Business process innovation in the mid‐1990s

Argues that today′s rapidly changing competitive environment, cost effectiveness and consistently high output quality are no longer enough to ensure corporate success. A company′s business processes must also be more responsive and flexible than those of its competitors. Innovative ways must be sought continuously to provide technology to support motivated, adaptable work groups dedicated to meeting or exceeding customers′ requirements in the shortest possible time. Puts forward the case of the Xerox Corporation, which in responding to the challenge of primarily Japanese competition, has pioneered a number of approaches to business process innovation, particularly in the area of inventory management and logistics. Finds that by simultaneously redesigning information flows, work processes and authority structures, the company has radically improved not only the cost and quality of its delivery system, but also its flexibility. States that the redesign techniques are, in themselves, process independent, and should therefore be of interest to managers and academics involved in process flexibility and process innovation in general.