5 Questions To Ask About Your Business Process Reengineering (BPR)

In my previous post, 5 Questions to Ask About Business Processes, I wrote about what are business processes and what to look for. In this post, I am going to talk about how having a Business Process Reengineering (BPR) mentality can help you identify which business processes need to be created, updated and obliterated.

We know that organizations exist to provide value to their (internal and external) customers. Value is created when organizations have a product and/or service that helps customers:

1. Connect with other likeminded customers
2. Reduce price and/or time in doing something
3. Express themselves
4. Do something particular

To provide the above-mentioned customer value(s), organizations develop business models, governance structures and business processes. These are all interconnected to each other. Business processes can be linked directly (e.g., customer service, shipping, etc.) and/or indirectly (e.g., customer surveys, shipping vendor negotiations, etc.) to customer values(s). However, over time, business processes become obsolete due to changes in people, (mis)management of related (sub)processes, adoption/retiring of products, creation/elimination of services, technological advancements, vendors/partners and customer expectations.

To assess if business processes in your organization need to be created, updated or obliterated, think about the following:

Should a Business Process be Created

A business process should be created if:

1. Starting something new
2. The business process in paper differs from what is reality
3. Customer needs aren’t being met consistently

Should a Business Process be Updated

A business process should be updated if:

1. The people who created the business processes left the organization
2. The end result of the business process isn’t relevant/needed
3. The business process has become a bottleneck to efficiency

Should a Business Process be Obliterated:

A business process should be obliterated and rethought if:

1. The executives responsible for vision, mission, strategic goals, roles and responsibilities left the organization
2. The products, services, and technologies can’t be tied to customer satisfaction
3. There are cybersecurity issues

Sometimes there are caveats to business process obliteration. These are:

1. Compliance, regulatory and legal needs
2. Optimization for current, and future needs
3. Vendor/partner contractual needs

Don’t create, update and obliterate business processes just for the sake of doing it. Instead, have a way of measuring (quality, cost, time, etc.) and continuously assessing the successes and failures of business processes. 

Considering all the above, let’s ask the following question within your organization:

As we can see, a BPR mentality not only helps your business processes become optimized and relevant but it finds cracks/gaps, reveals unknown issues, helps in curate innovative thoughts and creates the discipline to continuously improve things around us. In essence, BPR is about (re)assessing and (re)imagining how things are done. This can be anywhere from thinking about how industries work down to your own individual tasks.

Author: Khan

Speaker | Advisor | Blogger View all posts by Khan