Impacts Of Business Process Reengineering Hr Business Essay

Reengineering is the word which describes itself to us as a new process or update of the process. Reengineering is improving, updating and adding new features in existing process to get better service or product and cut costs as well as more productivity in same time.

We can mention Reengineering appear as our process of choice for making parallel guidance with the new corporate program.

Due to the increase of instability of external business environments (Hemal & Prahalad, 1994; Peppard & Rowland, 1995) to compete with the market competition organization has to undertake the business improvements which can be identify as business process reengineering. According to Hemal & Prahalad, 1994 in a business minor changes or improvements might not bring the success or affect the business directly to bring the results and BPR is a strategic option for the top managers of the businesses. BPR normally increase the competitiveness of the firm in the long run and short run. In the case of BPR, analysis shows this process consists of concealed and indescribable proportions which lead failure of this process.

Whenever we talk about reengineering we must mention the name of Michael Hammer and James Champy. They have written a book about the reengineering process, impact, successful uses, failures etc and the book publishes in 1990 and become one of the best selling book. According to the authors, reengineering is an idea about re design, re constructor, re organizes of a company to reduce its cost and increase the amount and the quality of service. And to do those, information technology is the main key.

In early 1990, the reengineering process in business became very popular. Lack of understanding about the reengineering process is one of the reason its failure. Reengineering is the process which supposed to be very well planned and need more monitoring and working on this particularly rather than focuses profit first. There are many cases available which describe BPR clearly which applied in different fields and that information are very helpful for both practitioners and academics to get the perfect image, knowledge and implementation of BPR in various business grounds. Though, the failure of BPR in some cases made many organizations doubtful about the importance of the BPR in the business. BPR always not successful to provide an effective way to focus improvement effort on the organization’s constraint(Eliyahu M. Goldratt). So the traditional thoery of bpr and experinece is not suitable now with new busniness environment problems.in this situation Hamel & Prahalad (1994) and Mintzberd et al.(2004) have diffreent arguments for the traditional BPR and it’s use. to asess soft dynamic systems academics decided to develop new approaches to assessing BPR with the development and empirical testing of the analytical designed tools.socio and political are the two dimentions of the organization which got enough focus by the new process. Motwani et al (1998) developed a model which presents the “hard” and “soft” dimentions of BPR after reviewing the available literatures and artciles.

BPR should have a measurement whether it fits to the organization or not and for that reason experts starts their research to develop a analytical tools to measure BPR fitness. However, Mitzberd et al. (2003) stated that BPR should be narrate on the strategic level, which help the orgnization to identify the importance of BPR in the organization and when it need as well. This help the stakeholder to know the features of BPR strategy which may lead failure and if the analytical tools followed that can draw a picture of result. There is no particular analytical tools which could be uses to assess the requirement of an organization to BPR. At present reasearcher’s are suggest to find out the proper analytical tools to measure the BPR fit or not. In this stage, Mitzberg et al. (2003) discused some specifiq key factors which may be help to develop the analytical tools.

this dissertation will present the develop strategic suggestions which may be incorporated the BPR strategy of Tesco. Tesco is a leading supermarket in UK and few reasons behind to choose this company as a result of successful BPR applied. Firstly, this company now spreading their business worldwide and also expanding from superstore to different servie provider like financial- loan, creditcards, savings etc and insrance providers and many more services. In the competitive market of UK , it is really hard to stay and leading to top is a extreme success. To gain this success Tesco chaged their strategy, style of business, target, aim, purposes and in one word they applied the BPR and this application was successful. The competitive market everyday gives a new target, competitions to the exising companies.this requires the development of various business improvement and reengineering strategies. Secondly, the uses and analysis of BPR dimensions of Tesco focus the BPR infront of other competitors which works as a guide for the management of the other competitors. Thirdly, this company so far actively constracting it’s strategy and putting a positive effeort to adopt the changes and develop a positive aspect of applyting BPR suceessfully. These data and result helps other organization to focus on BPR ans go through the steps to adopt the BPR. However, for researcher the result and effort help as a secondary data. According to Saunders et al (2003) for researcher there are many limitations and delimitation of secondary sources. In the case of BPR, secondary data always presents a brief image of the organization after apply BPR and what challenges , opportunity came forward and how the top level manager deal with that. Fourthly, the brief image of BPR applied in tesco and the outcome will give a secure access of the employees of other organization to gather information and analysis those for own oranization’s favor. This is very important factor for other organization’s employee to make decision and go through the change process step by step.

