Transcript Lecture 7x

Strategic Uses of Information
Technology
Lecture 7
Today lecture summary

Use of the Internet by businesses set off a revolution in
the use of IT, so that utilizing the Internet to conduct
business became the strategic use of information
technology.

The questions that remain are:
 Has the revolution ended, or
 Does an even larger revolution loom?
 Does IT still matter?, and
 What sorts of strategic uses are companies making?
Today lecture summary

Strategic roles of IT fall into one of three categories:
1.
“working inward” (improving a firm’s internal
processes and structure)
2.
“working outward” (improving the firm’s products
and relationships with customers) and
3.
“working across” (improving its processes and
relationships with its business partners)
Today lecture summary

Grainger, GE Power Systems, Wire Nova Scotia, The
Shipping Industry, Cisco Systems and UPS Supply
Chain Solutions, Semco, S. A., A Day in the Life of an Elancer, General Mills and Land O’ Lakes, Sara Lee
Bakery Group, and Dell Computer serve as examples of
how companies are using information systems in
strategic roles
Contents

Introduction
 History of Strategic Uses of IT
 Whither the Internet Revolution?
 The Cheap Revolution
 Episode Two: Profitability Strikes Back
 Does IT Still Matter?

Working Inward: Business-to-Employee
 Building an Intranet
 Fostering a Sense of Belonging
Introduction

Use of the Internet by businesses in mid/late ’90s set off
a revolution in the use of IT
 Utilizing the Internet to conduct business became the
strategic use of IT
 Strategic = having a significant, long-term impact
on a firm’s growth, industry and $$

What now?
 Dot-com crash
 A larger revolution to come?
 Does IT still matter?
 What strategic uses are companies making of IT (esp.
the Internet)
Introduction
Last 20 Years – Strategic Uses of IT


1st edition
 Mid 1980s, hot topic = end user computing (working
inward)
 Help employees learn about PCs
2nd edition
 Late ’80s strategic use focused outward to gain
competitive advantage
 e.g. Merrill Lynch cash management account
 Now considered ‘normal’ = competitive
necessity Vs. competitive advantage
Introduction
Last 20 Years – Strategic Uses of IT cont.

3rd & 4th editions (1990s)
 Strategic use attention turned inward to reengineering
business processes
 Intent = not to automate existing processes but to
totally redesign how the enterprise operated
 Good idea but many failed as they were ‘lay-off’
plans
 Introduction of ERP systems was also aimed at
internal operations, specifically providing single
sources of data enterprise-wide
Introduction
Last 20 Years – Strategic Uses of IT cont.

3rd & 4th editions (1990s) cont.
 Internet’s potential becoming evident
 Dot-coms = looked at its outward use to gain a
competitive advantage
 Most established firms initially used the Internet
technology internally, building intranets to improve
company processes
 Publishing e-forms
 Accompanying workflow processes
Introduction
Last 20 Years – Strategic Uses of IT cont.

5th edition (late ’90s)
 Use
of the Internet for business underway
 Bursting of the dot com bubble
 E-Business has become more reality based
 Integration of the Internet into how companies
work has proceeded
Introduction
Last 20 Years – Strategic Uses of IT cont.

6th edition (early ’00s)
 Theme
= leveraging traditional operations by using
the Internet to work more closely with others

Innovations of the dot-coms created competitive
challenges for ‘bricks and mortar’ firms
–
Their ‘strike back’ is essentially the theme for
this 6th edition
Introduction
Last 20 Years – Strategic Uses of IT cont.

7th edition (2005)
 “Something

has changed”
Especially with regards to the use of IT for
competitive advantage
Introduction
Last 20 Years – Strategic Uses of IT cont.
 Some
may question IT’s ability to give companies a
competitive edge but it is absolutely necessary for
competitive parity (necessity?)

Being used strategically:
 Inward
 Outward
 Across
What Is the Internet?


