Business Engineering
What is Business Engineering (BE)?
Apparently, people have long seen the issues of the current business management programs offered in universities. The two major problems existing in the current business education are the lack of holistic, integrative, and system view of the business; and the difficulty in applying business knowledge to the business of reality. Therefore, some pioneers have taken some initiatives to innovate the education of business management in some way. Over the last decade, Business Engineering became one of the panaceas in resolving the problems and has been gaining momentum in business education and posing some impact on the conventional education system. Evidence shows that more and more universities around the world are offering business engineering programs of their own versions, such as Quinnipiac and Lehigh Universities in the US, the University of Namur in Belgium, VIA University in Denmark, FHWS in Germany, and others.
Unfortunately, many Business Engineering programs lack the fundamental vision and approach for business education reform but merely make a change of curricula to incorporate some business subjects into their engineering disciplines. Those could hardly make any contribution to conquering the multidisciplinary nature of business education. Only a few business engineering bodies of knowledge have a profound vision and foundation.
In 2005, the Institute of Business Engineers (IBE) put forth another notion and approach to achieving Business Engineering.
Engineering
The applications of principles, logic, the science of mathematics, rationales, etc. to design and develop frameworks, guidelines, steps, and procedures for solving problems
Business Engineering
An engineering approach to create a basic, holistic, integrative, systematic framework, principles, and methods for rational business decision-making and management in the context of business.
Business Engineering System’s ‘Business’ Approach
Business is a series of commercial activities and transactions.
These activities mainly consist of selling products and services and making a profit in return.
These transactions are affected by the external business environment.
The makeup of the external business environment includes enterprises, individuals, and government bodies. They are active participants in the business environment.
Each participant has their own set of objectives to achieve.
Hence, business is a process of adapting to the environment and reaching business objectives simultaneously. Effective management must be involved in the process. In general, effective management involves the tasks of financial investment, production, selling, resource allocation, and control of humans, capital, and materials. All these tasks can be essentially classified into 3 groups according to time frames:
Analyzing past business activities
Managing current business activities
Forecasting future business-related issues
Efficiently managing the complexity and changes of both the business and the external environment will ensure a greater probability for the organization to succeed.
The Evolution of the Education of Business Management
Why Business Engineering?
Business education started with a simple and single body of knowledge shifting to more diverse and fractionalized areas.
The ever-increasing number of elements pouring into the body of business knowledge is diffusing and confusing.
Some treat it as an art study, making it more vague and subjective.
Significant advancement for many disciplines such as IT, medication, etc. why not business management?
Many disciplines have developed their professionalism, so why not business management?
The correlation between business management education and management competency is not robust.
Many people are stuck at the bottleneck of middle management even though they have earned an MBA or DBA
On the other hand, the business environment is becoming more complex and dynamic
Management teams often have trouble coordinating their thoughts and work of business due to the lack of a common communication platform. To maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of communications both horizontally and vertically, a common communication platform becomes crucial for discussions based on one common thought.
Management is a Science, from the Perspective of Business Engineering
Management is a Science, therefore we assume that the structures and operations of businesses must be scientific in nature backed with scientific research and evidence.
However, there are numerous concepts, methods, and theories for managing the operations of companies. Each of the knowledge has its own uniqueness and specificity in various aspects; therefore, we would classify these various concepts and methods of management as a form of Art.
According to Chinese philosophies, ‘Dao’ is based on scientific methods, hence can be classified as a Science. ‘Skills’ on the other hand are acquired and flexible, therefore cannot be classified as a Science. It is thus classified as a form of Art
‘Dao’ refers to the basic principles for operating the undertakings of a specific field and does not change with respect to time and place. For example, accountants have their own set of accounting principles to conform to, the same as engineers, medical practitioners, and other professionals.
With the lack of a set of standardized management ‘Principles’, it is no wonder that learners find it a challenge to lead and manage. That is the major reason why current management practices lack professionalism.
The Emergence of the Business Engineering Approach
The development of numerous management institutions in Europe is comparably more advanced than the management institutions in the US. In the 90s, European institutions attempted to utilize a new perspective to address educational inadequacy by proposing the Business Engineering concept.
These institutions attempt to propose Business Engineering concepts and integrate Scientific and Management subjects. Through subject integration, these institutions aim to elevate students’ business acumen.
However, they have merely integrated subjects superficially and have not rudimentarily addressed the underlying “Principle” issues.
Riding on these perspectives, we have dedicated numerous years of research to create a set of business strategic decision-making and management concepts, principles, and systems for education and practice, collectively called PVC-BQ management and decision-making system, which aims at truly integrating Business and Engineering.
We aim at connecting all the business subjects quantitatively and qualitatively and enabling learners and business managers to effectively manage. Our aim is to add value by building and sustaining business management professionalism
The business talents wanted in the 21st century -- “Generalist”
The development of business talents in university advances towards specialization. Business management programs are designed to pave the path for students in pursuing professionals of particular fields, such as accountants, financiers, and even economists, but in general management. Business engineering and PVC-BQ systems provide the mindset and tools that bridge the talents trained in academic education to those required in the practical business world. In short, traditional education institutes train business management literates, whereas we transform them into business managers.
- Lack of strong integration among the subjects (Diffusion)
- Hard to apply to real situations (Confusion)
- Integration and Holistic: the bottleneck to learning better and applying better.
- The higher managerial position has stronger requirements on “Generalist” capabilities
- Generalization and Conceptualization: the bottleneck to an upper managerial position
An application demo of BE for business strategic analysis
"Toys and Little Gaby"
This is a case for demonstrating the use of BE framework and principles to analyze the business model of a Youtuber.