QUESTION

Based on your preliminary work, now you are required to write a research paper to show any network-related elements in two organizations and to differentiate the usage of networks between two different types of organisations.

You can organise your research paper in the following format:

• Title (you are required to decide your paper’s title)
• Your name and student number
• Abstract (about 100 words)
• Introduction
• Body context (you could divide into several sub-sections if required)
• Conclusion
• References.

The word-count limit for this paper is set at about 3000 words (including diagrams and references).

Assignment 3

Research proposal 2

Further on your previous work, now you are required to write a research paper to address how two selected organizations to get their business gains by adopting new networking technologies or/and management improvements which you recommend for them.

You can organise your research paper in the following format:

• Title (you are required to decide your paper’s title)
• Your name and student number
• Abstract (about 100 words)
• Introduction
• Body context (you could divide into several sub-sections if required)
• Conclusion
• References.

SOLUTION

INTRODUCTION

‘Network Pictures’ are the mental representations of the business environment which is quite relevant in case of managers. That is why ‘network pictures work as sense-making tools which helps in giving shape up managerial actions, evaluations and decisions. Thus we need to study the business impacts of new networking technologies especially the impacts of social networking needs to be analysed very closely.

Social networking is a famous concept which is helpful in both professional and personal changes and they help in transforming the corporate world also. It does have effect on the business, but before finding how it influences business we need to find out the main principles of Social networking (The Business Impacts of Social Networking, 2008).

Principles of Networking

• Electronic networking technologies help in maintaining large number of active connections which every person can maintain  where the stable limit which can be maintained by human beings on their own is a network of just 150 people at the most.
• Any two actors in network are separated by ‘six degrees of separation’ which means that within 6 steps you can get in touch by following who knows a person who know…….
• Weak actors or Ties whom you get in touch with or see rarely or talk rarely are more valuable , helpful and useful than the ones with whom you have strong ties ( meet every day or see them every day).
• Every demographic networking set for a particular incidence like application deployment, new product launch, marketing campaign etc. you will find more opportunity in the main target small group as compared to the large and tall network with big niches. The social networks and e-commerce are the best platforms which are using and giving value to the business using this ‘long tall’.
• The new generation who are just starting their corporate careers are also called Millennial and they are also called digital natives because they are supposed to be born with a mouse in their hands. They already are masters in handling Internet and PC and follow very different approach towards eth world of computing. These generation s have ample effect on the corporate world and business. (The Business Impacts of Social Networking, 2008)

Thus after analysing the benefits of networking technologies of the current scenario and their features we can say that they really do play major role in enhancing the business profits and managing big or small organisations in today’s scenario. New technologies in networking use such tools and utilise the notions of social networking to encourage and support various communities in network and to develop collective intelligence and make the work culture more collaborative.

New networking technologies do not just include social networking but they also cover the tools like search engines because in them the results are based on the various and numerous hits which are being generated by the actors of wider networking community. Blogs, Instant Messaging (IM), wikis and collaborative tagging all play major role in promoting the Social Networking pavement, which is a constantly altering area where new features are launched in a very regular manner.

Figure 1 Stages of Digital Identity Maturity

Source: Early Strategies Consultant

Impact of Social Networking on Corporate World

There seems to be multi-dimensional effect of social networking which is the latest networking technology on the corporate. Below is some of the future impact which is being predicted.

• Change in the way of Communication of Organisations
• Change in the vision of Organisations
• Change in the Organisational aspect of companies
• Collective Intelligence of new Networking along with Customer experience breed Innovation in organisations
• Networking will be the most vital key to excel for employees
• Enhance the mobility of employees
• Corporations will learn to adapt  to their own career Path Systems and  Motivation Skills
• IT/Telecom Applications will have to Transform
• Corporate Adoption will take at several speeds in organisations
• Social networking will lead to higher revenues: Social networking  Strategy if adopted by the organisations like Starbucks and IKEA will lead to :

–        Expanded reach

–        Better new products with faster launch pads

–        By creating the animated versions of powerful extranets we can facilitate the channel management of  external business which will also be able to earn profits with the new product creation and  the new products will reach newer markets by using these new networking tools

–         The ads and eth direct marketing would be converted from static form to dynamic form so that better prospects could be targeted.

