83% OF COMPANIES PRACTICING BUSINESS PROCESS REDESIGN

According to a recent Cutter Consortium study, an astounding 83% of companies are currently engaged in business process redesign (BPR).

Figure 1 -- Companies currently engaged
in business process analysis and improvement

Paul Harmon is a Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant and author of the report, *Who's Profiting from Business Process Redesign*, which analyzes the results of this research. Harmon remarked, "In contrast, we found that only 49% of companies were active in business process redesign in the mid-1990s. This explosive change over the last several years is evidence that BPR is not dead."

"Some of the BPR projects undertaken in the mid-1990s succeeded and produced impressive gains in productivity," he says. "Many others failed and produced disillusionment with BPR. Most company managers intuitively scaled down their BPR efforts and didn't attempt anything as large or comprehensive as the types of projects recommended in many BPR books."

Harmon continues, "Because of some widely discussed failures, and similarly as a result of employee distrust, the term 'business process reengineering' became unpopular during the mid- to late-1990s and has gradually fallen into disuse. During the same period that enthusiasm for BPR was declining, and while companies began to explore workflow and ERP approaches, new software technologies began to emerge that really could deliver on the promise that the early BPR gurus had oversold. Among the best known are the Internet, e-mail, and the Web, which provide powerful ways to integrate employees, suppliers, and customers."

Companies are struggling to adapt to changes, especially those initiated by the use of the Internet, e-mail, and the Web, and they are building new types of business processes that allow customers to access companies and buy online, or that integrate local processes into supply chains that span multiple companies. According to Harmon, the problems raised by these challenges are being met in different ways.

"Some companies have initiated top-down process redesign efforts spearheaded by senior managers. [See Figure 2 below, depicting who is responsible for business process redesign projects.] Other companies have delegated specific solutions to groups like IT, or to teams that include managers, IT, and HR professionals. All of this activity is referred to as 'business process improvement' or 'business process redesign'," says Harmon.

Figure 2 -- The title of the person ultimately responsible
for business process improvement projects

-- Cutter Consortium