Application 2 – Annotated Bibliography

New Technology, Work and Employment 14:1 ISSN 0268-1072

The consultants’ offensive: reengineering – from fad to

technique

Robin Fincham and Mark Evans

Business process reengineering has tended to be seen as a man- agement fashion and the brainchild of the gurus who popular- ised it. Yet this overlooks the role of consultants in the spread of BPR and the system itself as a specific technique of change management. In fact BPR played a significant role in the push for new business in management consultancy and has become integral to an armoury of consultant tools. This article explores reengineering as a consultancy solution in the context of the external expert’s distinctive claims on knowledge, and argues that this approach reveals new insights into both reen- gineering and the consultancy process.

Business process reengineering (BPR) has been one of the most influential change paradigms of recent years, and stimulated a wide ranging debate that embraced a number of separate strands. Some critics argued that BPR was inextricably bound up with a discredited era of downsizing and delayering, and that organisations were storing up trouble by using these aggressive methods. Concerned with alternative prescriptions for success, they point out that the craze for reengineering has had its day, and the exaggerated claims and hyperbole have simply created false expec- tations about the real possibilities of change in organisations (Mumford and Hend- ricks 1996, Taylor 1995).

More radical critics explored both the ideological and symbolic dimensions of re- engineering. The plight of victims sacrificed on the altar of radical change was seen as the outcome of new forms of competition. BPR was a framework within which lean methods and powerful new information technologies were introduced, and these have spread to all levels including an attack on management. Processes that started in manual and white-collar work were increasingly seen as impacting higher up, so that firms restructuring around flexible designs offer less and less in the way of stable careers (Conti and Warner 1994, Grey and Mitev 1994, Willmott 1994, 1995, Blair et al. 1998, Leverment et al. 1998). Somewhat paradoxically critical theory has also

❒ Robin Fincham is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management and Organization, Univer- sity of Stirling. Mark Evans is in internal audit with Bristol-Myers Squibb pharmaceuticals.

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main St., Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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pointed out that in other ways these ideas resonate with and sustain managerial identities. The component ideas of BPR, it has been suggested, ought not to be taken at face value but as a rhetoric that has plausibility in the current climate of rapid organisational change. Hence, rather than attributing a narrow utility to BPR, its practical bearing on managerial needs was behind the method’s popularity and influence (Grint 1994, Jackson 1996, Fincham 1995).

As varied and thorough as this critique has been, it nevertheless shares a common theme namely the focus on BPR as a ‘major fad’. The image of reengineering as a self-contained fashion in management thinking has been the level on which much of the discussion of its impact and appeal has taken place. Michael Hammer and James Champy, and their best-selling Reengineering the Corporation (Hammer and Champy 1993), have had star billing here. Hammer and Champy are seen as the originators and pioneers of process reengineering – they raised themselves to guru status while extending the fame of their method, they busily exploited the seam with new titles (Champy 1995, Hammer and Stanton 1995) and there has been a steady flow of similar publications as lesser gurus competed for a slice of the market (eg. Andrews and Stalick 1994, Coulson-Thomas 1994, Manganelli and Klein 1994, McHugh, Merli and Wheeler 1995, Morris and Brandon 1993, Obeing and Crainer 1996, Obolensky 1994, Oram and Wellins 1995).

However, while interest tends to have focused on BPR as a management fashion, and on the gurus who popularised it, other important actors and audiences have attracted less attention. In particular the role that consultants have played has been underestimated or not differentiated from that of gurus. Consultants themselves trade in fashions, of course, but they also rely on developing new ideas into appli- cable methodologies and techniques. These may have a more extended shelf life because they commodify knowledge in distinctive ways, enabling it to be sold as solutions to specific problems as opposed to more generalised managerial advice. In the complex and challenging world that consultants’ managerial clients inhabit there is reassurance to be gained from the results-oriented way in which techniques of change are formulated – they supply not only a measure of enthusiasm and inspi- ration for the managerial crusade, but also the mechanisms and how-to procedures with which ambitious goals can apparently be achieved (Huczynski 1993a, p. 185).

Part of the context here is the phenomenal growth that has occurred in recent years in all aspects of the management advice industry (see Wood 1996, Bloomfield and Danieli 1995, Clark 1995). A range of influential concepts and ideas have emerged as products of this activity, but BPR in particular has been noteworthy for the differ- ent agents and media across which it was marketed. Just as the fashion for reengin- eering was a product of the rising influence of gurus and other opinion formers, so the growth in management services saw reengineering as a technique developing within the consultancies. In the latter case the method became a significant source of new business for many agencies and contributed to some of their main growth areas in change management and restructuring.

