WHAT IT REALLY MEANS TO RE-ENGINEER YOUR BUSINESS PROCESSES

Every single thing we do in our business is based on processes. The word processes sounds big, yes? Let's break it down.

Processes simply mean activities. Activities in business range from customer service, hiring and managing staff, employee onboarding, production/rendering services, sending invoices/handling payments, procurement, delivery, succession planning, among many others, as limited to the scope of your company.

So, our business processes are simply our day-to-day business activities.

Got that? Let's move on.

Sometimes, we get too busy running our business that we do not realize that some of our business activities are faulty; like a haphazard customer service system, an inconsistent delivery system, an unpredictable operations system.

If these non-working processes are your reality, then, your activities need review and restructuring.

That is where a re-engineering exercise comes in.

So, business process re-engineering is simply, a systematic way of browsing through your daily business activities, to detect a better way of improving these activities for a more effective and efficient business experience.

Now that you know what Business Process Re-engineering is, and that your business might have faulty processes that need to be fixed, you probably want to know who handles fixing these processes. We'll talk about that right away.Now that you know what Business Process Re-engineering is, and that your business might have faulty processes that need to be fixed, you probably want to know who handles fixing these processes. We'll talk about that right away.

Except you're a soloproneur, you can't perform a BPR exercise alone.  Just like a mason builds house structures and a plumber fixes water system, but a contractor oversees these activities, so will each process in every department in your business be reviewed, with core people in these departments involved, overseen by the process owner who is the business owner. Let's break this down a bit more. A BPR exercise is not a wholesome activity. It is conducted per department. This is because every department in an organisation has specific processes. For a BPR exercise to be successful, these processes in these departments have to be reviewed differently. The major stakeholders would then be the core people in these departments, as well as the process owner who is the CEO.

Before you jump right into a BPR exercise, you should know some factors these stakeholders are to consider.

Now, to get started on the BPR exercise, these stakeholders will consider the following factors: Vision, goal, strategy, and organisational structure. You may wonder what all these has got to do with BPR, here's the logic.

Vision: Want to fix those processes, you have to get your foundations right. Go back to the root, isn't it? Find out if you have a vision in the first place or is your company headed towards an unknown destination? And if you have a vision, are you still on track, or have you deviated? When you review your company's vision, you will find out that you might need to state, reinstate or even readjust your vision. Otherwise, you end up in a tired, confused and chaos state.

Goal: Next question is, have you set goals for your company, or do you move along with whatever comes by? Gone are those days. You have to set realistic goals that are in line with your vision. Set those goals and put a time to them so that during a BPR exercise, you can determine what worked and what did not work. This leads us to the next factor.

Strategy: Now, you've set those goals. They are not going to achieve themselves. You have to adopt strategies to achieve these goals. A BPR exercise helps you know what strategy worked and what did not work. The BPR exercise needs a brilliant analyst who will scrap out non-working strategies and bring innovation through an exceptional strategy that will bail the company out of 'bad process predicament'. Without a brilliant strategy, the boat of BPR won't sail.

Organizational Structure: This might be the hallmark of a BPR exercise. A bad structured organisation is enough to ruin the organisational activities. A BPR exercise reveals bad processes that need to be restructured, such as lacking job roles, irrelevant job roles, unclear job specifications.

Is Business Process Re-engineering important? We'll find out

Predictability. No one likes to guess things. When you guess, you might fail, but when you depend on laid down trusted methods, you can always predict the outcome. Remember that the goal of a BPR exercise to remove faulty processes and put structured ones in place. When this is achieved, every member of your staff will adopt these structured processes and you can be sure of success.

Efficiency - When you don't know what you are doing, you waste resources. But with the right processes in place, you will not only be clear about what you are doing, but you will carry out your activities much faster, without wasting resources and with little or no supervision.

Consistency - Having processes in place means you get the same result every time that process is done. This is because you know "what" needs to be done, but most importantly, "how" it should be done.

Succession planning: People are bound to leave companies for different reasons. Roles in your company will have to be taken over by someone else at some point. You will agree that it is far easier to hand over an activity to somebody else or a new staff when there are already laid down processes, right?

We can't over stress why companies need BPR activities. This blog post has only covered a finger of the whole hand. For your business to have a successful BPR exercise, there are critical stages involved. Our Business Process Re-engineering Course provides a thorough guide on all the important stages needed for a BPR exercise to take place. The course comes with access to online live classes, ready-made videos with tools, templates and all the advisory you need to carry out a successful Business Process Re-engineering exercise for your business.