The Hindu Business Line : Lessons on how the Net works

THE future of the global economy is tied directly to productivity, states Greg Pelling in Cisco Net Impact, from Wiley (www.wiley.com) . The book has inputs from the Cisco Systems' Internet Business Solutions Group and documents an `arresting set of Asian examples' to show how the Net delivers productivity gains.

"Cisco itself is a compelling example of an Internet catalyst in action," writes Pelling, mentioning the $2 billion realised by the company "in efficiencies by using Internet applications delivered by its internal IT department to transform key aspects of its business".

Popular Internet solutions have been workforce optimisation, customer care, e-learning, and supply chain management, informs the book and discusses many success stories.

One of the first case studies in the book is of Hitachi's e-marketplace called TWX-21. It is Japan's largest e-marketplace serving more than 20,000 companies, notes the author, and Hitachi itself saves 10 per cent a year on procurement by moving almost all of its B2B trades to TWX-21.

In this `collaborative, Internet communications model', information is shared up and down the value chain to optimise decision-making, points out Pelling.

"Services provided span the entire procurement process. E-catalogues and reverse auctions are supported, as are logistics and payment management systems."

At the end of each case, the author presents `lessons learned', such as: Use systems and products you know in order to quickly prove that they are ready for others to use; proving and documenting the increased internal efficiencies is the most important benefit at the beginning; and set a clear direction and milestones for the project from the beginning to minimise scope creep and keep people focussed.

Another example from Japan is of Web Travel that offers the facility to book tickets on the Net and also through the 31,000 multimedia kiosks located throughout the country where customers can "book a travel package, make a payment, and receive the tickets all at the same time."

As proof that the application has been well-received, almost half the bookings are for same-day travel, and "70 per cent of the bookings take place outside regular business hours."

The chapter on South Korea discusses how the Government acts as an Internet catalyst, with "a highly regarded e-government program" allowing users "to perform nearly 400 activities and to receive information in about 4,000 categories, ranging from national defence to real estate."

Do you know that the country's e-commerce market has 32 million subscribers or 64 per cent of the population? Or that ICT spending represents 1.4 per cent of the Government's total budget and is one of the top 10 expenditures?

The China discussion in the book shows how the Internet is fuelling the move "from global manufacturer to global consumer". Please note that "unlike any other time in history, China's market is maturing hourly, not daily or weekly, and it is maturing in both the upstream manufacturing and downstream retail distribution of consumerism models", with consumer growth "adding strength and weight to the country's economic muscle".

The Alibaba B2B Web site shows how the Internet can change the consumer goods industry in the country, informs the book.

A chapter on ASEAN, speaking of how the Internet thread is sewing `the economic quilt for a diverse region', has a `sidebar' devoted to the India versus China discussion, drawing from research by Press, Foster and McHenry. "To stay ahead of China, India will need to broaden the reach of its network infrastructure... China has a solid lead over India in most areas of Internet influence and development. But India is the clear leader in outsourcing services and software development," notes the book.

The question it leaves us with is whether India will protect this lead "by integrating these industries with advanced Internet technologies, and translate them into the next generation of outsourced Internet services."

Compelling read.

Machine bureaucracy!

IF you often keep wondering why the application of IT succeeds in some places while it fails elsewhere, there's help from Harry Bouwman, Bart van den Hooff, Lidwien van de Wijngaert and Jan van Dijk. They've analysed the `technical, organisational, social, psychological and economic perspectives' of the puzzle in Information & Communication Technology in Organizations, from Sage (www.sagepublications.com) . But first, they'd introduce you to a four-phase model, paying attention to adoption, implementation, use, and effects.

Adoption is an organisational decision-making process, implementation is about diffusion, and use is where operations happen. Effects can be three, viz. on the efficiency of processes, on the effectiveness, and on innovation. "These three kinds of effects can be related to the acceleration of certain processes (time), the expansion of the geographical reach of the organisation (distance), and the relationships the organisation maintains with its environment."

An interesting phrase one comes across in the chapter on `organisations' is `machine bureaucracy', defined as "a large organisation with an extensive staff and technological structure, and a dominating management", characterised by relatively routine work carried out by operational cores.

The ICT applications used in such an environment are "formal, standardised information systems such as centralised administration and management systems and collective customer and product databases".

The applications serve as "a kind of administrative conveyor belt" and knowledge management systems may be hardly present.

Frighteningly, there is also the `professional bureaucracy' - often found in "universities, hospitals and large software companies".

Work is not standardised, but the skills are, point out the authors.

Since professionals are interested in "high-quality systems that touch the boundaries of ICT and their profession", applications that are imposed from above are often mistrusted, opine the authors, citing examples such as "general practitioner (GP) information systems, electronic patient files, care passes" and so on.

Useful addition to the IT bookshelf.

Tailpiece

"Your designation reads VRS-Backup. What's that?"

"In case the voice response system goes kaput, I take over, seamlessly!"

Books2Byte@TheHindu.co.in

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Spotting new pastures

Informal gyan

The fibre of `contention'

Quiz

Lessons on how the Net works

Cartoon