Week 9 The relationship between BPR and the core competitiveness
Source / Reference:
1) “Study and Application of BPR Strategy Based on Core-Competence”by 李冠强
http://www.lw23.com/lunwen_1354992/

Subject:
The relationship between BPR and the core competitiveness
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Response:

BPR should be using their core resources as a guide. Based on the strategic concept of the core competitiveness, the company has only to establish the existing advantages on the basis of the strategy that will guide enterprises to obtain or maintain long-lasting strategic advantage. Therefore, enterprises should give more consideration to their ability and resources, to operate business in the areas that has certain advantages, rather than simply consider market appeal, the blind into other areas, especially in the lack of strategic association with its core competitive advantage industrial fields. This pointed out the direction for the enterprise BPR.

BPR should be conducive to the formation of the enterprise core competencies. BPR is an effective way for the formation of the core competitiveness of enterprises through business process reengineering, and re-integration of the necessary elements of competitiveness. If the business is in business process reengineering is not explicitly access and integration of important elements of competitiveness as a strategic goal, over the pursuit of short-term financial benefits, it is possible be affected after the disappearance of the short-term financial interests, while also miss some opportunities to get the key elements of competitiveness. Therefore, BPR should be the strategic goal of positioning in as soon as possible to access and integrate the core competitiveness of the training and development resources that are important elements, rather than short-term interests of the lure.

BPR need to focus on combine internal competition elements. The combination of elements of the internal competition is an important part of their core competitiveness. At present, most enterprises increase varying degrees of efficiency and competitiveness through business process reengineering in business processes than in the past, but often ignore the integration of these elements of competitiveness, not only lack effective collaboration in the overall process of institutional, also lack of integration between the various processes in the technology, marketing and management. Competitive elements of the restructuring process are the process of extension of the original core competitiveness of enterprises and through the complementary advantages to establish a new competitive advantage, core competitiveness and growth. Therefore, business process reengineering, need to pay attention to the internal reorganization of the elements of competitiveness, so that the potential competitive advantage can be achieved

Week 8 How important is business process in BPR?
Source / Reference:
1) “Organizational Redesign (Business Process Re-engineering) (BPR)”
http://www.smthacker.co.uk/organisational_redesign.htm

Subject:
How important is business process in BPR?
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Response:

Processes become the focus of attention of many management gurus and top CEO in the past 10 years.

Almost all the articles in the book “Harvard Business School Harvard Management classic Series” focus around the transformation of process that can develop strategy theme successfully.

In simple words, the process is the order of things. Davenport’s definition given is “the business process is orderly work activities across time and space, it has a start point and end point, and clear inputs and outputs”.

The main point of this definition is that it points out the "process" must have "time control", namely a clear beginning and end. At the same time, the process must have clear expectations and measure results, which are clear input and output.

On the surface, the enterprise organization is divided by the businesses and functions, but in fact the important role is the process. Present in the actual process are personnel, material and cash flow, but information technology companies need to pay close attention to hidden "knowledge flow" and "information flow" that behind these visible "flow". The knowledge and information flow are the value of the enterprise resource.

Different departments and different personnel, and outside the enterprise, is the inspection process is complete, are the touchstone of process. Hence, the process as a combination of activities is actually an effective channel of the value chain to pass.

Through the process to re-understanding of the enterprise, is one of the most important management ideas of the late 20th century.

Measure the different states of the process, in fact, is a measure of the resource utilization efficiency and the effect of transform resources in a process, such as time, resources, human resources, material resources and financial resources. Information flow process is complete, effective, a sign of health, which gives a measure may be.

If there is no effective measure, the process cannot achieve a normal and orderly operation.

Week 7 What are the characteristics of BPR methodologies?

