Friday, June 12, 2009

Discuss the impact of information technology on organizing work, on the basis of your experience.

Discuss the impact of information technology on organizing work, on the basis of your experience. Explain how it can enable new methods of working. Illustrate referring to your own organisation or an organisation you are familiar with. Briefly describe the organisation you are referring to.


The impact that Information Technology brought to our daily life, and how it shaped our environment is something of a wide scope to explore. And when asked how the impact should be managed, the sky is again its limit. Within my limited scope of background and experience, I am only capable to touch some part, within which there are also room for discussion and confirmation from the participants and experts attending this seminar. I feel honorable to be invited by the committee of this very reputable event, and I will devote my best knowledge to actively contribute in the discussions.
Information Technology as any other technology or means to ease our life is not neutral to the culture of mankind. With its inherent power, those who have it firmly in their hands can control the world, and can express their dominance to others. In relation to it, I would like to quote Dr. Olaf Stapleton and Gregory Bateson :"When one species attains the position of dominance over all the other, i.e. the ecology of this planet, and if that species is both egocentrically greedy and has a powerful set of technologies through which to amplify the expression of that greed, then unless that dominant species can find a way to limit or transform its egocentric greediness into something more wholesome, it will found its planetary nest as surely the night follows the day, perhaps even to its own extinction"
Developed, as well as developing countries alike, are all responsible for the sustainment of our planet earth. The convergence of information technology, telecommunication, and information content, has shown its initial impact, where each of us in line with the mature level of our understanding, simply becomes a node of the network. Orchestrated dynamism is the name of the game, when one like to visualize the related arrangement among the "borderless" nation as expressed by Dr. Kenichi Ohmae. The performance of one node wherever it is located will influence the quality of the whole network, or it should be cut-off from the system. If too many nodes are eliminated, the whole network will at the end bear the strategic costs, because imbalance occurs and as common in close correlation to the law of nature, the ecological system will suffer. It is in fact a common sense when managing the impact of Information Technology should also consider these interrelationships.
To ease my presentation within the limited time-frame, I will systematize it into some tenets that although discretely expressed, is expected to contain significant interrelationships as building blocks for further elaboration in the discussions.
Tenets
Following are some tenets which I consider relevant to be raised for further elaboration in the effort to update our strategic thinking.


1. Digitalization of the electronic related industries are the basic building block that had brought significant changes in our economic vision.
At the technical level, digitalization is a straightforward precondition. When it was widely implemented in telecommunication, computer technology and other related industries, it brought forward to the surface possibilities of convergence among these various industries. The impact is a complete restructuring of many concepts including the conventional economic treatments of supply and demand, and the value aspects of economic commodities.
a. We can see the utilization of knowledge workers in Mainland China by the United States without needing to bring those workers physically to the States. They still stay in China, pay taxes there, thus contribute, to the economy of China. They got work assignments from the states, transported their product to that country almost instantly, without either party needed to move back and forth. They also contribute to the economy of the United States, and become the so called economic alien or popularized as virtual alien. All the transportation means used are the net, the global network. This can only be achieved if all the required ingredients of the products are easily transportable and possesses common character of dimension. Digitizing has made this dream come true. It brought telecommunication, Information Technology and Information Content converge. Text, graphics,sound, images in the form of still as well as moving pictures become common dimension so that processing and transmission can easily be achieved. And as the product in the form of contained knowledge is produced, the next step is simply finding the best suitable mechanism to physically produce it. All these new recruits are China trained and educated, in accordance with their own education system. Although there might exist some difference in pay of the workers in the United States than in China with the same level of capability, the arrangement has brought a Win-Win condition for both economy.
b. Digit which does not posses any physical dimension, but contains enormous size of knowledge has also change the way we are looking at things. An integrated circuit in the form of chips or microprocessor contains information. If the size of the same chip is reduced a thousand times less, but with the same content of information, the economic value of that particular chip is the same. One can experiment by halving the size of an automobile and expect the economic value to be the same or even halved. It never works. If the same information is embedded in a bigger size of media, say in a big tape reel, the only insignificant difference in the economic value is its carrying media, however the content which is information with the embedded knowledge is independent of the size and type of the carrying media.
c. The transporting of bits - the basic ingredient of digit - has in fact caused the economic model of pricing almost fall apart. Dr. Negroponte has shown that tariffs are determined per minute, per mile, or per bit, all three of which are rapidly becoming bogus measures. According to Dr. Negroponte, the system is being ruptured by the wild extremes of time ( a microsecond - which is a millionth of a second - to a day), distance ( a few feet to fifty thousand miles), and numbers of bits (one to 20 billion) . A simple communication device which is called modem that can transmit 2400 bits per second, compare to the same device with a 14,400 bits per second is a straightforward example of how many information the latter can transmit in the same amount of time period compared to the other. If the same tariff hold for both, it would be more economical to use the latter. This again shows to us how our economic rules must be rescripted to allocate the impact of digitizing.


