BITS Seminar on ‘Business Process Re-engineering’

The Business & Information Technology Students’ Club‘s Seminar Society organized a seminar on ‘Business Process Re-engineering’ at the City Campus on Monday, April 25, 2005 for the students of MIS / CS programs. The idea behind the seminar was to clarify the concept of BPR in the minds of the students and to remove the prevalent misconceptions and confusion about re-engineering. ‘Re-engineering’ has become a hot buzzword in the industry these days; anyone who does anything to improve the state of affairs of an organization calls it RE-ENGINEERING without fully grasping and comprehending the notion of BPR.

BPR has been around for quite some time: a lot has been written about it in both practitioner trade press and academic research journals. However, the controversy still remains about the description and meaning of BPR; is BPR just a fad? An appealing label to tag on to whatever your company is doing to suggest that your work really matters.

Business Process Reengineering is formally defined as the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of processes to achieve dramatic improvements in cost, quality, service and speed. In the industry, people often jump to the conclusion that BPR is just the same as downsizing, restructuring, automation or any other philosophy used for change. Reliance on IT as a magic weapon to solve all problems is a huge mistake. In reality, IT is the enabler that allows organizations to do work in radically different ways. Hence, there is a daunting need for first defining the need for radical change and then carrying out the change in the correct manner. So how do we do it?

With these troubling questions in mind, the Seminar Society went on search for people who not only had deep theoretical knowledge of BPR but also had practical experience and sound expertise in the field. After due consideration, following people were invited as guest speakers to the seminar:

1. Mr. Arif Ayub – Chief Executive Officer, Softflux
2. Mr. Mohammed Imani – Senior Manager, Sidat Hyder Morshed Associates
3. Mr. Kashif Memon – National Consultant, United Nations
4. Mr. Furqan Qureshi – Vice President, Corporate Strategy & Marketing, Si3

Dr. Sayeed Ghani - Chairman CCS, who was chief guest on the occasion, gave the opening address and welcomed the students, faculty members, and guest speakers to the seminar. He outlined the vision for the seminar and talked about the need to understand and exercise BPR in its true spirit.

Mr. Arif Ayub spoke about the concept and idea of BPR and explained how the term had evolved over the last 50 years, how it is different from re-structuring and automation and why it is important far any organization to go for BPR.

Mr. Mohammed Imani gave his presentation on the practical issues encountered in going about BPR and the implications of this exercise, how and when BPR proves to be successful and how to minimize resistance to it.

Mr. Kashif Memon talked about the role of BPR in the agriculture sector and emphasized the need of technology as the ‘ENABLER’ of re-engineering. He especially pointed out that IT was not the only tool that facilitates BPR (as the general perception is) and that any technology could be employed for this purpose.

Last but not the least, Mr. Furqan Qureshi captivated the audience with his slick presentation and arresting style of speech. He spoke on ‘Application Systems and BPR Choice’ and explained how IT can be used effectively in bringing about root-level change.

Later, Dr. Arshad Siddiqi – Associate Chairman, CCS, delivered the word of thanks and appreciated the role of Seminar Society of BITS in arranging such seminars that provide students with a wonderful platform to interact with the industry people. In the end, in a simple ceremony, Dr. Sayeed Ghani gave away the plaques to the guest speakers.