Role Of IT In BPR

Submitted By, Prakash N.Handge Business Process ReEnginerring

INTRODUCTION
Today's environment is characterized by increasing levels of competition. Enterprises wanting to increase their market share or obtain profits must adapt to changes in the environment. One of them is business process reengineering (BPR), defined as the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance Among the potential enablers of BPR is information technology (IT). IT makes it possible to obtain improvements in BPR. Enterprises can make their tasks easier, redesign their organization, change the way they work, and achieve spectacular improvement.

How do you know if you need to Reengineer?

You are experiencing a significant downturn in your business; You have recently completed your latest (of several?) reorganizations, and little has improved; or Quality of product has deteriorated significantly, and/or customer complaints have increased significantly;
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Features of IT?
Shared databases, making information available at many places Expert systems, allowing generalists to perform specialist tasks Telecommunication networks, allowing organizations to be centralized and decentralized at the same time Decision-support tools, allowing decision-making to be a part of everybody's job Wireless data communication and portable computers, allowing field personnel to work office independent Interactive videodisk, to get in immediate contact with potential buyers Automatic identification and tracking, allowing things to tell where they are, instead of requiring to be found High performance computing

Information Technologies
Today, we find a great number of advances in the ITs being used in companies Multimedia communication systems, which send and receive audio and video data, help us in making decisions by using electronic mail, file transference, or video conference. Computer-aided design/manufacturing/engineering (CAD/CAM/CAE)techniques allow for coordinating product design, manufacturing, and engineering activities. Using new IT allows companies to gain important advantages such as: 1) cost savings and improving the accuracy of exchanging information; 2) avoiding human mistakes inherent when complex and repetitive tasks are used; 3) saving money because it reduces errors and the time it takes to accomplish tasks; 4) integrating and coordinating several functions at once; and 5) improving the organizational efficiency and effectiveness by eliminating delay, and by providing better access to information.

The Role of IT in BPR

BPR is a methodology that promotes change and introduces new processes and new styles of working. IT promotes changes in organizations, mainly changes in the nature of the work,& the integration of business function. IT and Processes Processes may be classified according to two dimensions: degree of mediation and degree of collaboration The ITs that make this modification easy might be: 1) Shared databases: Different functions are allowed to take part directly by using the information stored in databases. Each function can approach, enter, or recover information from this database the moment it is needed. 2) Imaging technology: Several people may work at the same time on a digitalized Image of documents or graphics. 3) Electronic data exchange and electronic funds transference.

Actual Examples
Ford Motor was chosen to demonstrate the advantages of BPR. By applying shared databases in the accounts payable process, which includes purchasing, receiving, and accounts payable, Ford reduced its employee work force by 75 percent. Hewlett-Packard changed the working style of its salesmen. Using portable computers, they connected to the company's inventory database. They get on-time information and apply directly for promotions, price changes, or discounts. Needless to say, their time dedicated to customers has increased by 27 percent and sales, by 10 percent. When Citibank transformed its credit analysis system by reducing paper processing it obtained an increase of 43 percent in time dedicated to collecting new customers. IBM Credit used to take two weeks to finish a financing claim because there were five steps to the process. By redesigning the process and by involving generalists who work with databases and telecommunication networks, it now takes only four hours. Super market like Wal-Mart has used IT to drive their business.

BPR The Current focus in IT

Apart from the usual ways of managing a process in any business information system, it is necessary to enhance the value of the process and also the methods used in improving the process. Concept of Database Database is a data structure used to store organized information. A database is typically made up of many linked tables of rows and columns Data Mining: Data mining is primarily used as a part of information system today, by companies with strong consumer focus retail, financial, communication, and marketing organizations. Data Warehousing A data warehouse is a copy of transaction data specifically structured for querying and reporting. Data warehouse is an archive of information collected from wide multiple sources, stored under a unified scheme, at a single site.

FUTURE ROLE OF IT IN BPR

In the survey conducted by Prosci Research and Publishing Company among CEOs of 205 companies across the globe. The future role of IT has been identified into three main categories. Participate as a member of the reengineering team, but do not take control of the project Define technology solutions to enable new business processes and take time to educate operational managers about new technology. Implement technology needed to support the new business processes. Be sure to set expectations and define deliverables clearly

Conclusions
It is not possible to reengineer without IT support. IT is not only an enabler for reengineering it has also become an essential and integral part of all reengineering efforts IT provides project management skills that are important in the successful implementation of reengineering as a project. In the design phase of implementation of reengineering the capabilities of IT can be used to simulate a model of the design and there by validate the new design. The disruptive power of IT helps in the design phase of implementation of reengineering. The disruptive power helps organizations to break all the rules and think inductively about the business that they are in to gain competitive advantage. IT capabilities of the organization should not directly influence the IT solutions that are needed for the company. IT is an indispensable tool in implementation of reengineering in the way that IT supports redesigned business process and facilitates cross-functional workflow.