Here’s Chapter
11 of "Net Income: Cut Costs, Boost Profits and Enhance Operations
Online" for your reading pleasure. This version was prepared
before copyedit, and therefore may differ in some respects from
the final version in the book.
Chapter
Table of Contents
OK, you've read the
examples, looked at the tactics, made notes of lots of good ideas,
and stuck Post-it notes all over the book. What now? Now it's
time to turn the ideas you've got here into actions that improve
your businesses bottom line.
When clients come
to us with a project, we take the time to outline for them what
they should do, in what order, and what they should watch for.
That's what this chapter is about. Imagine you're one of our clients
and let's go through the steps.
In our consulting
work and in our research we've discovered that projects can start
in lots of different ways. Here are the main ways begin to use
Net Technology that we've seen. Each one has unique challenges.
One of them is likely to be where your business is beginning it's
transition into using Net Technology.
The Changing Technology
Beginning:
Sometimes the technology
people in your organization are the ones who bring up the idea
of using net/web technology strategically. For Susan Wood, at
Financial Services Corporation, the idea to begin using this technology
grew out of a major systems change project. FSC was in the process
of changing its computer system to make it more effective. Specifically,
they were moving from a command-oriented, "green screen"
to a graphical user interface.
In the course of doing
the analysis of how the system should look, the systems people
brought forward the idea of looking at Net/Web technology. If
the technology people bring you this as something they should
be exploiting, it will be your job to connect this with strategy
and to apply TACTICS to use it effectively for business.
The "Voice
of God" Beginning:
Sometimes it's the
boss who drops the project on you. That's what happened for Stan
Witkowski. He got what we called the "voice of God"
approach. Stan's boss had looked at a number of strategic issues.
He was aware of the emergence of the Net and the Web and sensed
its importance for the future of Prudential Securities business.
Basically, he said to Stan, "You want a project? Here's a
really big one. Make it happen."
There are a lot of
benefits to getting your project started that way. With top management
on board, it's easier to line up the resources you need, and to
get people to participate. But there are some dangers as well.
This kind of project when handed over by the boss tends to be
a "up or out" project. As Stan Witkowski told us, he
was either going to make this work or be looking for another job.
If the boss lays the
project on you, make sure you know what he or she really wants
and knows. Make sure the commitment is really there and that the
resources will be available when you need them.
Then, like Stan Witkowski
did, bring that boss in at crucial points to make the point to
everybody involved that top management is really behind this.
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The "From
the Top" Beginning:
What if you're the
boss yourself? Then, your responsibility is to be clear about
what you want and support the project as it moves along. It will
be your job, as the crucial leader, to attend to the issues of
making sure that your Net/Web project supports strategy. It will
also be your job, as leader, to do "the leadership thing."
You'll need to be
visible in your support. You'll need to be doing that button-holing
of people in hallways that's important to communicating your ideas.
You'll need to make sure it's on key agendas and that key players
are informed, and on board. You'll need to use everything at your
disposal, including personal visits, email, and anything else
to get the message across that this is important and critical
to organizational success.
The Champion Beginning:
There's another way
that these projects seem to happen. Sometimes there's a champion.
Think about what happened with Jerry Gross. Jerry saw the potential
right away for his business, but he wasn't in a position to just
make it happen. He had a clear idea of what needed to happen,
and how. The problem was that nobody else did at that point. So
what did he do?
If you're the champion,
then you need to be constantly working on the details, and constantly
running up the flag. Jerry, you'll recall, went off an put together
a Web site on his home computer. That gave him an idea of how
it would happen, and what the technology was capable of. And he
kept coming back to the company with ideas, reasons, and benefits.
That™D5's how the champion moves this along.
The Spontaneous
Idea Beginning:
Sometimes net/web
projects just start happening. That's what happened at IBM. All
of a sudden IBMers were putting up Web sites. They were doing
this inside the company and outside the company. The Web sites
had lots of different looks and functionality.
The challenge for
IBM and your company if you've got a lot of volunteer projects
springing up, is to try to control to the appropriate level. That's
something that's easy to say, but very hard to do. In IBM's case,
the answer was to develop a no-excuses tool kit so that everybody
had access to the tools to make the site look like IBM, and now
excuses for not doing that.
