How is business process re-engineering defined?

Business process re-engineering (BPR) is best defined as the radical redesign of business processes for improved performance. This approach focuses on fundamentally rethinking and reorganizing the way work is done to better support an organization's mission and reduce costs. The emphasis is on creating significant enhancements in efficiency and quality, rather than merely making small, incremental improvements to existing processes.

BPR seeks to break away from traditional methods and look at processes from a fresh perspective, often leveraging technology and innovation to achieve dramatic improvements. This can involve streamlining practices, creating customer-centered processes, or implementing new technologies to automate tasks. The goal is to make essential changes that can lead to substantial gains in productivity, speed, and service levels, contrasting with approaches that would merely tweak existing systems without fully reimagining them.

The other options relate to different concepts that do not capture the essence of BPR. Incremental improvements, workforce reductions, and standardization, while potentially valuable in their own contexts, do not denote the fundamental, transformative changes that define business process re-engineering.