Thursday, July 9, 2020

Book Summary | Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution


Book : Re-engineering the Corporation : A Manifesto for Business Revolution 

Author:   James Champy


108585Business is all about taking the right risk for profits. Business is run by people and needs processes and guidelines for controls. Business processes needs re-engineering based on the organisations vision and appetite. The re-engineering the corporation provides key insights on how to redevelop or redesign the business process so that the purpose and value is achieved based on the customer needs. Re-engineering is the opportunity to develop the rules by which business in the future will be conducted rather than being forced to operate by the rules imposed by someone else. As such, re-engineering underpins every attempt to seize and maintain a true competitive advantage. I found the following as the key from the book.

Chapter – 1: The reengineering Concept
- Re-engineering is the opportunity to develop the rules by which business in the future will be conducted rather than being forced to operate by the rules imposed by someone else.
- Re-engineering is defined as the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to generate dramatic improvements in critical performances measures such as cost, quality, service and speed.    
- Three types of organisation undertake re-engineering
o   Companies that find themselves in deep competitive trouble – and who often require an order of magnitude improvements    
o   Companies with managers who can see problems arising in future
o   Companies with mangers who are ambitious and aggressive.          
Most re engineered processes deliver impressive production planning flexibility and capabilities
Companies enjoy the benefits of centralized purchasing power and decentralized operations.

Chapter – 2: The Characteristics of A Re-engineered corporation       
- Re-engineering is not solely about creating a new business processes it focuses on creating a new company by Simplifying the process | empowerment of people through range of tasks to perform | moving from hierarchy to a flatter management run by professionals and not managers | People in the organisation no longer worry about pleasing the boss but focus on pleasing the customers.          
- Re-engineering is never focused on fixing old processes. Re-engineering is focused on breakthroughs – quantum leaps forward       

Chapter – 3: Re-engineering Case Studies
Successful re engineering programs undertaken by large and small corporations in the past have these common themes:
  •  A focus on processes rather than organizational boundaries.
  • The drive to create breakthrough performance.
  •  A willingness to break with old traditions and rules.
  •  The creative use of new information technology.


Every company’s re-engineering program must be unique if it is to achieve anything substantial. There are no guaranteed-to-work or step-by-step prescriptions that can be followed in re-engineering.          

Chapter -4 : The Key to re-engineering success:               
Business process exist solely for the purpose of creating a satisfied customer – Always start with customer and work backward.              
Re-engineering must be done at speed – the faster the better.
Tolerate risk  
No engineering program every emerges full-blown right out of the box – accept imperfections along the way               
Don’t stop too soon

Sunday, July 5, 2020

Book Summary | Sadhu Sundar Singh


Book: Sadhu Sunder Singh : A Biography of the Remarkable Indian Disciple 
Author: Phyllis Thompson 




Sadhu Sundar Singh: A Biography of the Remarkable Indian Disciple of Jesus Christ
The book of Acts in the bible is about a promise that Christ made before Ascension to Heaven on Holy Spirit. The book of acts professes about a great prosecutor who wanted to wipe out the believers and his conversion into Paul and his story of healing etc. However, on the road to Damascus, he reported being blinded by a vision of Jesus Christ. He heard the voice of Jesus Christ, asking Saul, “why persecutes thou me?” Saul replied, “Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutes.   After his vision and healing, he proclaimed the divinity of Jesus Christ and dedicated his life to spreading the Christian message. Paul explained that he was a servant of Jesus Christ and his unexpected conversion to ardent Christian was due to the Grace of God and not reason or intellect. We come across many stories on how he was released from the jail, how he healed many people, even when believers touched the clothes they got healed. At the end of the book, we read about a snake bit and people waited for him to die, but obviously then they started to believe in God. 


The story of Sadhu Sunder Singh does resemble the path of Saul who became Paul. A young boy with hatred, being rebellion on the teaching Bible in the class to becoming a great Saint who did evangelisation and healing of the sick across India, Tibet, Pakistan and Afghanistan.  He experienced the vision, and after the personal tragedy, as he tried to commit suicide in the tracks of the railways. The story of poisoning him and the treatment given to him. His miracles are just amazing to read and get inspired.  

He was known as the India’s Saffron Saint & the apostle with the bleeding feet for he walked far and long.  

An inspiring and interesting biography from post-independence i.es 1929.