A few themes emerged from the discussion...
- IT is about business and speaking the language of business - it is about connecting information to process to people (sounds a lot like socio-technical systems theory!)
- Change management is crucial as you try to "manage the heart" of the change
- Resistance pervades all organizations, so you have to understand your business, the drivers, and the metrics
- The depth of change that IT has made is profound - we saw it even in our conception of what it means to go "to church"
- Data matters - all organizations have it, so now what do we do with it?
- IT is about relationships (network-based strategy!)
- Mobility and social networking are the keys to the future
What stood out for you? What are your take-aways?
Obtaining a deep understanding of people and technology is crucial before implementing any change in business process. As speakers mentioned in panel, an important factor during a technological transformation is to have a flexible environment. We should have people who can adopt themselves with changes. Embedding employees with higher flexibility in key positions ensure the success of business process change. The main source of pervaded resistance against technological changes in a company comes form people who do not want to adopt themselves with new environment.
ReplyDeleteThank for hearing,
It was really interesting to hear the different ways companies have implemented technology. Every company has had to embrace some form of technological change over the past decade. Of course, as with any change, the employees had to be flexible and open-minded. I think our generation is very open to change as products are re-vamped yearly and we always want the latest and greatest.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that the doctors were so unwelcome to change. While a lot of doctors may be reluctant to change in technology within the hospital and patient care, technological advances help with research and development which is critical to our health system. While technology is critical in research, I would think doctors would want to see positive results from technology in patient care.
Interesting how people can be technologically minded in one area of a business but close-minded to change in other areas. I think technology in patient care is amazing and can be life saving.
"Managing the heart" of the change is an important aspect of implementing a new system or new technology. I think that, as a manager, if you can effectively communicate the purpose behind the change, it goes a long way in helping to make the process more smoothly. I think one of the issues with change is that they often feel like dictations coming from the top down, with little to no input from the people who will be affected the most by the change. If managers can address that problem head on by being intimately a part of the process, I think that is what true management of the heart of the change is all about.
ReplyDeleteResistance pervades all organizations, so you have to understand your business, the drivers, and the metrics. This is the concept that stood out most to me, because even now I experience this on a regular basis. Whenever you are working with a group of people you must always convince them of the right course of action and always convey your opinions in way that makes sense to them. You always have to evaluate what drives the person and address that issue in a way that will make them act upon it.
ReplyDeleteIt was very interesting to me to hear that the four different companies or institutions approached the IT strategies the same way. Although the implementations, and purposes for the IT changes differed, the approach was the same and they went through the same methods of measuring need, and also tracking if the upgrades, implementations actually helped the company.
ReplyDeleteA key thing that I took away from the panel was the importance of good decision making processes. All of the companies and the church made a decision to implement new forms of technology in order improve their businesses, consistency of information, and enhance their core competencies. All of these rollouts as seen have been successful because certain actions were taken in the interest of the company and the results can be seen today. It is important that decision makers take into account the multitude of factors that influence their business in order to make the best decisions. This is why we are MBAs, we will need to be vigilant and open-minded in order to plan, develop, and implement different processes in our respective companies.
ReplyDeleteBefore 107 years ago, people only can travel around world by ship (Around the World in Eighty Days). Before E-Marketing emerging, our business is focused on limited geography. We can’t talk face to face by telecommunication meeting in several years ago. But now, we do everything possible. Information Technology is changing our lives. I think in the future that we will use something like chip, which combines the functions of cell phone, TV, laptop and navigation. It will be inserted in our body and when we want to use it, we can turn it on. Wireless net will cover every corner of the world.
ReplyDeleteAs we know, business today would, in many cases, be impossible to transact without IT. One example from the banking industry is check processing. It's been said that without information technology systems, to process all the checks handled in the U.S. manually would take a human staff the size of the entire working population of California.
ReplyDeleteThe interesting thing for me too was how the doctors resisted the upgrade of infrastructure. I agree with what Ms. Mills said on how they dealt with the resistance. If people understand how the upgrade would vastly improve their productivity and facilitate them in their day to day activities, they would be ready to accept technology, even if they are reluctant at first. In addition to what Ms. Mills had to say, I also feel that the employees should be pushed atleast a little out of their comfort zone to accept the change, because as a natural tendency, human beings always prefer to be in their comfort zone when given a chance.
ReplyDeleteIt was indeed great to hear the panel of such experienced people talk about their experiences and how they have benefited with changing consistently with the changes in technology.
ReplyDeleteIt was actually amazing to hear the Pasteur of an online church talk about so many useful uses of technologies like facebook, blogs, twitter and so on, which I am sure everyone one is aware of but have not yet utilized them in the correct manner.
It is a very good lesson learned that we need to be flexible to changes and this is the key to succeed in the field of technology. Be flexible and open to opportunities.
The depth of change that IT has made is profound - we saw it even in our conception of what it means to go "to church".
ReplyDeleteWhat a way to really prove how technology can change an institute. I definitely enjoyed this discussion on the panel because I am in ministry with a Bethany World Prayer Center who partenered with Healing Place during the Katrina disaster. We also offer online services, and have made a way through fiber optics to have our pastor live stream to three campuses in Port Allen, Baker, and Baton Rouge at the same time. Our youth ministry does a live service every month that attracts thousands across the globe, not to mention our pastors podcast. Technology and innovation have defnitely allowed us to minister to a vast majority of people and we are currently working on an app for iphones to help with this ongoin process. I can only imagine if the Apostle Paul had the opportunity to use the technologies we have now, how many people he would reach.
I do agree that social networking is one of the keys to the future. However, if you look at it in today’s context, there are a majority of textbook examples of how a business should not implement a social network to it. If companies really want to understand how it implements a social network with their customers, look at the video game industry. Video games have grown up with the internet so it is only logical that they would be effective in using it, but every sight has a forum and every forum has people saying what they think about every single decision that the company makes. It is instant feedback from some of their most diehard customers. The company then takes these gripes and praises and makes changes accordingly.
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