To select Tesco I had to go through the brief review of the academic literature. But I did not found any detailed analysis of different level employees analysis on the subtance of BPR applied within an organization. To create a bridge for the BPR and its success, employee views, this dissertation depended on the research and analysis of the publicicly available secondary data and on the analysis of the comments,feelings expressed though questionnaire by the organization’s employees.

Contrasting source helps to research from different angles wiith the consideration of views of different employee’s, managers, other researchers,stakeholders. There are different views of different internal stakeholders as their cognitive maps can be figured within diverse micro social environments. Stacey (2003). Again this cognitive maps saometimes crucial for top mangers and general employees because they might experience changes in a different way.Mullins (2004). Different sources of information is most important for the formation of impartial assessment of the strategic fit.

This dissertation contains multiple studies and theoretial concepts which widen a big range of investigation. The present economic situation, social constructure is missing from all the available research and we need the development of this research which will help the organization to identify need of BPR at the right time and organization will be more aware of BPR in detailes able to adopt with potentially. The socio political issues are not directly related with BPR but still it has an impact on BPR. Actually the theory will detail explain how BPR related with the social and economical environment and stakeholders.stakeholders can get an future idea towards BPR related activities from the these theory. The information appear in data analysis will be useful for researcher, organizations.

This research will justify the use of interpretive in the methodology section of the dissertation. The application of BPR in tesco extended a flexible methodological structure. Finally, this dissertation is a result of used of different type of data which help us to know how successful the BPR application in tesco and how the employee from different level react, dealt and adopt it.

Research aims and objectives

The aim of the research is to find out the impact of BPR on HR of Tesco and develop strategic recommendations which may refer the BPR to multiple organizations as an example. Reengineering is very important for business to stay in the market. And HR is another

important factor of the business. This research will focus –

What are the impacts of BPR on HR?

There are some direct and indirect features of this BPR which related to HR.

This will develop the consequence of socio-political dimension for successful BPR.

This will develop recommendations for future studies.

This dissertation will investigate –

The positive and negative aspects of business process reengineering (BPR)

The impacts of BPR on organisational human resource in Tesco.

The literature review will show the soft and hard version of BPR,

The role of leadership and corporate vision of BPR in Tesco.

The issues of organisational change and resistance to BPR,

The stresses related to BPR etc.

Reflective statement

There are certain changes come after the BPR Tesco adopted in their whole business process. But there is lack of research or assignments about these BPR application and changes of Tesco bring for better output. In this situation my inquiry and findings will fill up the gap to have available academics literature. This research will show the different dimensions of BPR and consider how well it goes in Tesco. This actually helps other similar business organization to check how it suits the organization and its employee and what are the implications they might need to deal with. Though there is lack of study of this case so I have to find the more data from this organization as well as it’s employee from different level. To go through this vast level of data it might introduce me with various regulatory activities without identifying the possible result but implement many recommendations.

To research about this topic there are many challenges and difficulties to found the needed data. Initially, there is lack of research on this case which can identify important issues to focus in future. if we able to find all the related positive and negative issues then it helps to fill the gap between BPR and organization’s HR. however I had to identify the suitable research specific tool to continue the research. Next, it is really not possible to develop a idea about employee’s reactions without asking more possible questions. But again the participant loses their interest if there are too many questioned to answer. In this stage, very hardly I had to design questionnaires which help me to get the specific research related data. It is very necessary to analysis the data by using an appropriate statistical tools which develop official and dependable study result. In a research, there should be data collection from different level and sources. Otherwise we will not able to get the vital and reliable result. Research is a collection of data from multiple sources in a single area. I tried to follow the research methodology to collect and utilize data in a right analytical way but again in some area I didn’t presents detailed information though I felt it is far away from my main focus area.

