Literature Discussion And Application Study In Business Process Reengineering

John Steinbeck, the well-known writer, once wrote, "As one ages, the resistance against changes, especially good changes, comes from the human nature." His words not only apply to humans but also corporations.Since 1990s, rapidly changing business environments such as information technology advancements, international economic integration, and global market competitions have brought companies many challenges and crises. Under such circumstances, most companies make efforts to retain their competency and keep abreast of market status through so-called business process reengineering (BRP). Nowadays, the advent of Internet and emerging information technology as enterprise resources planning, supply chain management, and customer relationship management have once again shaped a whole new competitive environment that companies have never faced before. How business performs BRP to regain their competitive advantages in such situations becomes the main issue of this research study.Our research method is based on literature discussion and case study. The case is selected from Electronic industry, which plays an important role in China's total production values. This focal company is leading in the industry and thus provides a benchmarking BPR practice. From case analysis, it is found that there exist two distinctive BPR waves in their BPR practice. BPR adoptions of the first wave and the second wave are further investigated with explanatory models being suggested.The contributions of this research are two -fold. First, we provide systematic analysis on BPR-related literature, which benefits following researchers on BPR studies. Second, we propose the company's BPR progression of the two waves by examining relevant BPR models in literature. This result can provide suggestions and directions to other semiconductor companies in preparing their BPR practice.