Running Head: THE ADVANTAGES OF IT INNOVATION IN AUSTRALIA
The advantages of IT innovation in Australia
Table of Contents
The advantages of IT innovation in Australia 2
Summary 2
Introduction 3
Inhibitors to the deployment of IT innovation 4
Environmental factors 4
Organizational factors 6
Innovation factors 8
CRM- Customer Relationship Management 9
Bibliography 11
The advantages of IT innovation in Australia
Summary
A gradual change is the best manner to explain the manner in which the growth of information technology in the 1990s. Information technology has continued to advance; the manner in which companies do business is similarly changing. The emergence of the internet in the business environment, the increased number of customers accessing the internet as well as the number of houses having devices accessing the internet are increasing the rate at which IT changes (Baltzan, Philips, Lynch & Blakey 2010). Information technology is market to a different set of customers for the advancement of the company.
Introduction
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a form of business strategy that is aimed at helping a company to develop an understanding and anticipate the requirements of the potential and current customers. The data gotten from the customers in a company are kept in a central point called database, assessed and issued to significant points, otherwise known as touch points (S. Winer, Russell 2001). Such touch points involve mobile sales force, inbound and outbound call center, direct marketing channels and other sectors of the company that has an association with customers. The data that is distributed is desired to assist in installing effective, personal experiences between the company and the client.
CRM refers to the collection of information and the varied forms of activities in the operation of customer related issues. The CRM enables companies to get data, warehouse the data and evaluate it relating to customer behaviour and the actions of the company in a better way. It enables the varied forms of structures in the company to lay more focus getting new customers as well as maintaining the already present customers (Reynolds, J. 2002). The offices and structure of the organization establishes cooperation and an effective participation in the business sector. There initially, these sectors of the organization had not worked together. The implementation of CRM gives minimal attention to the employees. The involvement of employees however, according to Srinivasan and Moorman, the involvement of the employees is beneficial as it brings about good performance of the company.
Inhibitors to the deployment of IT innovation
There are varied forms of inhibitors to success these may include organizational variables, environmental variables and innovational variables (Osarenkhoe, A., & Bennani, A. n.d). Such contextual variables are influence the information technology innovation process.
Environmental factors
Focusing on the environmental factors, the push and pull theory has been more often than not applied in marketing processes and companies. When applied for customer service it is termed to as a user manual which is form of push customer service while an 800 number help line is a pull customer service. They are both used depending on who initiates the activity (Lee Gil-Hyung and Kim Young-Gul 1998). It is assumed that the company in push is able to anticipate the requirements of the clients earlier and prepare before time. The companies that apply it are able to increase their efficiency. It is presumed that they are in a good position to handle all the questions of the client therefore reducing their contact with the company. Additionally, the company may as well reduce the regions where service is issued hence elevating its efficiency in training of the employees. This has grown to become quite complex considering that companies are finding out that they are focusing on effectiveness while leaving efficiency.
In the pull solutions, which have been a component of several companies, in this case the customer drives the solution. It has come to application taking to fact that customers do not trust the companies in their service and product delivery. In this instance, the company is required to provide materials and hop the customer is able to identify with one of them. It is however not efficient but effective.
The internet is a perfect example of how most companies have developed from a push to a pull model for client service (Vahtera, Annukka n.d). Customers are now placed in a good position to research and acquire solutions without the need to wait for company to issue the service. Companies have developed to using the web and social networking so as to acquire the right proposals as requested by the customers. This has been quite effective on the part of the customer.
The Customer relationship management should be in a position to address heterogeneity in the behaviour of the customer. The basis of CRM is that customers have varied forms of needs and it is left to the company to handle them contrastingly. It is therefore the heterogeneity in the customer behaviour that tends to affect the trend of the company. Another environmental factor affecting the implementation of IT innovation is competition. Competition is able to create declining pressure on the costs, minimizes slack, and issues incentives for the efficient companies of production (Boulding, W., et al 2005). The most and only effective form of innovation in the IT sector is innovation while practices that go against trust declines the reward of the company. According to Schumpeterian theory, the product market theory is quite significant for the advancement of the company. While the most effective competition available is global competition, companies that are not able to interact with education and trade miss out on customer satisfaction. Competition which minimizes barriers lets in additional innovators. The elimination of barriers increases company productivity growth. This is so in India which has a strong market regulations policy. With the advent of trade liberalization companies are in a good position to increase their growth through the importation of high tech product that fall within the needs of the customer.
Organizational factors
There are similarly organizational factors, the support the management team offers and the weakening or slack resource are considered to be significant aspects that affect the choice of acquiring and deploying as well as success. Organizational aim is the significant aspect in innovation research in the strategic form. There are varied forms of these organizational factors;
Organizational size is known to be among the most important factors affecting the acquisition of innovation. Organizational size involves of organizational resources, transaction volumes or workforce size. Though having a beneficial relation, the organizational size has had mixed interdependency implication on the company (Howitt, Peter 2008). The size of the organization is considered to be significant looking at its structure and processes; the bigger the companies are known to be quite higher in terms of formalization, in possession of decentralized decision making, specific tasks, higher level of control and a complicated form of communication. Thus aspects play a greater role in helping innovation of information technology.
