- The Internet and IT have disrupted many companies, forcing some out of business and others to change and innovate to survive. The New York Times is one of these companies. - To survive, The New York Times chose to deploy their innovation support group as a shared service across business units, partnering with Netflix. IT will help them deploy this shared service solution. - Boston Scientific chose to tear down barriers preventing product developers from accessing past research, to create new products faster. However, they had to balance openness with security and restricting access to sensitive information.

1. Group 2
Two Different Ways of Innovating
with Information Technology

2. Summary
• The Internet & IT have turned almost everything in our life upside
down. People use Internet and Computers almost every day.
• Almost all of the companies have been faced with this trend now.
Many companies go out of business – some become more successful –
some face series of challenges and are forced to change if they want to
survive because of existence of Internet &IT.
• The New York Times & Boston Scientific are among them. To survive,
The New York Times chose to deploy their innovation support group
as a shared service across business units. Its partner is Netflix – The
New York Times & Netflix have reached an agreement as a Shared
Service Solution. And of course, IT will help them deploy this project.

3. Summary
• Its partner is Netflix – The New York Times & Netflix have
reached an agreement as a Shared Service Solution. And of course,
IT will help them deploy this project.
• As for Boston Scientific, it chose one solution is to tear down
barriers that prevent product developers from accessing the
research that went into its successful medical devices so that they
can create new products faster. Of course, Boston Scientific faced
the challenge of balancing openness and sharing with security and
the need for restricting access to information.

4. Discussion Questions
1. As stated in the case, The New York Times chose to deploy their innovation
support group as a shared service across business units. What do you think this
means?
2. What are the advantages of choosing this approach? Are there any
disadvantages?
3. Boston Scientific faced the challenge of balancing openness and sharing with
security and the need for restricting access to information. How did the use of
technology allow the company to achieve both objectives at the same time? What
kind of cultural changes were required for this to be possible?

5. 4. Are these more important than the technology- related issues? Develop a
few examples to justify your answer.
5. The video rental map developed by The New York Times and Netflix
graphically displays movie popularity across neighborhoods from major
U.S. cities. How would Netflix use this information to improve its business?
Could other companies also take advantage of these data? How? Provide
some examples.

6. As stated in the case, The New York Times
chose to deploy their innovation
support group as a shared service across
business units. What do you think this means?

7. • The Internet & IT have turned almost everything in our life
upside down. Almost all of the companies have been faced with
this trend now. Many companies go out of business – some
become more successful – some face series of challenges and are
forced to change if they want to survive because of existence of
Internet &IT.
• The New York Times is among them. To survive, it chose to
deploy their innovation support group as a shared service across
business units.
• Its partner is Netflix – The New York Times & Netflix have
reached an agreement as a Shared Service Solution. And of
course, IT will help them deploy this project.

8. What are the advantages of choosing
this approach? Are there any
disadvantages?

9. The advantage is:
 That ideas will be presented to all - The New York Times
& Netflix.
 Pooled expertise.
 Shared overhead cost.
 Easier to enforce software, hardware, technology, process
and policy standards across an organization.
 Easier to share the best practice across an organization.

10. The disadvantage is:
 That one unit of the business that lack creativity may not get
the proper attention needed.
 Create an extra layer of management between IT and end-
users which may result in some loss of responsiveness or
accountability to individual business unit.
 Reduced flexibility.
(Retrieved from http://www.chegg.com/homework-help/introduction-to-information-systems-loose-leaf-
16th-edition-chapter-1.2-solutions-9780073376882)

11. Boston Scientific faced the challenge of balancing
openness and sharing with security and the need for
restricting access to information. How did the use of
technology allow the company to achieve both
objectives at the same time? What kind of cultural
changes were required for this to be possible?

12.  Goldfire makes an automated workflow out of such tasks as
analyzing markets and milking a company’s intellectual property.
It combines internal company data with information from public
sources such as federal government databases.
 Currier – one of leaders of the company says “Active security is
the way to address this problem,” That is, regularly monitor
who’s accessing what and adjust permissions as business
conditions change.

13. • But the most important thing here is cultural changes. It means
engineers in the engineering department should be educated on what
they needed. In other words, they have to obey intellectual property
seriously. Property that someone has created or invented and that no
one else is legally allowed to make, copy, or sell.
• No one knows when hackers who uses a computer to connect to other
people’s computers secretly and illegally, so that they can find or
change information.

14. Are these more important than the
technology- related issues? Develop a
few examples to justify your answer.
Discussion Questions

15.  Since a project will fail without both cultural and technology changes,
neither one is more important.
 U.S. and almost Western countries have open cultures. Therefore, they
find it’s easier to share knowledge. Furthermore, they can adapt new
technologies quickly. That’ why a lot of U.S and Western countries are
successful in pursuing a balance between information security and
sharing.
 However, some cultures, such as Japan, China, Brazil, operate under a
strict social hierarchy. Enabling workers to participate in quality
improvement initiatives by providing them with production data and
analysis tools would run counter to this culture.
 Unless the implementation team manages to overcome this cultural
barrier, managers would resist sharing information or simply deny their
employees access to the system.
• (Retrieved from https://www.coursehero.com/file/p80eqi/Are-these-more-important-than-the-technology-related-
issues-Since-a-project/)

16. The video rental map developed by The
New York Times and Netflix graphically
displays movie popularity across
neighborhoods from major U.S. cities. How
would Netflix use this information to
improve its business? Could other
companies also take advantage of these
data? How? Provide some examples.
Discussion Questions

17. Netflix can use information for:
Determining business strategy.
Netflix could use this data to identify affinities between movies
and ensure that its regional distribution centers are appropriately
stocked to meet anticipated demand. It also reduce the amounts
of less attractive rental movies in order to unnecessary incurred
costs.
External use Netflix might consider selling its data to consumer
trend-tracking organizations. Netflix need not divulge individual
customer data but instead group movie rental data by postal
code. Postal codes would give marketers the ability to tie Netflix'
data in with data from other marketing systems to help create
more useful regional, demographic profiles.

18. Netflix can use information for:
 Conducting a marketing plan to target them effectively Thank
to video rental map, Netflix will be able to gain more specific
information about customers in certain areas and determine the
consuming trend of customers. Thus, it will not only develop a
specific and detailed marketing plan which targets to potential
clients but also create a buying-habit of them toward Netflix. It
will be a promising strategy for company in order to improve its
branding awareness.

19. Other companies could also take advantage of these data by: With the data of
the most popular Netflix rentals across 12 U.S metropolitan areas, other
companies can decide appropriate competing strategy for specific areas. For
example, understood the location of top Netflix rentals, competitors can avoid
of losses since their rentals placed nearby Netflix’s one. Moreover, based on the
top most-rental Netflix films, other firms may negotiate with film makers to
have exclusive rights of providing rental movies.

20. • They wanted to get the leadership’s attention they need for a new business to
unfold. BlackBerry applications for Boston.com and the expert site About.com
Much of what has come down the innovation pike thus far at The New
York Times can be classified as process or product innovation. A healthy and
growing company should be content with focusing 90 to 95 percent of its
innovation dollars on such core business innovation and 5 percent or 10
percent on new business models.

21. END.

22. THANKS FOR WATCHING

23. Trọng Liêm
Quốc Minh
Quỳnh Như
Mỹ Nhàn
Phương Phương
Hồng Thảo
Bích Ngọc
GROUP 2