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ABSTRACT
The objective of this article is to analyse the implementation of BPR in e-commerce platforms by
measuring the level of customer satisfaction. The issues tested involve: how customers perceive the
BPR objectives in e-commerce platforms; time used for diverse transactions before and after BPR;
awareness and usage of BPR services provided by e-commerce platforms; satisfaction about the
e-commerce platform services after BPR; BPR impact on customers, employees and e-commerce
platform performance; advantages of BPR in e-commerce platforms and; difficulties faced by
the customers after BPR in the e-commerce platform. Primary data was used through a survey
questionnaire on a random sample of 402 student customers of Taobao and JD.com. The results found
that time saving is significantly positive on implementation of BPR; following customers perceived a
better quality of customer service. The sample student customers perceived that the BPR has a greater
impact on customers than on employees, as well as on the performance of a platform.
Keywords
Business Process Re-Engineering (BPR), Customer Satisfaction, E-Commerce Platform, Taobao/JD.com,
WeChat/Alipay
1. INTRODUCTION
E-commerce companies are constantly striving to reduce their operational costs while continually
developing their performance. In online shopping, customer support and price structure are the two
major service quality factors that influence customer satisfaction (Ingy & Hazem, 2016). Therefore,
the purpose of this is not only to decrease their costs, but also to satisfy the needs of their existing
customers and attract new customers with the implementation of increasing numbers of management
strategies. Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) is one of the ways in which e-commerce companies
such as Taobao/JD.com can achieve this objective in a way that better supports the organisation’s
goals and potentially reduces operational costs. In e-commerce retailing, website satisfaction and
wasted time affect the purchase intentions of customers (Gudigantala, Pelin, & Eom, 2016). BPR is
DOI: 10.4018/JECO.2018100103
Copyright © 2018, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
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the fundamental and radical redesign of organisations within or between enterprises in a customer-
oriented way.
Thus, BPR is a mechanism of reorganising a company’s method of management, as well as its
internal and external organisational strategies. Jacalyn & James (1996) argued that BPR emphasises
the reorganisation of how tasks should be completed, rather than focusing on getting quick results.
BPR is a transformation towards the creation of value, and may help to improve business processes
in order to innovate or create new products (Zigiaris, 2000).
However, BPR is a key form of intervention strategy which can achieve the objective of attracting
new customers by improving the innovation capacity of an organisation, and the introduction of BPR
into innovation strategy could reduce the operating costs of a company. In this situation, information
technology (IT) plays a vital role in BPR activities in order to put more focus on customer satisfaction.
Expanding IT supports re-engineering strategies (Chen, 2001). The improvement of IT infrastructure
is more significant in e-business implementation drivers, while the CEO’s experience, implementation
costs and competitive force do not play a vital role in e-business implementation decisions (Prodromos
& Dimitrios, 2016). The purpose of BPR is to try to increase levels of customer satisfaction and make
the creation of innovative products more efficient.
Customer satisfaction (CS) is defined as being when the consumer or user agrees or is contented
with the efficacy of the products or services provided by an organisation, and when expectations are
fulfilled. It can also be when the product or service that meets customer needs, in terms of factors
such as quality, suitable pricing, and the life of the product, is gratifying, and furthermore creates
trust between a company and its customers. Therefore, brand loyalty (BL) can be defined as when the
customer is satisfied and thus becomes familiar with the brand. Beard R (2015), points out that CS
is a business term that elaborates on the degree of how products or services offered by an enterprise
meet or exceed a customer’s needs. Businesses that do not pay attention to CS will always fail in the
market segment. The crucial issue here is how companies can satisfy their customers and gain the
benefit of loyalty for their products or services in return.
This paper aims to analyse the challenges faced by businesses in the e-commerce market and
customers through the influence of BPR. It can help firms to reorganise or redesign their products or
services in order to attract more customers by meeting their needs. The results will help companies
to make the right choice in their management business strategy to deal with their competitors.
