Innovativeness has been one characteristic that shapes companies. In the current world where competitive advantage is considered a very important aspect of business, a company has to keep up with the trend and implement new technologies applicable to the business in order to increase efficiency and productivity of the employees and likewise to be able to give satisfactory service to the costumers. However, the implementation of new technological business ideas does not guarantee outright success. Careful planning and feasibility is required and of course the cooperation of everyone involved in the process. It is not cheap to shift to new business paradigms as its initial cost may be big, but with proper management, this would be beneficial to the company in the long run.
On the case of Isuzu Australia, their move to implement a groupware system is not an easily implemented as said. There are numerous obstacles and adjustments that the company needs to overcome during the implementation. First, using a new groupware requires proper training for the personnel. This would mean additional training cost for the company. Efficiency of the personnel might be a trade-off at first when they are still on the process of getting the feel of the new system to be used, but productivity and efficiency will improve when the personnel are used to the system. Aside from training cost, there is the software cost. It will be good to have an open source groupware compared to licensed groupware but depending on the number of personnel the company has as some providers based software cost by the number of users supported. Aside from the numerous transition cost, the company may face resistance to the new technology being implemented by the employees. There is a tendency that the first system implemented is loved by the employees and changing it could lead to reduction of morale of the employees. As groupware means sharing of data, there is a possibility that data are altered without proper permission thus reducing the integrity of data. In connection with this, security of data might be jeopardized or data may be extracted by unauthorized users since everyone is connected. (Orlikowski, 1992)
Dashboards and scorecards are another innovative ways companies have been adapting. These are types of measurement systems that are embedded in an organizations system and processes to be help management view their business performance vis a vis the company’s strategic goals. Specifically, scorecards are used by senior level management to see how the business is faring by measuring achievements through a set of performance indicators. On the other hand, dashboards are common to lower and middle level management which is a tool or a monitoring tool used to visualize the daily activities of a specific department. (Ekerson, 2005) Isuzu Australia Limited (IAL) could utilized these new innovations to increase productivity and eventually increase its market share. Particularly, IAL can integrate the two performance measures in their data infrastructure. With this, management will be able to determine how their business is faring vis a vis the performance indicators in the scorecard and then look or analyze their data warehouses for possible reasons for not achieving or achiving the required score. Likewise, the result can be checked against the operational dashboard to determine what possible improvements could be made.
The use of Wikis is another new business innovation. Wikis are simple collaboration systems where everyone authorized to access the database can add their own entry. It is like a journal for topics people want and everyone who cares can post theirs. ( Goodnoe, 2005) Internal Wikis may be used IAL. The company can put tutorials, processes or trouble shooting guides in their internal wiki so that when an employee encounters difficulties, he’ll jus Wiki it.
References:
Ekerson, Wayne (2005). Understand the difference between Balanced Scorecard and Dashboard. Retrieved from http://www.businessintelligencecentre.com/intelligence/images/stories/Scorecard%20and%20Dashboard.pdf
Goodoe, Ezra (2005). How To Use Wikis For Business. Retrieved from http://www.informationweek.com/how-to-use-wikis-for-business/167600331?pgno=2
Orlikowski, Wanda J. (1992). Organizational Issues in Groupware Implementation. Retrieved from http://ccs.mit.edu/papers/CCSWP134.html