Source / Reference:
1) "Reviewing Engineering Methodologies"
http://www.prosci.com/bpr_method.htm

Subject:
What are the characteristics of BPR methodologies?
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Response:

To do any works there have procedural requirements. Enterprise business processes are clearly a work or something, what order, what standards, what the time to complete. Whether large or small enterprises, regardless of the technology-paid business or process traditional enterprise, regardless of the lean enterprise or extensive management of the enterprise, has its own business processes. Only the enterprise has advanced management has more scientific of business processes, the attitude can also attaches great importance to the institutional building of the business processes to improve business processes based on changes in the market in time.

BPR implementation method is specific, there are four steps: setting goals (visioning), research, innovation and implementation. It did not analyze the BPR process. It has a direct jump to the stage of the innovation and implementation. Therefore, the core elements of BPR is demolished for redevelopment of the methodology, this approach emphasizes the set goals, research, and re-establish the business process, regardless of the previous status of the enterprise.

Application of BPR method is to encourage creative thinking. BPR methods are not limited to the original thinking, but on the basis of innovation, design a new process, and put into application.

The existing processes in many companies often cannot meet the needs of users, and even many of the processes already poor to the point where you want to waste. In addition, the process of continuous improvement process, we need to measure, analyze and rethinking, these all need to take a very long time, so many companies eager. Therefore, many companies have adopted BPR method, the BPR approach with particular emphasis on IT technology, the ERP system. This enterprise companies include Hewlett-Packard and Ford.

BPR is fast, it do not require a lot of time for analysis. BPR process is not drawn from the analysis, but from the best practices. According to the best practices of world-class company, to develop similar processes and implementation procedures, thereby greatly saving time.

Week 6 What are the success and failure factors of BPR process?

Source / Reference:
1) "Success and failure factors of BPR"
http://www.powerfulwords.co.uk/sample-assignments/project-management/success-and-failure-factors-of-bpr.php

Subject:
What are the success and failure factors of BPR process?
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Response:

About 70% of the BPR projects failed to achieve the intended purpose or fail in the end. A part of the reasons for the failure is due to the unrealistic vision and expectations of the restructuring, and the lack of attention and understanding of the key factors important to note that in the reengineering process is the key reasons for the failure.

Although the companies spend a lot of money, time and effort to restructure process, but about 50 to 70% of the enterprises did not achieve the purpose of reengineering or get a large improvement.

Reasons for the failure

1.      Wrong choice of the timing and conditions of the reengineering

The enterprise does not necessarily need to carry out a thorough reorganization. Typically, the implementation of enterprise business process reengineering three categories: enterprise diehard acceptable but is about to troubled companies and the current situation but I hope the competitors far behind the enterprise.

The implementation of BPR, although high-yield projects, is also accompanied by great risks, so must be clear the motivation of business process reengineering, and to create its unique core competitiveness.

2.      Error selection of the business process

You must first analysis clearly all the processes, problems the most prominent part of reorganization or core areas. How to determine this process is a hard work. The specific analysis must consider the following issues, whether the process is become the "bottleneck" of the enterprise development? Can this process resolve the problem after the reorganization of the enterprises that is facing the crisis? How large is the probability of success of the process reengineering? How serious of the consequences of failure of process reengineering?

3.      The wrong interpretation of the role of IT

BPR is equivalent in IT is wrong, while ignoring the role of IT is also wrong. The true value of IT is that it provides the necessary tools and means, so people have the ability to break the traditional rules of management, and to create new ways of working to bring new growth point of the enterprise.

4.      The immature of BPR

So far, BPR is just a thought, it cannot be called a theory. BPR is still far from mature as a revolutionary theory, the deep-seated understanding of the internal mechanism of BPR and the nature of law is far from established. Unsound methodology, analytical tools are not effective, both are the factors impeding the success of BPR in practice.

In addition, the causes of failure include, focus on business processes, recombinant confused with other conventional ways of improvement, only concerned with the design of the process while ignoring the other constraints; time delay for too long so that people lose the reorganization patience and reorganization of all business processes.

Week 5 What are the commonly used practices of BPR project implementation?

