Exploring the success of information technology enabled business process reengineering

In the face of intense competition and economic pressures, corporations are shifting their fundamental unit of analysis from the business function to the business process. Business process reengineering (BPR) involves the radical change of age-old processes in the quest for significant improvement in performance. Information technologies are important enablers of this change. Results of an exploratory study of 59 executives are presented in an attempt to examine two basic questions: (1) are corporations undertaking IT-enabled BPR projects perceived to be successful, and (2) can the success be explained by an integration of IS with strategy. The claim tested in this paper is that any radical change must be directed from the top of the organization to be successful. The results provide early optimism for this growing phenomenon, indicating that this is indeed true for most major IT-enabled BPR efforts