Business process portfolio selection in re-engineering projects

Abstract

Purpose – In today's societies, work environment and customers' expectations change on a daily manner. Consequently, it is crucial for companies to find a way for adapting themselves to new requirements. For this purpose, reengineering projects have been introduced and evolved in different companies with different responsibilities over the past decades. However, the risk associated with these projects is inevitable and is a huge obstacle on the way of their implementation. This study, in line with previous studies, contributed in this context by proposing a new methodology for selecting suitable processes and adopted best practices candidate for business process reengineering (BPR). The proposed methodology aims to achieve lower risk and higher probability of success for BPR projects. Design/methodology/approach – This objective is achieved by integration of the concept of portfolio selection problems (PSP) into the organizational decision making concerning BPR project. A model for selection of most appropriate reengineering scenarios, which is a combination of processes and best practices, is adopted and proposed. This model by putting additional constraints on risks associated with a BPR project and increasing its return identifies the most prosperous portfolio of scenarios for a reengineering project. The proposed model is tested step-by-step through a case study in order to validate its outcome and justify its practicality. Findings – In this paper, a new methodology is proposed containing a model as a managerial tool for conducting more successful reengineering projects. The applicability of the methodology is tested in one of the largest metallurgical laboratory and research centers of Iran. Four strategic processes were selected and several best practices customized, after screening all processes of the case study. Accordingly, in total, 15 different scenarios were explored for the reengineering project in which four of them identified by the model as the processes with the highest possibility of success through the BPR project. Originality/value – This methodology suggests a novel way to benefit from PSP for process selection problems by putting additional control on implementation risk of reengineering project. While the urge of using reengineering project exists within the current companies, the high level of risk of these projects is considered as a huge obstacle in conducting this project. This study, by proposing a new method, aims to address this issue as well as point to the practicality of integrating PSP model in organizational contexts.

Examining the Success and Failure Factors of Business Process Reengineering in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and North America: A Literature Review

“…Forty surveys were collected from BPR experts, and 15 business professionals with at least 5 years of management experience were interviewed. The purpose of the study was to gather data that would aid in the development of best practices for BPR to achieve lower risk and reduce failure rates [7]. In Kurdistan, a comprehensive analysis of BPR practices among small to medium industrial firms was done in an attempt to find best BPR methods to improve production and service in developing countries.…”

Applying clustering and classification data mining techniques for competitive and knowledge‐intensive processes improvement

“…There is a rigidity in gathering, updating, and accessing the process dataset in process improvement methods (Geffen & Niks, ). Furthermore, one of the most important problems in the process improvement methodologies refers to the process feature selection (Darmani & Hanafizadeh, ). In this regard, Zelt, Schmiedel, and vom Brocke () stated that previous process management approaches considered only a few characteristics to identify the behavior of processes.…”

“…There is a rigidity in gathering, updating, and accessing the process dataset in process improvement methods (Geffen & Niks, 2013). Furthermore, one of the most important problems in the process improvement methodologies refers to the process feature selection (Darmani & Hanafizadeh, 2013).…”

How to Exploit the Digitalization Potential of Business Processes

“…In response to this criticism, some researchers investigated how to structure the derivation of improvement ideas, e.g., by compiling process enhancement patterns or redesigning best-practices (Mansar and Reijers 2007;Recker and Rosemann 2014). Other authors investigated how to prioritize process improvement projects, e.g., via process assessment heat maps, adopting approaches from multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) (e.g., Analytical Hierarchy Process, AHP), or via decision models that valuate improvement projects in terms of their impact on process performance (Darmani and Hanafizadeh 2013;Linhart et al 2015;Mansar et al 2009;Ohlsson et al 2014). Further, Vanwersch et al (2016) proposed a framework that enables practitioners to generate process improvement ideas on their own.…”