This article looks at reengineering as a consultancy solution. This encompasses the role of consultancies in spreading the message, as well as the way reengineering is constituted as a type of managerial knowledge. The discussion is illustrated with case material, selectively drawn from research on ‘Big Six’ agencies, which focuses on proprietary reengineering tools and how these are deployed by consultants. The aim is to show how practitioner concepts inform consultant methodologies and to explore consultants’ images of reengineering as a change technique. First, though, drawing on the critical reengineering literature, the broader implications for the con- sultancy role are discussed – how the concepts behind BPR translate into techniques of change and relate to the consultancy agenda. There is no suggestion that methods like these in any simple sense led to the rising influence of consultancy, but at a deeper level we are concerned with knowledge categories that sustain and empower consultants and that are constructed through a range of discursive resources.

The consultants’ offensive 33 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999.

Consultancy and reengineering The high profile guru and the broad based consultant are both suppliers of ‘external expertise’ and are under constant compulsion to renew their product. Because in certain critical areas their knowledge falls short of being fully codified or pro- fessional, the key difficulty for them is that of legitimising their advice to managerial audiences (Starbuck 1992, Whitley 1989, Clark and Salaman 1996a). The ideas and practices they deploy need to be inherently persuasive or, as Grint (1994) points out, ‘have to be read as plausible by those at whom they are targeted’. In the case of reengineering the appeal of the method lay in its flexibility and capacity to accommo- date whatever organisational or market interests happen to be current. BPR drew on rhetorics of efficacy and rationality that tap deep rooted modernist beliefs about the inevitability of change. It drew on notions of strategic leadership but also worker empowerment; it claimed to ‘obliterate’ traditional work patterns, yet also to be about expanding businesses (Grint 1994, pp. 192–3, also Jones 1995).

Gurus and consultants themselves depend on powers of persuasion and image manipulation (Bloomfield and Danieli 1995, Clark 1995). Management gurus create a climate of expectations about organisational change; they may prepare the ground for consultants as the live actors in firms, and many have advanced to gurudom through the ranks of consultancy (particularly the high profile strategy consultancies like McKinsey). Gurus sometimes gladly accept the sponsorship of consultant firms, acting as in-house philosophers and seeding the firm’s methods and techniques with their ideas. And it would be wrong to suggest that the solutions on offer are totally different – that consultants are selling objective techniques as against the tub-thump- ing evangelism of the guru. Consultant techniques are not immune to fashion, nor does a fad necessarily have a superficial effect on organisational processes; gurus may propagate short lived fads but they create appetites for solutions with strong underlying themes (Abrahamson 1996, Huczynski 1993b, Watson 1994).

Nevertheless, there are important differences between consultant and guru. While some management gurus remain the associates of particular agencies, tactics vary and others seek to cut their ties with consultancies in order to promote themselves as independent and disinterested voices. Gurus are performers who work in a public arena manipulating an audience’s consciousness. Their authority is personalised, whether they appear in the flesh, in seminars and other events, or via teaching media like the video or best selling book (Clark and Salaman 1996b). Consultants, on the other hand, may be dependent on personal influence and persuasion, but they have to produce solutions that ‘work’ in particular contexts. Theirs is a more specialised and differentiated kind of expertise; consultants are the archetypal ‘knowledge work- er’, and if their knowledge is not innovative in any strictly technical sense, they still develop tangible solutions of a sort (Alvesson 1995, Fincham 1996).

Management fashions and management techniques also differ. Reengineering appeals to the egos and strategic needs of managers on many levels, but as a change technique (rather than fashion) it takes on a somewhat different guise. The huge production hikes and dramatic ‘metrics’ that are a hallmark of BPR reflect the spec- tacular results demanded of the outside expert. Management gurus too use these figures to dramatise their claims, producing them like rabbits out of a hat in books and promotional cases. But consultants need to build claims for successful change into a full blown analysis of the client firm[1]. In this sense, consultants have their own ways of doing business, which share clear affinities with the concepts and prac- tices of reengineering. In areas like company restructuring, consultants are engaged in a restless search for performance improvement; they must demonstrate an ability to produce results, and are drawn to areas of the client’s business where savings can

1 This is actually nothing new and indeed is a recurring feature of consultancy work. The roots of the practice have been traced to Scientific Management and to work study engineers like Taylor and the Gilbreths who were renowned for their 40 and 50 percent productivity increases (see Rassam and Oates 1991, p. 2).

