Week 6 - Basics of BPR(2)

Source / Reference:
1) Grant and Mergen Leavitt 1996
2) Business Process Reengineering: Its Past, Present, and Future J. Adebayo

 Subject:
How does BPR evolved?

 Response:

In the recent years, new technologies and main changes have brought many opportunities to the business in order to raise their competitiveness and improve their business processes. IT has been introduced in various business strategies to automate and speed up processes, enable a more effective creation and sharing of knowledge, capture and coordinate physical information and etc., these can probably improve business processes and minimize the operation cost and time. Below is the conceptual framework introduced by Leavitt.

Since IT has introduced into business proves, that means all other factors need to be changed in order to cope with information technology.

From the entrance of information technology, BPR has begun to evolve according the following processes.

First of all, to improve the quality of product and processes within businesses, total quality management (TQM) is needed. It is an integrative philosophy to shorten the response time and provide superior quality of services to the customers. IT begins to take part in the business processes that lead to the first wave of BPR i.e. IT based BP redesign.

In the first wave of BPR, all the processes are based on IT and they use top down approach to run their businesses. Once the first wave of BPR is mellowed, second wave of BPR begins. It consists of three stages, the first one is time-based competition, the second one is web enabled business and the last one is knowledge management.  

So the major question is when do we choose to use different type if BPR? The only solution is by having business process management.

It is a popular management technique that includes methods & tools to support design, analysis, implementation, management & optimization of operational business processes. (Kettinger et al. 1997). It can help companies to manage incremental process change and suggest ideas for current business situation so that companies can decide whether they accept the ideas to improve their businesses.

Week 5 - Basics of BPR(1)

Source / Reference:
1) Davenport-BPRCritics-ComputerWorld-2003
2)  GroverMalhotra-BPRTutorial-JOM-1997

 Subject:
What is BPR and what is the importance of BPR?

 Response:
BPR stands for business process reengineering. It mainly analyzes and designs the workflows and processes within the organization. Business process is a set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a defined business outcome. Re-engineering is the basis for many recent developments in management.

Firstly, the companies need to identify all the processes and prioritize them according to the urgency. Then the companies need to review the update to see whether their processes have met the business objectives. After that, they start designing the models to fit their goals. Finally, tests and implementation will take place. If it cannot satisfy the original goals, evaluation will start and improve the existing strategy.

Business process reengineering is very importance. From the article of GroverMalhotra, they have told that in the past, companies need to have plenty of paper works that need to perform when running their business. Information is not shared and it is inconvenience for them to have the information. However, after the implementation of BPR, there are many improvements. Data and information are shared within the company and they can eliminate a lot of intermediate steps. That means a lot of precious time can be saved to do other stuff. The information will routinely update and staff can seek for the information whenever they are needed.

To conclude, BPR plays an important role in the company, it can help reduce operation cost, fulfill more customers’ needs and eliminate intermediate steps. It is a good try for company to start to have reengineering to take place.

In the recent years, a lot of companies start to reengineer in order to survive in the competitive society. Many changes need to be made such as shifting the traditional shops into internet which can reduce operation cost. Therefore, BPR is used to guide the company to set strategies to take advantage of IS developments.

Week 4 - Strategic Alliance Model

Source / Reference:
1)  "Strategic Alignment: Leverage Information Technology for transforming organization" by J C Henderson and N Venkartraman 1993
2)   http://search.proquest.com/docview/26252741/134A6C8B53F19A4F606/1?accountid=16210
3)   http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jit/journal/v22/n4/full/2000109a.html


Subject:
In Lect 4 - Which alignment strategy in SAM model is the best? and why?


Response:

The Strategic Alignment Model (SAM model) provides four alignment strategies which are strategy execution, technology transformation, competitive potential and service level. In different type of strategy, they focus on different aspects.





Four alignment strategies

In order to select a best alignment strategy in SAM model, the first question needs to be asked must be what kind of business the company runs. Companies need to consider their business goals, objectives and their distinctive competitors, i.e. what kind of strategies is the best to be implemented. These questions will be asked before choosing any best strategy.

In the reality, there is no best alignment strategy. The most important thing is to be flexible in any situations or circumstances. For example, for a small retailing company, they emphasize more on the business strategy rather than the IT strategy. Since the business hierarchy of the company is simple and the span of control is narrow, senior management will take more attention on the business strategy rather than the IT in order to save cost. Therefore, it is better to use strategy execution or technology transformation for this kind of company.

On the other hand, nowadays, in a highly technological world, most of the customers require services or products to be speedy, efficient and convenience. To achieve these kinds of expectation, IT must be involved in the process. That means most of the companies need to consider IT strategy in order to survive. For example, in the recent years, e-banking becomes popular, it saves time for citizen to visit the shop directly and they can have transactions all the time when they are available. After the adoption of the e-banking, some of the banks were shut down as most of the customers choose to have service through internet so as to reduce operation cost within the bank. It is a good IT strategy which can eliminate cost and broaden customer base. It is consider as a service level strategy to be used in within the company.

To conclude, different strategies have their functions and they are useful in various company. There is no best strategy but the mangers need to be flexible in considering the strategy. Companies need to find the best strategy by itself by understanding their business objectives and their goals. Sticking on one strategy is useless since the world is changing, they need to accommodate the world in order to survive.