Champy and Hammer (1993)

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Champy and Hammer (1993) - Re-engineering the corporation

“The fundamental re-thinking and radical redesigning of business processes”

Companies want to learn, innovate and be responsive, but the aren't. They need to look at the parts and processes of their businesses and how they affect the whole. The trouble comes from the co-ordination of separate parts and the failure to resolve the conflict of different needs.

The focus should be on improving the core processes of the firm, which are outdated or inefficient. This has not occurred because of inept managers or lazy workers, but that core competences can become degraded if left unattended in a changing world.

The authors stress for managers to create a lean organisation, meaning certain processes and even people need to be discarded. Firms have taken it the wrong way (wilful misinterpretation I should think) and have downsized without doing any of the re-engineering.

Emphasis should be on the future, not the past (but if we don’t learn from the past we are doomed to make the same mistakes. See JB Priestly’s play, An Inspector Calls, 1947).

Management need to re-engineer themselves as well as the processes, as things can not change with out change and support at the top.

Re-engineering should be built on respect, trust and people. Using the skills of the people left over from the re-engineering is necessary for the firm to succeed. Often, firms just downsize and leave it at that, which spells disaster.