At the same time,
IBM, and many other companies, chose to give their people as much
freedom as possible to exercise their own initiative. The strength
of the Net and the Web is that it gives people information, and
information is power. That power is diluted, or sometimes even
eliminated by over control. The trick is to get some balance.
The Well, We’ve
Got a Web Site Beginning:
Sometimes the question
involves putting together pieces that already work, but don’t
work together. Dell Computer had a fine public web site. Adding
the ability for customers to check on order status made it more
effective. Many companies get themselves into intranets/extranets
by considering features that they want to add to their public
web sites.
The Holy Cow, We’re
Already Doing This Beginning:
Some organizations,
maybe yours, already have an intranet or extranet, but have never
used those terms to refer to it. Both Texas Instruments and Hewlett
Packard were in that group. The language may help you explain
what you do to others, or see more possibilities. But the real
question is how are you using this technology to boost your bottom
line.
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Regardless of how
your project gets started, we've found that there's a basic six
step process that almost every project goes through. Here are
the steps.
1. Assess Your Starting
Point -- In this step you'll determine where you are on the way
to tieing your whole business together with net/web technology.
2. Put Your Team Together
-- In this step you'll assemble the team that will get the project
done and determine how that team will work together.
3. Do the Basic Strategy
& TACTICS Analysis -- This will give you a good idea of how
to proceed.
4. Develop Your Plan
-- Here's where you clarify your objectives, resources, and timelines.
5. Implement Your
Plan -- As you do that, you'll need to pay attention to many things,
among them design issues, culture concerns, and security.
6. Deal With the Changes
that Will Happen -- You need to stay on top of changes in your
organization and its culture, as well as changes in technology
and your customers' capabilities.
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Ultimately you want
your information strategy and technology to support your organization
strategy throughout your company and all along your value chain.
For most companies, though, that's something to be worked toward.
Do a quick assessment of your situation. This analysis will give
you some basic direction and give you ideas about who should make
up the project team.
Look inside first.
Here's some things to consider.
Are you already in
a client/server environment? Networks in business often consist
client machines that use programs, data and other applications
provided for all of the clients on the network by a server.
Do your people routinely
share files, use email, send information to one another electronically?
Do your people have
access to the net?
Do they use browsers
either at work or at home?
Are your administrative
and marketing documents in digital form?
Lots of positives
here usually mean that you will have a good base of expertise
to draw on from inside your company. It should also mean that
you can move fairly rapidly with project implementation.
Do they use groupware?
Does your company
use EDI?
Does your company
use a proprietary computer system to coordinate operations?
Yes answers to these
questions give you both things to build upon, as well as cautions.
You can build upon familiarity with network tools and using them
to work with others both inside and perhaps outside the company.
On the other hand, using these tools may have set several habits
in place or have financial and/or psychological investment in
existing technology that will make changing things more difficult.
Do you have a web
site?
Have your people seen
it?
Most companies begin
their involvement with net/web technology with two things: email
and a web site. Think for a minute about what each do for you
in the public arena.
Both web sites and
email let you extend your reach all along your value chain. They
make it easy for you to share information as well as having it
available for people when they want it.
If you haven't got
an Intranet in place, imagine that same ease of use and brain-friendly
functionality working for you inside your business. Here's the
vision that Tom Thomas, Vice President and Chief Information Officer
of 3Com has for his company's Intranet
" ... support
virtually every function in the company, including sales and marketing,
customer service, manufacturing, engineering, product development,
electronic commerce, and systems development. It will span our
many global locations and incorporate our external site on the
World Wide Web."
Intranets let you
extend the ease and functionality of the browser to internal information.
Extranets let you get that same ease-of-use for information you
want to share with others.
In a fully "Networked
Enterprise" you can connect anywhere throughout the world
using a simple Web browser to perform such daily practical business
activities as:
Collaborate on developing
and delivering products or services customized to meet your customers
needs in less time for less costs
Provide forms on demand
that can be changed to meet the needs of any particular interaction
and be made instantaneously accessible
Do a quick search
for best practices, frameworks, business intelligence, competitive
data, comparative analysis, business tools, and techniques to
help them solve client problems as well as locate the leading
experts on a topic
Strengthen your business
relationships by providing responsive customer support
That is the promise
of corporate extranets.
