1. Does IT matter ? :
Impressions and Implications
for Organizational Excellence
Dr S G Deshmukh
Director
ABV-Indian Institute of Information
Technology & Management, Gwalior
deshmukh.sg@gmail.com
Key note speech at
National Conference on
Mapping for Excellence: Challenges Ahead
Pioneer Institute of Professional Studies , Indore
16 Feb 2009
2. Speaking points of my keynote
1. Organizational excellence
2. Dimensions of Technology
3. e-business & its advantages
4. The Commoditization of IT
5. Role of IT
6. Various impressions for Organizational
excellence and its Implications
7. Endthoughts
3. Motivation
IT has become all pervading in almost
every walk of life
Lot of debate on use/utility of IT
Historically a thought provoking article by Nicholas
Carr in Harvard Business Review (May 2003) and a
series of articles and books thereafter (N Carr, Does
IT Matter, HBR, May 2003)
Relevance of IT for organizational
excellence?
3
4. Organizational excellence
Organizational Excellence is a final product
composed of two basic elements alloyed
prudently by the members/stakeholders of an
organization. These two basic elements are
“Strategy” and “Culture”.
Quality practices bring all stakeholders together
Quality practices focus on processes
Quality is a journey, there are no successes or failures, just
learning experiences.
What is the Role of IT ?
4
5. Dimensions of Information
Technology
Smart
Fast
Small & slick
Affordable
Convenient
Flexible
Friendly
Accessible
Connectivity
Culturally acceptable,
economically feasible
and technologically
accessible !
6. All pervading IT
Internet
Mobile
Multi-Media
Notebook
Ipod,MP3,PMP, and
other gadgets
Railway reservation
system
MyTrip, amazon.com,
ebay.com, shaadi.com,
naukari.com, YouTube
Social /professional
networks: Orkut,
MySpace,Facebook,
Hi5,Linkedlin
6
7. Characteristics of IT
Ubiquitous
Mobility
Lighter and Smaller
High speed
Smartness
Multiple functions
Mix with Non-IT applications
8. IT is making world flatter !
Outsourcing dominated paradigm
Team work and leadership assumes new meaning
Geography has become history: Time and distance are no
longer the important variables
Mobile dense and multimedia rich environment has
accelerated digital environment.
Connectivity has made the global village possible
Working on-line, flexi-time, tele/videoconferencing, spiral
career paths, continuous learning and global competition are
changing the traditional notions of how work gets done.
Internet is changing the way we communicate with –
suppliers, customers, potential and current employees by
way of 2-way communications !
SMS driven communication
9. • Competitive World
• Customers demand More
– High Quality, Low Price, Flexibility and
what not !
• IT age
– Unpredictable
– New Media
– New Methodologies
Typical Business Scenario
10. A list of terms prefixed by ‘e-’
e-commerce
e-business
e-marketing
e-procurement
e-logistics
e-health
e-retailer
e-finance
e-banking
e-recruiting
e-service
e-crm
e-procurement
e-strategy
11. Tangible Benefits
Increased sales from new sales leads giving rise to increased
revenue from
new customers, new markets
existing customers (repeat-selling), existing customers (cross-
selling)
Marketing cost reduction from
reduced time in customer service
online sales,reduced printing and distribution costs of
marketing communications
Supply chain cost reductions from
reduced levels of inventory
increased competition from suppliers, shorter cycle time in
ordering
Administration cost reductions from
more efficient routine business processes such as recruitment,
invoice payment, holiday authorisation etc
12. IT and Organizational
Excellence
IT for streamlining of various business
functions
IT for quality management
IT for waste reduction
IT for managing human resource
IT for listening to the voice of customer
IT for K-sharing
12
13. IT doesn’t matter ?
IT became backbone of business.
Over $2 trillion a year spent on IT worldwide
despite the out sourcing cry and dot com bust
scene.
IT was seen as proletarian tool-calculators only.
Source:
IT doesn’t matter:http://www.nicholasgcarr.com/articles/matter.html
14. Impression: IT capability
Because of its ability to record every
customer interaction,
Ability to offer insights into customer and
market behavior,
Turn a business into a scientific laboratory
for pre and post-production and
manufacturing purposes
Its potential to re-invent the business itself
IT’s proximity to decision making 14
15. IT Capability..
How IT is used rather that what of IT is used
for achieving organizational excellence
IT fundamentally offers three capabilities to
businesses:
Infrastructure,
Integration and
Interactivity
These capabilities have to be managed
effectively for business
15
16. Implications : for
Organizational Excellence
Infrastructure (relevant to Strategy)
Integration (relevant to Culture)
Interactivity (relevant to Strategy)
Management (affecting both strategy
& culture)
These capabilities are to be effectively
managed for organizational excellence
16
17. Implication 1: Infrastructure
IT as a part of infrastructure (Network(LAN/WAN),
Data centre etc.)
