Process innovation - a revolutionary new approach that fuses information technology and human resource management - can dramatically improve business performance. In the demanding environment of the 1990s, simply formulating strategy is no longer sufficient; it is also essential to design the processes to implement strategy effectively.

Built around new technologies and motivated workers, process innovation begins with a commitment to a strategic vision from senior management. Its scope is vast and crosses multiple business functions. Its goals are ambitious - companies embarking on process innovation often seek tenfold improvements in cost, time, or quality. For example, IBM reduced the preparation time for quotes on buying or leasing a computer from seven days to one, while preparing 10 times as many quotes. The Internal Revenue Service collected 33% more from delinquent taxpayers, with only half the staff and one-third the branch offices. One analysis of the New York Stock Exchange suggests that a redesign of trading processes could save buyers and sellers hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

The cornerstone to process innovation's dramatic results is information technology - a largely untapped resource, but a crucial "enabler" of process innovation. In turn, only a challenge like process innovation affords maximum use of information technology's potential. Thomas Davenport provides numerous examples of firms that have succeeded or failed in combining business change and technology initiatives. He also highlights the role of new organizational structures and human resource programs in facilitating this process.

Process innovation is quickly becoming the byword for managers ready to lead their companies out of modest growth patterns and into highly effective competition in the global marketplace. This book should be read by general and functional managers, quality and information technology professionals, and industrial engineers - in short, by anyone who seeks to redesign a business for the twenty-first century.