January/February 1997 -
Enter ... Reengineering: A Required Capability for Company Success

While the spotlight fades ...
In our client work and in our change management workshops, we're finding a common concern occupying the minds of many business leaders in estimating the value of the available tools in their management toolkit. When a popular management fad loses its luster (when it's no longer front page news), has it also lost its usefulness? Reengineering, for example, is getting less press these days, yet there are still success stories emerging from BPR initiatives. Just listen to the noise about Reengineering and you will hear two different messages:

• "Reengineering is Dead," cry some pundits in the popular business press, "It's no longer what's Hot!"
• "BPR is here to stay, and it's going to get better and better," cry the speakers in the National BPR Conference Halls to participants off to see the dozens of Reengineering products being demonstrated in Vendor pavilions.

We believe that the bottom line on Reengineering is actually a combination of these two messages -- with a shot of reality added!

• Reengineering is no longer the fad...the much-heralded solution to end all solutions, but a solid collection of value-added tools that companies will be using from now on.
• Reengineering is far from dead. More and more companies are facing some tough business realities -- realities that can only be tackled with a "start over", "clean sheet of paper" approach.
• The business of third party vendors who do Reengineering is still growing -- and, most importantly, companies are recognizing their need to be able to do their own Reengineering kinds of projects when the need arises.
  

Recasting the Role...as the 1997 Best Supporting Capability

The wave of Reengineering that we have seen in the last five years was predominately driven by the need to reduce costs as the world reeled with the new global economics. But today, we find that the focus of most of our clients has changed. Now mean and lean, they are ready to grow. So the targets of Reengineering have turned with the tide ... and the new targets for Reengineering may be the ones best suited for Reengineering anyway. The new targets for Reengineering are included in these very key business issues:

"Enter Reengineering ... as the fundamental tool for technological application ..." 1. Technological Advantage -- Technology continues to advance on all fronts. Every company faces the reality that the technology imbedded in its work process will someday change -- and change radically enough to shift business advantage from their old way to some competitor's new way. As competitors harness new technology to power their work processes, companies will have no choices but to "cash in" or make the radical adjustment in process and organization required to stay up.

"Enter Reengineering ... as a tool that can help the rapid transformation needed in these "behind the scenes" processes/systems ... " 2. Management Evolution -- The way we organize and manage companies is rapidly changing -- from hierarchical command structures to the more collegial, horizontal organizations. The market and the competition require today's organization to be extremely fast, flexible, and responsive as well as efficient. Shifts to the new way cannot be made without radical changes in organization processes/systems such as performance management, financial controls, operating information and human resources.

"Enter Reengineering ... as a tool to rationalize and then improve those key business areas left untouched by disciplined process thinking..." 3. Under-defined Processes -- The last bastions of business "art" are falling as the "process mindset" of both TQM and Reengineering come calling. "If we must think of operations, manufacturing, distribution, and accounting as disciplined processes that can be defined and improved, how come you guys in Marketing/Sales and R&D can't put down what you do on paper and then improve it?" ask today's leaders who have seen the power of process thinking.

The Stage is Set

We believe that today's Reengineering challenge is not to develop more tools and techniques (save us from another software salesman with Reengineering on a diskette!). As we tell our clients, your challenge now is to accept Reengineering as a required capability of your company ... a "price of entry" for long term competitiveness.

Like many other once-hot management fads, Reengineering must now become "just another tool" in the body of knowledge that you use to run a successful business. Employees who have the talent, mindset, and skills for Reengineering must be identified and valued as company resources ... and company leadership must have the foresight to plan and resource Reengineering. Then, when the time inevitably comes, and it will, Reengineering can set the stage for solving your tough, real-world problems and play a part in keeping your company in the game.

As always, we would like to have your input on our Hot Topics and FAQs. Please give us your suggestions by signing in on our guestbook.