Business Process Reengineering (BPR):

The fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvement in critical contemporary measures of performance such as cost quality, service and speed.

It is a new management approach reflecting the practices, experiences of managers and providing a source of practical feedback to management science. It represents a response to: -

• Failure of business processes to meet customer needs and deliver customer satisfaction.
• The challenge to organizational politics.
• The gap between the strategic decision made in the boardroom and the day-to-day practice of the business.
• The disappointment following the application of information technology to businesses during the 1980’s. This resulted in failure of businesses because senior managers failed to align its strategy with corporate objectives.

BPR is not confined to manufacturing process and has been applied to a wide range of administrative and operational activities.