In order to find literature to support this research, documents were gathered from the internet
and pertinent information was gained by reading relevant manuals. Since the emphasis of this paper
is on BPR and customer satisfaction, materials related specifically to business were evaluated. The
literature focuses on meaningful business management tactics of re-engineering among organisations
and vital assets of business ventures. The structure of the paper is as following: introduction which
discuss the scope of the study, literature review which argues the existing study related to the study,
methodology which define the approach of the study, results and analysis which show the findings
from the experiment, discussion which interpret the results, implication and conclusion which discuss
the recommendation to the future organization.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
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Attaran (2000) expanded the major barriers described above from five to eight, and explained
the contrast between success and failure as not depending on company size or capital, but on suitable
programmes and the prevention of difficulties. The three supplementary major barriers are the
absence of adaptability, in terms of existing inflexible orientation of the customer; the absence of
organisational communication, to discourage managers from ignoring their responsibilities and; lack
of success to test the process, to comprehend the impact of process innovation. Burns & Bush (2010)
argued that understanding CS levels also has numerous advantages for organisations, by developing
collaboration between parties through approval of bilateral agreements, determining improvements
towards their objectives, and controlling effective findings and reforms within business undertakings.
With the above factors in mind, Al-Mashari & Zairi (1999) identified BPR implementation
as complicated and that it needed to be tested across different success and failure components
to ensure successful implementation. In their study of both hard and soft components that bring
success and failure of BPR achievement, they recognised five types: management culture and
change, management support and capability, organisational architecture, programme planning and
management, and IT infrastructure.
The introduction of BPR initiatives into e-commerce platforms is a new concept, and more
organisations have been engaged in BPR programmes to fundamentally and radically innovate their
business processes. However, most of the companies have not achieved the expected objectives of
BPR. In light of this, a number of scholars have undertaken studies about BPR for both public and
private organisations (Satyanarayana and Kavitha 2007, Nadeem and Ahmad 2016). This paper
shows the impact of BPR initiatives on customer satisfaction rates for e-commerce platforms and the
problems companies face through its implementation.
Despite the fact that increased use of BPR in different organisations improved performance, not
all companies finished the pledges of BPR. This is also the case for e-commerce platforms. Hence
studying the implementation of BPR components in the case of Taobao and Jing Dong, which are
regional e-commerce platforms in China, in order to satisfy the needs of their customers. E-commerce
is a business dealing with the purchase or trade of goods online, which are the main services provided
by Taobao and Jing Dong.
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platform. A combination of CECS and BPR will act to create a fresh demand and service platform
across the IT strategy. The objective is to increase the performance of e-commerce platforms in
crucial business areas.
Re-engineering initiatives have cultivated an extensive breadth of results. Some companies
attained wide cost reductions, greater profits, improved quality and productivity, had quicker response
to the market, and great customer service (Attaran & Attaran, 2004). The concept of re-engineering
addresses numerous arguments, particularly in its relationship to reorganisation. The common concept
of re-engineering requires that companies perform re-thinking and radical redesign of organisational
processes, thus great developments can be realised due to demand of critical capacity of effectiveness
among quality, services, and costs. The e-service quality factor has a significant impact on customer
satisfaction and use of e-payment, which means that the best quality of e-service has the force to build
up satisfaction levels and consequently more use of e-payment (Ayo, Oni, Adewoye, & Eweoya, 2016).
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Quantitative approach was used to collect and analyse the data of the study. The purpose of the
quantitative method is to describe an experience from a numerical and statistical viewpoint. The
quantitative method of study uses mathematical models based on describing experience (Aliaga &
Gunderson B, 2000). The paper-based survey questionnaire was conducted to elicit the participants’
views on BPR implementation in e-commerce platform awareness and usage. A questionnaire with
closed ended questions ranging from yes to no, never to most often, and satisfied to unsatisfied was
distributed. This questionnaire was explored and tested for reliability and validity and has a result
in Cronbach’s alpha of .818. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the participants’ feedbacks
using EXCEL version 10.
