Strategies for reengineering for the Romanian firms.

Bretcu, Angela

1. INTRODUCTION

Reengineering is a radical method aiming at enhancing performances through the transformation of the company into a flexible, harmonious system, structured to serve its customers and not its internal needs. This method is addressed to the companies which put opportunities to good use, accept challenges and cope with competition, attempting to be better, more rapid and more efficient. As today's innovative companies, continually reacting to the changes in the economic environment, are obtaining excellent results, reengineering, which is an efficient modality of assimilating and applying the new, seems to be a viable solution for success on the competition market. The most correct definition of reengineering is given by Hammer M, the very man who invented the concept: "... the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of working processes, aiming at achieving a dramatic improvement of the modern performance criteria, such as cost, quality, services and speed"(1). Reengineering implies the redesign of the business processes in their entirety, as opposed to the redesign of the department created for them. Reengineering is exclusively focused on the redesign of a fundamental business process, immediately generating the appropriate organisational structure. It cannot be applied to people, but it can be applied to their activity, to the way they work. Reengineering essentially implies 4 aspects (2):

1. The change is fundamental, without premises and without certainties. Consequently, one can sometimes witness the occurrence of a feeling of uncertainty and ineffable, characteristic to the unknown, to the unexperimented. Through reengineering one ignores what is it known, what exists and the attention is focused on what one wishes to be;

2. The change is radical and definitive. It is not about minor, superficial changes, but one acts profoundly and dramatically. In fact, one rejects all that exists, all that is considered to be old and obsolete, searching for absolutely new variants for the activity performance;

3. The change supposes a spectacular leap. Reengineering means reinventing, not improving. It is a qualitative leap through performance, multiplying efficiency under the market conditions, through absolutely new processes and structures. The indicators obtained must reflect this, through high and steep values;

4. Orientation towards the process. This is the dominant feature, as it is the most difficult to understand. The process supposes several activities, within which the "input" consists in several types of resources, whereas the result, the "output" of this activity is a product, which represents the value to the customer.

The reengineering processes are conceived according to the specific features of each activity. It is not a standard process, unitarily applicable in any domain, as it takes into account the variants specific to the company applying it and to the respective domain.

Due to the great impact reengineering has upon certain companies and implicitly upon an economy, it can be taken into account when the economic crisis imposes the reconsideration and reassessment of the activity, even the reorganising of the entire economy. The countries with high economic potential, but with weak results, can use this method in order to recover their situation. It is similar to the shock therapy of the '90, however strictly applied to the economic domain.

At the private level, in order to perform a reengineering operation, a company must have a management with 3 distinct features:

* An accented availability to accept risk;

* A strong inclination towards change;

* A great self-confidence.

2. INFORMATION

* The original concept raised the problem of redesigning activities, starting from the "blank page" or "rethinking form zero" rule (3). This rule is natural if one keeps in mind the essence of the method--the fundamental change of processes.

The radical redesign of the company through reengineering results in several major changes triggered at its level. The most important refer to:

* The passage from functional departments to process teams: the human resource of the company naturally groups according to the process approached, in a new team that will replace the old structure, based on functional departments;

* The evolution of the employees from the status of mere subordinates to that of decision-makers: through reengineering they are invested with increased authority which motivates them and makes them more creative and more disciplined;

* The evaluation is based on results and not on the activity

carried on: it is performance that is important, rewarded and acknowledged;

* The transformation of managers from evaluators of results into leaders: it is probably the most spectacular transformation of bosses, as they get closer to real work, becoming flexible, creative, competent;

* The transformation of the values within the company. The employees become aware of the fact that they work for the customers, not for the hierarchically superior bodies; one witnesses the occurrence of an ethical behaviour and of a steady effort of continuos improvement.

The application of a reengineering operation means passing through six stages:

--Launching the reengineering action,

--Establishing the company's process map;

--Selecting the processes to be subjected to reengineering;

--Comprehending the process in place which will be subjected to reengineering;

--Redesigning the business process;

--Applying the reengineering project.

Most of the times one makes appeal to reengineering when:

* The company's organisational structure is bureaucratic and inefficient;

* The market share is far from the excellency criterion in the field;

* Quality is only a theoretical notion;

* Productiveness is reduced and performances are decreasing.

