e-ORGANISATION

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1. Communication Technologies Impact on e-Business

1.1 Networked Organisations

This newer form is described in Pearlson and Saunders (2003) in sections describing "Networked Organisations" as well under the label "T-Form" that signifies "Technology-Oriented". Under such organisation, all parts of the company are connected by formal and informal communications. Added to electronic communications such as e-mail and voice mail, work in progress is kept in a central repository that may be viewed and added to from everywhere in the organisation. Using this availability of information, decisions can be made wherever they are needed, rather than only at senior levels of an organisation.

1.2 Virtual Organisations

Virtual organisation refers to the extensive use of IS and electronic links to create a flexible organisation in terms of work locations and schedules. Organisations that act together can create temporary virtual corporations or, at least, extend the effective capacity of corporations beyond their individual internal physical and employee resources. Virtual organisation structure exhibits many of the same features as the 'T-Form' described above. There is a similar exploitation of networking with extensive communication taking place electronically.

1.3 Virtual Operations

Since workers can communicate easily over remote distances using e-mails, by sending attached documents, through secure private networks and also through teleconferencing or videoconferencing, it becomes possible to form teams of people to work on specific projects at short notice. Such co-workers do not even need to belong to the same organisation in order to be effective. A team can be put together to match the specific skill and knowledge requirements of a particular event or opportunity as if the members are part of the same corporation. That is how virtual corporations are brought into existence.

For example: Compaq in the early 1990s closed its sales offices and let its sales people work from home using computers linked to central databases. Thus, the "office space" of the sales team was now distributed and not in a traditional "office" as such but rather a virtual one. Using this virtual capacity along with other cost-cutting exercises enabled Compaq to double its revenue in two years, with each salesperson selling six times as many computers as before.

Another example of internal change linked to virtual operation is Oticon. One of the difficulties of managing the various responses a business might make to changing conditions is that of anticipating the necessary inter-relationships between various changes that might need to be made. Thus, policies that might appear to have a largely technological focus may, in fact, have far wider implications for the business. Oticon is a Danish hearing aid company that was rapidly losing market share and its profitability was declining in the early 1990's. The board then appointed a new chief executive; Lars Kolind who took a radical approach to the problem by trying to create an organisation that could respond better to customer needs. Some of the changes in operation adopted by Oticon are:

• The elimination of traditional departments: people now worked on projects, moving between them as the flow of work changed
• The removal of private desks: replaced them by mobile trolleys, the core of which was a mobile PC. These gave staff access to [shared] databases and other tools (something they wheeled into a meeting)
• The elimination of paper: all documents were scanned and stored electronically. Anyone with the relevant authority could access the data. Results of meetings are stored electronically, and so can be used by people on other projects

1.4 Virtual Entities

The key question remains as to how the two or more separate involved corporations should apportion their work. In general, a corporation should concentrate on its core competencies. If none of the corporations involved in a joint venture have core competencies in a required area then their relative competence should be taken into account.  Moreover, the corporations need to consider the scope and duration of the collaboration. For example: to what extent should the corporations have access to each other's databases and expertise and should they collaborate on a project-by-project basis or come together in a more permanent virtual corporation? Whatever decisions are made, they need to be made quickly if they are to take advantage of market opportunities. This ability to form into an appropriate virtual corporation to take advantage of a particular opportunity is a characteristic known as agility.

1.5 Agile Networks

The notion of agility derives from research work carried out at the Iacocca Institute into how small manufacturing enterprises might collaborate in the interest of providing integrated services to potential customers. Agility is a property of a group of corporations rather than an ability of a single corporation. Nevertheless, in order to provide a single interface to the customer there may be agile networks in which a single corporation takes a lead role. This leads to a possible distinction between democratic webs and prime-contractor webs. In principle, since one of the reasons for forming agile networks to combine the strengths of several smaller corporations, a democratic web is often the natural choice. However, customers are often looking to find a single solution to their need or problem rather than a bundle of products and hence a prime-contractor web often suits the customer best.

Pros and Cons of Agility and Virtual Capacity:

• Potentials:
  • new products
  • new markets
  • speed to market
  • reduced risk
  • reduced costs
• Barriers Insufficiency of:
  • legal guidelines
  • management techniques
  • methodological tools
• Opportunities
  • a volatile marketplace
  • some core competencies that are increasingly in demand
• Threats Loss of:
  • independence
  • control
  • intellectual capital

For example: The creation of Agile Web Inc. in 1995 represented the first legally recognised virtual corporation in the world. Its roots date back to 1991 and US government funded research at the Iacocca Institute carried out to clarify the concept of "agile manufacturing". Over the next few years, various pilot projects were carried out in Pennsylvania, USA to test the feasibility of small manufacturing enterprises collaborating on large projects wherein each enterprise could supply a specified fraction of the skills or products required.  By 1995 twenty small and medium-sized manufacturers had joined the "Agile Web" project. Their various capabilities include: printed circuit board design, electronic assembly, casting and sheet metal manufacture, precision machining and tooling, precise-tolerance wire products, digital signal and image processing software, porcelain enamel coating, plastic mouldings as well as more general product development and management consultancy. Importantly, their skills are both complementary and overlapping, so that they offer competitive services as well.

As described at the 'Agile Web' web site:  “The purpose of the creation of the separate corporation [in 1995] was to provide enough of a structure to facilitate and foster the creation of virtual organisations from among the network members, while maximising the flexibility required for the Web to meet constantly changing needs of customers”.  The focus, on the customer's behalf, is on providing a full solution from conceptual design through to volume production. To that end the Agile Web policies are geared toward being able to reconfigure the virtual corporation rapidly to fit changing customer requirements and to provide a single point of contact between Agile Web and the customer. This requires significant trust relationships and organisational effort between the member corporations. Some of the benefits of close collaboration, without the full legal implications, can be achieved through another recent development in e-business known as collaborative product commerce (CPC). The derivation and impact of CPC is examined in the next section.

1.6 Virtual Workrooms

Any successful technical solution needs to address the barriers identified above. Strandquest and Fretwell  (2002), who work for the consulting firm Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, describe elements of a technical solution known as Virtual Workrooms that seeks to address cultural and technical issues simultaneously. The software is designed to be:

• very intuitive
• replicating how people work together naturally in a traditional physical setting
• graphical approach that supports rapid user adoption without much training
• good fit with the needs of highly dynamic teams

Workrooms' basic functionality includes:

• document management, including version control
• "thin client" architecture, which allows users to operate from any computer with an Internet connection
• voice and data conferencing
• project management facilities
• community management of teams, including real-time collaboration with guests
• replication of "natural" work environments.

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Reference(s)
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Reference (or cite) Article
	Kahlon, R. S. (2013) Change Management [Online]. dkode: United Kingdom, England, London. [Published on: 2013-01-24]. [Article ID: RSK666-0000072]. [Available on: dkode | Ravi - https://ravi.dkode.co/2013/01/change-management.html].

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