Business Engineering

If we accept the ‘aircraft paradigm’ for a business entity (and we have every reason to do so), we automatically accept the idea of business engineering (BE). BE means that a business entity (or any other organization, for that matter), can and must be engineered, upgraded and re-engineered in a manner essentially identical to engineering of an industrial facility or, well… an airplane. BE – not surprisingly – refers to organizations as socio-technical systems.

BE consists of two steps: (1) development of a blueprint of a desired organization and (2) building an organization based on this blueprint. Obviously, to develop a comprehensive and workable blueprint, you will need the right methodology and tools.

BDL – for the first time in the history of business management and organizational design – delivers on business engineering promises. Why? Because it is the first methodology that offers a uniform way to develop a truly comprehensive blueprint for an organization (a comprehensive corporate objects map) and a universal language to turn this blueprint into reality.

Which lead to very important consequences which will make a significant impact on the future of business and corporate management technologies. First, business engineering and re-engineering will become a very important corporate management function.

Therefore, we can expect every major organization (not just a business entity) to set up a business engineering department, responsible for optimizing its corporate structure (objects, processes and – as I will show below – corporate culture). Believe it or not, but you will need to engineer your corporate culture as well. If you want to make a quantum leap, of course.

This department will, naturally, be run by a professional business engineer – the Director for Business Engineering. Who will become the fourth key corporate executive – second only to CEO, chief financial officer, marketing director and at par with chief information/knowledge management officer.

However, as business engineering and re-engineering projects are not expected to be undertaken on an everyday basis (more like once a year or even less frequently), they are very likely to be outsourced to specialized business engineering.

These companies will provide both the blueprint and actual BE/BRE services (turning the blueprint into reality). In current terminology, ‘corporate transformation’ (or ‘restructuring’) services.

Where will these companies come from? From strategic management consulting companies, obviously. Which will have to transform themselves into firms offering business engineering services – business engineering proper to startups and re-engineering – to established companies.