In Romania, reengineering is very little applied and even less understood. Although the condition of the economy imposes making some firm and radical decisions, most companies limit themselves to taking minor measures, which lack substance. Following a poll survey, the conclusion was that the attitude towards organisation changes varies according to the type of the company and the management level of each firm. As regards the former aspect, there are practically two great categories of companies: the small ones and the medium / large ones. As for the small companies, although they sense the stringent need to improve their financial performances and results, they do not accept reengineering. Thus, 67.8% of the leaders of these firms are not even aware of the concept or know it very vaguely and incorrectly, whereas 20%, although they know the concept, are not interested in reengineering , considering their companies sufficiently dynamic and flexible to adapt to the market. The remaining 12.2 % are truly interested in the concept, but with respect to the informatisation of the activity carried on. The medium and large companies are much more receptive to reengineering because:

* Some of them, grace to the strong growth of business, are aware of the need of a remodelling of processes, so that they can permanently adapt to the market, and the evolution continue to remain ascendant. The car industry, the building industry and the insurance businesses are the most dynamic on the Romanian maker, and the most receptive to this method;

* Many of the large companies sense a powerful competition, feel threatened and realise that the optimisation of processes is essential if they wish to preserve their market share;

* There are domains in which the acquisitions and mergers are rather frequent, and these situations involve, most of the times, reengineering.

The second criterion, involving the study of the change management, took into account two aspects: the conceptions of the company in its entirety (of its employees), and that of its managers. Following the polls applied to the employees, it was pointed out that most employees (78%) have a positive attitude towards reengineering, the rest hesitating to change their usual manner of activity, although changes are perceived as necessary. Among them, 89%, (the majority) consider that the initiative of this effort must start "from upstairs". In the research one started from the idea that the changes that would result grace to reengineering would represent a new step of the entire organisational culture, which would impose qualifications and requalification of employees. 64% of the respondents considered this fact natural and positive. The factors selected by the interviewed subjects as being essential in the transformations intended were, in a decreasing order, the following:

--Clear vision on the company's prospect on the market;

--Stimulation through rewards and application of sanctions for inadequate behaviour;

--Stimulation of creativity and development of the right to decision;

--Balance of obligations and rights, of responsibilities and motivation of employees.

The interviews with the managers pointed out the following aspects:

--The managers are not peremptory and radical, even when they chose to approach reengineering with seriousness;

--They do not understand exactly how much and what they should change at the level of the firm and they are confused when the orientation towards the processes is approached;

--They are persuaded that the application of the democratic principles will lead to lack of discipline and dysfunctionalities, being adepts of autocracy;

--They manifest strong interests in preserving the thing as they are;

--The refusal to accept new values, to eliminate obsolete rules and regulations.

3. CONCLUSION

The economic crisis we have witnessed in Romania since the end of 2008 and which has perturbed the economic and social balance requires the redesign of the existing processes. It is necessary that the Romanian companies pass to a new stage of reinventing the way they carry on their activity, reducing their fear and scepticism regarding reengineering. In this context it is necessary to:

1. Grant increased attention to the management of small companies, which are economically immature, through specific programmes;

2. Attract funds for the organisation of training sessions in view of adapting the managerial mentalities to the market changes;

3. Implement new informational technologies in the companies subjected to reengineering;

4. Disseminate the positive results through an efficient and tenacious mass-media

4. REFERENCES:

Bratianu, C. (2006). Management and marketing, Comunicare / Communication Publishing House, 978-973-711-092-3, Bucharest

Bretcu, A. & Costencu, M., (2008). Total quality or reengineering, Machine Design, University of Novi sad, 978-86-7892-105-6

Comanescu, M. (2008). Reengineering of the enterprises, T.E. 35/2008, ISSN 1453-7516

Stan, C.S. (2007). Reengineering--a new philosophy of management, Expert Publishing House, 978-973-618-113-9

Stanciu, I. (2002). Calitology, the science of merchandise quality, Oscar Print Publishing House, Bucharest, ISBN 973-8338-03-4