Focus Bpr from Dell Inc.

Focus BPR from Dell Inc. In recent centuries, market conditions are changing all the time. Tens of thousands of enterprises are faced with severe challenges due to the increasingly fierce competition. The competition makes customers have more choices for commodities as well as higher requests to services. What should companies do for the sake of gaining a foothold and developing their own advantages? Most of them had already found the answer – business process reengineering. Business process reengineering, which also called BPR, is “the analysis and redesign of workflow within and between enterprises” (Baltzan and Phillips 30).

Companies will think over the existing process, redesign the process and then establish new process structures according to customers demand by using advanced manufacturing technology, information technology and modern management means, so as to realize great improvements. One of the BPR cases occurs at Dell Incorporated, one of the largest PC vendors in the world. Unlike the rival Compaq Computer Corporation, which uses a vast network of resellers, Dell sells all its systems directly to its customers (Zuckerman 18).

It recently redesigned its computers so that each computer consisting many of the same component parts. The company is able to minimize the inventories it hold in order to reduce the inventory cost. Stocking a few parts instead of large work makes Dell be able to respond quickly to the market condition, for example, emergence of new technology, change of customer demand and overall prices standard. Dell even wants to go further. The company had experienced a new factory in Austin, where the new plant would have nowhere to storage. We believe that if you don’t have any place for inventory, then you won’t have any inventory. ” Mr. Dell said (Zuckerman 22). Dell will not begin to produce a machine until it has received an order from customer. They do not have to bother to ponder what clients really need, because customers will tell them directly. When a customer places an order, the custom parts requested by the customer are automatically sent to the manufacturer for shipment (Business Process Reengineering). It can reduce the maintenance cost for inventory.

However, BPR could be a double-edged sword. If Dell only builds a machine when customers tell them to, it will take some time. While other computer manufacturers might have already sold several finished products during Dell’s producing period. It needs to weigh between the time value and the inventory cost. The success that Dell achieves owes to the understanding of business process reengineering. Corporations should monitor the existing system and break the traditional organization structure to reengineer so as to make great improvements in cost, quality and service.

Works Cited Baltzan, Paige and Amy Phillips. Business Driven Technology. Ed. Carrie Braun. 4th. Springfield: Missouri State University, 2010. Business Process Reengineering. 2008. <http://www. vectorstudy. com/management_theories/business_process_reengineering. htm>. Zuckerman, Laurence. Do Computers Lift Productivity? It’s Unclear, But Business Is Sold. 2 January 1997. 2 January 1997 ;http://www. nytimes. com/1997/01/02/business/do-computers-lift-productivity-it-s-unclear-but-business-is-sold. html? pagewanted=all;src=pm;.