Information Systems Strategy

Information Systems Strategy
Week 2:
The business implications of new technologies
Lisa Harris and Jas Dhaliwal

Topics to cover
Overview of trends in technology - what does the future hold?
Implications for business of trends in:
Social media
Cloud computing
Smartphones and QR codes

Trends in technology
Did you know 4? (5 mins) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8
10 Years of changes in technology, BBC report by Rory Cellan-Jones (3 mins): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8434373.stm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPIbGnBQcJY (Project Natal Milo, 4 mins)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDi0FNcaock (Future of Shopping, Cisco, 1 min)

Gartner’s “hype cycle” 2009

Internet technology has changed the world
Years it took to reach an audience of 50 million:
Radio 50 years
TV 13 years
Internet 4 years
iPod 3 years
2 years
2 years
1 in 8 marriages in US now as a result of online dating.
US Dept Commerce

“Change we can believe in”
$28m average raised per month in online donations during 2008
92m views of display ads per month
2.2m site visitors per month
9.8m video views on YouTube
5,455,665 supporters of the Obama Facebook Group
285,467 followers on Twitter

Roger’s Diffusion of Innovation
With successive groups of consumers adopting the new technology (shown in blue), its market share (yellow) will eventually reach saturation

Forrester survey of US workforce technology adoption, Autumn 2009
Top 4 applications: email, word processing, web browser, spreadsheets
Collaboration tools are critical for virtual teams, but not widely adopted. Only 25% of iworkers use Web conferencing, leaving email with 87% adoption as the default collaboration tool
33% use laptops, 76% desktops, 25% share a desktop

Social Media

Growth of Social Media

Gartner predicts...
By 2014, social networking services will replace email as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20% of business users. Companies will be building internal social networks and/or allowing business use of personal social network accounts. Social networking will prove to be more effective than email for business activities such as status updates and expertise location
By 2012, over 50% of enterprises will use activity streams that include microblogging . “Standalone” enterprise copycat systems will not catch on , as they cannot replicate the scale of Twitter
In the next 3 years, over 70% of IT-dominated social media initiatives will fail, and 50% of business-led social media initiatives will succeed
Within 5years, 70 % of applications designed on PCs will be modeled after user experience lessons from smartphone collaboration applications. For some parts of the world, these will be the first or the only applications they use
Within 5 years, only 25% of enterprises will routinely utilisesocial network analysis to improve performance and productivity. Users may resent knowing that software is analysingtheir behaviour. So social network analysis will remain an untapped source of insight in most organisations.

Impact of social media on business
Web 2.0 and social networks drive down the cost of communication, digital conversations happen faster and less expensively. In 2009, consumer adoption reached critical mass so enterprises are following.
Pervasive Web 2.0 also means re-examination or disruption of most areas of life - society, government and business because social networks alter how many and what kind of relationships people have.
Large organisations will remain in turmoil because they were not built with withstand the volatility these forces are unleashing. Entire industries will consolidate (automotive, airlines, banking, hotels, consumer goods…)
Web communications mean we consume novelty far more quickly, Companies will require unprecedented innovation to even stay in place. New entrants around the world compete for customers and leverage their lower costs and better innovation processes

EMC Community

Benefits of social media
IBM is using social media (especially Facebook) to connect employees globally and are foster mass collaboration.
The result is improved communication, cross-functional collaboration and creative approaches to problem solving.
It’s not just about implementing a new set of tools — it is embracing a cultural shift to create an open environment where employees are encouraged to share, innovate and collaborate virtually.

The “uber-connected workplace” (HBR)
Access to social media improves productivity. According to Dr Brent Coker from University of Melbourne, workers "who engage in “workplace internet leisure browsing" are more productive than those who don't
Millennials will seek jobs that encourage the use of social media. Accenture survey of Millennial preferences for various technologies at work found that they prefer to communicate via IM, text, Facebook and RSS feeds. AND they are prepared to bypass corporate IT departments if these tools are blocked.
Companies that provide access to social media create a more engaged workforce.Cerner Corporation, the health IT firm, implemented uCern, a bespoke social network for employees, customers and suppliers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyHNail9xuM
allowing employees to have increased access to experts across the globe
reducing the cycle time from discovery of new products to launch of new products
increasing employee engagement and satisfaction in the workplace
incorporating real time feedback from stakeholders on NPD and customer service quality

Questions to ask (HBR)
What business problems are you trying to solve? How important is it to access knowledge and experts quickly? Will engaged employees reduce your turnover rate and subsequent expenses related to hiring new talent?
Who needs to be involved in the coalition? This is not an HR, IT or Learning initiative. Bring together Human Resources, Corporate Learning, IT, Legal and Corporate Communications. These are the ones who will plan, monitor and agree to a set of social media guidelines to ensure responsible use.
What type of change management plan needs to be put into place? Recognise that the biggest hurdle is your culture and internal processes — not the technology behind the adoption of social media. Focus on finding ambassadors and influencers, then make it easy for them to share and participate in a social media pilot.

