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Abstract ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ............. 3

Introduction ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ...... 3
Findings ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ............. 3
Different perceptions ................................ ................................ ................................ ..................... 3
Reasons of negative perceptions................................ ................................ ................................ .... 4
Role of team leaders ................................ ................................ ................................ ...................... 5
Reward systems ................................ ................................ ................................ ......................... 5
Empowerment ................................ ................................ ................................ ........................... 5
Training and education ................................ ................................ ................................ .............. 6
Preparing organisation for change ................................ ................................ ............................. 6
Creating and effective organisational culture ................................ ................................ ............. 6
Effective Communication ................................ ................................ ................................ ............... 6
Conclusion ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ......... 7
References................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ......... 8

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HIT342 Information Systems Management Ali Kansso
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Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) has become a popular topic for discussion among
managers and business and IT specialists. After its initial enthusiastic reception in the early
1990s, severe doubts and concerns have begun to arise [

.The purpose of this
investigation report is to investigate the different perceptions of Business Process
reengineering by employees and how can these perceptions affect the implementation of
Business Process Reengineering, and how the perception of BPR c an help achieving it in
some cases and how they can be a barrier for it in some other cases. Also the report will
investigate the role of leaders and managers in changing these perceptions and how
communication within the business or corporation , between leaders and employees, can
affect these perceptions and can drive them to help the achievement of BPR.

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The term Business Process Re-engineering was first used and in the early 1990͛s to describe
the process of the revolutionary, radical change that aims to improve organizational
performance and business process through transformation. BPR aims for a better
organizational structure, promoting the development of empowered workers who are
encouraged to use IT in completely new ways to carry out business processes and
operations [

   After its initial introduce in the early 1990͛s, BPR
started to rise many issues and concerns surrounding it, especially that there is a high risk of
failure involved in BPR. One of the biggest concerns about BPR is employee perception
which is considered one of the biggest barriers of BPR implementation, and one of the
reasons of failure of BPR.

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Employee perception of BPR is one of the main issues and concerns about BPR, although it is not
usually mentioned as an issue by itself and many authors implicitly assumes that the employees
perceive BPR in a positive way and understand what process-orientation is about, whereas it is a big
mistake to take employee perception for granted and underestimate its influence on BPR[




 

An interview with managers from different departments in one of the big German pharmaceutical
and electronics companies showed that there are lots of differences in BPR perceptions between top
management and IS departments on one hand and research and development departments (R&D)

15 Oct 2010
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HIT342 Information Systems Management Ali Kansso

187994c

why employees might have negative perceptions where opa

ueness of decision making, particularly
when redundancy is involved, leads people to distrust and then resist change [ 
Resistance to change is a very common barrier to BPR, and it usually appear because employees
hate to change what they used to do, and they like mastering their tasks through repetition, and any
changes that might happens to way they perform these tasks it is going to be faced with resistance
and negative perception, unless the employees are provided with adeuate briefing, information,
training and support about their new tasks and the way these tasks will be performed.

When talking about negative perception and resistance to change, it is very important to mention
that there is three types of resistance that management usually distinguish between them, those
three types are:

Internal individual resistance: describes the resistance of one person in the organisation and not
accepting the proect contents and/or management [
 

Internal group resistance: formally of informally organised, these groups are usually more effective
than individual [
 

External resistance: it is the resistance of people outside the organisation like customers, suppliers
or public, when the proect interferes with their interests [
 

Managers define four most common reasons for resistance which includes: desire not to lose
something of value, misunderstanding of the change its conseuences, believe that change in the
organisation is without a value and low tolerance for change [
 

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A management that relies on all human- and social-related changes and cultural adustment
techni ues is very important and crucial to facilitate the implementation of BPR and the insertion of
the new practices, processes and techni ues and to deal effectively with employee resistance to
BPR. The role of team leader can be summarised as the implementation of a good reward systems,
effective communication, empowerment, people involvement and participation, training and
education, creating a culture for change and stimulating receptivity of the organisation to change
[ !
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Staff motivation is very important during the insertion of new processes, since it is very reasonable
to consider that introducing new processes means introducing new obs and tasks to be performed,
this means that the existing reward systems are no longer suitable for the new work environment,
and there is a need for a new fair and encouraging system that helps reducing resistance among
employees [ !
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Empowerment also is one of the many important factors that managers needs to provide for their
employees in order to allow them to be more involved in BPR implementation and in decision

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making process, and be an effective player in this process instead of being an inert part of it that
receives orders and perform them without understanding the logic behind theseorders, and this will
have a significant impact on employee perception of BPR, where employees will start to see BPR
from a different point of view; a point of view of an effective actor in the process that have power to
decide not only receive orders from top level management.

