Loading ...
You may ask what these three things have in common? The way they utilize industrial age wisdom and methods to post-industrial society, the concept of economies of scale and universality. It is interesting to note that all these characteristics are also associated with scarcity of capital or energy or resources, concepts of economy of scale and central control of business process.
Let’s look at marketing where slicing and dicing of demographical data is a main staple, with underlying assumptions that specific groups of people, they identified, behave the same way and desire similar things. They also assume that marketing resources are scarce, which cause marketers to design products that suppose to be universally attractive to large constituency of consumers. They also create mass advertising campaigns that potential consumers use to leave TV for snack breaks or skip using technology like Tivo or DVR.
Politics is a very similar business to marketing, except truth in advertising rules are much more relaxed and you don’t really have to deliver any product you sold. The tools and methods of grouping people into imaginary blocks are also too familiar - with the soccer moms, nascar dads, Latino votes, etc. There are some weak attempts to correlate these groups to specific issues, but no serious interest and subsequently understanding that each human being has their own specific reason to vote they way they do. I am not suggesting that we vote or buy as a result of rational reasoning, just that we have our irrational reasons that are not associated with their marketing definitions.
Enterprise Software, pre-build libraries of business applications, which were designed to support automation of repetitive business tasks and processes, brought phenomenal efficiencies into traditional business of manufacturing and distribution of physical goods. However it’s value becomes rather questionable when attempts are made to use the same approach in automation of processes which support creative, “one of” tasks and activities which are highly specific not to a group, or a team, but to every individual, and highly fluid. That explains many well documented disappointments of adoption SFA software, as an example, and requires a different approach to adoption management.
Given that we already automated most of the repetitive, industrial age processes, and will spend more of our time doing “one off” activities, will become more involved into political process focusing on important to us as individuals issues, and buying based on personal recommendations of people like us, the software manufacturers, political strategists and marketers need to take notice or become obsolete as a steam engine.
Loading ...
Ben Worthen of WSJ Business Technology Blog reported about adoption problem experienced by SureScripts.
Doctors are reluctant to change the way they’ve always done things, Rick Ratliff, SureScripts CEO, tells the Business Technology Blog. That’s why more than 26,000 pharmacies across the country — including major chains like CVS, Walgreens and Wal-Mart – are now marketing the e-prescription program directly to consumers. The hope is that enough patients will ask their doctors about the programs that doctors will be forced to use them.
This story illustrates a cost of ignoring cardinal law of holistic application design - WIITFM (What Is It For Me). Considering that the appeal of SureScripts for the pharmacies is no-brainer (shifting a burden of data entry to doctors), what would motivate the doctors to change the way they do things?
Many business applications project investments were written off because of this failure. CRM initiatives are probably the hardest hit segment. However the attempts to correct this by bullying people into adoption, as Mr. Ratcliff is quoted to suggest, will likely produce even more waste and anguish. Perhaps honest and creative review of the system would produce an improvement, which would motivate doctors to use the e-prescriptions because it save time for them - like allowing them to dictate a prescription.
“Win-Win” is a popular phrase for Sales motivational trainers, but it is probably even more important concept in “Design for Adoption” business.
Loading ...
This is a fascinating read posted by:
Andrew McAfee
Associate Professor, Harvard Business School
The main thread of the post is around the role of IT in productivity growth and whether it has reached its limits. I would like to review and comment only on some of the excellent points I found in this post that resonate with my experience and understanding, and I encourage you to read the article yourself for a more complete understanding of this issue.
“… companies have been re-engineering their processes and value chains as long as there have been companies, and that there has been a rich mix of legitimate innovations, tools, and fads around process and performance improvement over the past hundred years. This mix has included total quality management, Six Sigma, re-engineering, just-in-time, quality circles, lean manufacturing, Taylorism, Sloanism, etc. etc. Is IT, () really such a great leap forward in companies’ abilities to better themselves that it’s more than another process improvement program? Does modern IT really deserve a place alongside electricity and the internal combustion engine? “
IMO the answer is a resounding “Yes” and the examples given are very compelling. Humanity moved cargo around long before combustion engines were invented, and used different forms of energy to produce before electricity was invented. All of these allowed us to do the same (more or less) things much faster and better. Quantitative analysis could be very interesting, but results would largely depend on initial assumptions rather then the fundamental premise. The most challenging part, IMO, is measuring the impact of IT on social change, democratization of knowledge (or at least of information), re-evaluation of institution’s role in our lives, etc.
“A process embedded in IT work the same in the 100th location as it does in the first, and will process all transactions the same way. Propagated with confidence that they’ll actually be executed as designed. In many circumstances, once a new process has been embedded in Enterprise IT it’s simply not possible to execute it the old way. These technologies act as a ratchet, making backsliding impossible. Re-engineering efforts that don’t involve IT often fail because people simply ignore the new methods and keep doing business the same old way. IT can be used to remove this option. Propagated with confidence that they’ll actually be executed as designed. In many circumstances, once a new process has been embedded in Enterprise IT it’s simply not possible to execute it the old way. These technologies act as a ratchet, making backsliding impossible. Re-engineering efforts that don’t involve IT often fail because people simply ignore the new methods and keep doing business the same old way. IT can be used to remove this option.”
This statement explains why so many Enterprise Software implementation initiatives fail so miserably. It completely ignores that knowledge workers have enough autonomy to ignore imposed business process. Billions of dollars invested into Sales Force Automation were written off because the most successful salespeople refused to conform to the processes embedded into these applications. I have personally witnessed Accounting Departments breaking business processes flowing info from one application (Project Accounting) into another (AR) to produce invoices in Excel. This risk needs to be understood and mitigated, because when ignored it leads to ROI disappointments, which leads to management skepticism of IT’s claim to importance, which leads to reduced investment in IT. Adoption and compliance management is a pivotal issue.
(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
You may ask what these three things have in common? The way they utilize industrial age wisdom and methods to post-industrial society, the concept of economies of scale and universality. It is interesting to note that all these characteristics are also associated with scarcity of capital or energy or resources, concepts of economy of scale and central control of business process.
There are many excellent blogs and other resources on the Internet which explore methodologies and Best Practices for business process re-engineering, project management, systems implementation, software engineering, and change management. However I could not find much help with unlocking value of integrated utilization of these disciplines to facilitate Organizational Transformation. In this blog I would like to focus on this subject. I would like to stress that this is not an academic inquiry, but a practitioner's desire to discuss and share practical business knowledge and Best Practices. Let's see how it evolves - "Every brilliant idea quickly degenerates into a lot of hard work" - Peter Drucker.