Importance of Information Technology in Education

Importance of information technology in educational sector is well known. Information technology helps the students as well as the teachers in studying the course material easily because of fast access. Studying the subjects with the help of online libraries and dictionaries has made grasping and increasing the knowledge easy for the students. The inclusion of information technology in the syllabus in schools, colleges and universities has helped them in grasping the subject well and getting their basics cleared. Since, many educational centers have the online grading system, it has been a boon for the parents of the children to keep a tab on their performances. Parents can also get the details of the attendance record of their child in schools.

Importance of information technology in management is quite significant. It helps the managers in adapting to the new business processes and also to predict the possible impact of new technologies. The managers can benefit from the efficiently prepared computer packages and the electronically stored confidential information. With just a single click of the mouse, they can have the relevant information in front of their screen. However, in order to be able to handle these software packages in a better way, the managers should have undergone quality training in information technology. Taking this need into consideration, many corporate companies are seen taking special efforts for the development of these soft skills by training programs prepared by experienceed software professionals.

The Successful Vendor Selection Process

The Successful Vendor Selection Process

The Five Step Vendor Selection Process

By James Bucki, About.com Guide

The vendor selection process can be a very complicated and emotional undertaking if you don't know how to approach it from the very start. Here are five steps to help you select the right vendor for your business. This guide will show you how to analyze your business requirements, search for prospective vendors, lead the team in selecting the winning vendor and provide you with insight on contract negotiations and avoiding negotiation mistakes.

1. Analyze the Business Requirements

2. Vendor Search

3. Request for Proposal (RFP) and Request for Quotation (RFQ)

4. Proposal Evaluation and Vendor Selection

5. Contract Negotiation Strategies

 

 

 

 

 

"Expectations Management" in IT Outsourcing

Steps to ensure maximum returns in offshore outsourcing

Expectations management has come a long way since the first boom of offshore outsourcing. However, there are still pitfalls and miscalculations in drawing up expectations. These steps will help both outsourcing buyers and providers with some food for thought to ensure effective expectations management and subsequently, higher returns on investments.

IT Outsourcing buyers
It is important to have a clear set of expectations for inside your. The information channels should be established from the beginning. If outsourcing is expected to solve an internal problem, the provider must be told. Specific designations of who will do what and at what time are important.
Ask yourself key questions like:
• What specific work do you want to outsource
• What kind of business relationship/deal do you want?
• What are the outcomes you want to accomplish for your organization?
• How will the relationship benefit the providers(s)?
• What do you see as the matrix of responsibility in relation to yourself and your outsourcing provider?
It is but natural that some issues will change in negotiations but it is best to begin with clarity. This will help prevent misunderstanding in the future.

IT Outsourcing Providers
A study by an independent agency showed that 67% vendors considered managing expectations an important factor in outsourced project success.
Outsourcing service providers should not promise what they cannot deliver. They should proactively determine a client’s requirements and expectations of an outsourcing relationship, provider capabilities and state upfront what is correct. Nothing is more damaging in an outsourcing arrangement than raising expectations which cannot be met. Never make assumptions: sometimes companies and suppliers both make assumptions that cause difficulties in the partnership. Communicating provider’s capabilities is the key to successful outsourcing. Similarly, knowing precisely what are client goals and objectives goes a long way in helping draw effective expectations management points.

Finally, to assure performance will be measured against original expectations, it is important to develop mutually-agreed upon measures early on and put them in writing.

The Impact of Outsourcing Business

The Impact of Outsourcing Business, Jobs and Economies of Wealthy and Poor Nations.

The truth about the speed, scale and unstoppable momentum of business processoutsourcing and offshoring. What will be the net impact on the American and European economies? How should company executives and union leaders respond to emerging markets? Can or should the offshoring process be reversed? Advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing?

Outsourcing is very controversial and affects every part of business from manufacturing through to design, software development, financial control, logistics management, customer support and sales. Outsourcing has been praised as cost-effective, efficient, productive and strategic - but also condemned as evil, money-grabbing, destructive, ruthless, exploiting the poor.

China is now seeing 100% salary inflation at top end and India is not far behind - acute shortage of experienced business leadership. Some companies are now thinking of moving operations to places like Pakistan (50% lower costs and over 200,000 IT graduates looking for work), Bangladesh or Vietnam. Changes are happening very quickly.

Outsourcing can generate weeks of hostile media coverage, widespread protests and industrial action. The issue is so sensitive that decisions are usually taken behind closed doors at the most senior levels in the organisation, and only announced after much careful research into how the proposals are likely to be received.

However, If handled badly, business process outsourcing can damage corporate image, weaken a brand, unsettle customers, and result in lower quality of products and services. But when handled well, the results can be good enough to save a failing corporation.

