Business process reengineering is a methodology based on analysis of business enterprises designed to increase efficiency and eliminate work which does not add value to the overall business process. It was first identified in 1990 by MIT computer science professor Michael Hammer, who argued in an article in the Harvard Business Review that many business managers were failing at their jobs because they were transferring to automated technology outdated work which, rather than being preserved, should be altogether eliminated. Many businesses at the time were automating certain processes which had been rendered obsolete and added nothing to the value of the products or services being offered to customers.

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	By the mid-90s business process reengineering came to be identified as synonymous with ''downsizing.''

What emerged from Hammer’s analysis was the idea behind business process reengineering, which many corporate leaders adopted into their strategies to improve efficiency and raise company competitiveness. In time this strategy came to be known by a number of other names, including BPR, business process redesign, business transformation, and business process change management.

Hammer, in conjunction with James Champy, published a book called Reengineering the Corporation which laid out the following seven principles as the guiding rules of business reengineering:

1. Organize around outcomes, not tasks.
   
   
2. Identify all the processes in an organization and prioritize them in order of redesign urgency.
   
   
3. Integrate information processing work into the real work that produces the information.
   
   
4. Treat geographically dispersed resources as though they were centralized.
   
   
5. Link parallel activities in the workflow instead of just integrating their results.
   
   
6. Put the decision point where the work is performed, and build control into the process.
   
   
7. Capture information once and at the source.

In their book Hammer and Champy defined business process reengineering as ''the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed.'' They also based their strategy on dealing with four key business elements: organization, technology, strategy, and people.

Results within companies which adopted the BPR approach were mixed. Procter & Gamble and General Motors were both reeling from significant losses when BPR helped reorganize and refocus the companies, which ultimately helped them increase profitability. American Airlines also designed a similar approach, though the weight of bad debt kept the company from fully recovering into profitability.

BPR has also been the object of heavy criticism by economists who affirm that it relies too much on technological change and fails to incorporate business practices involving people. Many BPR-based attempts to reduce business costs have also been noted for their failure to counter poor project management.

By the mid-90s business process reengineering came to be identified as synonymous with ''downsizing,'' which naturally led to it being regarded with suspicion by employees and unions that had been in their positions for long periods of time. BPR proved to be difficult to adapt to the business world for a number of reasons — Hammer faulted lack of commitment by corporate leadership, unrealistic expectations, and a general resistance to change — which paved the way for BPR’s ultimate successor, enterprise resource planning.

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