Business Panaceas Revisited

Given the number and variety of earlier solutions to unsatisfactory corporate performance that failed to fulfil their promise, it is not surprising to discover a degree of scepticism about Business Process Reengineering (BPR), especially as its programmatic and abstract character makes it harder to pin down than recipes for strengthening corporate culture or building quality into every aspect of business activity 10.

Does BPR have a distinctive flavour or is it the same old imperialistic consultancy guff dressed up in new jargon? Needless to say, business consultants have a vested interest in emphasising the novelty and potency of whatever variety of ‘snake oil’ they dispense to managers. But investment in previous recipes also means that they are inclined to interpret the new in terms of the old, and to repackage old wine in new bottles. In turn, this may lead to an overhasty dismissal of BPR as simply the latest in a line of fads that is distinguished from previous panaceas only by its achievement of a new nadir in the inelegance of its terminology. In our view, such treatment is unhelpful if it blinds us to the possibility that BPR represents and promotes something distinctive and innovative in its approach to the restructuring of business practices. In common with previous recipes for improving business performance - from Taylorism to TQM - BPR draws together, synthesises and provides an articulation for ideas and practices that have been floating around in the business world without a catchy label or a champion. 

Though it may represent a new nadir in the inelegance of its terminology, BPR is sufficiently striking, flexible and ambiguous to encompass many programmes and techniques, such as teamworking, and networking and even EPOS (electronic point of sale), that are have contributed to the reorganization of work during the 1980s. What Hammer has done is not so much to concoct a novel recipe but to put a name to an emergent trend in business organization that has been prompted, above all, by an intensification of competition that intensifies the pressures upon executives to seek (radical) ways of gaining competitive advantage. His contribution, like that of earlier guru figures, resides in a flair for packaging and promoting an appealing product in a market where status-conscious consumers are, like the proverbial Emperor, anxious to espouse and sport the latest in management fashions.