A network of networks, joining many government,
university and private computers together and providing
an infrastructure for the use of E-mail, bulletin boards,
file archives, hypertext documents, databases and other
computational resources
The vast collection of computer networks which form and
act as a single huge network for transport of data and
messages across distances which can be anywhere
from the same office to anywhere in the world.
What Is the Internet?

Technically, the Internet is a global information system
defined by three characteristics:
•
A network composed of computers and other devices
that are logically linked together by a unique address
space based on the Internet Protocol
What Is the Internet?
•
A network where network devices are able to support
communications using TCP/IP (Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol) or other compatible protocols
•
A network that provides high-level services layered on a
communication and network infrastructure
What Is the Internet?
The largest network of networks in the
world.
 Uses TCP/IP protocols and packet
switching .
 Runs on any communications
substrate.

Brief History of the Internet


1968 - DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)
contracts with BBN (Bolt, Beranek & Newman) to create
ARPAnet
1970 - First five nodes:







UCLA
Stanford
UC Santa Barbara
U of Utah, and
BBN
1974 - TCP specification by Vint Cerf
1984 – On January 1, the Internet with its 1000 hosts
converts en masse to using TCP/IP for its messaging
A Brief Summary of the
Evolution of the Internet
Packet
Switching
First Vast Invented
Computer
1964
Network
Silicon Envisioned
Chip
A
1962
Mathematical 1958
Theory of
Communication
Memex
1948
Conceived
Hypertext
Invented
1965
Mosaic
Created
WWW
Internet Created 1993
Named
1989
and
Goes
TCP/IP TCP/IP
Created
1984
ARPANET
1972
1969
Age of
eCommerce
Begins
1995
1945
1945
1995
The Creation of the Internet

The creation of the Internet solved the following
challenges:
 Basically
inventing digital networking as we know it
 Survivability
of an infrastructure to send / receive
high-speed electronic messages
 Reliability
of computer messaging
Introduction
Whither the Internet Revolution?


Internet frenzy peaked in 2000
Is the Information Revolution dead?
 Not



if history is any guide
British Railway Revolution – mid 1800s
10 fold increase after the boom
 During boom = great excitement and small companies
flourished
 After = glamour gone. Business became serious and full
of hard work
 Industry became orderly and profits began to reflect real
returns
Connecting industries
 Race for space followed by the ‘real deal’
Introduction
Whither the Internet Revolution? cont.

We are now in a period where organizations are rearchitecting themselves around Internet technologies
 Tearing down old structures as they go

Real gains will come when Internet technology adapts to
organizations and people
 When the technology disappears and becomes part
of life
It will be ‘quiet’ compared to frenzy of ’99/00 but many
think it will be a giant revolution

Major Internet Services
•
E-mail:
Person-to-person messaging; document sharing
•
Usenet newsgroups:
•
Discussion groups on electronic bulletin boards
•
Major Internet Services conti..
•
LISTSERVs:
•
Discussion groups using e-mail mailing list servers
•
Chatting and instant messaging:
•
Interactive conversations
Major Internet Services Conti..
•
Telnet: Logging on to one computer system and
doing work on another
•
FTP: Transferring files from computer to computer
•
World Wide Web: Retrieving, formatting, and
displaying information (including text, audio,
graphics, and video) using hypertext links
The Internet and Business Value

The World Wide Web:
•
•
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol):
communications standard used to transfer pages on
the Web.
URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
•
Web servers
Searching for information on the Web
•
The Internet lowers search costs
•
Search engines
•
Intelligent agents and shopping bots
Internet Network Architecture
Figure 7-9
Intranets and Extranets

Intranets:
•
An intranet is an internal organizational network that
provides access to data across a business firm.