Your quick starting
point assessment should leave you with an idea of what direction
you should be moving, along with a rough sense of how fast you
might be able to move. The next critical step is to set up a cross-functional
project team.
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We've found it best,
and our research for this book underlines this, to undertake net/web
projects using cross-functional teams. The nature of these projects
seems to demand this since they involve the flows of information
between functions. Here are some guidelines for putting together
a team.
To make up a good
team you need three things: interest, expertise and power.
You want employees
with interest in the project. They might be the champions, like
Jerry Gross, of Countrywide Home Loans, or they might be the folks
who are already running volunteer projects. They could be functional
managers who've got an interest in what this technology can do.
Look also for people who may benefit the most. They generate interest
in the project quickly once they see the benefits for them.
You want employees
with expertise. Technical expertise is a part of that. You want
people who understand net and web technology and your organization's
information system. For one of our clients that meant two people--the
director of Information Technology and the consultant who had
helped developed the databases the client was using.
In addition to technical
expertise you want functional expertise. Make sure you involve
employees who understand your key business processes (see Strategy
question 2). If you're looking at developing an Extranet, you
should consider team members from outside your company but along
your value chain.
Your team also needs
power in some form. That can be awareness of the political climate
or the ear of the boss. Remember how Stan Witkowski went about
using the power he had, but also brought in the CEO at key moments.
In many organizations, involving people from many different constituent
or stakeholder groups is important for managing the team's power.
Your core team size
should be under fifteen which makes for good discussion, but also
effective decision making. OK, you're thinking, how do I involve
lots of team members and still keep the group small? The answer
is to think of three rings of involvement. We call them core,
consulting, and commentary.
The Core Ring, at
the center of the bullseye, is the team responsible for managing
the project, making key decisions and recommendations. They should
bring interest, expertise, and power and should be able to make
the project a top priority and devote time to it.
Outside the Core is
the Consulting Ring. Business professionals here have interest,
expertise and power, but often do not have the time to make this
project a top priority. Their commitment is to respond to questions,
comment on decisions and discussions.
The outside ring is
the Commentary Ring. This can include people with interest and
with whom communication is fairly easy.
These projects are
excellent places to take advantage of building a Virtual Team
to draw from the expertise in all areas of your business. In a
virtual team project a great deal of the sharing of ideas and
impressions and information can be handled using email or (if
there's already an Intranet in place) and internal web page devoted
to the project. There are also many other tools Net technology
has to offer such as email discussion groups, forums, whiteboards
or real time chat that can enhance your Virtual Team's creativity
and productivity.
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Once you've got the
team together, give them some homework to get up to speed. Have
them read this book, check out articles about how this technology
can be applied and talk to others in the industry. Then use our
Strategy Questions to begin formal analysis.
Here they are in outline
form.
What is your strategy?
What are your key
business processes?
Who are your suppliers?
Who are your customers?
Who are your partners?
Who is your competition?
There's more detail
on these questions in Chapter 2 on our TACTICS Action Planning
System. Once you've gotten a handle on how the net/web project
will connect with your business strategy, apply the TACTICS Action
Planning System to think through how you can tailor the implementation
of Net Technology so it best fits your business.
Think
Links
Automate
Customize
Transform
Inside/Outside
Core Functions/Big
Payoffs
Start Now
Some of the business
professionals we interviewed, who "have been there,"
offered the following advise.
Tod Fetherling, Director
of Interactive Marketing, Columbia/HCA talks about specific linkages
that are strategically important and that Columbia will use its
net to enhance. "We just want to strengthen our relationship
with our vendors and allow the clinicians who are actually in
the day-to-day patient care to have access to the best information
about the tools that they're using to deliver quality patient
care. That's the number one goal. "
Fetherling links development
to a specific goal. Bob Edelman of Marshall Industries provides
perspective on how your project should support your strategy.
"The key drivers
for the project should be business purpose and customer need.
The original move to the Internet as well as all the planning
and innovation that have happened since are firmly anchored in
Marshall's business model which is a customer driven model. Marshall
started with changes in the business and then used IP to help
support, drive and enhance those changes.