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be made or headcount taken out. This particular need is well served by the new techniques of radical change which enable consultant firms to present clients with a new vision of the organisation, and provide a chance to expand into new types of consultancy business.

The process concept

The origin and spread of reengineering ideas has often been seen in terms of a trickle down effect – with Hammer and Champy as pioneers and others (like consultants) taking up and applying their concepts (eg. Benders et al. 1998, Jackson 1996). But in some ways this is too simplified a picture. From another angle reengineering can be seen as less a freestanding management fashion than a stage in a progression of ideas. In this sense it is better distinguished as part of a group of concepts, hugely influential amongst corporate practitioners, that coalesced around the idea of the business process. The process concept has been widely diffused, and there are inherent difficulties in picking out one ‘master idea’ from such a complex milieu. Nevertheless, within much of the management literature there is a typical portrayal of business processes as ‘natural’ work forms overlaid by functional structures and waiting to be ‘released’ by methods like reengineering. The appeal of this line of argument has become a key element in the attack on ‘outdated’ and ‘bureaucratic’ management styles, itself a fixture of guru and consultant discourse.

The genesis of many of these ideas can be traced to collaboration between aca- demic, consultancy, and corporate interests – ivy league universities, major consult- ancies and large corporations – which fed into organisational change paradigms particularly around the mid-1980s. Here, for example, Rassam and Oates (1991, p. 23) showed the larger management consultancies as a bridgehead between the business schools and business world; this was no passive role but an ‘interpretive and creative’ (p. 22) element of management fashion. These researchers picked up early echoes of the kind of system that reengineering was to become. They showed that from the mid-1980s the consultancies were turning towards a distinctive cluster of process- based concepts: adding value across organisational workflows, redesign from first principles, and strategic renewal based on cycles of innovation.

One of the most influential voices has been that of Michael Porter, whose value chain concept (Porter 1985) turns up in a number of consultancy techniques. The value chain, according to Porter, is the secret of competitive advantage. Value chain analysis ‘disaggregates a firm into strategically relevant activities’ and presupposes the central notion of process embedded in business actions (p. 33). Porter doesn’t specifically denounce bureaucracy, but the idea of ‘value’ coursing through an organ- isation is easily taken as an indictment of traditional structures. He maintains that value chains are generic and that every firm’s chain is made up of the same basic set of strategic activities – a type of determinate analysis that provides consultancies with a basis for their change models (particularly the ‘stages’ models they are so fond of). The notion that common concepts apply across the board makes any firm into a potential client and recipient of externally imposed solutions. Moreover, the idea of generic processes is linked to that of redesign by the imposition of new struc- tures onto the chain, while the sense of uncovering the real basis of a firm’s problems also empowers the external agent.

Other ideas out of the same stable include the ‘Management in the 1990s’ project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Scott Morton 1991, see also Coombs and Hull 1995). Management in the 1990s involved collaboration between MIT aca- demics and corporations and was one of the high profile projects that the institute specialises in (Scott Morton 1991, p. vii). The project stressed the potential for infor- mation technology but helped to form the view (which remains the basis of the ‘stra- tegic IT’ movement) that the automation of existing work is a misuse of IT; instead, business redesign should mean the definition and isolation of organisational pro- cesses, and then their reinvention using the capabilities of information technology.

The consultants’ offensive 35 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999.

The integration of business activities creates value chains and end-to-end linkages, so that redesign is IT enabled not IT driven.

Finally the concept of ‘process innovation’ developed by the guru and academic, Thomas Davenport, represents a further strand (Davenport 1993). Davenport is usu- ally ranked just behind Michael Hammer in the guru stakes, though as MIT staff and an Ernst & Young associate he was an integral part of the environment in which these ideas evolved; like the above influences he cites an intense degree of corporate, academic and consultancy interaction (p.1). Davenport also plays constantly on the differences between radical and piecemeal change, using these twin metaphors to emphasise process innovation as the radical option. On both firm and national level it is innovation not attention to detail that is important, and from his work we get a clear sense of process innovation/reengineering as an offensive mounted by strategic agents. In fact, reengineering and process innovation emerged together and are more or less indistinguishable. In the early 1990s there were striking parallels between them, and the fact that one became so influential while the other languished, rela- tively speaking, says much about how management fads are popularised. The differ- ent promotional skills of the two gurus (and the more sober academic tones of Davenport) almost certainly explain the difference.

