Articles

Why are some information systems that companies have invested millions of dollars in developing never used or avoided by the very people who are intended to use them? In building systems, the company may optimize one part of a process and end up creating less than optimal performance for the process as a whole. The authors argue that companies should approach system building as business process reengineering and ensure that implementability is built in. They present a case study of an expert system for sales reps at a computer company, show why the reps were reluctant to use it, and offer suggestions for how the system could have been redesigned to solve the company's problem.

Restructuring seems to be an unavoidable and inevitable part of doing business today. Too often, companies focus on reducing head count and fail to consider the qualifications and morale of the employees who remain after the restructuring. How can a company restructure and develop a revitalized organization that is positioned for the future and staffed with the best qualified people? The authors explain their strategy-driven approach to restructuring in which people are "redeployed" in a positive way. Their method focuses first on describing and redesigning the work to be done in the new company and only then on the people to do the work.

By strategically outsourcing and emphasizing a company's core competencies, managers can leverage their firm's skills and resources for increased competitiveness. The authors suggest ways to determine what those core competencies are and which activities are better performed externally. They assess the relative costs and risks of "making" or "buying" and present methods for containing risks while enjoying the benefits from their dual approach.

Some of the results of continuous improvement in just-in-time manufacturing and rapid product development have not always been favorable. As the author points out, Japan is suffering from increased traffic due to JIT deliveries, a shortage of blue-collar workers, too many product variations, overly stressed suppliers, and a lack of money for new product development. This situation offers an opportunity to companies in the rest of the world to catch up to the Japanese, modify lean production and product development to create a more balanced approach, and seek competitive advantage in new areas, for example, in more flexible automation, new materials and technologies, innovative product features, and expansion into developing markets.

Manufacturing site location has received limited exposure in strategic planning literature. Approaches often emphasize quantitative data such as transport costs, exchange rates, taxes, labor rates, and other cost-based variables. Yet location decisions based primarily on cost underestimate the importance of qualitative factors that are more likely to provide long-term advantages. This article examines the impact on location of recent trends in the global trading environment, new production systems, and new technologies. These suggest that global corporations of the future will develop a manufacturing network of decentralized plants based in large, sophisticated, regional markets. Each plant will be smaller and more flexible than is typical today. The location of such plants will be based more on regional infrastructure and local skill levels than on purely cost-based factors.

An effective pricing decision should involve an optimal blending of internal financial constraints and external market conditions.

In most industrial firms, marketing efforts encompass three groups: product management, sales, and customer service units. Mangers have devoted much attention to managing effectively within each unit but not to coordinating across the units. The authors discusses why managing these marketing interfaces is increasingly important and complex at industrial firms, the interdependencies and organizational barriers that affect their joint activities, and the strengths and vulnerabilities of initiatives aimed at improving links among the marketing groups.

Chief information officers have the difficult job of running a function that uses a lot of resources but that offers little measurable evidence of its value. To make the information systems department an asset to their companies -- and to keep their jobs -- CIOs should think of their work as adding value in certain key areas. Accordingly, chief executive officers can take a number of steps to aid a CIO's efforts. This article, based on studies of information systems leaders in sixty organizations, presents a portrait of successful CIOs and the CEOs who support them.

One of the most useful concepts of the TQM movement in manufacturing is the application of poka-yoke, or fail-safe, methods to prevent human errors from becoming defects in the end product. Here the authors argue that these methods apply equally well to services and provide a framework for systematically applying poka-yokes to service encounters. They suggest that actions of the system, the server, and the customer can be fail-safed, and provide numerous examples to stimulate service managers to think in fail-safe terms.

Choosing the right strategy for negotiations with someone from another culture is a difficult task for which managers have few established guidelines. Implementing that strategy well can often be even more challenging. Whether you know a little or a lot about your counterpart's culture -- whether you are a novice or experienced negotiator -- you will find useful advice in this article on effectively choosing and implementing a culturally responsive strategy. Part 1, published in the Winter 1994 issue, presented eight culturally responsive strategies in a framework based on their feasibility.