xi In the second half of the 1980s, a handful of companies... embarked on programs of business improvement
that would transform American industry beyond recognition... these companies came to realize that their old ways of operating...
were no longer adequate... In order to address these problems, these companies had to take measures more radical than they
had ever taken before. Forced to choose between sure failure and radical change, they opted for the latter. They began to
reengineer. They ripped apart their old ways of doing things and started over with clean sheets of paper.
p.13 Today, customers have ever more choices and they are very aware of them. A company that does not resolutely
focus on its customers is not long for this world.
p.16 Companies must identify the key measures by which each of their processes will be assessed. Some of
these measures must be based on what is important to the customer... Whatever measures are employed, they must reflect the
process as a whole and must be communicated to and used by everyone working on the process.
p.97-104 Principle 1: The mission of a business is to create value for its customers... Principle 2: It
is a company's processes that create value for its customers... Principle 3: Business success comes from superior process
performance... Principle 4: Superior process performance is achieved by having a superior process design, the right people
to perform it, and the right environment for them to work in
p.108 Game theory is a branch of mathematics used to model and analyze competitive behavior.
p.191 We knew that companies could dramatically improve their efficiency and quality by focusing on customers
and the processes that create value for them. But we didn't realize that companies' processes would in fact come to be even
more important than their products.
p.203-205 Perhaps the most startling notion that arises from process-centered planning is the suggestion
that long-range forecasting is a waste of time... In our age of relentless change, however, it is becoming
increasingly clear that the best strategy is not one that tries to divine the future but one that responds rapidly
to the present... The masters of process will be the masters of the twenty-first century.
p.221 in our organizations, we need change makers as well. The crisis of change will never pass... Rather
than looking for credentials alone, companies are likely to find change agents by seeking people with talents and characteristics
that mark them as potential reengineers. Chief among these are an almost organic dissatisfaction with the status quo,
a creative itch to improve things, and an ability to see processes and businesses holistically.
p.234 The essence of this new cognitive style is the ability to see how parts connect, how numerous
individual pieces add up to a totality, and how each affects the whole. It means visualizing and understanding a
complex system. It also means having an intuition, a gut feel, for a system so that decisions can be made in the face
of ambiguity and incomplete information. The decisions... require a feel for the process and for the business... This
style of thinking is an absolute requirement for all jobs in a process-centered organization