You also have to look
at things from an enterprise-wide perspective, taking into account
people and technology and purpose and goals."
That's the message
from Chris John, President, Resource Financial Group as well.
"It depends upon the purpose for which they want to set it
up. I mean the Web is just a medium. Some people want to use it
for marketing and advertising, other people want to use it for
services delivery medium. I think it depends. It's like asking
someone we understand you're going to start using pen and paper,
how do you suggest they use that effectively? It's just a medium."
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With your team together
and the basic analysis done, it's time to get on with the job.
Start with a good project plan.
But don't over plan
There seem to be two general ways of getting a net/web project
underway. Some groups want to plan it all out in advance. Other's
want to just jump in and try stuff. We agree with Ian Campbell
of IDC: "Higher ROI seems universally to go to those who
decide to implement now, and fix later, rather than those who
spend massive amounts of time in design."
It's often a good
idea to look for the applications that are easy to develop but
bring a big payoff. Many human relations and administrative applications
fall into this category.
Many companies start
developing an Intranet with things like employee directories,
employee benefits documents, and basic administrative procedures
like expense forms and travel vouchers. Those are not only usually
quick and easy to develop, but they tend to have a big payoff.
That's because they let one person (the one who needs the information)
get it without help from the person they used to need (the person
who found the document or explained the policy, for example).
Put the plan together
in a way that makes sense for your organization, your objectives,
your team and your starting point. Susan Wood, Financial Services
Corporation saw it as a five step process for her company. Here
are her recommendations.
[1] "Find the
right resource - internal or external it doesn't matter, but ...
`It is the resource who can take you to where you would go if
you knew it was there.'
[2] Select a group
in the company to be first and let them be first. In our company
it happened to be marketing, there are some very good reasons
to let it be marketing.
First of all the information
is easier to manage and deal with because there don't tend to
be significant security issues. They tend to be a more open and
innovative group so they're a little less worried about stuff.
But whatever group it is, pick an area and say, `You guys get
to go first.' and let that team be first.
[3] Set a time frame
and go with it. One of the huge benefits that we had ... is we
had our big awards conference started May 23, Aspen, Colorado.
... So what we basically did was said what can we do between today
and May 23 and that's what we'll have.
[4] Keep it simple.
The old kiss, only I call it `Keep It Simple Staff.' It doesn't
have to be complicated. It doesn't have to be sophisticated. Whatever
you get out there initially, some people will like it, some people
won't like it, but having something for people not to like sure
beats having nothing.
[5] And then I think
the last and most important piece is plan to spend some time getting
your users (whether they're internal, external, whatever ) on
board. That may be less true today than it was a year ago, but
... once you go outside traditional home office, you're going
to have some time frame getting them onboard, getting them used
to it, and getting them comfortable."
That's one way to
look at it. Whatever your plan comes out to be it should follow
the guidelines for effective plans in any area. You should have
clear and reasonable objectives. You should have the process mapped
out and know where resources are coming from. And you should have
a way to keep track of things as you go along.
Planning, however,
is just planning. After you've sat back and congratulated yourself
on a good plan, it's time to put that plan into action. We think
you should move to trying things out as quickly as possible. Then
learn as things unfold.
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Even though many things
will develop as you and your people use the system you've planned,
there are some specific areas where pre-planning is vital to avoid
problems. As you roll out your plan, pay attention to these areas
to see if things are working as you expect. Make changes if necessary.
The three primary areas to monitor are:
(1) Design Issues
(2) Culture Concern
(3) Security Concerns
(4) Budget Issues
[1]
DESIGN ISSUES --
Net and Web technology
are very powerful in terms of the ways they enable people to find
and use information. For that reason, it's easy to slip into the
idea that you don't really need to pay a lot of attention to design.
Actually, the reverse is true.
One of the strengths
of this technology is that it enables people to do things on their
own. In practice that often means, "by themselves."
What you're trying to do is set up functions that work for the
person who needs them, when that person needs them, without the
necessity of having someone there to help them. That means paying
attention to several design factors.
