Both requirements above leads us to the third key in making the transformation successfully, to realign the information function with the new business programs. As the technology applications and information become dispersed throughout the organization, approaches to deploying the human resources required to plan, design must be rebuilt. This policy and decision to involve the front line workers in quality circles and in planning for improvements production empowered with information technology have a key role to play in conceiving, implementing and evolving the new business paradigm in the second curve.
Don Tapscott and Art Caston, in their famous book “Paradigm Shift – The New promise of Information Technology”, said, “As the information age accelerates into its second era, organizations do not have the luxury of making a gradual progression over two centuries of progress as the industrialists have done. Paradoxically, the very technologies the organizations are trying to master have greatly compressed the time frame for innovation. They have also raised the stakes for success or failure.”
To make the transformation to move from conception to reality, each of these step must move through the four phases. During each phase, the step are align or synchronized to support a common business result. First phase, achieve a common vision of the desired nature of the business. It requires the creation of a strategy that positions the organization in its future business context, sets the direction for reengineering the business, identifies the opportunity and role of IT in fulfilling this vision, and identifies the need to restructure it.
The second one is for making the transition is to structure the solution. This is the role for the architects, who have a broad base of knowledge and experience and who can translate the vision into workable set of blue prints to enable construction to begin. This architects must be skilled at relating to the many and diverse interests involved in the change they are planning. The next milling stone is to develop and deploy the planned changes throughout the affected areas of the organization. The architects identify migration stages that define different delivery capabilities based on the organization ability to absorb change and to finance and provide resources for the various delivery projects. These stages involves work-systems redesign, user training, development of new applications and establishment of the required operational support capabilities.
The finishing touch to make the conception come to the reality is involving the on going measurement and operation of the reengineered business processes, and supporting IT infrastructure, with a focus on their continuing evolution and improvement. It enables to establishing a continues learning organization in which the support functions perform a coaching role to the empowered users. The result is partnership, where knowledge and service workers collaborate to achieve the common goals.
Further more, Don Tapscott and Art Caston, explained,
“Reengineering the business requires the achievement of a vision, the creation of new structures, the development and implementation of the new, and the institutionalizing of feedback and continues improvement system. Reengineering must occur at all levels of the enterprise, from the individual (each person’s job) to the workgroup, subenterprise. And enterprise levels. Reengineering should also encompass a recasting of relationships with external organization.”
Managing The Gap Towards The Second Curve
An Empirical Decision Analysis Study of a Telecom Company