Background
Information communication technology has created a new paradigm in how people communicate in both their personal and business lives. Social networking services have created the capability to create virtual identities that are simple to manage. Technologists consulting with enterprise have proposed different ideas with regard to how social networking can add value to organizations. Wooqer is a cloud-based solution that operates as a graphic interface that manages employee communications with a multitude of communication media. Audio, video, word processing, spreadsheets and presentations can all be managed with the Wooqer package (Venkatagiri & Prakash, 2013). Wooqer uses worker interactions with the organization’s information system, employee feedback scales and interviews, an employee reviews to track employees.
Madura Fashion & Lifestyle (MF&L) is the largest apparel retailer in India (Venkatagiri & Prakash, 2013). Indian business capitalizing on the offshoring of knowledge-based service jobs from the West have contributed to the growth of the Indian economy. Emerging markets such as India were successful in the face of the global financial downturn from 2007 to 2010, hence, people had more income available to spend on fashion. MF&L, topline performance was growing at this time, and Madura wanted to continue to grow and double revenue in the next few years. To do this, a staffing solution was necessary because Madura had many workers and sought to hire 5,000 more to staff 1,000 additional locations. Madura needed a staffing solution that would support branding and onboarding by gaining insight from current workers about the culture and how to prepare for it, to monitor current performance and processes to understand processes which contribute to effective use of worker resources and to facilitate the flow of information from the lowest level of the organization to the top. Simply, Madura wanted software that facilitated standard operating procedure implementation and compliance tracking, however, managing the communication side would require technology that will understand what workers know, what they need to know and to pass information through the organization in ways that it would be understood effectively.
The data is analyzed in order to understand how to effectively manage work teams. In the Wooqer case, John Mancini’s proposals regarding the value of social networking, and how people and businesses manage relationships are valuable in understanding the case. Solutions that facilitate effective knowledge management for workers and the employer are valuable; hence, Wooqer can be a useful tool (Venkatagiri & Prakash, 2013). Wooqer has been found to improve business performance on multiple levels. Business leaders have increased coverage over 65% and visible standard operating procedures 10%. For Madura, the increase of standard operating procedures was a significant concern of management. The ability of Wooqer to have a 10% difference is noteworthy. Broad learning opportunities have tripled, as have the number of hours spent learning. The quality of effort processes are substantially more efficient with the use of Wooqer.
Recommendations
The recommendation in this case is for Madura to purchase the Wooqer package. The implementation of Wooqer will solve a multitude of current and future problems as well as avoid the creation of future problems. The Wooqer package should be implemented as a way to engage workers as communicators of what they value in the workplace and what it is that they do. The social system and how technical elements are impacted should become a valuable outcome of the implementation. Further, as the firm continues to grow, the platform will be a useful means by which the central brand of Madura can be connected to the individuals working in the firm. This will lead to consistencies in training and development and knowledge management as well as improving worker engagement. The business heads at Madura should be asked to become familiar with the use of the technology, as the use of this technology will bring top management closer to understanding what is happening at the lower levels of the organization.
Rationale
Madura currently responds to business problems by identifying point solutions to the problems of leadership. The strategy head is responsible for this task and has relied on the use of SAP to manage enterprise resource planning in the organization hired PriceWaterhouseCoopers to perform business process redesign and implemented the Lawson Fashion PLM in 2009. The implementation of SAP was the first successful implementation of SAP in a fashion organization. These cases are evidence that when Madura implements commercial off-the-shelf technologies or customized process plans, the firm has been successful implementing solutions from external sources. The problems that will come from the aggressive expansion of Wooqer over the course of the next few years will put further stress on knowledge management, employee relations and the adherence to standard operation procedure, as well as recruitment and retention in the increasingly competitive Indian retail apparel industry. Wooqer is a tool that is designed to respond to a number of these concerns in some fashion. In order to facilitate the growth of the firm, Wooqer will likely be more effective than responding to the problems that Madura is set to face than other technologies or strategic plans may be.
There is another factor influencing the decision to implement the Wooqer package rather than rely on in-house development of a plan to solve problems. This factor is that creation of a conglomerate of multiple technologies that do not work effectively with one another is a classic information technology problem that can become worse with time as the management of knowledge across several platforms is difficult. Wooqer is a single solution that responds to knowledge management regarding worker performance, satisfaction, and effectiveness. Further, Wooqer facilitates the measurement and communication of knowledge related to what workers do that deviates from standard operating procedure and whether these deviations have a positive or negative impact on business. Managers must know these things in order to understand how to manipulate the nature of the current business plan.
Wooqer should be selected and the strategy head should make themselves the leader of this implementation. They should create a simple to understand vision of what they want at the end of the implementation and create a coalition of organizational leaders who will work together with him in order to effectively implement this technology. The coalition should be people who have influence on the areas of business that will be most significantly effected by the technology. They should be champions of the use of the technology, insisting on the virtues of it and making it known to workers that the input that they receive from the measurement done with these technologies is appreciated. Business heads should be the ones who champion the implementation of this new software.
References
Venkatagiri, S. & Prakash, Y.V. (2013). Wooqer: Making Business Social. Harvard Business Cases. Harvard Business Publishing.
