Introduction
Business establishments apply different strategies to attain a competitive advantage over competitors. Most such tactics, including business process reengineering (BPR), work by helping organizations polish internal operations to avoid mistakes and costly redundancies. BPR aids firms in realizing enhanced quality, output, cost-efficiency, and speed in product development and delivery. The plan begins from zero to refashion the complete prevailing process and decrease the cycle time. BPR’s execution follows a methodical and prescriptive slant to assess alternative edges of a central corporate process. Despite its significantly high reliability, error in implementing BPR causes substantial challenges to organizations, such as those experienced in St. Johns, often leading to their failures.
Strategic Problems at St. John’s
St. John’s Hospital is an 1894 facility focusing on delivering improved care to minorities through the adoption of fluent operations. The facility operated until the 2000s with significant success pending the merger with St. Agnes, a suburban hospice. The fusion led St. John’s to considerably altered operations, with the management aiming to improve issues, especially its revenue growth. However, things hardly progressed as initially planned as the firm faced noteworthy life-threatening concerns almost immediately. The amalgam’s total quality management structure seemed to cause problems among several leaders, including the central head, Mr. Ghosh, and the firm’s corporate counsel, Joe Alexander. Therefore, the counselor directed the entity to adopt BPR as a solution to the ongoing challenges comprising of declining profits, business losses, and spiraling costs. However, several problems arose during the reengineering process, causing even more damage to the merger. The following discussion features examples of such problems affecting the facility’s BPR process’s usefulness.
Wrong Objective Setting
St. John’s Hospital’s BPR process failure mainly results from the erroneous objective setting. Being a public facility relying on customer satisfaction to make money, the facility had no business focusing only on cost reduction without caring about the clients’ concerns. Unfortunately, Mr. Ghosh’s reaction to the struggles resulting from the merging progression made him blindly agree with Alexander’s suggestion to downsize the workforce and reduce expenditures on fundamental operations, directly affecting customers’ satisfaction. Fetais et al. (2022) define the considerate objective setting as the necessary facet for operational BPR endeavors. Consequently, going on the organizational transformation goal blindly costs St. John’s Hospital significantly, leading to the establishment’s increased woes.
Inadequate Knowledge
Business process reengineering involves significant knowledge application covering different aspects. Bhavsar et al. (2019) maintain the essence of a team’s clear understanding of why and where to implement the reengineering procedures for success. Fetais et al. (2022) reiterate the need for employees’ training on BPR implementation before the intervention’s application for businesses to thrive. However, St. John’s BPR adoption contradicts this fundamental facet. The organization acts reactively after an emergency executives’ meeting, where Alexander proposes BPR to the attendants, including Mr. Ghosh. The corporate counsel lacks knowledge in the matter, while the firm never takes several of its leaders and staff to train concerning BPR utilization. Inadequate knowledge ruins the hospital’s BPR process by making it even hard to set the appropriate objectives for the plan. Accordingly, St. John’s bases its implementation on misinformed processes, leading to absolute resource wastage.
Unsound Analysis and Lack of Support
St. John’s failure to establish and analyze the BPR process’s milestones beforehand costs it substantially. The organization plans reactively without examining all the underlying aspects. For example, the management hardly defines the information and data necessary for the product’s success. Similarly, the team is not precise on what to investigate and highlight for synchronized efforts and appropriate time utilization. Bayomy et al. (2020) say that organizations implementing BPR must embrace relevance while avoiding superficial knowledge. The group should be clearer on why a specific process is requisite more than how such is done (Nurfadhilah et al., 2021). Being devoted to the process and understanding how to prioritize time and procedures is equally important for BPR to function effectively. Another fundamental requirement involves ensuring that all decisions make the whole organization responsible, not only the appointed BPR team. St. John’s features a blatant lack of structural promptness for change, a lack of determination to move beyond the customary ways and comfort zone, and commitment and planning problems. Therefore, the organization’s employees remain skeptical and anxious about the BPR achievement and are never educated to acquire a better understanding, thus the failure.
