5 Common Areas of BPR (Business Process Re-engineering) required in Organizations

Operational efficiency is essential to positioning your company for growth. For many companies, it is a major driver behind implementing a new ERP system. But reaching operational efficiency means more than just automating your company’s current processes, it means improving them.

Business process reengineering (BPR) seems easy enough on the surface; reduce costs, improve productivity and enjoy the benefits of larger margins. But in actuality, preparing for an ERP implementation can require a deeper analysis of a company’s current state, change impact and the anticipated ROI.

So what can companies do to get a start on increasing their efficiency and positioning themselves for growth? Below are five common areas of inefficiency that most companies experience. They will serve as a good start for your BPR journey.

1.      Manual Data Entry and Reporting

Manually entering data for reports not only takes unnecessary time, but it also puts companies at risk for several other organizational inefficiencies. Manually entered data is more likely to contain errors, acts as a road block to providing timely compliance reports and prevents organizations from diving deeper into business intelligence.

2.      Inaccurate Data

Poor data leads to poor decisions. When data is found to be inaccurate, a myriad of issues creating extra work and backtracking are sure to follow. Budgets and forecasts based on incorrect data severely skew a company’s view of their financial position and negatively impact the ability to make sound decisions. Not only does this result in lost capital, but it also can create a cultural issue of mistrust within the company.

3.      Data Silos

Data silos limit visibility of data between departments, cause duplicate work and reduce data integrity. This is a hard issue to fix as silos are not only a data structure, but an organizational mentality. If silos can be broken down, a company will realize a free flow of information between departments that eliminates duplicate work efforts, increased collaboration and team effort across departments.

4.      Ineffective Change Management

Organizational change management (OCM) directly affects cost savings and productivity levels, especially during ERP implementations. Without proper OCM, employees lack essential training competency and become wary of widespread changes. These doubts affect the work culture, employee motivation and overall productivity. This wariness can lead to less use of the newly implemented system and lower benefits realization.

5.      Poor Talent Management

It is common knowledge that staff turnover is costly. Not only does the time, money and effort that goes into recruiting new talent far exceed that to retain it, productivity and profitability is lost during transitional periods. Engaging in BPR can help improve recruiting methods and create meaningful interactions between leaders and employees. Interactions that inspire, motivate and most importantly retain talent will improve overall efficiency of an organization.

When attempting to improve efficiency by implementing a new ERP system, it is common for companies to gloss over BPR efforts. It is important to keep in mind the success of an ERP implementation hinges not just the technical aspects, but the people and process of your organization.