In every organization, there comes a time for change. We need to adjust to shifting customer preferences, adopt new technologies, and adapt to mercurial market forces. To affect and manage change, organizations turn to two strategies: business process reengineering and continuous business process improvement. Let’s take a look at how these two transformative concepts can help you reach your business goals.
What is business process reengineering?
According to the management consultancy Bain & Company, business process reengineering, or BPR, involves the “radical redesign of core business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in productivity, cycle times, and quality.” The keyword here is “radical.” BPR takes aim at large-scale change. Instead of tweaking things a step at a time, it’s demolishing the staircase and building an elevator. Through a BPR lens, every activity should revolve around delivering customer value. An activity should reduce costs, improve turnaround time, boost quality, make explosively happy customers—or it’s fat or fluff to be cut or reshaped.Business process reengineering is a “back-to-the-drawing-board” mentality. Every step should focus on fast, high-quality customer satisfaction, and any barriers are fodder for a reengineering initiative. You might:
- Reorganize teams (shake up responsibilities, restructure, downsize, upsize)
- Eliminate unproductive, redundant, or ineffective activities
- Reduce fragmentation of work by bolstering inter-department transparency
Smash the mold, flip the tables, break through the walls if needed. BPR isn’t just about recalculating your driving route to find a faster way, but wondering whether a helicopter or rocket might be a viable alternative—while also considering that you don’t need to reach that destination at all.
