5 design and build a prototype of the new process

5. Design and build a prototype of the new process. Typically process design will evolve
after a number of iterations.
The redesign of the business process itself could follow the following steps:
1. Organize around results and outcomes, not around tasks and so combine several jobs into
one.
2. Make those who process information, use the information: workers make decisions.
3. Information-processing work should be subsumed into the real work that produces the
information, so that steps are performed in a natural order.
4. Treat geographically dispersed resources as if they were centralized.
5. Put decision points where the work is performed, and incorporate checks and controls into
the process (as such exogenous controls are reduced).
6. Capture information once and at the source (work is performed where it makes most
sense).

7. Do not forget that processes have multiple versions.
8. Appoint case managers who provide a single point of contact.
Notwithstanding the promises, 70% of BPR projects have been reported to fail. The reasons for
this
high failure rate are similar to those for any radical organizational change: lack of management
commitment, unrealistic scopes and expectations, and badly handled resistance to change. In
particular, an overemphasis on tactical aspects and neglect of the strategic considerations are
perceived as a major obstacle to success [King 1998]. Also, the effectiveness of a company-wide,
topdown
approach as described above is questioned. Instead, there are signs that bottom-up approaches
may be more successful. Business re-engineering proves to be successful starting with a small
experiment in an inconspicuous part of the organization [Caron 1994]. This approach offers the
organization the opportunity to learn from successes and failures, and to transfer this knowledge
to
larger projects in more complex parts of the organization. In this way an organizational memory
of
what succeeds and fails is built up [Caron 1994], which in the end can make business redesign
work
effectively. It general it is not the concept of BPR, which is considered as the reason for failure,
rather
then the way it is implemented [Teng 1994].

The concept of software as a service
Web services are very different from Web pages that also provide access to applications across
the
Internet and across organizational boundaries. Web pages are targeted at human users, whereas
Web
services are developed for access by other applications. Web services are about machine-to-
machine
communication, whereas Web pages are about human-to-machine communication. As
terminology is
often used very loosely it is easy to confuse someone by describing a “service” as a Web service
when
it is in fact not. Consequently, it is useful to examine first the concept of software as-a-service on
which Web services technology relies and then compare Web services with Web pages and
Webserver
functionality.

The concept of software-as-a-service is revolutionary and appeared first with the ASP
(Applications
Service Provider) software model. Application Service Providers are companies that package