Business Process Re-Engineering Projects Success Factors in United Arab Emirates' Public Organizations

• Published in: IEEE transactions on engineering management Vol. 71; pp. 1 - 18
• Main Authors: AlGumlasi, Hind, Awad, Mahmoud, Alzaatreh, Ayman
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.01.2024; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Business competition; Business process engineering; Business process re-engineering; Business process re-engineering (BPR); Business process reengineering; Developing countries; Economic development; Economic growth; Government; Government services; Investment; LDCs; Leadership; Mathematical models; Measurement; Organizations; Public sector; structural equation modeling (SEM); Success; United Arab Emirates (UAE) public organizations; United Arab Emirates
• ISSN: 0018-9391; 1558-0040
• DOI: 10.1109/TEM.2023.3339305

Public organizations are striving to achieve excellence in their performance and gain a competitive edge through process improvement. To date, organizations have been able to achieve significant results through Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) implementation. However, despite the reported success, many BPR projects in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) public sector fail to achieve their desired objectives. The objective of this study is to identify critical factors that contribute to the success of BPR in public organizations projects in the UAE. Additionally, this study seeks to provide recommendations for enhancing the success rate of the projects. Semistructured interviews were carried out with six subject matter experts (SMEs) in BPR to seek their feedback on BPR practices and challenges in the UAE. The SMEs input was used to develop a questionnaire aimed to investigate the BPR public organizations project success. In addition, the study collected and analyzed the responses from 119 professionals in UAE's BPR public organizations. Several statistical analysis techniques, including confirmatory factor analysis and partial least squares structural equation modeling, were used to analyze the data. The findings indicate that the success rate of BPR projects falls within the range of 60%-70%. Moreover, confirmatory model analysis suggests that process owners, performers, and information technology infrastructure are the most influential factors, especially for smaller-size organizations. The findings will provide valuable insights for decision makers seeking to improve the success rate of BPR projects in the UAE, specifically, by investing more in the influential factors. Such investment and the proper implementation of recommendations will enable them to achieve their quality and productivity goals while minimizing cost. While BPR is a well-established field, the body of knowledge that focuses on the UAE public organizations context is still insufficient. Many developing countries such as the UAE have an open and growing economy where service in general, and governmental services in specific, play a major role in their growth and development. This article sheds the light on the BPR projects in UAE public organizations which are unique in terms of culture and constituents. Additionally, this study offers practical recommendations to improve the implementations of BPR projects. Moreover, this study investigates the BPR in the UAE BPR by analyzing the factors that facilitate these projects (enablers), including leadership, strategy, infrastructure, and human resource. At the same time, it explores the methodology employed in these projects, including project identification, data collection, future state, and implementation. The majority of existing research primarily focuses either on enablers or the methodology employed.