Investment and choice of such infrastructure
It affects strategy
Enables connectivity and makes processes streamlined
Role of Management: Capital outlay, proper choice of IT,
enabling the organizational structure
From Bahu(Buy all Hardware & Utilities) to
Saas(Software as a Service)
17
18. Implication 2: Integration
Enables powerful integration of various
business functions : Marketing, Operations,
Design , Finance (Example: ERP based
systems)
Integrates both internal and external functions
thereby avoids duplication and unnecessary
wastage
Empowers suppliers and customers to become
part of the extended enterprise
18
19. Observation..
“..Ordinary people now have access to
technology, where they can create
value and even collaborate and level
the playing field with the world’s
mightiest enterprises ..
Anthony Williams, “ Wikinomics: How Mass
collaboration Changes Everything”, 2007
19
20. Insight..
Web 2.0 takes some of its philosophical
underpinning from James Surowiecki's
book “The Wisdom of Crowds”, which
asserts that the aggregated insights of
large groups of diverse people can
provide better answers and innovations
than individual experts.
20
21. Comment..
If infrastructure is for connectivity -- akin to railroad,
Integration is about integrating functionalities of
various systems and applications even people; in a
broad sense focused on integrating people, processes
and technology in an enterprise setting.
Role of Management: Enables effective integration,
provide necessary eco-system for integration resulting
in organizational excellence
21
22. Implication 3: Interactivity
Interactivity (WAP, Web Services, XML) being
more recent in the IT evolution
Enables to understand customer better
Establishes long term relationships with both
customer and suppliers
Helps in understanding product features and
add-ons by close interaction
Feedback through blogging (example: AB, SRK,
Lalu Prasad Yadav) 22
23. Implication for Management:
Connectivity !
Communication is anytime, anywhere via any device :
Person-to-person, person-to-machine, machine-to-
machine
Connecting to Information sources
Connecting to Change
Connecting to an ever-changing , far reaching
universe
Connecting to new issues and trends
Connecting to diverse resources
Connecting to talent pipeline
Connecting to different ways of thinking
Connecting to unexpected allies
24. Implication..
Ever since the Internet brought down the cost of
connectivity, the need for integration (be it application
integration, b2b integration or data integration) has
been growing
So also interactivity needs of enterprises particularly
dealing with bringing in pervasive functionalities as in
enterprise mobility, personalization and so on. This
enables in achieving excellence
24
25. Observation..
IT is inherently strategic because of its indirect
effects
It creates possibilities and options that did not
exist before
Companies that see, and act on, these
possibilities before others do will continue to
excel themselves in the marketplace and reap
economic rewards
25
26. Insight..
IT may become ubiquitous, but the insight
required to harness its potential will not be so
evenly distributed Therein lies the opportunity
for organizational excellence and significant
strategic advantage
The manner in which iii are going to be
Managed is the key !
26
27. IT initiatives for Excellence..
Datamining & Business
Intelligence
K-sharing
Customer Relationship
Management
Supplier Relationship
Management
Enterprise Resource
Planning
Etc..
Implementation of these
require careful
considerations on the
following IT capabilities:
Infrastructure
Integration
Interactivity
27
28. Initiative-Capability Matrix
IT Initiative Capability
Infrastructure Integration Interactivity
Data-mining &
Business
Intelligence
K-sharing Medium High Very High
SRM
CRM
ERP High High Medium
28
29. Strategy for Organizational
Excellence
Active use of IT
Knowledge sharing
Talent Acquisition and management
Stress on continuous improvement
Listening to the voice of
customer(internal or external)
29
30. Implications..
Leave the comfort zone of traditional
management concepts
Letting controls go
Invest less money but more time
Recognize information needs and wants
Someone may be using YouTube for projecting
incrimination evidence of human rights abuse
worldwide.
31. End Thoughts
Excellence : No excuse for waste and sloppiness, now that
IT is a dominant technology
Smart use of technology : Innovation and adaptability
IT does matter by offering capabilities
Infrastructure
Integration
Interactivity
Challenge : People dimension in using IT
Part of decision making
Sense of being “connected”
Feeling of “Global community”
32. Thank you for your
patience
deshmukh.sg@gmail.com
www.iiitm.ac.in