ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the evolution of business process orientation, beginning with the concept of functional orientation that began at the turn of the century through the Total Quality Management phase of the 1980s, the reengineering craze of the 1990s, and the ebusiness frenzy. The orientation of a firm and the base point of reference for the people in the firm are critical aspects of all the business drivers. In 1993, Dr. Michael Hammer presented the business process orientation concept as an essential ingredient of a successful “reengineering” effort. The chapter presents the key contributions to the history of business process orientation and the imperatives for the e-corporation. In 1776, Adam Smith described the concept that industrial work should be broken into its simplest tasks. This idea became the basic organization model of business for almost 200 years. Michael Porter’s value chain is a method to define a business in a customer-focused, strategic-process-oriented way.
