impact on overall firm performance and revenue.
Managers need to determine what business processes are the most important
and how improving these processes will help business performance.
2. Analyze existing processes: Existing business processes should be
modeled and documented, noting inputs, outputs, resources, and the
sequence of activities. The process design team identifies redundant steps,
paper-intensive tasks, bottlenecks, and other inefficiencies.

Figure 13.2 illustrates the “as-is” process for purchasing a book from a
physical bookstore. Consider what happens when a customer visits a physical
bookstore and searches its shelves for a book. If he or she finds the book, that

FIGURE 13.2 AS-IS BUSINESS PROCESS FOR PURCHASING A BOOK FROM A PHYSICAL BOOKSTORE

Purchasing a book from a physical bookstore requires many steps to be performed by both the seller and the customer.

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