–        Creating personal contacts with the users will transform the CRM and help in reconnection of online service centres, call centres and web to give customers a better experience and help in retention of the customer also.

As seen from above roles social networking and new technologies are going to play in the corporate we need to find ways to implement the social networking in the chosen two organisations Starbucks and IKEA.

Business Risks of Social networking

Along with the benefits there are some risks also attached with new networking technologies like : (Axelsen, 2008)

• Productivity Losses: Loss in productivity due to time consuming and becoming addictive. Another genuine issue which is attached is over usage of networking during the work timings. But if it is used effectively new networking technologies can really help in improving the productivity and effectiveness of some roles in the organisations like Starbucks and IKEA which are very much customer oriented.

• Legal Risks: The employers usually have the legal permission to monitor the emails and the web usage of their employees, but in order to do this they need legal notice and can also result in legal liability if done without permission.

• Reputation Risk:  New networking technologies can pose reputation risks to the business because there are many examples of gaffes and negative comments which are displayed publically and it is difficult to remove these negative comments.

• Viruses and Spyware: using new networking technologies causes a very frequent platform for several malicious attacks which are done using the viruses and spywares and might result in damage to the whole information system or the spyware can take away important information.

• Social engineering: The online information which is on display can be used for committing several kinds of harmful and damaging acts of fraud also against the companies. Like they could acknowledge being the private secretary or assistant of any higher staff member and might know good amount of secret information which they can use to convince any staff member to pay for cheques and goods. Social engineering frauds where the people might  develop fake and convincing identity cards or business cards just to gain an entry or access the confidential business information or its customers records. There is danger of grandparent frauds too (Axelsen, 2008).

• Identity Theft and Breach in Privacy: Even the ‘private’ areas can be under the danger of getting the heat of identity theft because the third party  applications which are developed using the new networking technologies get access to adapt very easily so the chances of breach in privacy and identity thefts are much more (Axelsen, 2008).

• Inadvertent making public of information: The publically displayed information about the companies might result in unintentional release of private informational and it sometimes acts as windows or gateway into the private lives of the users. Like LinkedIn shows your personal connections and networks and the prospective clients, and with the help of special media platforms you can easily access all this information. Same way if you are using wiki to develop collaboration with the client then the chances are that the confidential client information might get released through wiki. This can happen when you are trying to manage your projects ore track tasks using wiki (Axelsen, 2008).

Recommendations for Starbucks and IKEA about implementation of Networking Technologies

The best way to deal with the Straw poll that whether anybody searches for these discussions is to do some good talk. The best way to respond is to provide good service and stay with the hope that people will blog about the site. The organisation should some interest in what people are blogging about them and respond to whatever grievances with full transparency about their comments.

Starbucks and IKEA can also use professional monitoring services like:

• Reputation Hawk
• Reputation Defender
• Cymfony etc.

Starbucks developing New networking Strategies

Since June 2010 a visit to Starbucks store will bring in a new surprise for you and that is Wi-Fi access free for its customers. The best part is that this service is available for all its customers not just eth gold card members. This has been a tactic by the organisation to raise the levels of connectivity bad to create VALUE for their customers who move out of coffee shop with Starbucks experience (Starbucks and Social Networking, n.d.).

Breaking into new territory

The networking has become a real-time new experience for Starbucks customers as the moment you accept the terms and conditions to use the free Wi-Fi page of Starbucks the page will connect you to a media, with social sharing and content articles on one single your browser page.

Expanding the Network

This facility is available in just few stores in U.S., which will finally spread in all the stores across the country and later on internationally all eth locations of Starbucks will have this feature. You can expand your network and Starbucks is building the network with music downloads to buying stuff with the Starbucks card online. Thus you can very well have a totally new social media networking experience with the help of Starbucks (West, 2011).

