Business process portfolio selection in re-engineering projects

Purpose – In today's societies, work environment and customers' expectations change on a daily manner. Consequently, it is crucial for companies to find a way for adapting themselves to new requirements. For this purpose, reengineering projects have been introduced and evolved in different companies with different responsibilities over the past decades. However, the risk associated with these projects is inevitable and is a huge obstacle on the way of their implementation. This study, in line with previous studies, contributed in this context by proposing a new methodology for selecting suitable processes and adopted best practices candidate for business process reengineering (BPR). The proposed methodology aims to achieve lower risk and higher probability of success for BPR projects. Design/methodology/approach – This objective is achieved by integration of the concept of portfolio selection problems (PSP) into the organizational decision making concerning BPR project. A model for selection of most appropriate reengineering scenarios, which is a combination of processes and best practices, is adopted and proposed. This model by putting additional constraints on risks associated with a BPR project and increasing its return identifies the most prosperous portfolio of scenarios for a reengineering project. The proposed model is tested step-by-step through a case study in order to validate its outcome and justify its practicality. Findings – In this paper, a new methodology is proposed containing a model as a managerial tool for conducting more successful reengineering projects. The applicability of the methodology is tested in one of the largest metallurgical laboratory and research centers of Iran. Four strategic processes were selected and several best practices customized, after screening all processes of the case study. Accordingly, in total, 15 different scenarios were explored for the reengineering project in which four of them identified by the model as the processes with the highest possibility of success through the BPR project. Originality/value – This methodology suggests a novel way to benefit from PSP for process selection problems by putting additional control on implementation risk of reengineering project. While the urge of using reengineering project exists within the current companies, the high level of risk of these projects is considered as a huge obstacle in conducting this project. This study, by proposing a new method, aims to address this issue as well as point to the practicality of integrating PSP model in organizational contexts.