ASSESSING THE EFFECT OF BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE: A CASE STUDY OF BUREAU OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (BoFED), OROMIA REGIONAL STATE, ETHIOPIA

ABSTRACTOrganizational processes today are markedly different than they were 100 years ago. Processes are what organizations do. When processes become old and inefficient and can't deliver results that they were originally designed to, they can't cope up the business dynamics in the environment in which they operate, they must be redesigned or replaced. Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is a process-based management tool that can deliver, redesign or replace inefficient processes, as required, with a breakthrough results. As such it can be applied to a single process, a group of processes, or the entire processes comprising the organization. The purpose of this study is to assess the effect of BPR on organizational performance of Bureau of Finance and Economic Development(BoFED).The data for this current study were obtained from primary source that was analyzed . In the study, both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods were employed. The instrument used to gather data for quantitative study was Likert scale questionnaire whereas for qualitative was used observation and interview. Major findings were customers of BoFED satisfied with speed of service delivery, quality of service, cycle time. However in the bureau still there is no strong base line performance evaluation system, employees have not given any benefits regarding salary increment, compensation, promotion and empowerment up to this moment. Based on the finding of the study the paper concludes that business process reengineering has become useful weapon for any organization that is seeking for improvement in their current organizational performance and intends to achieve organizational objective. It recommends that reengineering process remains effective tool for organizations striving to operate effectively and efficiently.Keywords: Business Process Reengineering, Organizational Performance, Processes.INTRODUCTION:Organizational processes today are markedly different than they were 100 years ago. It has been estimated that a century before about nine out of ten workers produced and moved tangible, material things. In the mid-1990s this ratio was down to one out of five. The other four out of five workers currently produce and deliver intangible products such as information and services (Drucker, 1993). In today's service dominating world the foundations of any organization are the people and the processes. If people are motivated and working hard, but the business processes are not good and remain as non-value-adding activities , organizational performance will be poor (Peter & Sohal, 1999). As Lindet, (1994) stated that all organizations, whether service giving or manufacturing, are struggling to meet the tough and new competitive standards of the 1900s speed, quality, efficiency and increased productivity in order to become more competitive, and flexible to meet the desired standard.In order to create a dramatic increase in efficiency, productivity, or profitability, a drastic change in the design of the organization's processes is required. That is why Graham says reengineering is a useful tool that has been adopted by and hailed as one of the current major drivers of change within many organizations (Graham, 2010). Business Process Reengineering is playing a vital role in the enhancement of productivity and efficiency of many organizations. A crowd of interrelated tasks that creates value is called a business process (Habib & Wazir, 2012).Reengineering primary goals aimed at to reduce wastage, improve efficiency and ultimately reduce costs (Lotfollah et al., 2012). And an increase in consumer requirements for both product and service efficiency and effectiveness has resulted in Business Process Reengineering (Al-Mashir et al., 2001). Reengineering also helps organizations to throw away their old fashioned processes to achieve new heights of success (Jemal et al., 2011).Hammer and Champy, (1993) also stated that BPR focuses on processes and not on tasks, jobs or people. …