Sgd it-for-organizational-excellence-pies-indore

Does IT matter ? : Impressions and Implications for Organizational Excellence

Dr S G Deshmukh

DirectorABV-Indian Institute of Information Technology & Management, Gwalior

deshmukh.sg@gmail.com

Key note speech atNational Conference on

Mapping for Excellence: Challenges Ahead

Pioneer Institute of Professional Studies , Indore16 Feb 2009

Speaking points of my keynote

1. Organizational excellence

2. Dimensions of Technology

3. e-business & its advantages

4. The Commoditization of IT

5. Role of IT

6. Various impressions for Organizational excellence and its Implications

7. Endthoughts

Motivation IT has become all pervading in almost

every walk of life

Lot of debate on use/utility of IT Historically a thought provoking article by Nicholas

Carr in Harvard Business Review (May 2003) and a series of articles and books thereafter (N Carr, Does IT Matter, HBR, May 2003)

Relevance of IT for organizational excellence?

3

Organizational excellence

Organizational Excellence is a final product composed of two basic elements alloyed prudently by the members/stakeholders of an organization. These two basic elements are “Strategy” and “Culture”. Quality practices bring all stakeholders together

Quality practices focus on processes

Quality is a journey, there are no successes or failures, just learning experiences.

What is the Role of IT ?

4

Dimensions of Information Technology Smart

Fast

Small & slick

Affordable

Convenient

Flexible

Friendly

Accessible

Connectivity

Culturally acceptable, economically feasible and technologically accessible !

All pervading IT

Internet

Mobile

Multi-Media

Notebook

Ipod,MP3,PMP, and other gadgets

Railway reservation system

MyTrip, amazon.com, ebay.com, shaadi.com, naukari.com, YouTube

Social /professional networks: Orkut, MySpace,Facebook, Hi5,Linkedlin

6

Characteristics of IT

Ubiquitous

Mobility

Lighter and Smaller

High speed

Smartness

Multiple functions

Mix with Non-IT applications

IT is making world flatter ! Outsourcing dominated paradigm

Team work and leadership assumes new meaning

Geography has become history: Time and distance are no longer the important variables

Mobile dense and multimedia rich environment has accelerated digital environment.

Connectivity has made the global village possible

Working on-line, flexi-time, tele/videoconferencing, spiral career paths, continuous learning and global competition are changing the traditional notions of how work gets done.

Internet is changing the way we communicate with –suppliers, customers, potential and current employees by way of 2-way communications !

SMS driven communication

• Competitive World

• Customers demand More

– High Quality, Low Price, Flexibility and what not !

• IT age

– Unpredictable

– New Media

– New Methodologies

Typical Business Scenario

A list of terms prefixed by ‘e-’

e-commerce

e-business

e-marketing

e-procurement

e-logistics

e-health

e-retailer

e-finance

e-banking

e-recruiting

e-service

e-crm

e-procurement

e-strategy

Tangible BenefitsIncreased sales from new sales leads giving rise to increased revenue from

new customers, new markets

existing customers (repeat-selling), existing customers (cross-selling)

Marketing cost reduction from

reduced time in customer service

online sales,reduced printing and distribution costs of marketing communications

Supply chain cost reductions from

reduced levels of inventory

increased competition from suppliers, shorter cycle time in ordering

Administration cost reductions from

more efficient routine business processes such as recruitment, invoice payment, holiday authorisation etc

IT and Organizational Excellence

IT for streamlining of various business functions

IT for quality management

IT for waste reduction

IT for managing human resource

IT for listening to the voice of customer

IT for K-sharing

12

IT doesn’t matter ?

IT became backbone of business.

Over $2 trillion a year spent on IT worldwide despite the out sourcing cry and dot com bust scene.

IT was seen as proletarian tool-calculators only.

Source:

IT doesn’t matter:http://www.nicholasgcarr.com/articles/matter.html

Impression: IT capability

Because of its ability to record every customer interaction,

Ability to offer insights into customer and market behavior,

Turn a business into a scientific laboratory for pre and post-production and manufacturing purposes

Its potential to re-invent the business itself

IT’s proximity to decision making 14

IT Capability..

