What killed BPR?: some evidence from the literature

Abstract

Throughout the first half of the 1990's Business Process Reengineering (BPR) was one of the most eagerly embraced management techniques, although often with results that were far from satisfactory. This tended to reinforce peoples' suspicions of Information Technology since IT is a key enabling agent, if not the driver, for BPR. The aim of this study was to provide literary evidence and reasons for the current widespread dissatisfaction with BPR. Using the keyword Business Process Reengineering/Reengineering, a total of 2019 article abstracts was collected that spanned the period from January 1990 to December 1995 inclusive. The literature was analysed for 18 themes, 6 article types and 32 business areas, in addition to geographic origin, author origin, date, etc. The analysis showed that 97.8% of the BPR literature has been written since the beginning of 1993, since which time there has been an explosive growth in the number of publications. However, a recent sharp downturn in the number of articles may be a sign that BPR is maturing, if not reaching the end, of its useful life cycle. The almost complete absence of research articles to underpin BPR is a distinctive feature of the literature. Thus, opportunities for researchers, as well as hitherto untapped opportunities for consulting practitioners, are clearly identified The article concludes that, while BPR may not have suffered a sudden fatality, it is the victim of neglect in some critical areas of life support.