Various reasons why organizations outsource

A precise definition of outsourcing has yet to be agreed upon. Thus, the term is used inconsistently. However, outsourcing is often viewed as involving the contracting out of a business function - commonly one previously performed in-house - to an external provider. In this sense, two organizations may enter a contractual agreement involving an exchange of services and payments. Of recent concern is the ability of businesses to outsource to suppliers outside the nation, sometimes referred to as offshoring or offshore outsourcing (which are odd terms because doing business with another country does not mean you have to go offshore^. In addition, several related terms have emerged to grasp various aspects of the complex relationship between economic organizations or networks, such as nearshoring, multisourcing and strategic outsourcing.
Organizations that outsource are seeking to realize benefits or address the following issues:

• Cost savings — The lowering of the overall cost of the service to the business. This will involve reducing the scope, defining quality levels, re-pricing, re-negotiation, cost re-structuring. Access to lower cost economies through offshoring called "labor arbitrage" generated by the wage gap between industrialized and developing nations.
• Focus on Core Business — Resources (for example investment, people, infrastructure) are focused on developing the core business. For example often organizations outsource their IT support to specialised IT services companies.
• Cost restructuring — Operating leverage is a measure that compares fixed costs to variable costs. Outsourcing changes the balance of this ratio by offering a move from fixed to variable cost and also by making variable costs more predictable.
• Improve quality — Achieve a steep change in quality through contracting out the service with a new service level agreement.
• Knowledge — Access to intellectual property and wider experience and knowledge.
• Contract — Services will be provided to a legally binding contract with financial penalties and legal redress. This is not the case with internal services.
• Operational expertise — Access to operational best practice that would be too difficult or time consuming to develop in-house.
• Access to talent — Access to a larger talent pool and a sustainable source of skills, in particular in science and engineering.
• Capacity management — An improved method of capacity management of services and technology where the risk in providing the excess capacity is borne by the supplier.
• Catalyst for change — An organization can use an outsourcing agreement as a catalyst for major step change that can not be achieved alone. The outsourcer becomes a Change agent in the process.
• Enhance capacity for innovation — Companies increasingly use external knowledge service providers to supplement limited in-house capacity for product innovation.
• Reduce time to market — The acceleration of the development or production of a product through the additional capability brought by the supplier.
• Commodification — The trend of standardizing business processes, IT Services, and application services which enable to buy at the right price, allows businesses access to services which were only available to large corporations.
• Risk management — An approach to risk management for some types of risks is to partner with an outsourcer who is better able to provide the mitigation.
• Venture Capital — Some countries match government funds venture capital with private venture capital for start-ups that start businesses in their country^.
• Tax Benefit — Countries offer tax incentives to move manufacturing operations to counter high corporate taxes within another country.
• Scalability — The outsourced company will usually be prepared to manage a temporary or permanent increase or decrease in production.
• Creating leisure time — Individuals may wish to outsource their work in order to optimise their work-leisure balance

Interorganizational Systems and competitive advantages

Global business constantly faces radical transformations stemming from advances in information technology (IT). The concept of gaining competitive advantages by linking information systems across organizations (e.g., supply chain integration) has taken on an overtone of dogma in many business circles. Such electronic linkages are known as Interorganizational Systems (IOS). Lately, the growing importance and easy accessibility of the Internet have propelled IOS to a new height. Undoubtedly, IOS can have a great impact on organizational performance and industry structure. However, IT such as the Internet is readily available to all companies, and most IOS concepts can be easily replicated. Followers often enjoy newer and better technology that enables them to offer comparable services in a short time and possibly at a lower cost. Late adopters can also learn from the experience of innovators and thus avoid problems and hiccups along the way. How, then can organizations achieve competitive advantages from IOS?

There are number of successful IOS such as the SABRE reservations system from American Airlines, the Apollo reservations system from United Airlines, the ASAP Express from Baxter Healthcare Corporation, and the Wal-Mart Supply Chain system. These are some of the rare few that have managed to sustain competitive advantages (albeit some for a short period of time) as other companies installed similar electronic capabilities.

Two issues in Knowledge Sharing

In this week's presentations - Siemens and Care Group, we got to learn about two types of knowledge sharing

1. Knowledge sharing in a crowd level Vs. Knowledge sharing in an individual level - Siemens case
2. Knowledge sharing in a control environment Vs. knowledge sharing in a free environment - Care Group case

Siemens had its knowledge sharing through Share net. But the question is - can we really trust the information/knowledge that we can find there? As it is said that the crowd source knowledge may not be better than an individual-source knowledge especially when that individual is an expert in the particular field. However, in some cases, crowd-source knowledge could be better. In the class, Dr. Schwarz gave a really nice example of a t-shirt manufacturing company, which took inputs in designing from the real customers and produced the most liked designs.

Another issue - knowledge sharing in a control environment is better or knowledge sharing in a free environment? As we learned from the Care Group case study, that there was only one person who knew everything about the system and in his absence, the whole network was shut down because there was no one else who knew how to work with the system. Now, why did it happen? Here comes the issue with knowledge sharing - was KS not effective? Or was it not done in the proper manner? Would something like this would have happened if KS would was more in a free environment?

But whatever said, I do as well think more conservatively and agree with what Dr. Schwarz  said in the class - "I don't really believe in KM or KS". The simple reason being, can we trust the organization? Can we be so flexible about it that we dump our knowledge in the system and be of no value at all? Well, there could be many questions to be answered before i could actually take up KS.