Process techniques in consultancies Consultancy at all levels has been growing spectacularly (Wood 1996) but it is the larger agencies that have been responsible for articulating the techniques of change management. Here the process concept has fueled an outflow of methods and tech- niques, as well as a pervasive business language. The strategy and general manage- ment agencies, like McKinsey, Booz Allen and PA, played a central role in the restruc- turing and downsizing trends of recent years, while the Big Six accountancy firms now dominate in the area of broad-based business services[1]. The latter group of organisations in particular have developed methods of transformational change.

Some consultancies refer more generally to process change, or continuing strategic change, but several have incorporated reengineering more specifically. In Arthur Andersen, for example, reengineering became central to their business consulting practice which specialises in managing organisational change. As early as 1993, at the beginning of the reengineering boom, they were claiming ‘$700 million income worldwide as a result of applying these theories’ (Thackray 1993). Coopers & Lyb- rand also claim a leading reputation in reengineering; management consulting is their fastest growing practice area and UK fee income grew to more than one-quarter of their total by 1996/97, with the emphasis squarely on cost cutting and restructur- ing (Coopers & Lybrand Annual Review 1997). Coopers had a version of their pro- prietary technique, ‘business process redesign’, and renamed it ‘process reengineer- ing’ by 1993. The fact that agencies like these were onto the new fashion so quickly shows not so much that they were quick off the mark, as the fact that they were tweaking and reshaping techniques already informed by the process concept.

In what follows we explore consultants’ use of these process techniques by selec- tively drawing on case material from two consultancies, both Big Six agencies. Con- sultants working in project teams are concerned with the problems of inducing rad- ical change in client firms, and taped interviews here reveal the strategies they use in attempting to manage the relationship with the client. Reference is also made to the literature that agencies produced. Promotional literature at one level represents the documentation that accompanies a technique and is an important medium for

1 The so-called Big Six accountancy and professional services firms (ranked according to 1996 global income) are: Anderson Worldwide, KPMG, Ernst & Young, Coopers & Lybrand, Deloitte and Touche Tohmatsu, and Price Waterhouse. Strictly speaking these are now the Big Five, as Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse merged in July 1998 (to form Pricewaterhouse Coopers) though for a number of years yet their effective operations will remain separate. See ‘Six into five may go’, ACCA Students’ Newsletter, May 1998, pp. 26–8; also Rassam and Oates (1991) and Stevens (1981).

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the presentation of ideas. Materials like these (the glossy pamphlets, persuasive text, superb graphics) are obviously a form of self advertising but, read from a critical understanding of consultancy, even here they supply valuable clues to consultants’ strategic conduct and the constraints of the consultant-client relationship.

The focus will be firstly on broader consultancy cultures. Agencies exploit a range of contingencies in attempting to build credible images, and underlying them are themes that are the basis of the appeal to the client. These emerge as narratives used in conjunction with techniques like BPR and are common to much consultancy work. Second a BPR model from an agency that specialised in reengineering will be explored in more detail. Consultancies tend to be pragmatic in their use of tech- niques; they fit together models of change, tools, and prescriptive claims as inclusive concepts of business transformation. The broader consultant methodologies are cru- cial in presenting a differentiated image to clients; it is these more extensive frame- works of change that usually contain branded knowledge – the magic ingredient intended to persuade the client the system is uniquely effective.

Change narratives and techniques In the methodologies that agencies have developed, the functions of the firm tend to be reconfigured as generic processes, while different process sequences are derived from the firm’s basic strategic activities. These are attempts to map business oper- ations as end-to-end activities, but underneath is the change culture that consultants perpetually try to propound. In conjuring the extreme conditions of change, a world is projected where the rules are never constant and where organisations continually have to reinvent themselves. In such a setting, external forces create ever more com- plex problems for firms, change becomes an accepted necessity and the role of the outside expert is correspondingly reinforced.

The initial bid for the client’s attention invariably plays on the fear motive. The scenario of an economic world in turmoil is a boon to consultants and one they exploit to the hilt. Appeals from individual consultants and in client literature stress the technologies and customer expectations that change overnight, the increasing pressures on companies to perform, and companies that are ‘struggling to meet these demands’. Such a view of the client predicament is really about attempting to place the client in a no choice situation as regards the need to reengineer. The attempt to instill insecurity and portray a scary environment is followed up almost inevitably with the need for outside help. Clients are told that in the face of global competition more and more companies like theirs are turning to consultants, and that organis- ational change that can generate ‘dramatic improvements’ is a vital necessity.

