Business process reengineering is not a particularly new term or methodology. In fact, it made its first appearance in an article in the 1990s, 20-some years ago.

This article was written by Michael Hammer, a computer science professor at MIT. Hammer defined business process reengineering as the act of recreating a core business process with the goal of improving product output, quality, or reducing costs.

What is business process reengineering? It's a company's approach to change: rethinking how technology could be used throughout their workflows to create new processes. Typically, this involves first analyzing these core workflows and identifying processes that are under-performing or inefficient and then finding technology solutions to better them.

Many companies—and some industries—still rely on paper for their core business processes and operations. But the “go paperless” revolution has brought on new technologies that are designed to overhaul the processes that have traditionally required paper documentation. Technology, like enterprise content management (ECM), has been a major motivator for companies to implement business process reengineering methodologies.

"Reengineering" in this case means radical change, not just minor adjustments to negligible issues in your workflows. This technology is meant to disrupt the way you’ve always done it when it comes to data capture, record storage, content and document management, and information exchange. How can electronic forms help you reengineer the core processes in your business?

To say the role and value of the finance department is continuously changing would be a gross understatement. When it comes to business process reengineering, finance is often the first place to start! Finance department processes are great candidates for automation. Automating finance processes can:

• increase efficiencies company-wide,
• create substantial cost-savings, and
• streamline your document management strategy.

That’s why finance leaders within your organization should be tasked with business process reengineering objectives to ensure that the department is consistently producing efficiencies. Here are three areas where updating through process reengineering in your finance department will make a significant impact.

It’s no secret that businesses in industries worldwide are in the middle of a seismic shift from paper to digital-centric ways of working. The transition hasn’t always been smooth. In fact, at times the waves of change have capsized businesses that were ill-prepared or were consumed by the transition from a paper-reliant process.

But paper has a way of clogging systems, and that’s what the digital shift has been working to eliminate. More specifically, paper forms have a way of piling up, slowing down operations, and becoming an obstacle to efficiencies.

Valuable information often sits in these paper forms even though they are a primary method of collecting, organizing, and actioning the critical data required for effective business operation. That’s why it’s essential to handle the transition from paper-based forms to electronic forms properly, so as not to completely disrupt your core business processes.

We’ve been talking a lot about business process reengineering because it’s an important methodology that companies are undertaking. But you’re probably wondering where to start in your own organization. How do you eat an elephant?

Well, in the case of business process reengineering, it’s the most important parts first. Business process reengineering encourages comprehensive changes tied to core business processes and workflows, as compared to slowly taking bites out of sub-processes. But you can be “disruptive” and strategic at the same time.