past performance is essential to recognize, understand, and integrate into the vision and implementation of BPR. If the human element is given equal or greater emphasis in BPR, the odds of successful business transformation increase substantially. Ongoing continuous improvement Many organizational change theorists hold a common view of organizations adjusting gradually and incrementally and responding locally to individual crises as they arise Common elements are: BPR is a successive and ongoing process and should be regarded as an improvement strategy that enables an organization to make the move from a traditional functional orientation to one that aligns with strategic business processes. Continuous improvement is defined as the propensity of the organization to pursue incremental and innovative improvements in its processes, products, and services. The incremental change is governed by the knowledge gained from each previous change cycle. It is essential that the automation infrastructure of the BPR activity provides for performance measurements in order to support continuous improvements. It will need to efficiently capture appropriate data and allow access to appropriate individuals. To ensure that the process generates the desired benefits, it must be tested before it is deployed to the end-users. If it does not perform satisfactorily, more time should be taken to modify the process until it does. A fundamental concept for quality practitioners is the use of feedback loops at every step of the process and an environment that encourages constant evaluation of results and individual efforts to improve. At the end user's level, there must be a proactive feedback mechanism that provides for and facilitates resolutions of problems and issues. This will also contribute to a continuous risk assessment and evaluation which are needed throughout the implementation process to deal with any risks at their initial state and to ensure the success of the reengineering efforts. Anticipating and planning for risk handling is important for dealing effectively with any risk when it first occurs and as early as possible in the BPR process. It is interesting that many of the successful applications of reengineering described by its proponents are in organizations practicing continuous improvement programs. Hammer and Champy (1993) use the IBM Credit Corporation as well as Ford and Kodak, as examples of companies that carried out BPR successfully due to the fact that they had long-running continuous improvement programs. In conclusion, successful BPR can potentially create substantial improvements in the way organizations do business and