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Many researchers consider training and education as a crucial role of team leaders, that helps
achieving BPR and reducing negative perception and resistance to BPR, since resistance usually
arises from the feeling of being uncomfortable with the new process and techni ues, it is very
imperative to give the employees all the necessary training and support about the new tasks that
needs to be performed and how exactly it should be performed, which will eliminate all uncertainty
and uncomfortable feelings about the new tasks. Researchers showed that it is very important for
any organisation undertaking BPR to raise its training and education budget by 30-50 percent [
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Another important factor that helps reducing resistance to change, is the preparing the organisation
to respond to BPR-related change. When people are well prepared to change, they remain positive
during uncertainty, focused, flexible, organised and pro-active [ !
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usually reuires direct one-to-one and one-to-many interactions to highlight the influencers of
individuals and groups inside and outside the organisation.


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Organisational culture affects organisational and individual ability to adapt to change. Since BPR is
defined as the fundamental, drastic, dramatic change, then it very obvious that the current
organisational culture will be no more suitable with the changes and process in place, and here arise
the need to change and to adapt the organisational culture with the new implemented processes.
These changes include new values, new management processes, new communication styles and
techni ues, new goals and aims, etc... The new culture of the organisation will consist of teamwork,
integration of labour, co-operation, co-ordination, empowerment of employees, trust and honesty
among team members and this will help the organisation achieve the BPR and eliminate all
resistance to the new processes [ !
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Communication constitutes a high concern for management today, in regards to BPR success. It is
suggested that over-communication is always better that the lack of, in other words the more you
communicate the more the employees will understand what is happening in the organisation and
the more you communicate the more likely the employees will feel comfortable with the new
process in place, and the better you train you people to use feedback system, then the better and
the smoother will be the business performance [ "
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People in all departments of the organisation must understand their roles in the process and
understand how the error-free performance can be accomplished, and that cannot be done without


15 Oct 2010
HIT342 Information Systems Management Ali Kansso
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effective communication. Employee perceptions rely directly on the degree of communication

within the organisation and on the integrity and trust which has been built up in the relationships
[ "
$ %&&&.The better you communicate with the employees in an informal way, the more
trust you will gain, and the more you get trust by employees the less resistance you will face during
BPR implementation, and that͛s because good communication makes people feel more integrated
and more important in inside the process, as mentioned by the production operator of Electrolux of
Brazil:

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BPR is a very vital proect that helps organisation improves its process and operations. Since its first
introduction in the early 1990͛s BPR gained a lot of attention from audiences, and there was many
issues surrounding it, and one of the main issues was employee perceptions.

Negative employee perceptions can ruin the whole proect or lead to catastrophic conseuence, and
put in the same boat with those 70-80  failure cases.

Good leadership and good communication with employees are the best weapons against negative
perceptions. Committed and strong leadership is considered as the most important factor to reduce
bad employee perception and resistance to change. Leadership has to be effective, strong, visible
and creative thinking and understanding in the aim of creating a better and clearer future vision,
where this vision of the future has to be communicated to employees, so that they become more
involved in decision making and more involved, instead of being an inert receptor in the process.


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HIT342 Information Systems Management Ali Kansso
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  c

c AL-MASHARI, M. & ZAIRI, M. 1999. BPR implementation process: an analysis of key success
and failure factors. B
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 5 87-112.

c BELMIRO, T. R., GARDINER, P. D., SIMMONS, J. E. L., SANTOS, F. C. A. & RENTES, A. F. 2000.
Corporate communications within a BPR context. B
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 6
286-303.

c BRYANT, A. 1998. Beyond BPR ʹ confronting the organizational legacy.


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 36 25-30.

c EVANS, R. 1994. The Human Side of Business Process Re-engineering.


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c# c7 10-12.

c KRCMAR, D. H. & SCHWARZER, D. B. 1994. B#c

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cB#c[Online]. Available:
http://www.winfobase.de/lehrstuhl/publikat.nsf/ec56a0adbefeb629c12576af002bb529/e5a
9421b07a29b11412566500029c4bc/$FILE/AP20065.pdf [Accessed 14 Oct 2010].

c SAYER, K. & HARVEY, L. 1997 Empowerment in business process reengineering: an

ethnographic study of implementation discourses. International Conference on Information
Systems, Proceedings of the eighteenth international conference on Information systems

c SCHUMACHER, W. D. 1996.

cB  ccB
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cc[Online].
BPR online learning center. Available: http://www.prosci.com/w_3.htm [Accessed 14 Oct
2010].


15 Oct 2010