The Role of Information Technology in BPR

1
The Role of Information Technology in BPR
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IT and the business

• Importance of IT depends on the information
  intensity of the particular business
• BPR is directed towards increased customer
  satisfaction which means
• Improving product quality
• Improving services offered with the product
  (delivery, support etc.) - Levitt (1983)
• This should mean increased information intensity

3

• IT seen as enabling
• supports the radical redesign of business
  processes
• start with a clean sheet
• consider the role the current organisational
  systems play in the BPR effort

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IT as enabler

• An historical perspective
• Adam Smith - division of labour
• Frederick Taylor - scientific management
• Job fragmentation
• business processes - a new approach to
• co-ordination

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Are processes important?

• Versus functions
• streamline by eliminating non-value adding
• less cost
• better service
• shorter lead times
• greater competitiveness
• opportunity to gain market share

6

• Cross functional thinking
• requires connectivity across traditional
  application systems
• HOWEVER
• technology misuse can block BPR

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Possible Role of IT in BPR

• as a catalyst
• opportunities planned to take full advantage
• as an enabler
• utilised to support/ influence and find new ways
  of working
• proactive IT
• organic/ learning company

• as a constraint
• limited infrastructure limited possibilities
• as a Driver
• technology push/ effective re-design
• the neutral role of IT
• analysis/ understand/ enable

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IT that enables

• Automational
• Informational
• Sequential
• Analytical
• Tracking

• Geographical
• Integrative
• Intellectual
• Disintermediating

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Importance of considering IT

• The role of IT determines degree of support/
  constraint in BPR
• The role of IT is determined by IT
  infrastructure/ IT strategy
• The role of IT is determined by degree of
  alignment between business and IT objectives

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Changing rules
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Direct contributions of IT

• Outward looking
• Achieved through electronic links with external
  business contacts
• Inward looking
• Achieved through information retrieval,
  processing and communication facilities and
  support for team-working

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Indirect contributions from IT

• Can be expected or unexpected
• Facilitating self-learning through information
  retrieval facilities
• Enabling more effective education
• e.g. multimedia
• Use of development tools
• help to identify business requirements that arise
  from BPR
• help with organizational design process

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The Future Role of IT in Reengineering (a 1999
benchmarking report) http//www.prosci.com/mod1.ht
m

• Participants recommended that CIOs (chief
  information officers) or heads of IT/IS
  departments adopt strategies along three major
  themes
• Be customer-value driven. Develop a
  customer-driven business model and help align
  technology capabilities with business needs.
• Be an innovation leader. Be a catalyst for the
  application of new technology and partner in
  business process improvement.
• Create a standardized, open-systems environment
  and infrastructure that leverages common
  platforms to
• Maximize speed and access to information
• Allow flexibility and rapid development of
  specific end-user applications
• Streamline the integration of commercial and
  custom applications across the business

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What is the future role of IT in business process
reengineering?

• 1.  Participate as a member of the reengineering
  team
• help define business processes
• research new technologies
• help brainstorm and design new solutions
• be a motivator and change agent
• partner in the management of the reengineering
  process
• 2.  Define technology solutions to enable new
  business processes
• provide technology alternatives
• explain the effective uses of technology and
  provide reliable information for decision making
• build rapid prototypes to demonstrate feasibility
  
• 3.  Implement the technology needed to support
  the new business processes
• develop or coordinate the acquisition of
  technology components
• integrate the overall technology solution
• implement and support the systems
• provide education on the effective use of the
  technology

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What is the future role of IT in business process
reengineering?(cont.)

• 2(Cont.)
• explain the effective uses of technology and
  provide reliable information for decision making
• build rapid prototypes to demonstrate feasibility
  
• 3.  Implement the technology needed to support
  the new business processes
• develop or coordinate the acquisition of
  technology components
• integrate the overall technology solution
• implement and support the systems
• provide education on the effective use of the
  technology

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Bibliography

• Davenport, T.H., Process Innovation
  Reengineering work through Information
  Technology, Boston Harvard Business School
  Press, 1993
• Hammer, M., Champy, J.1993 Reengineering the
  Corporation Manifesto for Business Revolution,
  Harper Collins, London
• Levitt, T. (1983) The Marketing Imagination,
  MacMillan, New York
• Moreton and Chester (1996) Transforming the
  Business the IT contribution, McGraw Hill
• Zuboff, S. (1988) In the Age of the Smart
  Machine, Heinemann, Oxford
• http//www.prosci.com/mod1.htm