Literature review

Defining Business Process Reengineering

Business process reengineering (BPR) still not have an universal definition which agreed by the academics. The present concepts focus different areas and essential constructs of BPR. Business process reengineering is a change process of the organization systems (Burnes 2004). However this process brings change in organization process and all stakeholders are affected with this change process. There are many discussions and focuses on the critical issues related BPR without having a universal definition of it. According to Hayes(2002) and Mintberg et al. (2003), BPR brings the change in the organization which influence all the organizational tasks. When organization reconstruct its strategy, the change affect the whole organization by introducing new terms, look, strategy etc which change the total performance of the organization. Tapscott & Caston (1993) defined BPR as “fundamental revaluation and redesign of a company’s business processes and organizational structures in order to achieve dramatic improvements in its critical success factors – quality, productivity, customer satisfaction and time to market”. This definition describes different dimensions of BPR. Michael Hammer & James Champy defined “Reengineering as a fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business process to gain dramatic progress in contemporary measures of performance, like cost, quality, service, speed”. This definition also address the number of critical dimensions related to BPR. Michael & James mainly focused four key word on the definition of BPR. The first key word is fundamental. Organization must find out what they do and how they do. This will help to identify the need of reengineering. The second key word is radical. This is basically bringing new things change the old process. Crowe et al (2002) stated that radical change might guide the total renovation of a business organization where past situation might be totally vanished. The third word is dramatic. This represents that reengineering is not only business improvement or modification but also achieve the target performance level. Reengineering should be brought only to boost the performance and to fill up the dramatic improvements demand. (Hammer and Champy 1996).the fourth key word is processes. According to Hammer and Champy processes are the main important element in their definition. Business is a collection of processes. Reengineering affect all the business activities. Tapscott & Caston (1993) defines similar definition of Hammer and Champy. Therefore, organization factors get lack of consideration to identify the plausibility of business processes. In this case, researchers also skip the importance of organization structure and culture as the key enablers of BPR.

Brunes (2004) declare that, lack of proper focus on organizational culture is one of the weaknesses of approaches to BPR. He also describe that top managers of any organization need to put attention on organization culture first before make any decision to app2roach BPR. Focusing on organization culture will help to make successful of change in organization. In this stage, researchers did not present the importance and impact of cultural factors on the substance and framework of business change processes. Brunes (2004) and Tapscott & Caston (1993) express their statement about reengineering definition which is highly related. In the definition of Tapscott & Caston (1993) presents that BPR help the organization to utilize it’s available resource fully which increase organization’s capability to handle the new change by following the market constraints. It is cleared from the definition that BPR actually improves organization’s elasticity and awareness. Again, Mintzberg et al. (2003) & Temponi (2006) mentions that academics and practitioners create a gateway between the organization’s operations and capability to control competitive advantage in the short and long run.

2.2 The essence of BPR as change process

At present time Hammer and Champy ( ) stress the importance of the reengineering process for the business to continue in the competitive market. Business reengineering process is important process which connect strategic climax with business and functioning centres of any kind of organization. (Mintzberg & Quinn 1997). When organization turns the change, they found that the changed environment and business factors are far away from the traditional managerial approaches which might not be suitable for organization present (Hamel & Prasad 1994). Organization need to balance between the market demand and the change processes. Because new change environment and business conditions sometimes explain as unstable or unpredictable. By following the effect of BPR, Hamel & Prahalad (1994) and Terziovski et al. (2003) focused that organization should prior the expansion of internal capabilities, potentiality which result more flexibility, organised and synchronised response to present unstable and fast going and changing competitive market conditions.

There is no theoretical limitation for business process in order to revise the role of any terms in total organizational performance. According to Temponi (2006), Business process is compilation of organizational actions which starts by gathering a set of inputs and brings a set of outputs as a result. An argument came from Abdolvand et al (2008) where he mentioned the output comes from business process always values for the customers. In the case of Tesco, this company applied business process to produce values for the customers.

