Apoptosis criteria applied to management

The core emphasis of Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business process to achieve dramatic improvements in critical areas. The implementation process is complex, and needs to be checked against several success/failure factors to ensure successful implementation. Abnormal processes or, in biological terms, a Necrosis can arise and contaminate the rest of the organisation, producing all kind of reactions such as refusal, lack of motivation, loss of credibility, financial breakdown, etc., resulting in an abnormal breakdown or business death. This paper describes a reengineering experience in healthcare sector, proposes a new perspective to focus BPR and introduces Apoptosis criteria as a set of virtual tools to prevent an abnormal breakdown, saving the business self-sacrificing part of the organisation when necessary. An apoptotic process can be defined as the programmed death of a part of the organisation to improve the whole.