Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) involves the radical redesign of core business processes to achieve dramatic improvements. According to Chang, Information Technology (IT) is the key enabler of BPR because it allows companies to break old rules and constraints imposed by manual or legacy systems. Technologies like shared databases, expert systems, telecommunication networks, and workflow automation enable fundamentally new ways of working, such as parallel processing, decentralized decision-making, and collapsing geographical barriers, which are central to the radical changes BPR aims for.

A. Incremental change is the opposite of BPR's philosophy, which focuses on radical, fundamental redesign rather than small, continuous improvements.

B. Labor specialization is a principle of functional, task-oriented organizations (Adam Smith's model), which BPR often seeks to replace with multi-skilled, process-oriented teams.

D. Strong functional structure creates the "silos" that BPR is designed to break down by focusing on end-to-end, cross-functional processes.

1. Chang, J. F. (2016). Business Process Management Systems: Strategy and Implementation (2nd ed.). CRC Press. In Chapter 2, Section 2.4, "The Role of Information Technology," Chang states, "IT is a key enabler for BPR" (p. 31) and details how different technologies enable process redesign.

2. Hammer, M., & Champy, J. (1993). Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution. HarperBusiness. The authors famously argue that companies must use the power of modern information technology to radically redesign business processes (Chapter 3).