2. Miniaturization and digitizing within the Information Technology domain leads toward the birth of commodities that are subtle, lighter, low energy consumption, and less-impact to the environment, which match beautifully to the new required conditions of a sustained ecological system.
Two critical issues faced by the world to day as we are moving toward the 21st century are, the exponential growth on our planet and the ecological load that growth creates. The other critical issue is the ephemeralization of technology. Dr. Oliver W. Markley , has smartly visualized the coming Global Consciousness Era following the Information era that we are now entering or going to leave behind.
Exhibit-1, shows the time frame it took within the development eras. It took thousands of years to change form nomadic era to agricultural. Then hundred of years from agricultural to industrial, and only decades from industrial to the information era. As the knowledge of people grows exponentially, so did the capability to exploit the limited resources of the planet earth. Fortunately, innovation and creativity which always flourish in line with the growth of knowledge gave birth to groups demanding proper balancing of development by sustaining the ecology of resources. Ephemeralization of technology will occur in two ways. The first is the physical or explicit domain where researchers are now working in the range of nano dimension (10- 9 cm). Nanotechnology is about building molecules an atom at a time - mass production at the molecular level.
The second path to the ephemeralization of technology is through noetic technology. Noetic is a Greek word that refers to science of the intellect. The bridge from the third to the fourth wave is beginning to evolve with the development of virtual reality and biofeedback.
Moreover the two chains must be managed distinctly but also in concert. Companies tend to adopt value-adding information processes in three stages.
First : visibility. Companies acquire an ability to "see" physical operations more effectively through information. At this stage managers use large-scale information technology systems to coordinate activities in their physical value chains, in the process laying the foundation for a virtual value chain.
Second : mirroring capability. Companies substitute virtual activities for physical ones; they begin to create a parallel value chain in the marketspace.
Third :value matrix. Business use information to establish new customer relationships. At this third stage, managers draw on the flow of information in their virtual value chain to deliver value to customers in the new ways. In effect, they apply the generic value adding activities to their virtual value chain and thereby exploit what we call value matrix.
Managers must focus consciously on the principles that guide value creation and extraction across the two value chain separately and in combination. They are fundamentally different. The physical value chain is composed of a linear sequence of activities with defined points of input and output. By contrast, the virtual value chain is non-linear - a matrix of potential inputs and outputs that can be assessed and distributed through a wide variety of channels. A company's executives must embrace an updated set of guiding principles because in the marketspace many of the business axioms that have guided managers no longer apply.

3. Virtual value chain which arise as a direct consequence of Information Technology development, is an empowered means to the conventional physical value chain.
The economic logic of the two chains is different : conventional understanding of the economic of scale and scope does not apply to the virtual value chain (VVC) in the same way as it does to the physical value chain (PVC). Moreover the two chains must be managed distinctly but also in concert. Companies tend to adopt value-adding information processes in three stages.
First : visibility. Companies acquire an ability to "see" physical operations more effectively through information. At this stage managers use large-scale information technology systems to coordinate activities in their physical value chains, in the process laying the foundation for a virtual value chain.
Second : mirroring capability. Companies substitute virtual activities for physical ones; they begin to create a parallel value chain in the marketspace.
Third :value matrix. Business use information to establish new customer relationships. At this third stage, managers draw on the flow of information in their virtual value chain to deliver value to customers in the new ways. In effect, they apply the generic value adding activities to their virtual value chain and thereby exploit what we call value matrix.
Managers must focus consciously on the principles that guide value creation and extraction across the two value chain separately and in combination. They are fundamentally different. The physical value chain is composed of a linear sequence of activities with defined points of input and output. By contrast, the virtual value chain is non-linear - a matrix of potential inputs and outputs that can be assessed and distributed through a wide variety of channels. A company's executives must embrace an updated set of guiding principles because in the marketspace many of the business axioms that have guided managers no longer apply.