3.1. Participants
As Taobao and JD.com is the largest e-commerce companies in China mainland they have been taken
as framework of the study. Data for the study was collected from 402 student customers of Taobao
and JD.com in three big Chinese universities: University of Science and Technology Beijing, Wuhan
University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. This is the number of respondents taken from the
total number of students to serve as a representation of all students for the purposes of this research.
Random sampling was used to select the respondents of the study.
3.2. Procedure
Assistance in this study was voluntary. All participants were invited for the meeting about the study
by informing them within their universities. After they had met about the objective of the survey,
questionnaires were distributed to 430 student customers. All the questionnaires were numbered to
classify the respondents who are more aware of and use Taobao/JD.com platforms more than their
classmates. A total of 430 questionnaires were completed by participants for this study, and a total
of 402 were recovered, this represents a 93% confidence level. 28 (7%) questionnaires were rejected
because of incomplete responses from the respondents. This research took five months from January
to May 2017.
4.1. Survey
The average age of the participants was 25 years old with an age range of 19 to 37 and males were
253(62.94%) and females were 149 (37.06%). 195 (48.5%) respondents had a bachelor’s degree, 112
(27.9%) had a master’s degree, and 95 (23.6%) respondents had a Ph.D. With regard to origin, 255
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(63.4%) of the respondents were local student customers, that is, Chinese students, and 147 (36.6%) of
the respondents were foreign student customers from different countries. On average, each respondent
had two years of experience shopping online with e-commerce platforms.
4.3. Time Wasted for E-Commerce Platform Transactions Before and After BPR
Amongst the significant aims of BPR for online shopping is to decrease the time taken for diverse
kinds of operations while serving consumers. It is commonly expected that BPR will result in faster
operations, which will in turn somewhat decrease the time taken for accomplishing e-commerce
platform transactions. To comprehend the amount of time taken for diverse operations before and
after BPR, an experiment is made here. The average time taken for different e-commerce platform
transactions before and after BPR is given in Table 2.
Table 2 shows the time taken on the e-commerce platforms operations or activities before and
after BPR during our experiment and thus calculated the time saving between the two different time
of operations. Therefore, it is clear from the above table that almost all operations were carried out
in less time after BPR.
4.4. Customers’ Levels of Perception and Usage of Taobao and Jing Dong
The advantages of BPR initiatives for e-commerce platforms might influence customers, whether
or not they are familiar with these services. Additionally, the usage rate for customers who are
familiar with the services also illustrates the BPR effectiveness within e-commerce companies. An
Frequency Percent
Yes 395 98.26
No 7 1.74
Total 402 100
Table 2. Average time taken for e-commerce operations before and after BPR (customers’ viewpoints)
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experiment is made here to understand the number of customers who are familiar with the services of
e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and Jing Dong and also measure of the usage of these services.
The percentage numeric value of customers who are familiar and those who use these services are
indicated in Table 3.
Table 3 shows that, out of 402 respondents of the study, the average percentage of awareness of
e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and JD.com is high, at 78.30%, while the average percentage
of customers utilising these services is comparatively low at 51.30%. 32.69% of participants who
are familiar with the services are using them. The maximum level of awareness is determined in the
case of demand invoice orders, WeChat and Alipay debit, and funds transfer.
It is important to note that “language used” in e-commerce platforms and the customer service
provided for purchasing goods and selecting substitute products, and information such as detailed
information, logistics, foreign buying and virtual trust, has the lowest percentage of awareness
amongst participants.
No. Variables Taobao and JD.com Awareness Frequency Percent Usage Frequency Percent
1 Demand invoice pay orders 100 24.88 82 20.40
2 WeChat and Alipay/debit facilities 99 24.63 84 20.90
3 Funds transfer 94 23.38 80 19.90
4 Anyplace Taobao and JD 86 21.39 74 18.41
5 Foreign purchases 77 19.15 44 10.95
6 Language used 35 8.71 14 3.48
7 Virtual trust 76 18.91 48 11.94
8 Pricing 75 18.66 42 10.45
9 Logistics 79 19.65 45 11.19
10 Detailed goods information 62 15.42 18 4.48
Total 783 194.78 513 132.09
Awareness and usage average 78.30 19.48 51.30 13.21
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in e-commerce platforms. For this objective, the participants were asked to determine the issues
and rank them in order of their priority. The weighted scores and the ranks are displayed in Table 7.