The stick-and-carrot approach of this particular narrative may appear to have the disadvantage of closure if step improvements mean that the consultant is no longer required. But when faced with this problem a cycle of client needs tends to be con- structed. The world class status that client companies aspire to becomes a moving target, and the change paradigm a flexible, shifting world in which there is no end to the demand for consultant skills. Thus we hear that many companies have made practical improvements but that ‘sustaining change’ is the hard part. Or again: the ‘truly savvy’ companies have all reengineered and seen their efficiency and customer satisfaction soar, but ‘the competitive playing field has leveled off’ and the need to stay ahead of the game arises anew.

Consultants frequently up the ante – and potentially create a further round of problems for themselves – by claiming to transfer their own deep skills, from which we might suppose that clients would then be equipped to handle change themselves. But no, once again the portrayal of a perpetually changing scene helps to sustain images of client dependency.

A lot of techniques we apply diminish our role because we pass on facilitation skills, we pass on learning – type skills, we pass on effective teamwork, then we pass on the capabilities to redesign yourself; and by passing on high value skills the company is now in better shape. But normally if they are going to come back to us they are going to come back with a new problem

The consultants’ offensive 37 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999.

or a different angle. I think the new work comes out of the fact that there are many forces going on in the world, and that businesses have to face up to what are more complex problems. So even though they have those skills, they do not have the solutions to solve those problems, and one of our jobs is to anticipate where those forces are applied.

Thus having offered ‘learning techniques’ the narrative can be switched back to new methods that the client is in need of. The cycle of needs is thus maintained by subtle shifts between specific solutions and more generic skills, and back again.

Reengineering models and tools Turning to the specific tools integrated with process reengineering, the most univer- sal of these is the database. Agencies set great store by their databases which have come into increasing use over the past five to ten years. Typically these will be built on a package (such as Lotus Notes) and will network the offices of the consultancy. They are extensive multiple databases, differentiated by areas, staff experience and expertise, and staff availability, which assist in project management. But the real heart of the database is knowledge transfer – information abstracted from previous client episodes that is codified and written up and stored, ready to be accessed. Consultants depend heavily on databases during a project as a source of comparative material and guidelines, and for practical help in pulling out material for presen- tations and group work. As a repository of best practice databases have a powerful rationalist appeal: bang up to date conceptually and technologically, they project a potent image of a knowledge intensive organisation, indeed a giant brain; they are also partly implicit and retain a compelling mystique. Who knows the power of the knowledge stored in the database?

Reference should also be made to the seductive notion of benchmarking. The bench- mark is best practice in a particular industry or sector, and identifies performance gaps with acknowledged industry leaders. Benchmarking (like reengineering) res- onates very strongly with the expertise claims of consultants. Given their outside status, consultants can lay claim to knowing best practice from their experience (often captured in database form) in different organisations and sectors. This systematic comparison gives the client organisation the most critical information it requires from the external view, namely an indication of where it stands in the industry pecking order. Benchmarking is thus held out as a shortcut to success; clients are given the chance to ‘learn from the best practices developed by world class companies’ and so are being offered cut-price membership of an exclusive club. They only have to pay the fee rather than develop new systems from scratch.

One slight problem for the consultant is that firms themselves use a level of bench- marking; they will visit other firms (albeit as competitors) and maintain a sense of what is going on in their industry. In this situation the consultancy pitch is often to stress going outside the sector – ‘the best breakthroughs often come when you look outside your own experience and industry’ – as this is knowledge that only a market- based agent can possess.

Against this background of accompanying tools and techniques, BPR method- ologies are typically developed as articulated models of change. The promotional literature offers the client the potential for change ‘wider than could be achieved through any single approach’ (ie. wider than any internal method). The model is an encompassing framework enabling the agency to project a powerful generic tech- nique and something responsive to the client’s unique needs. Within a broad frame- work they can ‘mix and tailor relevant approaches’.

In particular, change frameworks are frequently developed as stages theories that draw on all the normative and progressive imagery of the developmental model. The model will outline discrete phases that take the potential client through an idealised consultancy episode. The first are typically given over to understanding the organis- ation and environment, or developing the ‘performance vision’ which will drive the whole process. The transformation strategy and change agenda come next; these define the actual programme of changes and refine the projects that are to effect it.

