6. What is business process reengineering? How is it different from incrementally improving a process?
a. Business process reengineering (BPR) occurs when a business process is redesigned from the
ground up. It is different from incrementally improving a process in that it does not simply take the
existing process and modify it.
7. Why did BPR get a bad name?
a. BPR became an excuse to lay off employees and try to complete the same amount of work using
fewer employees.
8. List the guidelines for redesigning a business process.
a. The guidelines are as follows:
i. Organize around outcomes, not tasks.
ii. Have those who use the outcomes of the process perform the process.
iii. Subsume informationprocessing
work into the real work that produces the information. Treat
geographically dispersed resources as though they were centralized.
iv. Link parallel activities instead of integrating their results.
v. Put the decision points where the work is performed, and build controls into the process.
vi. Capture information once, at the source.
9. What is business process management? What role does it play in allowing a company to differentiate
itself?
a. Business process management (BPM) can be thought of as an intentional effort to plan, document,
implement, and distribute an organization’s business processes with the support of information
technology. It can play a role in differentiation through builtin
reporting, and by empowering employees,
enforcing best practices, and enforcing consistency.
10. What does ISO certification signify?
a. ISO certification shows that you know what you do, do what you say, and have documented your
processes.