(***** Please note that the British (e.g. The Economist) use "re-engineering" instead of "re-engineering" !!! )

Dumping Bosses; The Economist; Feb 25, 1995; pg. 90.

The reviewer is not impressed with James Champy's re-engineering Management. According to the reviewer, Champy supports the raw figures of after-re-engineering success of leaner and more productive environment by "ill-digested" testimony of 150 managers. Champy could have used these testimonies to build case studies of re-engineering in practice, showing why firms decide to do it, what it means for those who are caught up in it, and how benefits can be reaped and errors avoided. The untreated quotations merely meander, though occasionally illuminate.

Re-engineering Reviewed; The Economist; July 24, 1994; pg. 66.

Re-engineering, like any other management fad was under attack (in 1994) because critics though that it was just a fancy word for relabelling. Its key terms: putting customer first, using teams, empowering workers, rewarding performance, tearing down divisional walls-have been conventional wisdom for two decades. Moreover, the failure rate was a huge

85%, according to quoted sources (!!!!!!this figure seemed to contradict with a more recent one of 70%?????????)

CSC Index, where Champy is the founder, published "State of Re-engineering Report 1994". The report confirmed re-engineering was popular at the time, with 69% of American and 75% European companies that were re-engineering. However, it played down the loss of jobs as a result of re-engineering.

The report suggested three steps to success:

1. Proper Project management - manager must define clear aims and break down projects

into manageable parts.

2. Unhesitating the support of senior management - support of senior management is very

important.

3. Ambition - if re-engineering is worth doing, it is worth doing on a massive scale.

Companies that just flirt with re-engineering suffer the pains without enjoying the gains.

The most important idea to emerge from the report was that re-engineering was not enough on its own. It needs to be linked to strategy because it is useless to streamline a particular business if technology is going to render it obsolete.

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Raymond E. Miles, Henry J. Coleman, Jr. and W.E. Douglas Creed. Key to Success in Corporate Redesign. California Management Review, Vol. 37, No. 3, Spring 1995

Successful firms meet three key requirements for effective redesign:

a commitment to total redesign as an economic "must", not simply

an "ought;" a clear strategic vision supported by the structure

and process changes necessary to achieve it; and a managerial

philosophy that fits the chosen strategy and structure. Some firms

have been able to install an alternative strategy-structure-process

package by breaking completely from the established pattern. Other

firms have "rediscovered" a viable combination of strategy,

structure, and philosophy by stripping away central bureaucracy.

Still others have searched outside familiar models, most often in the

direction of network strategies and structures. overall, the capacity

for organizational renewal comes from investing in human skills and

knowledge-bases, which serve as competency reserves in changing times.

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