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Latter stages are devoted to detailed implementation: individual projects are cus- tomised; implementation is achieved in joint teams, and there may be a stage of incremental adjustment or fine tuning to allow for consolidation.

The symbolic agenda of such frameworks is a reflection of key facets of the relationship with the client. The early stages are all about establishing the consultant’s legitimate position and cementing a strategic alliance at the top of the organisation. Underlying themes of the threatening environment, and traditional structures as the barrier between enterprise and customer, are also highlighted. The actual stages of reengineering usually begin with determination of the ‘core business processes’ as the basis of successful change. These repeat the themes of the transfunctional scope of the method and responsiveness to the customer. In the implementation stages there is also often a role set aside for organisational actors, but always within a partnership controlled by the consultant. And, in all the main stages, the agency’s own proprietary tools, specific techniques and performance measures are introduced to stiffen consultant claims: techniques for assessing the external environment and internal capability in the opening stages; various ‘visioning techniques’ to arrive at the operating vision, and proprietary project management techniques to develop the change agenda. These are ‘configured’ to the individual client so the consultant is not seen as using one-size-fits-all techniques.

Within the overall framework key messages are hammered home. The promise of elevating the client to the status of best-in-class, and the claim that (consultant) knowledge is the key to success. The point that improvements are leveraged and that BPR is really about breakthrough gains, beyond the accepted practice of the industry. Above all the comprehensiveness of the methodology is meant to anticipate any client worries: all facets of change are systematically addressed, the process is strategy driven, IT is routinely incorporated, and the human problems of bedding changes in are not forgotten.

Reengineering model as ‘knowledge management’ In order to pursue some of these themes further we turn finally to a specific example of a reengineering technique. This was developed by one Big Six firm that had aggressively marketed BPR from its inception. The agency itself had opted for a varied ‘mass’ market of client organisations (in the sense of not especially focusing on large scale jobs or high value clients). But they put relatively less stress on devel- opmental models and proprietary tools. Instead, their distinctive offering was pitched at exploiting ‘knowledge’ in various forms and at a complex (even ‘academic’) set of constructs. (For example, part of their promotional literature was produced in journal form, with volumes and issues, that purported to provide in-depth treatment of case studies and accounts of new concepts and techniques).

In the literature used to promote the technique, knowledge was defined as high- value information used in the organisational context; clients could buy into this but only in partnership with the consultant who organised and accessed the knowledge/value. Clients’ ‘mental models based on values and perceptions’ could affect their judgement and cause ‘selective perception’ – a tactful way into the delicate task of the consultant attempting to gain control of the problem by redefining it, and persuading the client that ‘established approaches to problem solving were block- ing progress’.

The reengineering model itself (Figure 1) was derived from process concepts and the Porter value chain. Its ‘unique process view’ was based on a scheme for classify- ing knowledge that identified core business processes and best practices within them. The scheme was a sequence of productive activities (understand markets, develop vision, design products, market and sell, etc.) combined with the management of separate functional areas (human resource, information, financial, etc.) these closely resembling Porter’s distinction between primary and secondary strategic activities.

The model was not customised (perhaps because it borrowed so directly from an identifiable source) but was linked to a broader set of techniques – global best

The consultants’ offensive 39 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999.

Figure 1: Process reengineering scheme

practices, benchmarking – while the principal claim to the ownership of knowledge rested on a proprietary database. As just pointed out, all the major consultancies invest heavily in these systems, but in this case it was the centrepiece of the agency’s store of techniques. The software was linked into their main concepts of client learn- ing and knowledge management, and was put forward as a ‘knowledge base’ (as opposed to lowly database) ‘unsurpassed in depth and scope’. The data architecture that structured the input and retrieval of information was based on the defined operating and support activities of the process classification scheme, and on the dis- tinctive activities used as knowledge categories with which consultant experience was codified and captured. The knowledge base itself was also brought visibly into the selling operation in promotional literature, with sample screens used to illustrate consultant skills progressively homing in on a solution.

These tools were designed for the kind of benchmarking-plus exercise that enables the client to take ideas from companies outside their own industry. The ‘break- through ideas’ for radical process redesign can only come from such a distant source, hence these comparisons claimed to fit the client’s unique business and relate them to best-in-sector practices. They were deemed essential in order to take reengineering from concept to implemented reality. The sheer power of the knowledge base, the quality and scope of the information it contains, thus became the selling point and the basis of its ‘unique appeal’ in the resolution of reengineering problems.

