BPR experts define business process reengineering as the radical redesign of organizational processes to achieve drastic improvement in current performance. If your company needs to drastically improve performance in one or more areas, business process reengineering training can have a huge impact on your company's bottom line.
The following signs signal your company's need for a few new business process reengineering tools:
1. The competition consistently outperforms your company
2. Much internal conflict plagues the organization
3. Meetings to address company issues are uncharacteristically frequent for your industry
4. Use of non-structured methods of communication, such as e-mail or memos, is excessive
5. Incremental improvements made continuously over time would be impossible or impractical
Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done
Understand business process reengineering basics to determine whether BPR is viable for your company
A number of websites offer informative explanations of the principles of the business reengineering process. Many also provide pointers on how to assess your company's needs and how to best implement your business process reengineering program should you determine that redesign would benefit your business.
I recommend: Value Based Management presents Davenport's 5-step approach to the Business Process Reengineering Model, as well as general advice on when BPR should be used.
BRINT Institute dispels some BPR myths, provides a chart illustrating the difference between BPR and TQM (Total Quality Management) and explains the relationship between BPR and IT (Information Technology).
Study the business reengineering process in greater detail to prepare for implementation
Many companies offer various types of business process reengineering training, which provides the knowledge you need to become your own business process engineer and implement your own strategic business process redesign.
I recommend: Some companies offering BPR training are
iSixSigma,
Object Discovery,
LearningTree International and
Business Enterprise Mapping. These 4 companies offer business process redesign training of various types, including online tutorials, on-site training, distance learning and workshops held in various U.S. cities.
Find the business process reengineering software that's most appropriate for your needs
Various companies feature business process engineering software that can handle business process modeling, business process map creation and ongoing business process management. This software can play an important role in your business process reengineering program. Many of these companies also offer, along with their software, BPR consulting services, demos, tours, tutorials, webinars, newsletters and more.
I recommend: Visual Paradigm provides business process modeling software, and i
nProcess features business process mapping software.
Active Endpoints and
SmartDraw each provide its own version of business process engineering software.
Tips & Tactics
Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide
- Business process reengineering is a huge step for any company, though one that can bring equally significant rewards when properly implemented. Be sure to think your decision through thoroughly and proceed only after you've done sufficient research.
- Should you decide to act as your own business process engineer, realize that you'll need adequate BPR training and excellent business process engineering software to successfully pull it off. You'll need to develop the skills necessary for creating a business process map redesign that not only meets your company's unique needs, but also adequately addresses your prior business process problems.
The official source of Business Process Reengineering is
the Business Process Reengineering page at Business.com