The economic environment surrounding organizations in virtually every industry is undergoing change at a pace that has never been experienced before. This is caused by several factors, including the fast development of new technologies, the emergence of new competitors, and market pressure for changes.
New technologies enable increases in productivity, customer satisfaction, and market reach.
Information about features of highly competitive services and products is quickly disseminated, driving market pressure for change. Not only does this push suppliers into continuously redesigning their business process in order to remain effective and competitive, but it also pushes buyers into similar patterns of change in their acquisition practices so they can take advantage of new products and forms of delivery. In addition to the accelerated pressure for change, the nature of work has become more complex and specialized as new knowledge is continuously created and incorporated into the production of goods and services, mirroring a larger-scale trend towards knowledge specialization and fragmentation. That is, products and services are increasingly more sophisticated and knowledge-intensive, requiring the involvement of a variety of experts, each holding a key piece of specialized knowledge, to be produced and delivered. In fact, much of the current business process redesign practice has been referred to as a modern-day version of the mechanistic methods based on times and motions developed based on the early studies by Adam Smith, and the subsequent development of Scientific Management methods by Frederick Taylor.