Research On BPR Modes Of Enterprises In Chinese Book Industry

Since 1996 when our nation decided to "build up a united, open, competitive, and rule-governed book market, the reform and reengineering of publishing and issuing industry has been walking through for ten years. Currently, the reform and re-engineering program has entered the stage where the circulation system and the circulation mode have received equal emphasis. "Big crocodiles" abroad are gradually coming to us. It is therefore urgent for local book industry enterprises to introduce advanced management methods and improve their management level. Dr. Davenport said, "The management ideas that get picked up by the marketplace are the ones that resonate with the Zeitgeist." The Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) theories have, without doubt, received much appreciation in our book industry in which various enterprises are making efforts to reform and re-engineering. Consequently, it is only natural to find that individual businesses adopt the theory of BPR to enhance their competencies while the book industry as a whole employs it to push ahead its reform.This paper is divided into five parts apart from the preface. The preface introduces the background, significance, and the method of this research. The first part gives an overview of BPR in the book industry. In this part, the concept of BPR is analyzed, the research object (the book industry enterprises in our country) is defined, and the current situation of the business process of the book industry is introduced. The second part is an assessment of the necessity and feasibility of BPR in the book industry. In this part, the necessity of BPR is analyzed from three perspectives: the supply chain, individual enterprises, and the process itself;the feasibility of BPR is analyzed from three aspects: the policy support, the technique support and the experience support. The third part is an analysis of BPR modes in the book industry in China. According to enterprises' functions in the supply chain, the BPR of the book industry is specified into four modes: publisher mode, wholesaler mode, retailer mode, and web retailer mode. To make a case study of these four modes, Shanghai publishing group, Xinhua head-office bookstore, Zhejiang Xinhua bookstore, and dangdang.com are respectively introduced and discussed. The fourth part addresses problems of BPR programs in the Chinese book industry. The problems are treated at two different layers: individual enterprises and the supply chain.Those concerned with individual enterprise are analyzed in four fields, that is, publishers, wholesalers, retailers and web retailers, and those related to the supply chain are described from three perspectives, namely, value chain, logistics and supply chain. The fifth part offers counter-measures for further pushing the BPR of the book industry. Based upon the analysis of the aforementioned problems, it is suggested that the supply chain management be introduced, professional associations be carried into full play, the third -party logistics be pushed into a new stage, and so on.