Table 7 shows that “increase in operations charge” is ranked as the biggest problem, followed
by “enhancement of inactive customers”, “product security”, “increase in fake products” and
other problems.
5. DISCUSSIONS
From these results, it can be summarised that customers observed such: “time saving (22.23%)”, “faster
operations (14.50%)” and “better quality customer service (12%)”, to be the three primary objectives
of BPR in e-commerce platforms. It is found that most of the student customers (98.26%) aware
Taobao and JD.com, and that there is no significant correlation between the number of customers to
visit Taobao and JD.com and the educational qualifications and income of the respondents.
It can be summarised that BPR has resulted in rapid operations, which therefore saves time for
the respondents while making transactions online. The greatest level of satisfaction is observed in the
case of WeChat and Alipay debit software services. It can be perceived that there is a greater impact
on customers rather than employees or e-commerce platform performance.
Therefore, it can be concluded that customers are satisfied with BPR implementation within
e-commerce organisations. It can be observed that most of the respondents indicated that “time
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saving” is the most crucial advantage provided by BPR initiatives. One of the biggest issues of BPR
is declared as “increased operations charges” for e-commerce services.
6. IMPLICATIONS
Attempts should be made to generate arrangements with regular suppliers and minimise disruption
to machines to avoid difficulty for both employees and customers. WeChat/Alipay debit software
facilities are used generally by customers, and the process for WeChat/Alipay should be re-engineered
so that the withdrawal of cash using this service is faster in order to reduce time for customers.
A customer discontent cell should be situated at every branch so as to enable customers to voice
their complaints and solve their issues. Management should regularly take the feedback of employees
and customers in order to identify the main issues faced by the major stakeholders. As the research
exposes that customers’ perceptions of BPR initiatives is minor, attempts should be made to improve
perceptions among customers. From the analysis it can be seen that most customers are not informed
about this subject.
In general, there was an important positive impact on customers due to BPR in e-commerce
platforms such as Taobao and JD.com.
7. CONCLUSION
The results indicate the effectiveness of BPR projects within these organisations and its positive impact
on customers, employees and company performance. It promises the organisations profitability, which
corresponds to the level of customer satisfaction. Re-engineering initiatives help organisations to
advance suitable technology, define strategies, improve the volume of their organisational work force
and modernise the organisations themselves. One major objective of BPR is to replace traditional
business processes with innovative and effective business processes to guarantee customer satisfaction.
The major focus of this study is to analyse the impact of BPR on customer satisfaction on
e-commerce platforms, taking into consideration student customers of Taobao/DJ.com. The methods
and forms of implementation of BPR contrast from one organisation to another, depending on the
magnitude of change expected by the organisation. BPR as a mechanism for promoting customer
satisfaction and attaining competitive advantage must be well achieved and realised. E-commerce
platforms should focus on addressing the needs of customers and maintain a constant advancement in
technology, strategy, and employees, in order to increase company performance and gain a competitive
advantage. Business Process Re-engineering initiatives aimed at radical redesign and reorganising
concepts build customer satisfaction, as well as having benefits for employees and the performance
of a company. The paper refers to impact of BPR implementation on e-commerce platforms.
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Getele Gutama Kusse received his Master’s degree from the University of electronics science and technology of
china in 2014. In 2015 he was working as foreign teacher at Chengdu university of information technology and
he is professionally sound, hard-working and a devoted motivated employ. Currently he is studying his PhD at
University of Science and Technology Beijing. He writes more than 2 papers in international journal as first author.
For further information, find the attached picture.
Arrive Tsitaire Jean is a Research scholar in the Dongling School of Economics and Management at the University
of Science and Technology Beijing.
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