بررسی شیوه های مهندسی مجدد فرآیند کسب و کار در سنگاپور

The changing economic environment has led to an increasing interest in improving organizational processes to enhance business performance. This paper presents the results of a survey of the business process reengineering (BPR) practices followed by firms in Singapore. The paper highlights the status of BPR projects, motives behind their efforts, the functional areas targeted for reengineering, roles of various organizational members in BPR programs, use of IT in BPR, and the main problems faced in the efforts of Singapore firms. The results show that about 50% of firms surveyed were engaged in BPR projects, with as many as 37% of the firms indicating their intention to take up BPR projects in the next few years. Main problems faced by the Singapore firms are the lack of human and financial resources, lack of internal IT expertise and capabilities, and lack of a champion for BPR efforts. These findings are compared to prior studies in the US and elsewhere. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications based on the findings of the survey.

Business process reengineering (BPR) has become a popular management tool for dealing with rapid technological and business change in today’s competitive environment. It refers to the “analysis and design of work flows and processes within and between organizations” [11]. Literature is replete with examples of how BPR has helped firms contain costs and achieve breakthrough performance in a variety of parameters like delivery times, customer service, and quality. For example, Motorola, when faced with higher defect percentages and longer cycle times, redesigned its parts and tooling process, simultaneously upgrading its manufacturing equipment, this decreased the total production cost by US$ 1 billion per year, and cut cycle time by half [21]. Through BPR, Bell Atlantic reduced the time to install new telecommunication circuits from 15 to 3 days, and cut labor costs from US$ 88 to 6 million [35]. Hallmark replaced its sequential product development with cross-functional teams and cut its new product introduction time on cards by over 75%. Ford reduced its accounts payable staff by 75% with BPR. Other often cited examples of successful BPR programs include Cigna RE, AT&T, Pacific Bell, and the IBM Credit Corporation. More such examples are discussed in [1], [2] and [36]. The much publicized initial success stories of BPR led to an explosive dissemination of the concept that resulted in the launch of several thousands of BPR projects. A study by CSC/Index [9] reported that 72% of the 224 firms it surveyed had initiated BPR programs. Another study by Deloitte and Touche consultants found that 85% of its 532 respondents were involved in BPR efforts. Surveys in the UK and Canada also indicated high level of interests in BPR [34] and [38]. Though many firms embraced BPR initiatives with great zeal, not many of them emerged successful in their efforts. Studies indicate that executives are disappointed with the results of BPR efforts [31] and that the failure rates are as high as 70% [3] and [5]. The initiation and diffusion of BPR, like most management concepts, follow an S-shaped curve. When the concept was introduced in the early 1990s [6], [10] and [22], there was an explosive growth and large scale adoption. After a spate of failures, and difficulties in implementation, currently there is a phase involving disillusionment. The failures have prompted some researchers to view BPR as another passing management fad [15] and [32]. Some of the earlier perspectives on BPR are changing and BPR is currently being viewed as an umbrella approach to overall organizational change [16]. Despite the high failure rates and criticisms, there is an agreement that BPR, when properly done with effective use of information technology can produce significant gains in performance. This is especially true in countries like Singapore where labor costs are high. Firms need to alter their processes significantly, invest in information technology, and improve overall performance in order to combat the challenges posed by competitive environment. Singapore has been ranked as a highly competitive nation, next only to the US, and has been ranked as one of the top nations in the effective use of IT. Given this background, we undertook a survey to understand what Singaporean organizations are doing with respect to their BPR efforts.

While BPR has been a topic of discussion among academic experts and practitioners, little empirical knowledge exists of the BPR practices being followed by industry. This study threw some light on BPR practices in Singapore. There is a lot of BPR activity in Singapore. A total of 64 companies (50%) have some BPR projects already in place, and 37 firms have realized the need for BPR and plan to take it up in the next 1–3 years. This high level of activity could be attributed to recent changes in the regional economic environment that is forcing firms to move from a rapid expansion mode to a “lean and mean” stance that focuses on improving organizational processes. The government sector firms, which have not been as active as the MNCs and local firms in Singapore are likely to undertake many BPR projects in the next few years. As part of the Civil Service Computerization Program, the Singapore government has set up a Center for Strategic Process Improvement at the National Computer Board to spearhead process improvement efforts in the civil service sector. Such government initiatives can be expected to contribute to the increased BPR activity in the government sector. More manufacturing firms in Singapore have started implementing BPR projects and are also likely to take up BPR projects in the next three years. The logistics and transportation sector is likely to experience a surge in BPR projects in the coming years as is the case with the financial services sector. The IS executives need to coordinate BPR efforts while the functional executives need to undertake the task of communicating the issues in the organizations, apart from giving active support to the efforts. In this regard, Singapore businesses have found it useful to have cross-functional steering committees to oversee BPR efforts. Singapore businesses reported the lack of financial and human resources as the main problems in carrying out their programs. Though they seem to have adequate IT infra-structural resources, they face problems in terms of IT expertise and capabilities in their firms. The other key organizational problems faced by Singapore firms in their BPR efforts include lack of support from organizational members, lack of strategic vision, inflexible organization structure, and lack of champion for BPR efforts. With the changing economic environment, Singapore firms are trying various approaches to improve their performance, BPR being a dominant one. With increasing pressure to improve the internal organizational processes coupled with the growing awareness about process change issues, BPR projects are likely to gain prominence in the next decade in Singapore.