PROJECT TITLE Role of Information Technology (IT) in Business Process Reengineering (BPR) AIM Organizations are on a continuous look

out for revamping their business operations and Business Process Reengineering is one of the methodologies which have taken the centre stage. The aim of this research work will be to have a comprehensive look at the conceptual model of BPR a re-optimization technique used to enhance the existing business processes, strategies and infrastructure of an organization and then analyze and evaluate the growing role of information technology during the execution of business process reengineering. To further understand the growing importance of IT in a BPR system some relevant and practical examples will be thoroughly researched so that an ideology can be evolved on the relationship between the two entities. DELIVERABLES The overall intention of the project work will be to produce a business report that will try to cover various aspects of BPR, IT and their relationships. Task defined for this project work look more detailed than usual but has been done to ensure that the research work is proper with adequate information collection. Later on while drafting the business report a summary approach will be adopted for this section so that the overall work looks precise and straight to the point. The break-up of tasks for this project initiative can be outlined as written below: 1. 2. 3. 4. Understand the concept of BPR and its involvement in bringing the radical changes Impact of BPR on the existing process orientation Analyze the success and failure factors behind BPR Understand the importance of Information Systems (IS) and Information Technology (IT) for any organization 5. Analyze the impact of IS/IT in business process improvements and reengineering 6. Needs for integrating IS/IT in a BPR program 7. To select an IT application to further substantiate the importance of it in a BPR framework 8. BPR and Information Technology 9. Relevant examples BPR and ERP systems in context with IS/IT 10. Concluding framework of an integrated IT and BPR systems

RESEARCH QUESTIONS There is not much of research work available on how the changes and then integration of latest information technologies brings in drastic changes to the structural framework for any organization. This project work will try to create a realistic image of BPR and then demystify the myths behind it. It is already now seen that organizations based in the western countries have already initiated BPR models at their operational level to achieve increased productivities and performance. These initiatives also indirectly involve radical changes to the existing IT infrastructure and applications that are used to support their business processes. The effect of the changing IT dynamics for a new reengineering project has been previously underresearched and hence has now become a critical area of research work. However the research analysts still believe that integrating latest IT/IS tools and applications to any BPR project is a challenging task and a primary reason on why organizations still avoid undergoing such cumbersome processes. There is very low level of overlap between the research work done on BPR and the existing systems of an organization and due to this there is virtually no shared ideology and vocabulary. This paper will try to do intensive research on how a re-designed IT framework can bring more benefits to a BPR program in an organization. Elemental review of literature will be performed to get transparent idea behind BPR, IT and their growing relationships. It will also be wonderful to perform research work that will help in evolving best practises for BPR in a highly integrated IT framework. Overall the questions can be briefly summarized as written below: 1. Why the BPR framework considered still as myth in most of the organizations? 2. How are the organizations taking up BPR programs recently and what is the end goal while executing them? 3. What is the role of IT systems and applications in a BPR initiative? 4. What can be the merits and de-merits of business program reengineering? 5. Can there be relevant examples to reaffirm the importance of an IT integrated BPR task? BACKGROUND It has been almost a decade that Business Process Reengineering has come into prominence. For most of the people BPR is known as system re-designing, using latest industrial practises or working with smarter methodologies (M., S., 2006). It implies that there is a business model where there is integration of business processes re-design and information technology infrastructure and this supports the reengineering work done at the organization. So there has to be a foundation laid at the operational level which gives a direction on what business operations has to be reengineered. Improvement in business programs can only be carried out when there are related corporate and business strategies formed at the structural level. BPR generally at the firm level involves in identifying critical business functions, their mechanism of