How IT is used rather that what of IT is used for achieving organizational excellence

IT fundamentally offers three capabilities to businesses:

Infrastructure,

Integration and

Interactivity

These capabilities have to be managed effectively for business

15

Implications : for Organizational Excellence

Infrastructure (relevant to Strategy)

Integration (relevant to Culture)

Interactivity (relevant to Strategy)

Management (affecting both strategy & culture)

These capabilities are to be effectively managed for organizational excellence

16

Implication 1: Infrastructure

IT as a part of infrastructure (Network(LAN/WAN), Data centre etc.)

Investment and choice of such infrastructure

It affects strategy

Enables connectivity and makes processes streamlined

Role of Management: Capital outlay, proper choice of IT, enabling the organizational structure

From Bahu(Buy all Hardware & Utilities) to

Saas(Software as a Service)

17

Implication 2: Integration Enables powerful integration of various

business functions : Marketing, Operations, Design , Finance (Example: ERP based systems)

Integrates both internal and external functions thereby avoids duplication and unnecessary wastage

Empowers suppliers and customers to become part of the extended enterprise

18

Observation..

“..Ordinary people now have access to technology, where they can create value and even collaborate and level the playing field with the world’s mightiest enterprises ..

Anthony Williams, “ Wikinomics: How Mass collaboration Changes Everything”, 2007

19

Insight..

Web 2.0 takes some of its philosophical underpinning from James Surowiecki's book “The Wisdom of Crowds”, which asserts that the aggregated insights of large groups of diverse people can provide better answers and innovations than individual experts.

20

Comment.. If infrastructure is for connectivity -- akin to railroad,

Integration is about integrating functionalities of various systems and applications even people; in a broad sense focused on integrating people, processes and technology in an enterprise setting.

Role of Management: Enables effective integration, provide necessary eco-system for integration resulting in organizational excellence

21

Implication 3: Interactivity

Interactivity (WAP, Web Services, XML) being more recent in the IT evolution

Enables to understand customer better

Establishes long term relationships with both customer and suppliers

Helps in understanding product features and add-ons by close interaction

Feedback through blogging (example: AB, SRK, Lalu Prasad Yadav) 22

Implication for Management: Connectivity !

Communication is anytime, anywhere via any device : Person-to-person, person-to-machine, machine-to-machine

Connecting to Information sources Connecting to Change Connecting to an ever-changing , far reaching

universe Connecting to new issues and trends Connecting to diverse resources Connecting to talent pipeline Connecting to different ways of thinking Connecting to unexpected allies

Implication..

Ever since the Internet brought down the cost of connectivity, the need for integration (be it application integration, b2b integration or data integration) has been growing

So also interactivity needs of enterprises particularly dealing with bringing in pervasive functionalities as in enterprise mobility, personalization and so on. This enables in achieving excellence

24

Observation..

IT is inherently strategic because of its indirect effects

It creates possibilities and options that did not exist before

Companies that see, and act on, these possibilities before others do will continue to excel themselves in the marketplace and reap economic rewards

25

Insight..

IT may become ubiquitous, but the insight required to harness its potential will not be so evenly distributed Therein lies the opportunity for organizational excellence and significant strategic advantage

The manner in which iii are going to be Managed is the key !

26

IT initiatives for Excellence..

Datamining & Business Intelligence

K-sharing

Customer Relationship Management

Supplier Relationship Management

Enterprise Resource Planning

Etc..

Implementation of these

require careful

considerations on the

following IT capabilities:

Infrastructure

Integration

Interactivity

27

Initiative-Capability Matrix

IT Initiative Capability

Infrastructure Integration Interactivity

Data-mining & Business Intelligence

K-sharing Medium High Very High

SRM

CRM

ERP High High Medium

28

Strategy for Organizational Excellence

Active use of IT

Knowledge sharing

Talent Acquisition and management

Stress on continuous improvement

Listening to the voice of customer(internal or external)

29

Implications..

Leave the comfort zone of traditional management concepts

Letting controls go

Invest less money but more time

Recognize information needs and wants

Someone may be using YouTube for projecting incrimination evidence of human rights abuse worldwide.

End Thoughts Excellence : No excuse for waste and sloppiness, now that

IT is a dominant technology

Smart use of technology : Innovation and adaptability

IT does matter by offering capabilities

Infrastructure

Integration

Interactivity

Challenge : People dimension in using IT

Part of decision making

Sense of being “connected”

Feeling of “Global community”

Thank you for your patience

deshmukh.sg@gmail.com

www.iiitm.ac.in