Why might businesses resist social media ?
Businesses are often tied into complex and bespoke IT systems and traditional organisational structures.
Management permission is required for IT changes. This may disrupt the existing complex environment
There are concerns about how the data on a social network will be used, and fears that trade secrets might be given away, so creativity is limited by “walled garden” IT policies
Mindset is still about broadcast rather than conversation
Change is regarded as threatening and disruptive. Unwilling to change the status quo, on the basis that “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”
Banning access to social networks puts their marketers are at an increasing DISADVANTAGE

Companies that are doing it...
www.microsoft.com (corporate site)
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com (community site)
www.avg.com (corporate site)
http://blogs.avg.com (community site)

Exercise
Based on what we have discussed so far, summarise with bullet points why companies should use social media

Summary: applications of social media for business
Engaging with customer fan base
Resolving customer service issues
Effective, real time internal communications across the enterprise and hierarchies
Tracking trends and testing the “zeitgeist”
Crowdsourcing of new product development or market research
Networking to source expertise or business partners

Cloud Computing

What is Cloud Computing?
Cloud Computing describes the consumption and delivery of IT services based on the Internet, as opposed to installed software and hardware within a company.
Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online, which are accessed from a web browser*, while the software and data are stored on remote servers.
The term ‘cloud’ is a metaphor for the symbol originally used to depict the internet in computer network diagrams.
You can think of a Cloud Computing as an evolution of “outsourcing”
* Though not always. See later examples.

What does the Cloud look like?

A Working Definition
Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.

Cloud Computing in Plain English
http://tinyurl.com/CloudComputingInPlainEnglish
Video: 3:00

3 Main Cloud Service Models
Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS)
Use provider’s applications over a network
Microsoft and Apple use an alternative of SaaScalled “Software Plus Services – (S+S)”
Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Deploy customer-created applications to a cloud
Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Rent processing, storage, network capacity, and other fundamental computing resources

Cloud Computing
A number of different IT vendors are offering Cloud services including:
Salesforce (Software as a Service – SaaS)
http://www.salesforce.com/uk
Microsoft (Software Plus Services- S+S)
http://www.microsoft.com/softwareplusservices
Amazon S3 Web Services (Infrastructure as a Service) – IaaS)
http://aws.amazon.com/s3

Examples – Salesforce.com
Companies use a web browser to connect to Salesforce.com
This is an example of Software as a Service –
(SaaS)
No local software needed, except a web browser
http://www.tinyurl.com/SalesForceVideo
Video 7:04

Examples – Apple iPhone + iTunes Store
Apple’s iTunes use two
examples of Cloud Computing
Software + Services (S+S)
(iTunes connects to the
iTunes Music Store – Music)
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
(iTunes connects to the
iTunes App Store - Apps)
iTunes is software that runs
locally on a computer and
connect to “Apple’s Cloud”
http://tinyurl.com/itunesvideo

Examples – Microsoft’s Live Mesh
Live Mesh is an application which sits in “Microsoft’s Cloud”
The application uses software installed on a computer (S+S) and copies “files” to Microsoft’s servers
These files can then be seen on a number of different devices.
http://tinyurl.com/LiveMeshVideo
Video 1:49

Live Mesh
“Three Screens and a Cloud” – http://www.livemesh.com

Examples – Amazon.com S3
Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. Infrastructure as a Service (IasS)
Amazon S3 provides a simple web interface that can be used tostore and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web.
It gives customers access to fast, scalable, reliable and inexpensive data storage. Customer has no hardware , just a browser.

Amazon S3 Pricing
Amazon S3s is VERY cheap to use.
Uploading, storing and downloading are charged in cents and notdollars
You only get charged for what you use.
Amazon are also very reliable 99% uptime
Customer has no hardware
http://aws.amazon.com/s3/#pricing

Case Study: City of Washington (Gov)
Migrated 38,000 employees to Google Apps
Replaced Microsoft Office software
Gmail
Google Docs (word processing and spreadsheets)
Google video for business
Google sites (intranet sites and wikis)
http://tinyurl.com/GoogleAppsVideo
Video: 4:35.

