Page 95 - DCAP306_DCAP511_E-COMMERCE_AND_E-BUSINESS

E-Commerce and E-Business

7.1.2 Technological and Organizational Enablers of BPR

According to the empirical study of 1993, most of the business processes achieved better performance
through cross-functional BPR than the projects related to traditional functions. Merely augmenting or
automating the existing procedures does not hold much assurance as the procedures involve several
movements of details and approvals within many functional areas that slows down the process
significantly. To assist cross-functional co-operation, the traditional organization structure based on the
functional specialization could be modified through structural enablers like process generalists, case
managers, and cross-functional teams.
Cross-functional teams have played a crucial role in several reengineering efforts. These teams facilitate
parallel design activities and functional interfaces.

At Modicon, Inc., manufacturing automation control devices in Massachusetts,
product development is not the sole responsibility of engineering function. During
the past, manufacturing was not involved in the engineering procedure until
design was transported into the factory. But now, a 15 member team of managers
from finance, sales, marketing, manufacturing, and engineering work together on
this process. The process which was a serial one, traditionally in both structure
and task now involves cross-functional association and has eliminated several
costly changes and delays. This helped to bring six products into the market in
1/3 rd of the time taken otherwise.
Team based structures enable lateral movement in process change model by enhancing coordination
within functional components of a process. Along with the telecommunication technologies, these
teams can collaborate synchronously in remote locations.
The other structural enabler for reengineering is to establish a case manager for a cross-functional
process. The cross-functional process provides access to the new status information on the given
transaction and serves as a single point of contact for customers.

At Pacific Bell, the case managers have been used in accordance to its BPR
approach. Before reengineering, offering a customer a Centrex telephone service
took 11 jobs and more than five business days. The service representatives had to
update nine or more computer systems to make frequent reworks and consult the
customers several times. Now, the Centrex service coordinators handle the entire
interface with the customers. With the help of a computer workstation that
interfaces with nine systems, they now provide service on the same day (Nohria
and Davenport, 1994).
While the case managers coordinate tasks performed by various functional specialists, a generalist
performs their task and eliminates the requirements for a specialist altogether.
Both process generalists and case managers are the powerful organizational innovations that assist
vertical movement in process change model. These structures are useful in organizations with complex
processes to bring services and products to the customer.
It should be noted that such technological and structural enablers need to be consistent with
organizational culture, design, and orientation. As mentioned by sociotechnical research, all the
enablers should be in balance and aligned with other essential aspects of the organization. Failure to
consider aspects like existing structures, training, and incentive systems can greatly constrain the
process innovation and their success.

Information Technology (IT) helps make changes promoted by reengineering and is an enabler of BPR.
Love and Gunasekaran in 1997 considered four things as enablers of BPR, namely, IT, organization,
human resources, and total quality management.

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