UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2016/2017
EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF BUSINESS IN
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
BBIT 309 BUSINESS PROCESS RE-ENGINEERING
FULL TIME/PART TIME/DISTANCE LEARNING
DATE: AUGUST, 2017 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: Answer Question One & ANY OTHER TWO questions.
QUESTION ONE [30 MARKS]
a) Define business process redesign [2Marks]
b) Distinguish between the following;
i. Employing IT to automate work and using them to re-engineer business processes.
[3Marks]
ii. Revenue focussed BPR and Competitive advantage BPR [3Marks]
iii. Process improvement and BPR [3Marks]
c) Discuss the five goals of reengineering. [5Marks]
d) Briefly explain six factors that contribute to the failure of the BPR effort. [6Marks]
e) Traditionally, U.S organizations have looked to past performance and to historically close
competitors to gauge how they are doing and to set performance objectives. However, in a
global economy with continuously improving competitors, these insular and backwardlooking practices are increasingly inadequate. Benchmarking turns the focus outward toward
the “best in class”. Discuss the benefits of benchmarking. [8Marks]
QUESTION TWO [20 MARKS]
a) Describe “partnering” as it relates to BPR. Why is it described as a “middle ground”
between outsourcing and “pure” BPR? [6Marks]
b) Discuss each of the various cooperative strategies and their relationships. [9Marks]
c) Explain the architectural characteristics of a business process. [5Marks]
QUESTION THREE [20 MARKS]
a) Discuss the performance indicators of a business process. [6Marks]
b) A consolidated methodology was developed to provide a structured approach to facilitate
understanding of BPR. List and describe the five processes in the methodology
[8Marks]
c) Discuss the enabling role IT in the reengineering process. [6Marks]
QUESTION FOUR [20 MARKS]
a) Describe the three basic types of benchmarking. [6Marks]
b) According to many in the BPR field, reengineering should focus on processes and not be
limited to thinking about the organizations, after all organizations are only as effective as
their processes, discuss. [6Marks]
c) Describe the common total quality management mistakes that make it impossible for
organizations to achieve process quality improvement. [8Marks]
QUESTION FIVE [20 MARKS]
a) In today’s changing environments, organizational design must take into account the fact
that business processes are incomplete by nature and that they should be managed in such
a way that they do not restrain human intervention. Discuss [6Marks]
b) In order to restructure and improve processes in all functional areas in a corporation,
three alternative approaches are always suggested. List and describe the approaches
[6Marks]
c) The biggest benefit of synergy effects in a global business can only be obtained when all
different (sub) systems within the business are viewed as a system. Use systems
dynamics and BPR to explain this concept. [8Marks]