Recommendations

Starbucks can plan to build their own unique networks with specialise social network environments which should be unique to each community. Thus eventually eth users would be able to get all the local latest information with a click like the nearest restaurant and their reviews, nearest movie theatre and the movie playing right now. Geo-tagged mapping highlights will be helpful for the outdoor enthusiasts who can plan their outdoor trips using this app. Along with this eth Starbucks outlets will be highlighted with the key scenic features and the local user pictures also.

The Starbucks patrons would be able to get to know and become the part of local news site of eth communities locally existing and they can also learn about the various local educational projects, charities and environmental support activities happening locally.

Issues Starbucks needs to handle

Before going local they need dot handle few bandwidth related issues, because of which many a time customers who walk in the store are unable to access or the speed of internet is very slow , which is quite frustrating experience and this is what even Starbucks would never want. The current system used by Starbucks has the bandwidth problems. The social network engagement when more than 20 people access the local network simultaneously is a very bad experience for the users. So they need to fix this problem before the number of disgruntled consumers increases with the help of new networking technologies.

The basic characteristics of new networking technologies is to fines t cooperation and various kinds of networks are used for communication in them that is why they have very large extent of impact on  the organisation structure, production efficiency , operation parameters and  operational cost as well. Different wireless network technologies do have strong impact on the organisation structure as they are very new networking technologies for communication and these wireless networks have great effect on the work process, cooperation policies of organisation ,Human resource behaviour an the organisation structure along with education of the networked enterprises (Novel networking Technologies and Distributed ( virtual) organisations, 2004).

New Networking technologies change the way of Communication of organisations

Since the new generation of millennial are expected to use these new networking technologies and tools developed with web 2.0 so the way of internal and external communication within the corporate is expected to change. There is whole bunch of new networking tools except for social networking which includes syndication , wikis, rich media, folksonomy, blogs, geo-localizations, mashups, virtual world events, applets and widgets, webcasts and webinars interactive ads etc.

The inevitable evolution of communication technology poses a tough question that how to implement them in organisation where as the goals of organisation remains the same that is sell more, engender loyalty, strengthen the brand, selling in profitable manner and turning stakeholders into company advocates and this could be done by using new technologically advanced tools instead of old newsletters and standard ads which have started losing their impact. Thus new networking demands new corporate communications:

Figure 2: New Demands of Corporate Communication

Changing face of Corporate Organisation with New networking technologies

Fig 3: Future of social Networks (Li, 2010)

The organisation should develop an engagement pyramid which should have curating at the top and watching at the bottom.

Fig. 4: Engagement Pyramid (Li, 2010).

To implement the new networking technologies successfully the organisations must learn to define their goals using objectives and for this the first step is:

Step 1: focus on relationships not technologies. Find what kind of relationship do you aspire and work according to that.

Fig4: Focus on Relationships

Step 2 measure the correct things done because the goals determine the metrics and should use the same metrics as strategic goals of organization.

Step 3: : Try to create newer and better work Flows in organization because the social technologies and networking are bound to disrupt the whole organizational structure.

Step 4: Be ready to part with control

Step 5: Fail fast but fail in smart manner. This can be best done by identifying the top 5 or 10 worst cases or scenarios of organization and then using them should develop mitigation and contingency plans .The culture of encouraging risk taking should be promoted with the forgiveness for failures.

IKEA the best  market Driving Firms

The capability of IKEA to proactively shape the market structure along with offering completely new value propositions is what makes it the driver of the best business processes in the market. This uniquely helps in changing the current market conditions. But with changing networking technologies IKEA needs to follow eth above recommendations to stay ahead in the competition and to make huge business profits in near future also (Ghauri, Hadjikhani and Johanson, 2005). The market driving strategies of IKEA which made it establish successfully in international markets of Russia and Poland using the global supplier networks is worth studying. It has been able to develop an effective supplier network by simply restructuring the market as a unique part of its market driving strategy (Tarnovskaya, Ghauri and Elg, n.d.).