Source / Reference:
1) "MIPIM: Framework for Business Process Improvement" by Sola Adesola 1998
http://oxfordbrookes.academia.edu/SolaAdesola/Papers/1290041/MIPIM_Framework_for_Business_Process_Improvement 

2) “Study on Business Processes Re-engineering Based on Value Chain of Construction Enterprise” by Liu Jingyan 2010
http://www.seiofbluemountain.com/upload/product/201002/126502070736ltzdm.pdf

Subject:
What are the commonly used practices of BPR project implementation?
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Response:

For an enterprise, BPR is a significant and complex systems engineering to a wide range of activities and work involved in the project implementation process. We 參與企業資訊化的成員在整個BPR過程中，不但應當知道如何進行BPR，由誰來進行BPR，而且還需要了解一些進行BPR的方法和工具。WeWneed to understand some of the methods and tools for BPR. 參加BPR的成員們如果能夠有效地利用現代的BPR工具，就可以更有效地對企業中的問題流程進行改造，將BPR的各個階段的工作有機地協調在BPR中可以用到的技術和方法有很多。Techniques and methods can be used in the BPR. 下面介紹一些常用的手法。Here are some commonly used approaches.

頭腦風暴法和德爾菲法Brainstorming and the Delphi method

在討論公司戰略遠景規劃、決定企業再造時機過程中，頭腦風暴法和德爾菲法是兩種有用的方法。Discuss the company's strategic vision, to determine the timing of reengineering the process, brainstorming and the Delphi method is two useful ways. In 在運用頭腦風暴法進行討論時，鼓勵與會者提出盡可能大膽的設想，同時不允許對別人提出的觀點進行批評。brainstorming discussions, participants were encouraged to put forward as bold vision. 運用頭腦風暴法有助於我們發現現有企業流程中的弊病，提出根本性的改造設想。Use brainstorming to help us find the shortcomings in the existing business process, and proposed a fundamental transformation of ideas. 一些軟體工具也可以用來支援這種討論，與會者可以同時和匿名地對討論議題提出他們的建議和意見，根據關鍵字來進行存儲、檢索、註釋、分類和評價。Delphi rule is often used to demonstrate the feasibility of reengineering. 可以將初步的再造方案發給若干事先選定的資訊系統專家，徵求他們的意見。 這樣，經過幾輪徵集，最終可獲得比較一致的意見。After several rounds of solicitation of experts’ views, receive the unanimous opinion ultimately. 這對於減少BPR的風險、設置正確的資訊化戰略是十分有用的。It is very useful to reduce the risk of the BPR, set the correct information strategy.

價值鏈分析法Value chain analysis

在對企業的流程進行分析並選擇被改造流程時，可以採用哈佛大學波特教授提出的價值鏈分析法。價值鏈分析法是辨別某種"價值活動"是否能給本企業帶來競爭力的方法，這一理論最早發表在波特的一篇關於如何將價值鏈分析與資訊技術結合起來的論文中，後來被發展成為企業戰略分析的重要手段，對企業資訊化建設也有很重要的應用價值。Value chain analysis is to identify a "value" whether to give the enterprise a competitive advantage. This theory was first published in the Potter's a paper on how to join chain analysis and information technology together, later to be developed into an important means of corporate strategy, the construction of enterprise information technology is very important. 波特認為：在一個企業中，可以將企業的活動分為主要活動與輔助活動兩種。因此，將一個企業的活動分解開來，並分析每一個鏈條上的活動的價值，就可以發現究竟哪些活動是需要改造的。Analysis of the value of each chain of activities, you can find out what kinds of activities are in need of rehabilitation, 例如，可以按照某項業務將有關的活動細分為幾個範圍(如將產品銷售分解成市場管理+廣告+銷售人員管理+……)，從中發現可以實現差別化和產生成本優 which can achieve differentiation and to generate cost advantages.

