The Fluent Edge

14 - Revolution or Ruin - The Radical Truth About Business Process Re-engineering


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🔥 Small tweaks… or a total revolution? When is it time to stop polishing an old system and start over with a completely new one?

In this Deep Dive, we explore Business Process Re-Engineering (BPR) — the radical 1990s management philosophy that told companies: “Don’t just improve… reinvent.” 🚀

📌 What you’ll learn in this episode:

  • Why BPR rejected small, incremental changes in favor of fundamental, radical, and dramatic redesigns

  • How Michael Hammer & James Champy’s Reengineering the Corporation became a rallying cry for corporate transformation

  • The biggest criticisms of BPR: job losses, cultural resistance, and high failure rates

  • The benefits advocates saw: stronger leadership, more empowered roles, clearer strategy, better processes, happier customers, and dramatic turnarounds

  • How the spirit of BPR still lives on today in digital transformation, agile methods, and AI adoption

💡 Key takeaway: Sometimes improvement means optimizing what you already have. But sometimes… true progress requires tearing down the old playbook and starting with a blank sheet of paper.

👉 As you watch, ask yourself: Where in your work or life are you just making tweaks? And where might it take real courage to reimagine everything from scratch?

#BusinessProcessReengineering #BPR #Leadership #BusinessStrategy #ChangeManagement #ContinuousImprovement

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