Extranets:
•
Allow authorized vendors and customers to have
limited access to its internal intranet
Introduction
The Cheap Revolution

CIOs are shifting from buying expensive proprietary
products to buying cheap generic products


“Cheap Tech”
Cost savings are compelling

Google = runs on 100,000 cheap servers

One breaks = discards

Avoids expensive service contracts and in-house staff
Introduction
The Cheap Revolution

“Dellification”


Moved from selling PCs to also selling servers, printers, storage
devices….
“Cheap” is occurring elsewhere:




Labor – outsourcing to other countries
Film production – camcorders etc.
Software – Linux Vs. Microsoft
Telecommunications – Voice-over-IP…
Revolution of Social Media

Social media refers to online services that allow people
to publicly create, share, and discuss information

Social media services include, but are not limited to:
• Blogs
•
Social networks such as Facebook and MySpace
Social Media Conti
•
Video and photo sharing sites such as YouTube and
Flickr
•
Microblogging services such as Twitter
•
Social bookmarking services such as Digg and
Delicious
Why use Social Media?
 Social
media is becoming many people’s primary source
of news, opinion, and entertainment
•
Social media is now ubiquitous -- widespread blogging,
social networks, video sharing sites, and opportunities to
comment on and rate online content
•
Power of personal connections -- Research shows people
are more compelled to act on information that’s transmitted
through personal ties
Why use Social Media?
Relevancy for government – We can use social media to
share timely government information with the people who
need it
•
•
Engaging citizens to improve government -- Social media
allows people to engage, to provide input for improving
government services, and be part of the democratic
process
Making Government Easy with Social
Media

Review of USA.gov & GobiernoUSA.gov Social Media
Strategy
Examples of how we’re using social media
Social Media Strategy Development
Social Media Preferences
We reviewed analytics and surveyed social media
users, which showed:
•
Interested in accessing government information via social
media
•
Credibility of government information on social media is
critical
•
Interested in having conversations with the government
Social Media Strategy Development
Social Media Preferences conti..
•
Interested in a variety of government information,
including:
 Emergency
 Social
 Other
alerts
Security
government benefits
Relevant and timely content is critical – the technology
used to deliver it is secondary
•
Social Media Strategy Development
Social Media Best Practices

We examined a variety of social media initiatives and
identified these best practices:
Seek or create user interfaces that foster interaction:

Interaction should be easy and intuitive
Use branding elements to make it clear that users are
interacting with an official source

Social Media Strategy Development
Social Media Best Practices
Engage constituents:
Answer constituent comments in a friendly and
personal manner

Establish clear guidelines for engagement, and empower
government reps to interact with constituents

Social Media Strategy Development
Social Media Best Practices
Solicit feedback and encourage sharing:
Whenever possible, invite opinions and experiences
from constituents to stimulate dialogue

Provide links or buttons to share content and
encourage users to do so with clear calls to action

Social Media Strategy Development
Social Media Best Practices
Provide relevant and timely content:

Use social media to listen to conversations and allow
constituents to identify topics of interest

Use existing content assets to initiate timely discussions
Social Media Strategy Development
Social Media Best Practices
Dedicate resources:

Dedicate resources to own the conversation and
optimize the program based on feedback
Planning a Social Media Strategy
We used a strategic approach to address constituents
via social media, thinking about our audience and
objectives before choosing a technology
1.Define objectives:

 Conducted
stakeholder interviews to learn about our
own motivations to use social media and learn what we
wanted to get out of it
Planning a Social Media Strategy conti..
2.
Perform audience research:

3.
Surveyed users and analyzed traffic to learn about
constituents’ objectives and needs
Identify best practices:

Looked at other organizations to see how they use
social media to achieve objectives
Planning a Social Media Strategy conti..
4.
Develop a long term strategy:

Developed a scalable strategy that would accomplish
our objectives, independent of technology, while
fulfilling constituent needs
Our Social Media Objectives
An extensive internal review process
revealed the need to
use social media to:



Put a human face on government
Establish USA.gov & GobiernoUSA.gov as approachable
sources of trusted information
Create new channels to distribute existing content, news,
and information
Our Social Media Objectives conti



Spread information virally
Interact directly with constituents
Encourage public engagement with
government
Summary

Introduction
 History of Strategic Uses of IT
 Whither the Internet Revolution?
 The Cheap Revolution
 Social media