Reengineering Management

Reengineering Management
by Victor Alatorre

Summary
Issues of purpose: Managers need to constantly question the “status quo”. Managers should question “why”, “how” and “what for” constantly in order to see successful for continuous improvement. There are three core elements affecting organizations: Paradigms Shifts in the Industry, Communication-Robotic Technology and Government policy and deregulation. Continuous change in the market means continuous change in the organizational needs, thus mangers must seek the constant improvement and redefinition of business purposes in order to remain competitive.

Issues of culture: Successful reengineering requires a change of organizational culture. This organizational change needs to be promoted, applied and sponsored from the top-down. Managers need to change themselves in order to change the organization otherwise BPR efforts will fail.

Issues of process and performance: How do we apply the processes necessary for worker, employee, manager and machine performance? They are what constitute the day-to-day work and must now be subject to the same scrutiny. Champy outlines five core management processes: mobilizing: distribution of human resources around the organization to improve business performance, enabling: empowering and redesigning work in order to meet business objectives and performance, defining: clearly stating the companies goals and objectives from management’s perspective, measuring: determine non-financial ways to measure performance in order to determine employee accountability, and communicating: managing the organization as an open book, while “honestly” expressing the issues and steps necessary for change.

Issues of people: How and where we find the right people to share the vision and mission we need to operate the organization successfully. Questions of hiring, promotion, development, and deployment will need to be addressed by the whole organization and not left to Human Resources People.

The book was written to address Business Process Reengineering (BPR) from the management perspective. It was written to explore Champy’s recent findings on reengineering. The book explores methodology for changing management’s perspective on the way managers think, work, organize, inspire, deploy, enable, measure and reward the value adding operational work. His original book (reengineering the corporation) was written to improve business performance by showing managers how to revolutionize their key operational processes-product development and/or order fulfillment processes. Champy collected testimonies from 150 business managers, and gathered over 18 months of research. Some of these BPR implementation issues are complex and not easy to answer; however Champy uses case studies and corporate surveys to facilitate understanding of corporate reengineering.


His book covers four broad issues:

Note: Champy confirms that these four questions are tough to answer and once answered, tough to accept. People and organizations have a difficult time accepting change.


Champy explores the historical implications of (outdated) management philosophies. Many business people believe the US business world would foster an eternal “smooth sailing” concept, however global competition, technology, market freedom and informed customer choice has turned the business world into highly competitive environment. Customers are educated and unwilling to compromise their choice for quality, service and price. Champy calls it the “Dictatorship of Customariat” or “Market Democracy”. Those corporations unwilling to change would suffer and ultimately die from their lack of vision to face adversity and change.


Champy claims that organizations need to leave behind perfectionist processes for experimental approaches. Dismissing the concept of “getting in right and keep it going” for “getting right and make it better and better every time.” Let go of the control issues associated with upper management, and understand that mistakes are good for the organizational learning process. Managers need to trade the ex-officio authority style for an existential authority. Overthrowing the conservative approach for measuring and control systems based only on financial systems and understanding that some radical new paradigms in measurement and control systems need to be there to provide added value for the consumer. Managers need to let go of the old (adversarial-competitive) approach for management betterment and introduce supportive systems for employee professional development and education. Remembering that some elements of the business world and human behavior can sometimes be unpredictable, vague and a great source for creativity. Management needs to seek multilevel-pluralistic skill levels, multi-goal level enterprising. Moving from corporate protocol and discipline to learned willingness and individual accountability.

Champy’s book is very relevant to this course because it outlines and integrates the following concepts:

Leadership: Champy explains the new role for management. Managers should move from transactional leadership to transformation leadership roles. He defines the new enterprise manager as someone that holds up both a mirror and a lamp to everyone connected with his organization. He shows them how they are now, and lighting the way to what they can become. Champy encourages the new management to abandon the old paradigm of internal focus.

Champy also defines the expertise manager as one who takes responsibility for directing the people and technology in the corporation and integrating them to make his vision a reality. Every organization has a few process experts whose primary contribution to the organization resides on their expertise application. These process managers are good teachers, thus enabling organizational knowledge integration. He promotes the idea of self-management by taking responsibility for one’s own performance and accepting accountability for this newfound freedom. This is probably the most important value that a corporation can promote during a BPR.

Power and Decision Making in the Context of Change:
Champy covers the new decision model based on empowerment by the redefining management work. Old control systems do not work in the new system because they do not measure the same processes. He states that the biggest problem for BPR comes at the level of senior management. Most senior managers refuse change because they believe that organizations change will deny access to the old paradigm of power. If senior management doesn’t comply with the new rules, the BPR effort will dwindle to nothing in matter of months. The CEO will need to reassess the situation and intervene against management in deep denial.

The Nature of Planned Change and Organizational Diagnosis: his book defines organizational diagnosis and change as opportunities for success. If the organization needs reengineering, these big changes must come from a top-down approach and driven by those whose vision is the sharpest. A genuine paradigm shift in reengineering occurs when managers change the way they think and work. Champy states that some business people believe that the old way will not fade away until older managers retire or get ousted. He states that a well-planned BPR effort will probably take a long time (5 to 25 years), however technology is pushing change so quickly that companies cannot afford to remain passive. The dynamic organization needs to rethink the business models for management. Reengineering effort should be based on the notion that organizations are living entities that need constant evaluation and modifications in order to remain competitive.

He is the chairman of CSC index, is the leading authority on the implementation of business reengineering initiatives. CSC index is based in Cambridge Massachusetts and is the management-consulting firm that pioneered the development and practice of reengineering. James Champy is the coauthor of the NY times Best Seller “Reengineering the Corporation” which was published in 1993. His book is one of two required reading materials for Dale Feinauers’s Process and Quality MBA course. Dale is an expert on BPR, thus his assessment and opinion on the quality of our readings provide validity to Champy’s books.

His rationale for writing is based on the need to incorporate a number of things he learned since his first book was published in 1993. It allows him to address some of the questions raised by readers of the first edition. Many people wrote him back with questions regarding the application of his methodology for Business Process Reengineering.

This book’s target market is people in management who are experiencing a reengineering process in their organizations. Champy gives solutions on how to keep the BPR effort alive and how to fix possible downfalls.

In order to appreciate this book, the reader needs to read the first book, which outlines the methodology for Business Process Reengineering. He brings back some of the elements and methodology, but it would be difficult to understand without the other book as a base for personal research.

His observations are based on real business world research and not on virtual business models. Every chapter has a “cases in point” subchapter that outlines real world concept issues and solutions.


Internal Validity
Doesn’t apply because Champy wrote the second book by himself, however he received a lot of editorial constructive reviews from the Harper Business editors.

The author is an expert on BPR. He has been able to experience and apply his knowledge of the subject with many organizations going through reengineering.

I don’t work for a large corporation. It is impossible to BPR in an organization like the Department of Residence Life-Management Information Office because of our size, however some of the concepts could be applied to business processes in my organization. I’ve already applied some of the concepts of empowerment, business process improvement, however my intervention and concept application has been minimal.

I feel that the author’s writing style is very comprehensive. I was able to read the whole book in two nights, and I felt that he reinforced some of the concepts from his first book. I’m extremely interested on BPR, because I hope some day to be involved in a reengineering process for a large corporation.

James Champy clearly understands organizational change and the factors affecting BPR from the management and organizational perspectives. He takes BPR concepts to a new level, while taking into consideration the realities affecting organizations. BPR is a steady long process that requires understanding of all the issues affecting management and organizations going through a reengineering project.

James Champy, Reengineering Management, Harper Business, 1995.