Product Assembly, Sales, and Marketing

In developing and executing IS strategy, current business processes are analyzed, modified, or redefined in order to better support company strategic objectives and targets. Process analysis—an integral part of IS strategy development—can identify problems of information flow, data maintenance, systems integration, and process alignment with business strategy. Technology transfer projects in two product assembly companies are examined here. These projects developed and implemented IS strategies to align with contrasting business objectives: to provide stability and customer retention on the one hand and to provide key management information to support increased profitability on the other.

Small Software Companies

The technology industry is dominated by major international companies, but there are also many SMEs, SBEs, and micro-companies operating effectively in this industry sector. Maintaining innovation is a key challenge, especially for the small players in this market, and technology transfer to develop new products and services is particularly challenging. This chapter examines four technology transfer projects in small software companies, three of which focused on new product development, and the fourth on a new service provision. All four projects were generally well managed, but effecting this degree of change requires more than good management, especially in such small companies. It is not surprising that some of these projects failed to achieve their objectives in the mid-term.

Service Industry Companies

Ramaswamy (1996) suggested that companies that provide services normally conceive of a process as a sequence of activities needed to perform transactions that help to provide their services. To define processes is often problematic involving a range of complexities relating to customers, human behavior, and company structure. To organize the company around business processes, it is necessary to focus on external customers because business processes usually start and end with them. Processes have a line of activity which begins with an understanding and assessment of what the external customer wants and finishes with the external customer gaining what he or she needs and requests. The customer is always central within service organizations structured by process, when the key operational objective is to offer the customer more value in less time and with less cost. This chapter examines four small companies that attempted to do this through the introduction of new technologies.

Conclusion

This chapter attempts to pull together the lessons learnt from the 19 cases reviewed in this book and to provide some guidance for industry professionals and academics undertaking technology transfer projects in the future.

House Builders

Larger companies have for some years used customer relationship management (CRM) systems as part of a strategy aimed at increasing turnover and market share, but the benefits of these systems for small businesses have often been viewed with skepticism. With more limited financial and human resources, the successful acquisition and implementation of systems of this scale can be problematic for small companies; yet the potential benefits are nevertheless attractive to companies that are often continually striving to increase market share and profitability, whilst retaining a firm control on revenue costs and capital expenditure. This chapter examines two case studies where the introduction of a new CRM system was the main component of a company-wide systems upgrade or replacement. The two case studies examine the issues that have produced different degrees of success at these companies, which not only implemented new systems but also addressed the required upskilling of staff and re-engineering of core business processes.

Manufacturing Companies

One of the most debated areas regarding the introduction of new technologies into companies of all sizes is ERP systems implementation. These integrated software packages normally encompass the main transaction processing and information reporting requirements of a company, spanning sales order processing, financial management, human resource management, stock movement, and inventory control. It has led to a widespread debate in the literature regarding the respective merits of procuring and implementing an ERP system or deploying individual standalone software packages. The increased take-up of packaged software also coincided with the spread of business process re-engineering (BPR) to improve efficiencies and reduce overheads. The two became closely linked as BPR projects were frequently combined with the introduction of new software solutions. In this chapter, three such cases are reviewed, all involving major new packaged software implementations in manufacturing companies and all associated with varying degrees of process change.

Contract Packers

The rise of demand and supply chain management is of particular relevance to outsourced contracting companies as they are but one cog in a complex chain and have no end products of their own. They rely upon a range of customers and suppliers (the two sometimes being the same entity), who are in turn dependent upon the contract packer. This leads to a complex supply chain where profit margins are generally small and where internal process efficiency and excellent customer service are critical for survival. In this chapter, three projects that introduced new technologies to improve processes or services are reviewed. They all aimed to increase revenues and drive down costs but achieved mixed outcomes.