AN ARTICLE ON BPR

There has been much written about the success and failure of BusinessProcess Re-engineering (BPR). Many contributory factors have beensuggested such as size, type of organisation, company culture and soon. A recent survey by [Markowsky, 1995] found that leadership,organisational, cultural and people issues were the major obstaclesin achieving BPR success. Without doubt, there will be winners andlosers in this activity. There is evidence in the early work on BPRto suggest that BPR errs on being socially insensitive. This earlywork set the ethos for subsequent BPR projects in organisations.Perhaps this is why most re-engineering efforts have had littlemeasurable impact on the overall business [Hall, 1993]. Consequently,it is important that organisations that are about to embark on suchprogrammes are fully aware of the potential impact on individuals,groups, and society as a whole.Given the major impact that BPR has on an organisation and that thisimpact involves the generation, dissemination and use of informationto sustain the redesigned processes it is inevitable that informationtechnology (IT) has a central role in this activity, a pointrecognised by leading BPR advocates such as [Davenport, 1990] and[Hammer, 1993]. [Earl, 1994] explains that much of the BPR output isdependant on IT. For example, telecommunications often figures inreducing co-ordination costs or increasing the scope of co-ordination, and shared databases are commonplace in the provision ofinformation across and during processes. It is this that has led toconsiderable work in providing guidance on undertaking BPR with IT.For example, [Donovan, 1994] describes an approach, based on evidencefrom over 1000 organisations, that enables organisations to moderniseits IT infrastructure in order to sustain a competitive advantage intoday's dynamic environment.It is in this context that this paper considers the ethical issuessurrounding the use of BPR. It is legitimate to draw upon work onethical issues related to IT given the interaction between BPR and ITand the implicit involvement of both business and IT professionals inBPR activity.. There are issues relating to both the process and theproduct of BPR and these will be discussed here.Principles of EthicsRelevant ethical principles must first be established in order toidentify the ethical issues associated with BPR. Ethics comprisesboth practice and reflection [van Luijk, 1994]. It is sufficient toconsider only ethics practice because BPR is concerned primarily withaction rather than conceptual reflection.An interesting list of generic questions was devised by John McLeodin [Parker, 1990] to help determine the ethical nature of actionswithin IT. These questions have wider currency. BPR is concerned withthe delivery of an output by a supplier to a client under someagreement. It is irrelevant whether this is an in-house arrangementor whether it is between two independent organisations or whether itis a combination of both. According to [Velasquez, 1992], such anagreement is concerned with output quality and moral liability.Velasquez argues that the principles of due care and social cost musttake effect in these situations.By combining the ideas McLeod and Velasquez a set of ethicalprinciples can be derived as shown in Figure 1 [Rogerson, 1996]. Theprinciple of honour is to ensure that actions are beyond reproachwhich in turn demands honesty from the professional. The principle ofbias focuses on ensuring decisions and actions are objective ratherthan subjective. Professional adequacy is concerned with the abilityof individuals to undertake allocated tasks. The principle of duecare is linked with the concept of software quality assurance.Fairness focuses on ensuring all affected parties are considered inproject deliberations. This leads to social cost which recognisesthat it is not possible to abdicate from professional responsibilityand accountability. Finally, the principle of effective and efficientaction is concerned with completing tasks and realising goals withthe least possible expenditure of resources.Figure 1: Eight Ethical PrinciplesHonour - is the action considered beyond reproach?Honesty - will the action violate any explicit or implicit agreementor trust?Bias - are there any external considerations that may bias the actionto be taken?Professional adequacy - is the action within the limits of capability?Due care - is the action to be exposed to the best possible qualityassurance standards?Fairness - are all stakeholder's views considered with regard to theaction?Consideration of social cost - is the appropriate accountability andresponsibility accepted with respect to this action?Effective and efficient action - is the action suitable, given theobjectives set, and is it to be completed using the least expenditureof resources?It is not surprising that these ethical principles underpin manycodes of conduct not only in the IT profession [Berleur, 1996] butalso in other professions. For this reason these principles are usedto analyse the ethical nature of BPR.An ethical review of BPR thinkingIn his recent book, The Re-engineering Revolution - The Handbook,[Hammer, 1995 pp 16-32] sets out 10 guidelines based on potentialreasons for failure. These are listed here:Make sure that you know what re-engineering really is before youattempt to do it and then do it, not something else.Only processes can be re-engineering. Before you can re-engineer yourprocesses, you must identify them.Understanding your processes is an essential first step in re-engineering, but analysis of those processes is a destructive wasteof time. You must place strict limits, both on the time you take todevelop this understanding and on the length of the description youcreate.If you proceed to re-engineer without the proper leadership, you aremaking a fatal mistake. If your leadership is nominal rather thanserious, and is not prepared to make the required commitment, yourefforts are doomed to failure.Re-engineering requires radical, breakthrough ideas about processdesign. Re-engineering leaders must encourage people to pursuestretch goals and to think out of the box; to this end leadershipmust reward creative thinking and be willing to consider any newidea.Before implementing a process in the real world, create a laboratoryversion in order to test whether your idea works. You will inevitablydiscover shortcomings and mistakes in your design, which you can thenrepair. Proceeding directly from idea to real-world implementation isrecipe for disaster.You must re-engineer quickly. If you cannot show tangible resultswithin a year, you will lose the support and momentum necessary tomake the effort successful. To this end, "scope creep" must beavoided at all costs. Stay focused and narrow the scope if necessaryin order to get results fast.You cannot re-engineer a process in isolation. Everything must be onthe table. Any attempt to set limits to preserve a piece of the oldsystems, will doom your efforts to failure.Re-engineering needs its own style of implementation: fast,improvisational and iterative.Any successful re-engineering effort must take into account thepersonal needs of the individuals it will affect. The new processmust offer some benefit to the people who are, after all, being askedto embrace enormous change, and the transition from the old processto the new one must be made with great sensitivity to their feelings.These guidelines provide insight into the ethos of Hammer's currentthinking on how BPR should now be undertaken. It is interesting tocompare this with his seminal paper, Re-engineering Work: Don'tAutomate, Obliterate [Hammer, 1990]. The attitude taken in thisearlier work is very bullish and solely reliant upon techno-economicjustification which is typified by the two case study examples usedto illustrate his arguments. As a direct result of BPR both companiesdownsized; the Ford Motor Company reduced the staff involved in theaccounts payable by 75% and the Mutual Benefit Life organisationreduced staff involved in customers' applications by 100 people. Nomention is made of the people issues surrounding this type ofapocalyptic change. In his more recent writings Hammer includespeople issues and attempts to justify his approach on moral grounds.Guideline 10, in the list above, is indicative of this stance.Arguing against those who claim BPR results in radical change whichis dangerous and inhumane [Hammer, 1995 pp 174-175] defends hisapproach by writing "... the alternative [to BPR] is a seriousdecline in a company's fortunes. This has consequences even moredisruptive and unpleasant than re-engineering's for the people in theorganisation - foreshortened careers, huge stress, lost jobs. Thepain of re-engineering inoculates a company against the much greaterpain of decline. The counterrevolutionaries may use compassion astheir camouflage, but in fact the moral high ground belongs to re-engineering."