Important factors for BPR success in manufacturing firms

Business Process Reengineering has been touted by many as dramatic improvements necessary for organization competitiveness, but in practice there are many unsuccessful cases. Thus, there is need for a more systematic and rigorous assessment of the factors deemed important to project success. That is the main objective of this study. In this case, success has been defined in three different ways: goals and objectives accomplished by the project, benefits derived from the project, and its impact on company performance. Based on the results, recommendations are made for managers to focus attention and resources on factors important to success, and to proceed in a fashion which minimizes the risk of failure. The point of entry into the companies participating in this study were internal auditing directors and comptrollers (IA's). Questionnaires were mailed to the IA's of 586 randomly selected manufacturing organizations. The usable sample of 135 questionnaires represent a 22 percent response rate. In general, organizations are not emphasizing some of the most important activities and tasks recommended in the BPR literature, such as changes to customer/market related business processes, the value-added element of every business activity, and applying the right innovative technology. Based on the findings as a whole, it behooves top managers not to engage in BPR before ensuring the presence of the success factors found to be important. While the findings are based on manufacturing companies, the results may be generalizable to other industrial sectors