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Introduction

The pace of literature being published about Business Process Re-engineering, one of the most talked about phenomena of 90s, seems
to have gone down in the past few years. But recent downturn across the globe has created perfect environment for BPR to make a come-back in a big way.

Business Process Re-engineering has been defined by many researchers in their own words but definition given by Hammer & Champy (1993) is still referred to a lot. According to them, "Re-engineering is the fundamental re-thinking and radical re-design of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed."

This article discusses the factors that are critical for success of a business process re-engineering project, and also why this is the perfect time to undertake such projects.

Critical Success Factors for a BPR Project

There have been many researches in the past to find out critical success factors for a BPR exercise. The factors suggested by Hammer & Stanton have pretty much been the basis of most of such studies done in this area. These factors are as follows: -

1. Reengineering Leadership
2. Organizational Readiness
3. Style of Implementation

Lets examine these factors in detail and see which of these factors are the most relevant, when it comes to re-engineering in these times.

Re-engineering Leadership

This signifies leader's vision and commitment to the project. Since changes involved are radical in nature, and concentrate on processes instead of people, so such changes are often met with a lot of resistance from employees at all levels. To overcome this, you need someone from top management to lead the project from front because heads of all the functions involved won't be willing to give up their autonomy.

How relevant is this factor in these times?

Almost all companies would be thinking of re-engineering their processes in current turmoil; of course, reasons would vary from company to company.

1. Companies that have been badly impacted and whose survival is endangered (if this downturn continues for long) are looking for radical changes in the way they do business. These companies want quick response from their re-engineering projects.

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Amit Kurseja has done PGPM from Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, Delhi. He has worked on various technology backed BPR projects for Indian and North American clients, and is currently working as Product Manager with iTrust Financial Advisors, Gurgaon.
Article posted on March 21, 2009.