That said, consultants’ need for flexibility in relating to the client also emerged clearly. Techniques are not simply forms of packaged knowledge, they colour the consultant’s whole occupational identity but are always double-edged. While tech- niques supply the elements of a consultant language, and are laced with scientific sounding terminology, they can also constrain the sales pitch. If clients want a new technique like BPR, the consultant cannot be caught out in ignorance of it. Yet the client may also be suspicious of technical jargon, and consultants themselves do not want to get stuck with a methodology that cramps their style. Thus, in developing a rapport with clients, the consultants in this particular agency stressed they needed to retain the capacity to tailor individualised solutions and to regenerate a business language. Hence they tended towards ambivalence in the way they applied tech- niques and were attentive to the client’s likely response. Reengineering fitted this bill particularly well.

Reengineering is more like an umbrella term. You could put it in with methodologies like base costing, just-in-time and total quality management, but reengineering tends to be more enterprise

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wide and pervasive. I don’t get hung up about terminology, insomuch as I stress the fundamentals about what you are addressing, and therefore you will find me using new words like knowledge management and organizational learning. These things have come along, and if you are not using some of these techniques then you are not doing effective reengineering.

In practice, therefore, models presented as normative and rationalistic in the client literature are built into a more nuanced and forgiving occupational discourse. Con- sultants reported they would ‘shy away from’ hard edged terms like reengineering; these were best regarded as ‘just tools’ while the crucial factor was how the service was delivered. They were anxious not to be seen pulling packages off the shelf (which of course would negate the whole idea of what it means to ‘consult’). And BPR itself can metamorphose – the consultant can ‘just change the wording and call it business transformation’. Thus reengineering’s internal contradictions can be a strength when it comes to the practical manipulation of the consultant–client relationship. The umbrella shelters many different versions and approaches, and as a broad framework (rather than specific tool) the system can accommodate the particular agency’s stamp as it attempts to create branded knowledge.

Discussion Reengineering frameworks like the above share a number of common themes: the uncovering of core business processes that transcend traditional structures, the reassurance for the client of step changes in performance, and the promise of closing the gap with world class competitors. Underlying them are attempts to convince client firms that these capabilities are beyond their reach. The bridging of internal functions, inherent in the process view, seemingly lies outside the scope of managers anchored in departments; benchmarking implies a detailed knowledge of other organisations and sectors, and ‘visioning’ supplies an image of the desired state which is unmatched internally. Converting this knowhow into proprietary forms allows the consultant to substantiate the promise to sell on. This is achieved (formally) by capturing information in models, tools and databases, and (informally) via the consultant’s experience across organisations.

The components and adjunct techniques of reengineering thus have a powerful resonance with the consultant’s position viz-a-viz the client. Here, for example, Bloomfield and Danieli (1995) have drawn attention to the notion of a ‘consultant identity’ defined by the position of the external expert. This is constructed within the discursive practices of the consultancy episode and emerges in a range of express- ive claims – the consultant’s claim to tackle the ‘real’ problems that clients are unable to fathom, their claims on the high ground of strategy, their self-image as masters of technical and business skills.

The above examples, in particular, pointed to an occupational identity that res- onates closely with reengineering as a change technique. Its top-down nature fits in with the consultant’s need for corporate legitimacy – BPR programmes can be vali- dated only at this level and require links to be cemented between the consultant and senior management. Also BPR’s promise of radical change meets the expert’s need to be able to demonstrate dramatic improvements. As we saw, the fear motive was consultants’ first line of attack in seeking new business, while the prospect of dra- matic change represented the good news that follows. Moreover, the scale of the threat parallels the radical nature of necessary change; global competition is put for- ward as being so menacing that only a technique like BPR will do the trick. Reengin- eering has thus been made integral to an armoury of tools – visioning, benchmarking, knowledge bases – which empower the outside expert and provide the comprehen- sive change frameworks that are consultancy’s main appeal.

At the same time, the consultant cannot rest on broad tactics alone but has to remain aware of the specific constraints of the consultant-client relationship. As Sturdy (1997) points out, the reflexive nature of social interaction needs to be recog- nised; consultants anticipate client perceptions of them and shape the images they project accordingly (see also McGivern 1983, Jones 1995). We stressed above that the

The consultants’ offensive 41 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999.

expertise they possess is broadly the same as management’s own (allowing some differences of scope and specialism). Hence we saw consultants seeking to redefine problems to reflect the specifics of their own skills but without insulting the intelli- gence of internal managers. Managers are not dupes who might be persuaded that consultants possess skills that amount to a body of fully fledged technical or codified knowledge (and consultants know that managers know).