The first, and maybe
the most obvious one, is to make help available. On an internal
network that can be a simple link on every Intranet page that
lets a person ask for help. Note, though, that this only works
if you've got help in the form of an individual available all
the time. Otherwise, help files set up as part of the Intranet
are usually the best solution.
Even if you do have
systems people available all the time, you probably want to encourage
people to use the net on their own. For that reason, we strongly
suggest building features into your Intranet or Extranet that
let people find help on how to use the Net without calling on
another individual.
Pay attention to navigation.
On Web pages, internal or external, that usually means having
navigation buttons at least in the top and the bottom of every
page. It may mean using image maps to simplify complex navigational
choices.
That's just a part
of designing for ease of use. Another part is just working things
out so they're as easy as possible. Jerry Gross thinks you do
that by designing all your applications, even internal ones, as
if they'll be used by consumers.
"Prototype it
once. You're forced to make these applications easy to use because
if it's a public application it's got to stand on its own. ...
then if you reuse it internally, it lowers your training costs
because then the metaphor becomes a transferable metaphor in terms
of the online experience to the customer service rep internally.
You don't have to retrain employees, they just say oh OK, this
is a Web application, I get a customer calling in and asking me
a question about xyz click click click, I've got the answer.
Now the concept back
in the 60's and the 70's was you had applications that were only
used in the back office. In the 80's the applications moved to
the point of sale terminal and the branch office and closer to
the customer. Our view is that applications, the technology needs
to bypass all of these layers in between. Our goal is to only
build technology to the customer that actually buying our goods
and services."
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[2]
CULTURE CONCERNS --
In their marvelous
book, Corporate Cultures, Terrence Deal and Allan Kennedy
offer a definition of culture that we like. They define culture
as: "The way we do things around here."
In our own consulting
with organizations on strategic issues, we've found that cultural
barriers to change are often the most powerful because they're
based on unconscious reactions. For that reason, you usually won't
be able to argue people out of their opposition, instead you'll
need to find another way.
"The way we do
things around here" develops slowly. Behavioral norms develop
because they work. They may be easier than what the procedure
calls for. They may bring rewards. In either case, the reason
why they were done in the beginning is lost by the time they've
become deep-seated cultural norms. You won't be able to argue
people out of their behavior. You'll have to find another way.
One way is to change
the rewards system. Look back at our discussion of the Booz Allen
Hamilton project. One major issue that needed to be resolved was
the practice in Booz Allen (and many other consulting firms) that
you hoarded knowledge so you could use it for your own, internal
competitive advantage.
The solution there
was to revise the reward system so it was good for folks to share
information. Still, change didn't happen overnight. It never does
with cultural issues. Booz Allen, though, gave public recognition
to those who shared information and tied their performance appraisals
to the behavior.
Rewards don't have
to be financial. Countrywide Home Loans simply set up a system
where information was available first to business people who used
the net. Stan Witkowski let the team members and employees at
Prudential know that the boss was watching.
Don't forget to publicize
successes of the employees who use the system. That helps show
others the benefits.
The other way to change
cultural obstacles is by making sure that the new way is easy.
Consider the purchase order application at Liberty Mutual. The
system give line managers more control and that's a reward, but
the system might have been dead in the water if it wasn't easy
to use.
Instead, the automated
purchasing system is easier than going around the system. Result:
managers are more likely to go to the preferred vendor.
Cultural issues are
powerful, but they're best addressed, in our experience indirectly.
Rewards including praise, promotions, and financial rewards help.
Publicizing success stories helps. Making things easy helps.
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[3]
SECURITY CONCERNS --
The two things that
have gotten the most press about the Net and Web are how to sell
lots of things on them, and the security dangers. So, let's begin
our discussion of security on all of your applications of Net
and Web technology by looking at the issues that revolve around
a public site.
There are really two
kinds of security issues out there. The actual security issues
and the perceived issues. Perception, formed by a number of sensational
media stories, concentrate on the presence of evil hackers stealing
sensitive information including credit card numbers from unwary
businesses and consumers. There's just enough truth in those to
make them believable. There have been significant hacking incidents,
like the invasion of the Netcom computers and the theft of credit
cards from them. But, at least as of this writing, there has been
no documented case of a credit card number sent over the Internet
being stolen in route. None. Not one.