ABC成本法又稱作業成本分析法ABC cost method, also known as operating cost analysis

主要用於對現有流程的描述和成本分析。Mainly used for the description and cost analysis of existing processes. 作業成本分析法和上述價值鏈分析法有某種程度的類似，都是將現有的業務進行分解，找出基本活動。The ABC cost analysis and value chain analysis is similar to a certain degree of existing business decomposition, and find out the basic activities. 但作業成本分析法著重分析各個活動的成本，特別是活動中所消耗的人工、資源等。However, the operating cost analysis focus on analyzes the cost of various activities, especially activities in the consumption of labor, and resources etc.

標桿瞄準法Benchmarking method

標桿瞄準法可用在設立改革的目標和遠景、確定流程再造的基準等方面。The benchmarking method can be used in the establishment of the reform objectives and vision, to determine the benchmark for other aspects of process reengineering. 在許多行業都有一些成功的企業，這些企業的做法可以為行業中的其他企業所效倣，因此，也可以將這些企業的一些具體的指標作為其他企業的標桿。Have a number of successful businesses in many industries, these business practices can be emulated by other enterprises in the industry, can also be some specific indicators of these enterprises as a benchmark for other companies.

Week 4 Which alignment strategy in SAM model is the best?

Source / Reference:
1)  "A framework for integrating IT governance and business/IT alignment principles" by Maur, W. in der, Walbeek, W. van, Batenburg 2009
http://nvl002.nivel.nl/postprint/PPpp3622.pdf
2)  “VMware Delivers Real Financial Results for Virtualization Business” by Sean Michael Kerner http://www.internetnews.com/itmanagement/vmware-delivers-real-financial-results-for-virtualization-business-.html

Subject:
In Lect 4 - Which alignment strategy in SAM model is the best? and why?
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Response:

In Lecture 4, Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) was discussed. Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) is the model used to propose a set of IT strategy planning framework for thinking to help business to check the consistency between the information architecture and business strategy, as follow:

There are four-led alignment strategies of the strategy alignment model. It is Strategy Execution, Technology Potential, Competitive potential and Service level. 

 Strategy Execution 

Strategy Execution focused that the operations strategy of business is the driver of organization and IT choices. It is a traditional, layer of strategy management thinking. Senior(Top) management formulate business strategy, and IT department implement the strategy only. That is, the top management is the strategy formulator and the IT management is the strategy implementer.

Technology Potential 

Technology Potential also focused that the operations strategy is business power, however its implementation is indispensable to the support of the IT strategy, IT strategic needs both of business operations and business operations related to IT infrastructure and processes need. The business executives must have IT thinking and fully understand the role of IT strategy to support business operations strategy and develop the most support IT strategy. IT managers in this mode is the role of the builders of the enterprise IT architecture, he was responsible for the design of IT architecture consistent with the external environment, and is responsible for the efficient operation of the IT strategy.

Competitive Potential 

Competitive Potential to coordinate the mode from the following three areas to further enhance the strategic position and role of IT:

• Impact of new products and services
• Impact of key strategic attributes
• The development of a new relationship model

Different from the first two modes, the competitive potential to coordinate the model advocated by the IT strategy to transform or enhance the original operation strategy , while the former two modes, depending on the operating strategy.

Service Level 

Service Level is committed to build the world's leading IT systems within the organization to improve service standards. In this mode, operating strategy play a non-directly related role. This coordinate mode is generally considered to be very necessary, but not be able to fully guarantee the enterprise effective use of IT resources, rapid growth, the changes in the market to make timely and correct response.

 

Executives play a role in this model is the prioritization member. Determine how effective allocation of scarce resources within the enterprise, and the same time, he also responsible for the configuration of the enterprise resources in the IT market. In this alignment, IT managers as a member of the corporate leadership team, responsible for internal operations in line with the special mission of high-level instructions.

I think there is no best alignment strategy. We should choose the right alignment for the right situations to create competitive advantage for the business.