Business process reengineering admittedly doesn’t roll off the tongue, but it’s an important phrase for any business to have in its vocabulary. At its core, Business Process Reengineering (or BPR) is a redesign of business operations to streamline workflows and procedures. Its main goal is to improve business functionality, by using finances and resources efficiently, as well as generating new revenue streams.
In the digital age, a big part of BPR takes place in companies’ tech infrastructure—whether that be the software or products the company builds or the third-party tools teams use to carry out their work. Sound complicated? It doesn’t have to be—organizations are often more agile than they realize, and can successfully conduct BPR with new approaches like low code/no code software.
But first, you need to know the ins and outs of BPR, and how best to seamlessly make it happen. Here’s what our experts recommend.
The Principles of Business Process Reengineering
Business process reengineering principles center around rethinking the steps that enable companies to meet their goals. BPR typically focuses on the quality, cost, and speed of business processes then seeks to lower the amount spent at each stage, and eliminate obsolete factors.
How Does Low Code/No Code Fit in BPR?
Unlike business process improvement (BPI)—which implements only a few changes in business processes—BPR tends to see bigger, more impactful changes across the full spectrum of business processes. If BPI is the equivalent of fixing a broken hinge on a door, BPR would be reassessing the door’s opening mechanism altogether. BPR literally reinvents the wheel…but in a good way.
BPR is a significant undertaking. It likely involves multiple stakeholders, many brainstorming meetings, logistics planning, and a timeframe of months or even years. Not to mention, businesses first need to ensure that leadership and employees are on board with reengineering the processes. Once everyone is in agreement, the people managing BPR need to be empowered with their decisions or risk disrupting crucial day-to-day operations. It’s extremely advantageous then for companies to have tools that provide a complete picture of the BPR journey and facilitate its productivity; tools such as low code/no code environments.
Low code/no code refers to visual development platforms that enable organizations and technology teams to move, modify, and connect application components. Compared to building new systems from scratch or buying systems from vendors, low code/no code applications can be quickly integrated, and generally are lower cost than in-house developed systems.
What are the benefits of using low code/no code in BPR?
Some businesses fear that the scale of BPR doesn’t leave much room to customize elements. When reimagining processes companywide (especially at the enterprise level) paying attention to granular functions can be overwhelming. With low code/no code, however, companies can more easily tailor specific processes.
Low code/no code environments bridge the gaps between technology and business goals, shining a light on where the biggest improvements can be made and helping teams prioritize what they reengineer. Low code/no code is also about utilizing the smallest amount of code possible to create an organized, streamlined application that can still perform in a sophisticated way. The simplified nature means that teams can customize and experiment with more segments because they don’t have to navigate huge codebases and can implement more automated solutions that save time and money. In fact, a BPR process that takes a year or more could be trimmed down to a matter of months or even weeks with low code/no code.
With one efficient place to access and automate processes, teams can manage and make changes with greater confidence, and communicate those changes to other stakeholders with greater transparency. This efficiency increases the likelihood of teams achieving their desired outcomes and moving toward business process reengineering objectives.
What Needs to Happen Before Committing to BPR?
Before delving into BPR, teams must acknowledge that a process isn’t working or isn’t fully optimized. Ideally, they should be conducting a process evaluation to pinpoint how much value the process contributes to the business, what challenges they’re facing, and how those can be overcome. In particular, teams have to be clear on how changing the system will benefit the company, employees, customer value, and produce financial returns. There should be feedback about the possibility of BPR from people across roles. Managers can also factor in previous complaints from people about processes to confirm that the BPR is necessary.
Some stakeholders take an “it’s not broken, so don’t fix it” attitude which often causes issues. In this case, developers need to drill down at the evaluation stage and find concrete metrics to prove why the BPR makes sense. If there isn’t total buy-in for the BPR, there’ll be more friction in decisions that will slow down momentum and business impact.
How to Use Low Code/No Code to Transition into BPR
Because low code/no code environments don’t demand heavy amounts of coding, organizations should encourage stakeholders that aren’t necessarily engineers to get involved. With platforms like TrackVia, individuals can contribute to low code/no code environments in a straightforward way, whether they’re seasoned coders or not.
TrackVia users can build, configure, integrate, and deploy applications in just a few days, meaning BPR moves swiftly, and ROI can be realized at a faster pace.
Ready to start reengineering your business processes and outcomes? Request a free TrackVia demo and begin reengineering and revolutionizing your company prospects.