BPR is a strategic term which brings response from different level employees, stakeholders and creates internal and external challenges (Mintzberg et al 2003). BPR itself a strategy which contains a multiple dimensions and the content of BPR and whole process related to the performance of BPR actions. The same theory Leavitt also mentioned in his article which cited in Hannagan, 1995. he present the relationships between the external environment force and internal dimension related to BPR.

Units of analysis

‘Process’ defined in Oxford English Dictionary as “a continuous and regular activities or succession of activities, taking place or carried out in a definite manner, and leading to the accomplishment of some result; a continuous operation or series of operations.” Process is always conceptualised with the deliberation of diverse organizational proportions (Peppard & Rowland 1995). He also explain that the possible classification might be faulted but that will create an impact on different organizational levels and dimensions during the organization planning and implementations. For this reason, he also mentioned distinguishing between strategic processes, functioning processes and enabling processes. Biazzo (2002) explains human resource and socio- political organization dimensions sometimes the reason to delete the process boundaries. To analysis the process in a clear way Motwani et al. (1998) establish a model which is result of following the incorporate three critical dimensions of BPR which are the essence of business processes, culture and structure.

this model actually not specify the concepts ‘culture’ and ‘structure’. Culture and structure reflect the business and socio political conditions at different level of team, department, unit as well as the whole organization.

Harris et al.(2004) mentions that there should be an precise units of analysis particular of the impact of business and organisational factors on the presentation of the selected units. He also find that there are some practiioners who biuld up an extreme focus on organizational factos which can guide to the absence of the needed awareness to the require of teams and individuals. In this case, Armstrong et al. (2003) along with Harris et al.(2004) strappingly recommend screening individulas and teams contained by the structure that addresses the associations of these units of analysis. These recommendations supported by Mullins(2003) and he also explain that the organizational team can influence individual’s performance and give an opportunity to increase individual’s capability to conquer through change. That’s why teams became organizing tools which connect individuals together formally and informally. Team’s spirit and performance encourage individual performance and this increase the positive factores related to change ( Burnes 2004). Armstrone et al (2003) mention an important factor that team’s spirit can be increase when top managers and HR specialists success to develop a dedicated mechanisms. To develop a dedicated mechanisms team factors should match with it’s structure, values and philosophy. This theme might not be familiar by the top managers to develo the dedicated mechanisms (Hayes 2002). According to Hayes top managers mainly try to develop a general plan which can deal with all HR issues of the organization. This plan only covers the general issues and some specifiq issues don’t get attention further. Armstrong et al (2003) suggest in this situation to fill up the gap organization should train the HR specialists in how to manage the change and develop plan which not only cover general issues but also cover the special, unusual issues.if it is not happen then the change initiatives may be responsible for irregularity which will result lack of transperency. Change might increse the orccupational strees which result the reduce capacity of organization and it’s teams and individuals.

Assessing readiness for BPR

The management of organizations should always keep in mind that there is a risk to adopt BPR when they planning to bring changes in the organization (Abdolvand et al .2008). there are many factors which can be reduce the possibility of a successful BPR, like environmental factor, general employees, specific strategies etc. the management of the organization should first look at the possibilities and risks related to BPR during the planning and developing decision for BPR. They need the asses the requirement and readiness for BPR in the organization. Each organization has their own unique system and the employees get used to that system (Abdolvand et al .2008) Burnes (2004) mentions that the management of the organization are able to assess the organization’s strength, successful utilises of the current process and they also can find out the most weak part of the process and the unstable part of the system. Management will plan to bring the change to cover up the weak part and make the system stable in every ways. According to Burnes (2004) change process commence to bring success which depends on the overall organization’s capacity to recover and adjust and gain inner organizational stability.

There are many complications in BPR which lead the high level of failure of this process.

Research aims and objectives

Reference:

Goldratt, Eliyahu M.. Essays on the Theory of Constraints. [Great Barrington, MA]: North River Press. ISBN 0-88427-159-5.