Role of Business Process Reengineering in Information Technology

ROLE OF BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING INaddition to tracking sales. It enables the super market
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY:to keep products available to the customer at all
 times and minimize cost related to inventory,
BUSINESS PROCESS RE ENGINEERING:obsolescence and spoilage. It is also used to make
 decision as when to order.
Business Process Reengineering as the technique that 
concentrates on the process to bring about radicalROLE OF IT IN BPR WITH PRACTICAL EXAMPLE:
change in the organization facilitating dramatic 
improvement in performance in core businessInformation technology enables New Processes:
processes which are critical for competitiveIT may help to devise innovative business processes,
advantage. The main idea of Business Process Rewhich would otherwise not to attainable.
engineering is reinventing the organization forExample: in an early Business Reengineering Project,
increasing performance.the IBM credit corporation reorganized the crediting
 functions. Just one person (a so-called case manager)
ROLE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INperforms all the tasks of a former whole credit
REENGINEERING:department by using a new computer application
 system.
Information technology is the technology of sensing,Information technology tools help to facilitate project
coding, transmitting, translating and transforming. Themanagement:
information technology is an integral part ofProject management tools help to analyze processes,
reengineering a an enabler, since it permits companiesand define new processes. They can also be used to
to reengineer a business process. IT capabilitiesdefine the introduction of process oriented application
should support business processes, and businesssoftware packages. According to recent study, the
process should be in terms of the capabilities IT canUS $100 million tool market is broadening and rising at
provide.40% per year.
 Information technology lets people work together
IT plays an important role by either enabling ormore closely:
constraining successful BPR. IT can also become an            Traditional main frame- oriented
inhibitor of reengineering if the organization’s ITinformation Processing was revolutionized in the
infrastructure is inadequate or inflexible. The role of1980s by the personal computer (PC). Today, PCs
IT is to make a new process design possible. IFare commonplace and mostly part of local Area
nothing changes about the way work is done andNetwork (LAN), or even Wide Area Networks
the role of IT is simply to automate an existing(WAN), which electronically link teams to allow
process, then economic benefits are likely to benon-physical collaborative work. Special software
minimal.systems, like e-mail, groupware,
 workflow-management, teleconferencing, etc. are
The applications of IT to reengineering requireelements of this pervasive role than IT is taking.
inductive thinking, which is the ability to first recognizeInformation technology helps to integrate businesses:
a powerful solution and then seek the problems thatThe process view of businesses includes the
it might solve. A fundamental error that mostintegration of business processes within a company
companies commit when they look at technology isand also between business partners (company and
to see how a new technology will help in solvingcustomers, as well as vendors). Companies are using
problems in their existing process. The companiesSAP R/3 client/ server and competitive software
have to think how a technology can help them to do(Oracle, People soft,etc.) products, because these
things that they are not doing in current process.are totally integrated and help to enforce the
Reengineering is about innovation. It is aboutreengineering process, by concentrating on the
exploiting the latest capabilities of technology tosoftware implementation process. Chief Information
achieve entirely new objectives”Officers want to complete (Business Reengineering)
 projects in a short period of time because they
IT has a power to break the rules and make peopleknow how fast the business is changing.
think inductively and give the company a competitive 
advantage. The company that used the disruptiveFUTURE ROLE OF IT IN REENGINEERING:
power of IT to break all rules and gain competitive            With IT advancing at a rapid pace
advantage .The key effective use of IT lies not ineveryday, the future role of IT in reengineering
moving the information faster but in doing right thingsbecomes more critical.
with it. IT has to be used to make proactive 
decisions to improve business performance rather- Participation should be as a member of the
than report on it after the fact. In the design phasereengineering team; individual should not take control
of implementation of reengineering, the capabilities ofof the project.
IT can be used to stimulate a model of the design- Technology solutions should be defined to enable
and thereby validate the new design.new business processes, and time should be taken
 out to educate operational managers about new
Super market like walmart has used IT to drive theirtechnology.
business. The scanners that are used to check out- Technology needed to support the new business
commodities provide a huge benefit by making itprocesses should be implemented expectations need
possible to track sales in real time. A strong ITto be set and deliverables defined clearly.
solution was developed to reduce the cahier labour in