These considerations confirm doubts about imputing too much influence to con- sultant stratagems. The emphasis on methods like reengineering as ‘systems of per- suasion’ may explain the achievement of consultant activity, but the partial nature of such accounts has also been pointed out (Sturdy 1997). They may imply that mana- gerial clients are susceptible to and passively consume consultant advice, or that consultant claims are uncontested. In the present case this analytical problem might seem to have been compounded by one of the data sources. Client literature presents an idealised face of consultancy, and on the surface certainly does convey an image of supremely confident consultant skills. However, the real point is that these materials ought not to be seen just as a sales pitch but as a window onto the con- sultancy process. Critical study of them can reveal the limits of consultant stratagems and the constraints of the consultant-client relationship (Fincham 1999). Indeed, much of the tension inherent in the relation between consultant and client came through in the formal models. Their formula driven nature was almost too much of a protest and reflected attempts to instil confidence in the techniques as well as shore up the marginal position of the consultant.

Consultants’ own perceptions reinforced this point. As an outsider the consultant can call up remote sources of knowledge but cannot take part in internal power play. Similarly, the appeal of reengineering partly reflected the force of a generic technique, yet these claims were perpetually in conflict with the need to tailor solutions for individual clients. And there were clear tensions between step changes (the ‘clean slate’ beloved of BPR protagonists) and more incremental improvements. Despite an emphasis on change that spanned functional areas, there was still a need to break down problems into manageable parts – ie. the ‘core business processes’ model, which was supposed to remove artificial divisions in work, actually served as a new division of labour and a way of defining areas of the business that could be realisti- cally tackled.

Conclusion Prevailing notions of BPR as a management fashion, popularised by gurus, tend to have overlooked the part the system played in the push for business in rapidly grow- ing practice areas in management consultancy. This article sought to provide new insights into the role of consultants and their use of reengineering as a technique of change management. It emphasised the nature of the consultant role as accountable to clients and their expertise as reliant on techniques and conceptual frameworks.

As a change technique, reengineering can be traced to sources within the manage- ment ideas industry, and in particular to the notion of the business process. The process concept has been critical in underpinning the persuasive rhetoric of a tech- nique like reengineering, and it provides a body of knowledge that passed into the consultancies and formed the basis of many of their models and solutions. The case data that we discussed explored the narratives and agency cultures that accompany process redesign, which portray a never-ending cycle of client needs, as well as a threatening environment in which outside expertise becomes the business’s only sal- vation. In this context, BPR itself is invariably the basis of a framework of techniques, including visioning, benchmarking, and knowledge databases, all of which reflect the external expert’s distinctive claims on knowledge.

Persuasive as these techniques are, however, they should not be taken to imply any hegemony of consultant over client. The big agencies radiate a confidence in their role as initiators of radical improvement but the realities of change management and of their own marginal position are never far away. Nor was any of this meant

42 New Technology, Work and Employment  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999.

to suggest that techniques are permanent as opposed to the transient nature of fads and fashions. There is little permanent in the consultant’s world, and no doubt reen- gineering itself will slip from the status of front line technique to being absorbed into base level consultancy, and may eventually fall out of favour entirely. As the above cases revealed, consultant discourse is nothing if not flexible, methodologies being continually rolled over and merging into a kind of universal business language.

Nevertheless, the ideas behind a method like reengineering are bound up with tangible forms of expertise; they have been developed into ‘useful knowledge’ (techniques and models, as well as tacit skills and experience) that informs the busi- ness practices of consultants. This suggests there was no simplified product life cycle in operation, with fad transforming into technique and so extending its existence. In part something like this was happening, but agencies reacted too quickly for that to be the whole story. BPR may have been popularised by gurus, but process-based systems have a more stable lineage.

The question of continuity itself raises possible dilemmas caused by BPR’s going out of fashion. This is not the place to launch into the complex issue of the renewal of management trends, but the above does suggest that renewal is not defined wholly by random or contingent factors. Process reengineering uniquely matched an aggressive consultant tendency and helped to take the industry to a new position. But if this ‘latest fad’ has run its course a replacement has yet to be found. The specific properties of the technique are important here because, as we saw, BPR was not simply added to the consultant’s arsenal but integral to an array of established tools. Any new technique would have to match these properties, hence the renewal of techniques cannot be left entirely to the vagaries of fashion or allowed to take consultancies off in any undetermined direction.

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