The theme of this week is change...
Today in class we talked about Providian Trust and Spartan Stores - two firms that are trying to change their firm with IT. Providian struggled to overcome cultural resistance to IT and Spartan grappled with the structure of their organization. These point to the struggles of dealing with rejectors of technology.
In your research participation, you are trying to discover what makes people reject technology.
In the lectures, we are talking about business process improvement and the need to improve our process to impact our business effectiveness.
These three elements converge this week on the blog - how do you think that we overcome resistence to change? Are the tactics and methods different depending upon the type of resistence? How do you incentivize individuals and/or organizations to adopt technology? Have you seen resistence in your own job experiences? Share your stories and your thoughts!
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Investing in IT
In class today, we talked about Charles Schwab and Zara and we had a very interesting post-case discussion. This leads us to ask some questions:
- What are the criteria for deciding whether or not to invest in IT?
- When there is competitive pressure upon you, how do you respond - do you move closer to the competitor that is trying to change competition or do you try to make the new competition move closer to you?
- What about the hidden, lost sales for Zara or Schwab - do you know what you are missing if you fail to invest in IT?
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Control, Centralization, and Organizational Change
We launched our case study presentations with discussions of Mrs. Fields Cookies and Otisline. I wanted to extend our in-class discussions over the next week. As you reflect upon the case studies, let me present some questions for you to debate and blog about...
I look forward to seeing your thoughts!
- What is the right balance between control and freedom, from an IT perspective? As an executive, is it possible to balance the two or is strategic control the best approach? What can we learn from MFC and Otis?
- How should firms balance the centralization/decentralization of decision making? How should IT facilitate decision making?
- When we consider STS, how can we achieve harmony? Which element should move first? Or is there no "right" answer?
I look forward to seeing your thoughts!
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Social Networking, the Cloud, and the Enterprise
On the blogosphere this week in BADM 7050, we have seen a great debate about our private and public lives as well as the role of social networking. There were a lot of great blogs about the impact of technology on culture and how it truly has changed everything. Several of you raised the issue of mobile technology, Google, and the Apple TV. So, by now, all of us have a broader understanding and appreciation of the role of IT within our economy and society. Now let us focus on the enterprise, as we shift our focus to how IT facilitates decision making and operational excellence. Let us pick up on some of these technologies and see how you think that firms could use them for decision making.
The first is social networking. Is this simply a consumer phenomenon? Or can firms use social networking to make it easier for knowledge management? How do you think firms can use them? There certainly are various opinions about how it can be used [MSNBC], so what do you think?
The next technology is mobile. A new study says that the Mobile Web will rule by 2015 [MS report]. How will these changes alter how business is conducted? How does it need to change?
The lecture this week will raise two other emerging technology trends - mashups and cloud computing. A mashup is putting together services from multiple websites to create a composite application. Check out some of the examples on the Programmable Web website [here]. What will happen in firms when users can create their own apps? In your job experience, how much control did you have over IT solutions? How will this change everything?
The next is cloud computing. Cloud Computing is sourcing services over the web. There was a great blog in Computerweek that summarizes some of the great enterprise questions that a Cloud environment raises [Ryan Nichols]. After reading the article, what do you think?
While not directly related to the technologies we have talked about in class, CIO had an interesting discussion about some future technologies [CIO]. As a future manager, which technologies do you think your firm should implement? What do you think would make firms more effective?
As future managers, I want you to start to view these technologies through the prism of the golden rule - there is no such thing as a technology project, just business projects about technologies. While these technologies are really cool, how will they change decision making? Knowledge Management? Operational Excellence? I look forward to hearing what you think!
The first is social networking. Is this simply a consumer phenomenon? Or can firms use social networking to make it easier for knowledge management? How do you think firms can use them? There certainly are various opinions about how it can be used [MSNBC], so what do you think?
The next technology is mobile. A new study says that the Mobile Web will rule by 2015 [MS report]. How will these changes alter how business is conducted? How does it need to change?
The lecture this week will raise two other emerging technology trends - mashups and cloud computing. A mashup is putting together services from multiple websites to create a composite application. Check out some of the examples on the Programmable Web website [here]. What will happen in firms when users can create their own apps? In your job experience, how much control did you have over IT solutions? How will this change everything?
The next is cloud computing. Cloud Computing is sourcing services over the web. There was a great blog in Computerweek that summarizes some of the great enterprise questions that a Cloud environment raises [Ryan Nichols]. After reading the article, what do you think?
While not directly related to the technologies we have talked about in class, CIO had an interesting discussion about some future technologies [CIO]. As a future manager, which technologies do you think your firm should implement? What do you think would make firms more effective?
As future managers, I want you to start to view these technologies through the prism of the golden rule - there is no such thing as a technology project, just business projects about technologies. While these technologies are really cool, how will they change decision making? Knowledge Management? Operational Excellence? I look forward to hearing what you think!
Friday, August 27, 2010
Technology is changing everything
Welcome to the first class blog. In this space, we will bring forward the IT issues of the day to relate our classroom discussions to emerging real-world topics.
Our focus during the first week of class has been the profound changes that IT can enable. Over the past few days, we have seen a series of reports about how firms are embracing these changes to go downstream and get closer to the customer. These changes range from the marketing of products [WSJ article] to location-based services [CNN article]. What do you think - how has the emphasis on moving downstream and closer to the customer changed how you shape and work? What else can firms do to move more downstream?
Meanwhile, the mobile market is heating up. Microsoft is betting $1 billion on their new mobile O/S in an attempt to fight against the Droid and the iPhone [MSNBC], while Blackberry rules the corporate market, maintaining an impressive 70% market share [CIO]. Our class has been talking about the importance of location shifting and moving power to the handheld device - these stories point out how we are just getting started in the mobility phase. What do you think of the mobile market - how should we think about "work" differently now?
The last series of stories over the past few days deals with Google's jump into the talk market. The new app appeared with gmail earlier this week and is now live, with over 1,000,000 calls placed in the first 24 hours [Tweet from Google]. Yet, analysts argue that Google will not compete with Skype [Business Week]. What do you think - how will these evolving firms alter the competitive landscape of the telecom market? How will this change how we collaborate in the future?
Our focus during the first week of class has been the profound changes that IT can enable. Over the past few days, we have seen a series of reports about how firms are embracing these changes to go downstream and get closer to the customer. These changes range from the marketing of products [WSJ article] to location-based services [CNN article]. What do you think - how has the emphasis on moving downstream and closer to the customer changed how you shape and work? What else can firms do to move more downstream?
Meanwhile, the mobile market is heating up. Microsoft is betting $1 billion on their new mobile O/S in an attempt to fight against the Droid and the iPhone [MSNBC], while Blackberry rules the corporate market, maintaining an impressive 70% market share [CIO]. Our class has been talking about the importance of location shifting and moving power to the handheld device - these stories point out how we are just getting started in the mobility phase. What do you think of the mobile market - how should we think about "work" differently now?
The last series of stories over the past few days deals with Google's jump into the talk market. The new app appeared with gmail earlier this week and is now live, with over 1,000,000 calls placed in the first 24 hours [Tweet from Google]. Yet, analysts argue that Google will not compete with Skype [Business Week]. What do you think - how will these evolving firms alter the competitive landscape of the telecom market? How will this change how we collaborate in the future?
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