Reengineering to Compete: Canadian Business in the Global Economy

Paul McEwen is a chartered accountant in Vancouver.

This book attempts to examine the effects of rapidly changing economic
conditions on small and medium-sized Canadian businesses. Included in
its profiles of 17 Canadian companies are interviews with senior
managers who discuss how their companies have responded to Canadian and
global economic conditions. A brief introductory chapter attempts to
frame the profiles by discussing such buzzword issues as “new age
customers” and “employee empowerment,” and the effects of the FTA
and NAFTA.

The book has no thesis, and the questions it raises outnumber the
conclusions it draws by a wide margin. The text is, for the most part,
descriptive rather than analytic. Evaluated as a series of loosely
connected magazine articles, Reengineering to Compete succeeds;
evaluated as a cohesive study of current business issues with a view to
practical application, it fails.