Management gurus and the fashions

The management gurus’ perspective of reengineering is repackaging the same administration strategies previously given in addition to then sells it to be able to these managers like their particular brand new. Drawing specifically on the work of Hammer (1999), he details out which he has produced another form of reengineering after the new recognition of the internet. He argues that, by linking businesses together, internet technologies may create saving and enhance productivity by coordinating initiatives across corporate boundaries within a process which he or she dubs “ intercorporate engineering”.

Reengineering has “ done the world good” because it features enabled executives to notice through the surface structure of their organisations and to home in on their fundamental purpose; delivering value to customers in a way that creates profits for shareholders (Hammer and Stanton, 1999). It can be argued that these management gurus are ‘ actors’. Thus they claim they have created brand new ideas but behind the scenes these are only ‘ repackaged’, having only regurgitated the past successful management strategies.

This critique suggests hidden agendas in the services the management gurus’ give to managers as customers. In contrast, this clashes with Hammer and Champy (1993) who have found that: “ BPR is about beginning again with a clean sheet of paper. It is about rejecting the conventional wisdom and received assumptions of the past”. Paradoxically, the management gurus are not ‘ BPR’ (Business Process Reengineering) correctly since it refers to completely starting afresh with a brand new idea and going back to the drawing board.

Furthermore, perhaps by repacking these ideas on instead of giving radically different ones will keep the management gurus in business since these ideas start to become somewhat of a clichi??. As a result, these ideas depreciate and eventually lose their value. This is as unmasked by Hammer and Stanton (1996, p. 32) who state: ‘ Lots of people embark on reengineering but don’ t go anywhere because of a failures of intellect or courage’. While this may possibly also suggest management gurus’ fear to realize new management strategies, repackaging these successful past ideas do spawn them visits from the managers creating more profits.

As an example, Business Process Reengineering and Total Quality Management is the most widely recognized, if not practiced, organizational improvement initiative (Burdett, 1994). Furthermore, this explains why gurus are reluctant to using any alternative method that devises management strategies apart from business process reengineering, as there is a risk of creating an unsuccessful one. This would ruin their reputation as experts and thus jeopardise their popularity. Ergo, reengineering can be a last resort for management gurus since they can be assured a successful idea to sell on to their clients.