IKEA followed the strategy of disintermediation where they developed relationships with new networks like the pulp producers and producers of paper making equipments and expanded their network rather than just dealing with the paper suppliers only. This IKEA with beneficial network outcomes in the form of:

–           Utilization of Resources: In the case of IKEA too the utilization of resources in efficient manner and access to the resources was the major factor which leads to the successful implementation of networking.

–           Development of Resources:  All the resources be it technical, physical or operational get developed with the networking and in case of IKEA too the best networking outcome was the development and introduction of a completely new and technologically advanced Total Chlorine-Free paper.

–           Financial impact: Access and development of resources of organization have vital implications on the financial profits of the organization as in case of IKEA. The highly positive financial outcomes proved to be very beneficial for the two Swedish pulp-producers who were the first ones to manufacture the chlorine-free pulp based paper. On the other hand the companies which did not chose to be part of network of IKEA and left the network had to bear negative financial profits as they were now lagging behind.

The environment friendly network picture of IKEA in the network is eth one which established the criteria which was used by IKEA to establish connections with its suppliers. Here the pictures of network were seen as devices for developing a new network which not only helped IKEA with business profits but also helped in better management of people in the organization.

Application of Knowledge Management for successful implementation of networks

The managers have to be prepared to welcome the younger generation of employees who know social networking as innate feature and instant messaging and emails and phone and multitasking is elementary for them.

Fig. 5: Mutating Knowledeg Mangement ( Source : Earcly strategy Conuslting)

The area with the dark blue shade depicts eth knowledge management which extends form 2009 with the more impact and adoption of technology in organizations. Where the knowledge management was equated to knowledge trustees who were master in an audit and reporting before 2009 has now been replaced by social networking architects. This knowledge management which is equated with social networking architects is smart enough to survey and animate the social networking in organizations. They also hunt for social networking talents for advancement and also advise the information technology department regarding the social networking architecture (The Business Impacts of Social Networking, 2008).

Thus Starbucks and IKEA need to implement the Knowledge management along with social networking to enhance their business profits in the organization. Thus to manage the new networking technologies in better manner they need to have more innovation as more information will have to be managed  so the organizations will need better CRM tools, because the desired success will only come when the organizations will develop networks with their customers and external partners along with their internal communities.

Bibliography

Axelsen, M. (2008) Business impact of Online Social networking, 2 November, [Online], Available: http://www.slideshare.net/maxelsen/business-impact-of-online-social-networking-presentation [28 March 2012].

Ghauri, P.N., Hadjikhani, A. and Johanson, J. (2005) Managing Oppotrunity development in Business Networks, Hampshire: Palgrave.

Gundlach, M. (2009) What is a Baseline Plan?, 18 December, [Online], Available: http://www.brighthub.com/office/project-management/articles/12950.aspx [27 March 2012].

Li, C. (2010) the Future of Social Networks, 13 January, [Online], Available: http://www.slideshare.net/charleneli/the-future-of-social-networks-2901559 [28 Marxch 2012].

‘Novel networking Technologies and Distributed ( virtual) organisations’ (2004), CIRP International Seminar- Digital Enterprises Porduction networks, Budapest, 343-350.

Starbucks and Social Networking, [Online], Available: http://www.evidentproductions.com/social-networking/starbucks-and-social-networking/page-2.html [28 March 2012].

Tarnovskaya, V., Ghauri, P.N. and Elg, U. (n.d) Market Driver Supplier Strategy: IKEA’s global sourcing network in two developing markets, Sweden: Lund University.

The Business Impacts of Social Networking (2008), November, [Online], Available: http://www.business.att.com/content/whitepaper/WP-soc_17172_v3_11-10-08.pdf [26 March 2012].

West, J.D. (2011) Companies Use Social Media to Boost e-Commerce Sales, 17 August, [Online], Available: http://socialmediatoday.com/daulton-west/337380/companies-use-social-media-boost-e-commerce-sales [28 March 2012].

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