4. Organizations with digital assets may be able to reharvest them through a potentially infinite number of transactions.
The following five principles apply to digitalization as suggested by Jeffrey F. Rayport and John J. Sviokla4:
a. The law of digital assets. Digital assets unlike physical ones, are not used up in their consumption. They may be reharvest through a potentially infinite number of transactions. Organization using the traditional chemical means in processing images, can not compete with the digital technology with respect to the speed of processing, and the number of locations that it can be reached.
b. New economics of scale. The virtual value chain redefines economics of scale, allowing small organization to achieve low unit costs for products and services in markets dominated by big organizations.
c. New economics of scope. In the marketspace, businesses can redefine economics of scope by drawing on a scope by drawing on a single set of digital assets to provide value across man different and disparate markets. Using the virtual value chain, the business can coordinate across markets and provide a broader line of high-quality products and services.
d. Transaction cost compression. Transaction cost along the VVC are lower than their counterparts on the PVC, and they continue to decrease sharply as the processing capacity per unit of cost for microprocessors doubled every 18 months. In 1960, it costs about $ 1.- to keep information about an individual customer. Today, it is only less than one cent per customer.
e. Rebalancing supply and demand. These four axioms above combined, creates a shift on the world business' demands from supply - to demand-side. As companies gather, organize, select, synthesize, and distribute information in the marketspace while managing raw and manufactured goods in the marketplace, they have the opportunity to sense and respond to customer's desires, rather than simply making and selling product and services.

5. The network is emerging as the signature form of organization in the Information age, just as bureaucracy stamped the industrial age, hierarchy controlled the Agricultural Era, and the small group roamed in the Nomadic Era Organizational structure flourished from the agricultural and the industrial era.


6. We are empowered to manage our areas of responsibility. We work together to achieve common goals for business success. Full participation, cooperation, and open communication lead to superior results. What all this means for managers is that they must consciously focus on the principles that guide value creation.

Information is not controlled by management hierarchy, but is readily and quickly available to all employees, empowering them to be direct participants in the management of the business. Such changes are driven by advances in computers and microelectronics. As per- sonal computers and compu-ter networks become com-monplace, employees gain a personal information access and processing capacity that is unprecedented. Knowledge is the key to organizational performance. The link between infor-mation technology, knowledge and organizational performance is clear.

7. Information technology provides access to diverse sources for specialized information and enhances our ability to analyze, manage, and apply this information to our work. While the link between teams, knowledge and organizational performance may be less obvious, it is just as important. If teamwork is the key to effective organizations, information is the key to effective teamwork.


8. A global change is underway, a social upheavel in organization that involves everyone. It shakes every place of work, quakes the foundations of our biggest institutions, and our smallest groups, even sends quivers into our homes and communities. It swirls through organizations of all sizes, in all sectors, in all countries, regardless of gender, race, creed, or economic status. Does this means we need to clear out the old, to make the way for the new ? Organizations will have to learn how to share important information with all employees. The backlash will mushroom against purely high-tech approaches to resolving and meeting challenges. At the management level of organization, relation between people tend to move away from hierarchycal and bureaucratic forms, into an equal valued and humanistic relation. Social capital will be seen as a new source of wealth. However, we should keep in mind that we don't arrive in the next century without a heritage.



9. Today's generation straddle two eras, the graying industrial one behind and the sleek information one ahead. Just a decade ago, this was Sunday supplement speculation, to day it is a mainstream. Collectively we are in the middle of a transition. Too far in to go back, yet not far enough along to see how it's going to turn out. In such a condition, we naturally live within several type of waves. If we are realistic, the hierarchy, the top-down pyramid, still holds final rule. Even as virtually everyone vigorously complains about it and finds ways to skirt it, bureaucracy, with its neatly stacked, specialized boxes, continues to spew out more policies and procedures, rules and regulations. Small groups and teams are in - form the shop floor and front desk to the executive suite and boardroom. At the same time, new networks are forming, both within and among older organizational forms. Bureaucracies need to be transformed rather than replaced. And new relationships erupt spontaneously among the departmental boxes as connections multiply. It shows that a real network relation involve various type of organizational development status and values. This model derived from Jessica & Jeffrey Stamps , is a realistic model occuring today. This kind of network relation entertains the interest of various development status, including the developed as well as developing countries, whereby the impact of IT development can be more realistically approached and tamed.


Final Remark


With respect to the impact of information technology, we are at the cross-road to move ahead. When we try to reach certain consensus, on the standard of information interconnection we will realize that there are so many issues to be faced Among which,. the development status of information technology of a nation is one, and the educational infrastructure might be the other. Commitments and consistencies in governance with a solid leadership are the main driver. Only then can we expect, that a new individual of people will blossoms and new style of leadership is emerging, while those to be led are of a completely new ilk. The new type of people will have the following criteria : originated from a much more diverse pool, bringing vast cultural differences with them with a clear mission to maintain an equal balance and equilibrium in the interrelationship of people. To develop healthy, flexible, intelligent organizations for the 21st century in the information technology era, we need to harvest the best of the past and combine it with what is really new. And with information technology as the main driver of change, its impacts to our life and works can be of the best advantage. Surely, some learning from thousands of years of our environment and life of mankind must be worth keeping. There must be continuity as well as change.

No comments:

Post a Comment