operating, how the re-design can remove the redundant and unused business efforts so that the new business processes can be done with enhanced efficiency and productivity (Sidikat A., M. A., 2008). The main purpose of business process reengineering is to identify all the tasks, organize them with allocated resources and execute these functions with the help of information technology so that the primary goal of the organization is achieved with ease. It also means that the existing business processes are altered and then executed (Bateman, N. a., 2003). However organizations have to meet a set of criteria before they come up with decision that a BPR program has to be executed. Management have to first decide on abandoning existing policies and procedures and then remove away operational and production principles which are no more efficient. There are organizations which do not perceive BPR as the road to complete transformation and also not able to visualize the importance of information technology in BPR framework and hence are facing immense problems in implementing business reengineering initiatives (Chow, T. a., 2008). This will enable the firm to think of a new and highly evolved re-designed business processes and a starting point of an IT integrated BPR initiative. Business reengineering is a basic process of re-thinking enabling radical changes in the organization bringing drastic improvement in critical business areas such as cost, quality, execution, production and operation (Hammer and Champy (1993). So central and critical points of a BPR initiative can be outlined as below (Vidgen, 1994): Radical changes are expected and challenge is encountered The program is goal and business process oriented as it tries to revamp the outdated business functions It leads to complete organizational restructuring Enabling the use of IT/IS methodologies as these help in re-designing existing organizational policies and then executing them in a streamline manner So BPR is related to business management and process changes within an organization. Its also been years where business processes, existing business infrastructure and the operational processes have been a continuous area of study and research work. The main reason behind this is that there is regular changes to national and international economies and there is increased for the firms to enhance and revamp their business processes so that the productivity and performance are maintained at optimum level (Ranganathan & Dhaliwal, 2001). Information Technology uses service oriented architecture (SOA) to enable business process reengineering and this also been an area of research work. After a professional publication named as Third Wave was issued showing the evolvement of BPR systems there has been regular increase in professional publications issued on an IT integrated BPR systems (Smith and Fingar, 2003). It is also seen that outsourcing service provider firms are increasing their consulting services related to integrating IT applications in process reengineering program. It

can also be said that the refinement in BPR systems is now primarily due to the growth of technological applications and business together. Organizations aim at achieving total quality management (TQM) with a BPR initiative (Hammer and Champy, 2001). Some of the key IT related tools and applications that have gained prominence in newly evolved BPR systems are workflow based management systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications and IT planning systems which help in achieving higher efficiencies (van der Aalst et al., 2003). BPR activities start first at the general operational and development business functions, then aims at automating the internal processes and finally targets external business processes like supply chain and distribution (Davis and Spekman, 2003). Information Technologies provide support to the BPR framework with the rapid growth in internet technologies, several new and upgraded software applications, protocol standardizations in network concepts and integration through different web services methods. High end management consultants generally re-constitute the old business processes at the operational framework to drive growth to the stagnant business volumes of any organization. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND EVALUATION After performing in-depth analysis of BPR and the business models associated with it, literature review will also be performed on the role of IT/IS systems in the re-design of the existing business processes of an organization. A detailed study on large multinational firm of UK will be undertaken so that an ideology will be developed on the role that information technology plays in a successful BPR implementation. The project work which is a combination of performing analysis, direct and indirect research, executing a brief case study is overall based on the observations done by all the participants, collection of information through various sources and formal and informal interviews conducted in an unstructured and semi-structured manner. The central idea behind the case study is to understand the importance of IT integration in business processes improvement through proper investigation. There is an action based research work done on another organization based in south Asian country and this acts as a supplement to the main cased study as the IT and BPR relationships are better explored. The sample data collected for the research work done in both the cases have used the four approaches and they are through observation, collection of information through artifacts, formal and informal interviews and discussions. The theme behind the research work has drawn inspiration from the earlier researches done by (Yin, R K, 1994), (Creswell, J, 1994), (Avison, D, Lau, F, Myers, M & Nielsen, P A, 1999) who also advocated that several data collection methodologies should be used. The focal point for the adopted research methodology can be underlined as mentioned below: What is Business Process Reengineering and IT integrated BPR systems? To come up with a list of critical success factors that can be responsible for successful implementation of any BPR initiative