Improvement Opportunities
Appropriate Definition of the Main Objective and Milestones
The BPR process is not a quick fix to organizational issues. Rather, the strategy involves intensive steps that parties intending to benefit must implement for success. Other than opting for BPR as a swift answer, Mr. Ghosh and the management team could take time to research the matter and delineate the hospital’s objectives first. Certainly, undertaking this step would show the team that the key issue is not cutting costs but increased efficiency and customer satisfaction. Moreover, proper milestone definition could help St. John’s link its woes to struggles related to mergers, such as integration challenges, instead of the cost issue. The facility operated successfully before 2000, when it amalgamated with St. Agnes, leading to various administrative issues. Examining the underlying concerns would aid Mr. Ghosh and the team develops appropriate objectives that do not sideline customers. Consequently, avoiding this mess would promote information gathering, cooperation, and determination necessary for the entity’s survival.
Analyzing and Setting Customer Needs with the Business Process
Related to the objectives and milestones definition is the issue of analyzing customer needs. Looking at St. John’s initial success shows affordability and effective customer care as the primary source of success for the firm. The hospital’s original focus is to deliver quality care to the minorities and neglected, making the have-nots most of the customers. St. John’s previously provided modest meals and customer-focused care to satisfy the patients, amounting to the cost-leadership strategy. However, the desire for more money, particularly after the amalgamation, erroneously shifts the hospital from customer orientation to cost control. Thus, the move forgoes St. John’s primary purpose and exposes the institution to noteworthy shocks. Moreover, the hospital ignorantly attempts a significantly complex endeavor immediately after the merger, when even the workforce hardly collaborates well. Therefore, St. John’s Hospital needs to take one aspect at a time to progress, other than acting out of stress. Appreciating customer satisfaction as the basic source of the facility’s previous success is necessary to correct the entity’s search for what it already has. The appreciation will instead lead the hospital to work on more pressing merger inadequacies.
Recommendations for Next Steps
St. John’s Hospital must make the painful decision to forego all the current BPR processes and focus fully on merger integration for continued existence. The facility’s worsening financial records, workforce rifts, and dwindling customer numbers are fundamental triggers of this powerful observation. Other critical steps to implement for the entity include dropping the consultancy firm helping it in the BPR implementation process and training staff, as discussed below.
Promoting Merger Integration
St John’s Hospital realized substantial success since its incorporation until the 2000s while acting alone. The firm won customer trust and loyalty through various interventions, leading to meaningful profitability. Accordingly, the desire to extend services to more customers led St. John’s to a partnership with St. Agnes, only for the management to lose focus even before settling basic integration concerns. The amalgamation plan saw various staff from the two hospitals assume different leadership positions under the TQM scheme. Misguidedly, the new organization never trained the staff on the new dealings and working together. The move violates Shah’s (2019) suggestion for an immediate integration process after union formations. Zhang et al. (2020) say that integration technically succeeds a merger, partnership, or acquisition, but that does not imply it should be an addendum. Consequently, St. John’s should rearrange everything and focus on the first things to succeed. Foregoing the integration aspect amounts to concentrating on the signs while forgetting the root cause.
Shading the consultant firm and training staff on the integration aspect from the other urgent steps for St. John’s. Second Chance Consulting Inc. appears inexperienced and money-focused. The hospital appoints this management consultancy agency to lead its BPR initiative but fails significantly to deliver. Second Chance Consulting Inc.’s selection is based on ignorance and costs the facility substantially. For example, the consultant works with the hospital without setting the appropriate objectives and milestones for the BPR process. Equally, supporting the BPR initiative when the client’s conditions worsen justifies the consultant’s dismissal and change of tactics.
Conclusion
BPR is a significantly effective transformation tool for organizations. The technique promotes efficiency, output, and quality while lowering costs. However, BPR involves the significant application of knowledge and information. Organizations adopting it reactively risk failing immensely, like the case of St. John’s Hospital. The healthcare facility struggles with integration challenges after partnering with St. Agnes but fails to realize it. Instead, the management erroneously opts to adopt BPR to reduce costs before acquiring the necessary information about the intervention, leading to failure.
References
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Zhang, F., Xiao, Q., Law, R., & Lee, S. (2020). Mergers and acquisitions in the hotel industry: A comprehensive review. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 91(1), 1024-38. Web.