What that means is
that if you're doing any business on your site, or even internally,
you need to deal with the perception people have of security,
not just its reality. We suggest for our clients who have public
Web sites and conduct transactions (sales or informational) on
them, that they give people multiple ways to respond. That means
that providing phone numbers, fax connections, and postal mail
addresses as well as email responses. For anything that's deemed
sensitive, we suggest you use a secure server.
If you are doing information
gathering transactions, situations where people share information
with you such as their name and email address, then we suggest
that you describe the purposes for which you'll use that information,
as well as any things that you definitely will not do.
Now, what's reality?
The first piece of reality you'll have to plan for is that there
are hackers out there. So the best thing to do is plan that you
will be hacked. Jerry Gross lays out his philosophy.
"Security is
a real concern. Our view is that it's not if you're going to get
hacked, it's just a question of when you're going to get hacked
or attacked. ... So we've made investments both in technology
and in people to constantly monitor our networks and our electronic
commerce transactions.”
There's another security
reality that you have to be aware of whether you're setting up
a public Web site or an internal one. That reality is that your
biggest security threats are the people close to you. That means
your employees, your customers, anybody who's got access to your
network. The first thing to be aware of is that people share passwords,
sometimes consciously, sometimes not. You won't ever be able to
stop that completely, but you do need to set up rules, procedures,
and other things that stress the importance of security in areas
where it's needed. You also need to try to get a system that makes
it easy for people to get information when they're authorized.
If you use an Internet
Service Provider instead of having your own network, you need
to be aware of security there as well. We found that very few
Internet Service Providers have done any kind of background checks
on their employees, even when those employees have full access
to sensitive information on the provider's computers.
For that reason, we
recommend to our clients and to you, that any Internet Service
Provider who is part of your network be required to conduct full
background and criminal records check on anybody with system or
email privileges. You should also consider having them bond employees
with similar privileges.
Your security system
needs also to have systems built in to determine if there is a
problem. One area to pay attention to here is making sure that
your systems people update the security features of the system.
Here's the bottom
line on security. There is a real threat, but it's probably less
than presented in the media. Your biggest threat will tend to
be your people inside, but you need to balance security controls
against ease of use. Finally, lots of security problems result
from laxity, so rigorous attention to the procedures you have
in place is probably more effective than looking for ever-better
procedures.
Those are implementation
issues that you can plan and watch for. They're ones you should
prepare for. But there are other changes that will happen in your
organization. They may be a bit more subtle and take longer to
develop, but you should be prepared for them ,too.
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[4]
BUDGET ISSUES --
Budgeting is always
a concern for business projects. Even though implementing intranets
(especially) and extranets can be done fairly inexpensively, it
isn’t free. Work out a good and realistic budget. As you
do so, consider the following.
You may already have
a good deal of the basic infrastructure in place. Use it if you
can, but watch capacity issues carefully. We’ve seen clients
who implemented a trial Intranet, or a small scale one, who needed
major computer and communication investment to take it enterprise-wide.
Watch out for personnel
costs for maintaining your Intranet/Extranet. This usually doesn’t
take a lot of folks -- the staffing at companies like Eli Lilly
and Sun Microsystems is in single digits -- but it will take some.
Explore possible budget
issues that grow out of increased workload. It may be possible
to automate responses to information inquiries, for example, but
you may choose not to because they really require a human response.
Finally, keep an eye
on the costs of success. In lots of organizations budgets are
set a year or more ahead and provide little flexibility to exploit
success. Planning in advance for what you’ll do if you’re
wildly successful will make it more likely that you’ll get
funding.
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One thing we can be
sure of is that once you start using net/web technology, changes
will happen in your organization and environment. We've seen them
fall into two main categories:
(1) leadership and
operational changes
(2) technological
and capacity changes.
[1]
LEADERSHIP AND OPERATIONAL ISSUES --
As a leader you should
be aware that organizations change when they start using this
technology. The biggest change is that people now have the ability
to make decisions and take actions that were probably more difficult
before.
The result is that
they start making decisions and taking action. Your role as a
leader then is to help them make better decisions and choices.
