The impact of business process reengineering on the management of customer services: an empirical study among Nigerian banks

Abstract

Business process reengineering (BPR) is a fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary measures of performance such as cost, quality, speed and services (Al-Mashari and Zairi, 1999). However, the importance of BPR as a strategic management technique for managing customer services in the Nigerian banking industry can never be overemphasised. This paper investigates the effectiveness of the critical success factors (CSFs) of BPR on customer services (CS) in the Nigerian banking industry. The empirical study was conducted via the administration of 2,280 self-administered questionnaires to a randomly selected junior and senior staff of six, out of the 22 reengineered banks, post – 2004 consolidation exercise of the Central Bank of Nigeria. Using the framework from Khong and Richardson (2003), factors manifesting customer services were regressed on the CSFs, manifesting successful BPR. Findings based on the survey revealed that successful BPR can positively affect CS in Nigerian banks. Hence, successful BPR effort requires effective communication, commitment and support from the top management, appropriate job descriptions and allocation of responsibilities, recruitment of experienced consultants and adequate investment in IT infrastructure.