Articles

RESEARCH BRIEF: Emerging supply-chain e-technologies provide opportunities for growth "Ò

Business leaders often believe their organizations are swamped with business process information, but that information is a relative trickle, say the authors, compared with the wealth of physical-world, biological, public and personal-preference data that is being made accessible by powerful technologies. The sheer quantity of all this information is unprecedented, but so is the complexity of working with it. Yet, despite its volume and disparate nature, this data is potentially useful to business because the computing power necessary to merge, manage and make sense of it also has been advancing and becoming more affordable. On the basis of working sessions with hundreds of global organizations such as Best Buy, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., Ford Motor Co., the Irish government, Payless ShoeSource, UPS and Walgreens, the authors illustrate how forward-looking companies are positioning themselves ahead of this information curve by moving quickly and down two parallel tracks: increasing the company's ability to gather and access new forms of data while simultaneously building organizational capability to use that data for insight.

How do managers and companies quickly transform new hires into productive employees, a process called "rapid on-boarding"? The authors contend that companies that are more successful at rapid on-boarding tend to use a relational approach, helping newcomers to rapidly establish a broad network of relationships with coworkers that they can tap to obtain the information they need to become productive. Most organizations realize the importance of integrating new employees, but many fail in this regard, often because of five pervasive myths about the process: (1) the best newcomers can fend for themselves, (2) a massive information dump allows newcomers to obtain what they need, (3) cursory introductions are all that's needed, (4) first assignments should be small, compact and quickly achievable, and (5) mentors are best for getting newcomers integrated. Because of those misconceptions, managers will frequently rely on certain taken-for-granted practices that can actually hinder new employees from becoming productive.

The good word from devoted customers may not always be the most effective promotional tool.

Throughout history, all business, innovation and even cognition have been based on localized cultural context. Pointing to the literature on the cultural antecedents of information and knowledge management (IKM), the authors make the argument that such cultural biases are the very spark of global innovation. They find it curious then that Western analytical assumptions currently dominate IKM research and development. Information and knowledge management models and frameworks that exclude the influence of national and regional culture have seriously undercut their potential effectiveness, particularly in global applications. If history is any guide, say the authors, these cultural influences must be encouraged if powerful new ideas for practical and theoretical IKM are to emerge.

Strategies for mitigating the negative effects of nasty on-the-job encounters.

To conduct business with customers, suppliers, partners and other external parties, companies have three options: arm's-length, socially embedded and virtually embedded ties. Arm's-length ties are connections that exist solely for a particular business transaction. The problem with arm's-length ties is that they have difficulty handling transactions that are uncertain, complex or opportunistic. Embedded ties are connections that overcome the weaknesses of arm's-length ties by inserting the transaction in a supportive context, either social or virtual. With a socially embedded tie, trust, sharing of proprietary information and joint problem solving form the foundation for an economic relationship to minimize the risk of transactions. In a virtually embedded tie, an economic relationship is facilitated and maintained through the use of electronic technologies that help minimize the risk of transactions through increased transparency, widespread information sharing and community-based problem solving. Companies in different environments are likely to benefit from the use of different combinations of those types of connections.

The marketing function has been under increasing pressure to deliver. Its challenge is to see new business opportunities before they become obvious, to lead the market and not be led, to have a proactive vision rather than a copycat mentality. To accomplish that, a ""facts-based"" analysis -- using quantitative data from customer surveys, market studies and other sources -- can help tremendously, but such approaches can sometimes be dysfunctional, leading to endless statistical analyses that obfuscate key points. Companies thus need a broadened approach to marketing research that takes into account conversations with customers, observations from the field and insights from executives, among other alternative sources of valuable information. The author enumerates seven key tasks that marketing must perform within an organization to enable -- not stifle -- innovation.

Recent corporate scandals have made many U.S. boards question the wisdom of combining the chairman and CEO positions. But a knee-jerk decision to adopt the British model of separating the two top jobs without understanding the model's complexities is hardly the answer. Corporate governance across the Atlantic has its own characteristic problems. For example, although a separate chairman makes the board more independent of the CEO, the arrangement can lead to confusion regarding the company leadership. And a poor relationship between the chairman and CEO can easily lead to conflicts and power struggles. U.S. boards need independent leadership, but achieving such leadership by splitting the two positions is not necessarily a clear improvement over the U.S. model. Instead, the authors argue, for most large U.S. companies, the addition of a competent lead director or presiding director will likely strike the right balance between effective governance and leadership.