If you're in an organization that has been traditionally top-down,
you're going to find your pyramid flattening. We’ve found
that talking this through with client executives and building
it into the whole implementation process is usually all that’s
necessary.
One crucial decision
leadership will need to make is how much control they want to
try to exert over the changes that will occur. Eli Lilly had an
Intranet up and running before many of us had even heard the word.
The person responsible for that is John Swartzendruber. Here's
his perspective on this issue as delivered in Web Week.
"Sometimes I
feel like Dr. Frankenstein chasing his monster as it runs toward
the village ... No central group can manage all of this. It's
like herding chickens. ... Our philosophy is, we'll make decisions
on the software and hardware environment, but other than that,
people who are closest to the data and the ones supporting them
should decide how the Intranet develops. We don't tell them what
they can and cannot do on the Web."
That approach has
led to the development of a broad array of applications from the
very simple to the more sophisticated. In addition to the usual
directories, manuals and so forth, there are systems for paying
vendors, purchasing applications, a virtual learning center, and
a news feed that delivers news important to Lilly's people.
We can tell you, from
our own experience as consultants doing culture change, that there
are bound to be some very uncomfortable managers at Lilly as they
watch the monster heading for the city. Part of the challenge
will be keep them productive as the world changes around them.
As people begin to
take charge of their own applications and operations, the role
of IS changes. Before when a manager brought a problem to IS,
the response was, "How do I develop a solution for this?"
But for good effective Intranets, the response should be different.
Now it becomes "How can I set things up so you can develop
your own solution next time.?'
Steve Telleen is probably
one of the people best qualified to put this in perspective. He
was instrumental in setting up one of the first corporate Intranets
at Amdahl and now he's a partner in Silicon Valley Intranet Partners,
a consulting firm.
"When you enable
communication with an Intranet, then it starts to break down the
barriers inherent in paper systems. ... as that happens, as understanding
of the Net and what it can do develops, it's something like a
flower unfolding ... It's important for leaders to understand
that this kind of system is not neat and engineered like a machine
or a car. Instead, it's an adaptive, living thing. ... When you
have the implementation of a broadbased Intranet type of system,
you can be sure that something will change. The question is how
to manage that change or perhaps whether to manage it at all."
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[2] TECHNOLOGICAL
AND CAPACITY CHANGES --
Because technology
in this area is changing so rapidly, you'll need to stay on top
of things.
First, watch how changes
in technology and capacity enable you to do more things. When
Marshall Industries discovered that the people using its net-based
training had more capacity than they thought, they responded by
adding some sophisticated technical features to the training.
Keep looking for technological
applications that will help you do things better. In the next
couple of years, we suggest watching for development of the following.
You can expect some
agreement on standards for electronic transactions. Once that
happens we'll see an explosion in new products for handling payment,
settlement and other key functions. At the same time, competition
should drive down the cost on these. There will be modifications
of existing technologies like EDI and groupware to work effectively
in the Internet/Intranet/Extranet environment.
You can also expect
to see development of a variety of products to link different
internal functions effectively. Netscape's starting calling this
breed of product "Crossware," but you'll also hear it
called middleware. Keep watching for new says to bridge the gaps
in your system.
You can expect that
more of the folks in your value chain will be open to the possibilities
of the Internet and their own Intranet and sharing via extranets.
Right now the major
move is for companies, large and small to set up Intranets or
Intranet-like applications. In the next few years we'll see businesses
increasingly extending their data, information, knowledge and
applications beyond the firewall with extranets. The future of
building and implementing a "Networked Enterprise" as
a competitive strategy to cut costs, boost profits and enhance
operations online is NOW.
What should you do?
Whatever your organization or organization size, you should look
for opportunities to use this technology to forge bonds with other
organizations in your value chain. You should seek out ways to
be more effective and help your people be more effective using
net/web technology.
How do you do that?
Use the TACTICS of Net Technology.
Think
Links
Automate
Customize
Transform
Inside/Outside
Core Functions/Big
Payoffs
Start Now
If you build a strategy
based on using the TACTICS Action Planning System to tailor and
implement your businesses Net technology you can and will successfully
lead your business into the future of our networked global business
community.
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