Reengineering the World

Raul Alfaro

Accounting 325

Professor Williamson

September 21, 2010

Reengineering the World

Charles Darwin came up with the theory of natural selection. Natural selection is also well known as the law of survival of the fittest. Darwin’s law states that those who are able to adapt to changes in their environment will prosper and survive, and those who are not able to adapt will perish. This simple but very profound law described over one hundred years past has proven to be true in today’s world. Whether it may be a person moving across the country from sunny San Diego to extremely cold Philadelphia, or simply changing houses across the city and getting to know your new neighborhood, natural selection can be seen almost anywhere. More specifically, natural selection can be seen at a larger scale in corporate America. News come out every day of prosperous businesses entering the market and other businesses going bankrupt. One is able to take a look at Microsoft’s income statement and see the incredible amount of liquidity sitting there as compared to the amount of debt that General Motors incurs every quarter. Many firms have been able to adapt to their new environment through a process called reengineering, many others have failed to adapt and are no longer seen in this market.

In their book Reengineering the Corporation: Manifesto for Business Revolution, Michael Hammer and James Champy define reengineering as “the fundamental rethinking and radical design of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed.” But many would ask why a corporation would need to reengineer their processes if it has been in business for quite some years? The answer to this question is very simple, consumers. In his book Mr. Hammer illustrates through examples how the power of balance has been shifting over the last couple of years from corporations having all the control over products...