Business Process Re-engineering

Business process re-engineering (BPR); (re-engineering) is an approach to modernize and restructure main business processes in organizations with the aim to improving effectiveness, efficiency, service performance (productivity), and quality of products and services, whilst reducing costs and effort, and exploiting the potentials of modern ICT. BPR requires profound reconsideration of functions and radical redesign. Motivators are a rapid reaction to market changes and responding quickly to changing customer needs.

Information Technology (IT), comprising all technical means for processing or transmitting information, can be considered as the basic. In this connection, information is often referred to as the basic "raw material" of a post-industrial society ("information society") where the processing of information and communication are integral parts of all business processes within the scope of the generation of productivity. Seen like this, the IT support of the realization of business processes, that are both time and know-how sensitive, are helping to trim down administration and to get closer to the public.
Strategically, business processes are all the more important when, as seen from today's (and from a future point of view), they contribute to the net product value increase. The importance of business processes for achieving the business goals of an organization also rates the supporting IT systems with a higher value in the corporate context. Therefore, efficiency and effectiveness of corporations and authorities are influenced by the pointed utilization of IT, in particular since requirements of supporting IT systems can be deviated from the business processes.