On evaluating I found out that the know-how of business process reengineering and the reasons behind their successful implementations are to be devised and the following pointers are included in the research methodology which will help giving a clear direction: 1. What is the level of involvement of IT tools and applications with the latest management principles? 2. Are BPR implementations are always linked with upgraded and latest software applications and infrastructure deployments within the structural framework of the organization? 3. Is BPR in itself is advocated as a management philosophy and was earlier available in invisible form and the management of the firm was not practicing it with an open and transparent mind? 4. How BPR program works best with the integration of IT systems within all their business functions? 5. What is the importance of BPR initiatives lies in the continuous enhancement of business volume and financial performance of any organization? 6. Does a successful BPR task makes the business processes of any firm highly flexible and adaptable to the changing business landscape and makes the organization sustain the business hiccups? The evaluation approach can be said of more inductive form and this will help in the evolvement of a successful business model of IT-supported BPR framework. The basic structure of the survey undergone for the research work is now devised. There are questions for the employees based on their assumed responsibility in the re-design of their business processes and the so called new BPR systems. It will be a good idea to ask the stakeholders about their perceptions on BPR and how a new design effort can be undertaken with the help of IT applications and infrastructure. I feel that it will also give an indication of the level of knowledge that is currently present among the existing resources. Another good idea is to include certain questions based on the preference of the tools and applications as this will help in devising new business strategies for the effective BPR program implementation. I was also suggested that a survey undertaken to know the existing system and software architecture that is currently deployed at the organizational level will enable me in performing mapping analysis to the new service oriented architecture that is based on advanced IT supported BPR framework. Overall I felt that I should also focus in knowing the existing functional and technical capabilities for a BPR initiative and for this there will be a survey done for the existing employees.

A snapshot shown below will show how the adopted research methodologies establish relationship of information technology and business process reengineering program:
BPM - IT

TQM ---->BPR ----------------->BPM

Database ------>ERP --------------------->WFM (IT) US

Business process reengineering can hence be best described as the area of expertise and knowledge that is formed with the intersection of latest technological tools and applications and the business functions and comprises of analysis, research, improvement, innovation, designing and implementing controlling procedures for all of its business processes and includes all possible stakeholders of the organization like customers, suppliers, resources and business unit (Van der Aalst et al., 2003). In other words an IT integrated BPR system can be summarized as all possible software applications when deployed helps in the exercise of control and monitor of different operational departments and this happens through a defined set of business processes and rules (Ravesteyn and Versendaal, 2007). SCHEDULE The timeframe defined for the dissertation is between May and August. The duration of the research work for all the modules varies and depends on the importance of each them for the overall project work. The project plan for the whole dissertation was prepared between May 3 rd and May 21st 2011 and after the data collection and survey process was done which got concluded on June 11th 2011. This phase of my research work got ample support from the case studies and research materials available on academic websites and some resources working in

the related organizations. A brief overview of my entire project work can be visualized with the help of chart provided below:

Here is the mention of my initial reading list that helped me writing business proposal for the project work: 1. Hammer, M. and Champy, J. 1993. Reengineering the corporation: a manifesto for business revolution. Harper Business, New York, NY. 2. Sidikat A., M. A. (2008). Impact Assessment of Business Process Reengineering on Organisational Performance. European Journal of Social Sciences Volume 7, Number 1. 3. M., S. (2006). Business Process Reengineering: A Tool to further Bank Strategic Goals . Journal of Management Information Systems 12. 4. Yin, R K (1994), Case Study Research - Design And Methods, Second Edition, Sage Publications, London. 5. Bateman, N. a. (2003). Companies perceptions of inhibitors and enablers for process improvement activities. International Journal of Operations & Production Management Vol. 23 No. 2, , pp. 185-99 6. Chow, T. a. (2008). A survey study of critical success factors in agile software projects. The Journal of Systems and Software, Vol. 81 No. 6, pp. 961-71. 7. Creswell, J (1994), Research Design: Qualitative And Quantitative Approaches, Sage, UK. 8. Avison, D, Lau, F, Myers, M & Nielsen, P A (1999), Action Research, Communications of The ACM, Vol. 42, No. 1, January 1999, pp 9497. 9. Ranganathan, C., & Dhaliwal, J. S. (2001). A survey of business process reengineering practices in Singapore. Information & Management, 39(2), 125134. 10. Smith, H. and Fingar, P. (2003), Business Process Management: The Third Wave, 1st ed., Meghan-Kiffer Press, Tampa, FL. 11. Hammer, M. and Champy, J. (2001), Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution, updated and revised edition, Harper Business, New York, NY. 12. Van der Aalst, W.M.P., ter Hofstede, A.H.M. and Weske, M. (2003), Business process management: a survey, paper presented at Business Process Management, Eindhoven.

13. Davis, E. and Spekman, R. (2003), The Extended Enterprise: Gaining Competitive Advantage through Collaborative Supply Chains, Financial Times Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. 14. Ravesteyn, J.P.P. and Versendaal, J. (2007), Success factors of business process management systems implementation, paper presented at Australasian Conference on Information Systems, Toowoomba, December.