Cloud Summary: Pros and Cons
Pros
On-demand (“self-service – Access anywhere”)
Cost Savings (Reduced hardware, IT infrastructure , staff)
Scalable – Easy to expand, as the business grows.
Cons
Security and Privacy issues
Fully dependent on an Internet connection
May not be the best alterative for all companies.

Thoughts on Cloud Computing
“A way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software.”
Galen Gruman, InfoWorld Executive Editor, and Eric Knorr, InfoWorld Editor in Chief
Source: http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/07/15FE-cloud-computing-reality_2.html
Cloud Computing can be thought of an evolution of “outsourcing”
Considerable cost savings can be made. However, what about security, privacy and reliability issues?
Can you think of ways how your company may move to the Cloud?

Smartphones and QR codes

43
Beyond voice: to email & www
Worldwide iPhone mobile advertising requests grew 52 percent month-over-month to 359 million in November and now account for 6.3 percent of all requests ... more than any other handset. (source: AdMob)
Want to keep up with your mates? See who's on Skype, Facebook, Last.fm and Windows Live™ Messenger anytime. With INQ1 all their info is pulled and loaded straight into your address book. Just like that.
Buy a Nokia “Comes With Music” handset and get millions of tracks for free. Yours to keep
All your favourite Google services already on board
Download and add more of the applications you want on the move from Android Market™

Touch screen mobiles are becoming popular
...and so will Internet video on mobile devices...
Its not so much the iPhone but the large touch screen that has produced the first
usable Internet
browsing mobile
device...
...and 3G “all you can eat” connections.
UK phone networks forecast that half of UK will have large screen Internet mobile phones within four years.

Smartphones
(SAP real-real time computing, http://tinyurl.com/SAPVideo2 mins)
Majority of US users will have smart phones by mid-2011 (Nielsen research)
Market leader is Apple’s iPhone (90%) with Google’s Android a recent market entrant
92% of Android and 88% of iPhone customers use them to access Internet services

Touch screen mobiles are becoming popular
...and so will Internet video on mobile devices...
Its not so much the iPhone but the large touch screen that has produced the first
usable Internet
browsing mobile
device...
...and 3G “all you can eat” connections.
UK phone networks forecast that half of UK will have large screen Internet mobile phones within four years.

txteagle
Largest employer in Kenya with 10,000 employees, but no office space
Established in 2008 by a young computer engineer named Nathan Eagle
Work involves short stretches of speech to be transcribed or translated into a local dialect, search engine results to be checked, images to be labeled, short market research surveys to be completed
Tasks come in over a worker’s own mobile phone and the worker responds either by speaking into the phone or texting back the answer.
The workers can be anyone with a mobile phone – each job takes at most a few minutes and pays only a few cents (payment is sent by phone as well)
This social entrepreneurship takes advantage of the proliferation of mobiles in much of the developing world, and challenges traditional assumptions of the nature of work

Growth of smart phones

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vS3R2u7sXA (intro to QR codes, 3 mins) www.creativesearchmedia.com

http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

Summary
These new tools offer the potential to greatly improve business efficiency and effectiveness BUT they also pose significant implementation challenges
Application has yet to reach the “plateau of productivity” (see Hype Cycle) even for early adopter businesses
Concerns remain over return on investment and security
Further reading available under the “ISStrategy” tag on www.delicious.com/lisaharris1

Your presentations: 15th February
Treat the (group) presentation as a practice for your (individual) exam. It is an opportunity to test out ideas, ask questions and obtain feedback from tutors and colleagues while the course is fresh in your mind. The exam is 3 months away and you *will* forget!
Draw upon relevant theory from week 1 to support the points that you make about your chosen example
You should aim to present a working structure and draft content that can be directly applied in the exam – aiding the revision process later on when more detail can be added
MAKE SURE YOU HAVE JOINED A GROUP ON NING AS I WILL USE THIS INFO RMATION TO WORK OUT AND ADVERTISE THE PRESENTATION TIMINGS TO YOU LATER THIS WEEK
The presentation is not directly marked but we will make a list of any non contributors and this will be taken into account when it comes to exam marking

Information Systems Strategy

by lisa harris on Feb 07, 2010

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