Specialization and complexity is more applicable in bigger organizations. This results in the acquisition of new ideas, practices and technical skills that are quite significant in the deployment of IT innovations. The complexity of organization similarly has beneficial impact on the innovativeness of Information technology in the company. Complexity is assessed by the level of knowledge and expertise the employees of the company have. Complexity makes members to plan and make proposals for innovations and acquire ideas from other sections.
Functional Differentiation and Managerial Attitude towards Change have a correlation with the organizational. Functional differentiation is the level to which an organization is categorized, innovativeness grows from this. This is useful considering the negative issues of coordination and operation that happen in most companies that are categorized into bigger units and the application of information technology innovations help to sort out these issues (Mishra, Alok & Mishra Deepti 2009). The manager’s attitudes facilitate the innovation; their involvement and support creates a necessary direction and significance of the innovation. It is therefore the attitude of the manager that creates the innovation for most companies.
Slack and technical knowledge resources have also an impact on the organization. Slack resources means the level at which resources that are not associated have availability to the company. It composes all the resources and capacity to uphold its important operations. These resources are assessed depending on the financial indicators; it hence has a good relation with innovation of a company. Technological knowledge resources on the other hand avails the companies technical capability and resources. No company is bale to avail technological innovation with no resources.
There is also internal and external communication. Internal communication brings the length at which communication in a company is done. It is assessed by the size of the committees in the company, rate of facial contact and the rate meetings are held as well as level at which the varied form of categories make decisions. External communication is the ability of a company to communicate and establish a correlation with the external surrounding. It is assessed by the involvement of the company members. The internal and external innovativeness impact the innovative capability of a company.
Innovation factors
There are also the innovation factors. In a world where there is a rise on in the business environment, it has become of essence that innovation can not only be used to acquire competitive advantage but also as a means of survival. Most industries are now venturing towards acquiring varied forms of innovations; quality management, process reengineering and lean manufacturing. For effective innovation implementation there are certain significant aspects that need consideration; there may be direct as well as indirect correlation between management uphold of innovation, accessibility of financial resources, deployment climate (like the perception of personnel on significance of its deployment) and the deployment policies and practices like training.
A not so rigid deployment of information technology in the company can be attributed to a lack of management support. An instance is the Water Company (WaterCo.) where the management support was not long lasting leading to the decline in the personnel perception of the significance of the transformation. It is therefore apparent that a lose management support leads to ineffective innovation implementation. Support may be offered by the company through training and engineering help. There was however, leaving without support, everything to the employees. The employees acquire neither training nor any foundation for what they were to do. The company processes were weaker due to poor attitudes from the personnel. This later affected the quality of service that was delivered to customers, which was below quality and inefficient.
Financial resources lead to a halt to any process that requires the deployment of the information system in the company. Taking an instance of the water company, the competitors created a pricing war that declined profits leading to no choice but to innovate. The provision of finances to the company brings forth the aspect of commitment, it is therefore apparent that adequate financial resources play a bigger role in encouraging innovation application and the provision of ways to solve problems. Moreover, the value of the innovation is clearly brought forth to the personnel as they play a role in creating effective innovation. Lack of investment in the water company led to the poor implementation practices and hence the failure. It is hence consequential that customers that will not feel the efficiency in the services and products they receive.
Implementation climate in the company involves the creation of training that consequently leads to a better understanding. In the water company, training took place for a while but declined as time went by. The personnel on the other hand lost the need to continue with the desire to see it succeed. The value of the training is carried long by the attitude and message presented to the personnel. The customers are on the other hand affected as they receive product that are of low quality due to the ineffectiveness of the whole process. The desire to fully encompass and maintain activities of the company in the innovation process of the information technology is quite significant. There is a quite important correlation between policies and practices and the implementation climate. The training the personnel receive creates an enthusiasm in them; this should be followed by its sustenance.
CRM- Customer Relationship Management
CRM is essentially a natural and a noticeable connection of the evolution of the market and sales. The initial CRM-enabled technologies are composed mostly of contact management software that is connected to a personal computer. This type of sales automation advanced to include account management, opportunity management and forecast. Initially CRM was designed around integrating sales and customer service, later it involved marketing function; presently it provides data to most companies that are based around the customer.
CRM is aimed at giving power to the company when it comes to managing customer relationships. The best form of CRM strategy will see the company making maximum use of its resources when relating with the customer in marketing, sales, finance and manufacturing (Araneta, Michael 2006). The opportunity available to the CRM enabling it to have value is reliant on its ability to join all the functions, technologies and make effective use of data in a manner that develops the company as well as its competitiveness.
The technology solutions of the CRM are different for different customer segments in the form of service applications that ranges from customer management of data to the tracing of the problem as well as the intended contact management. The initiatives in the modes are a significant component. Marketing of the company itself does similarly vary from one customer to another; it is based on the customer segment selection and data mining results. The marketing or campaigns will depend much in the customer behaviour.
The effective deployment of the CRM technology is significant in acquiring the real knowledge concerning different types of customers. The technology is applied in the analysis of which type of customers are most suitable for the business, this may range from intermediate to final customers. Consequently with the knowledge of these customers, the company is able to market in the best way known to it by applying the information acquired.
The CRM is useful in that it helps a company to develop an understanding of the significant customer groups that are available. This is the first step towards achieving business success, getting to know the varied sections that the customers are in (N. Sheth, Jagdish 2001). CRM is similarly useful in explaining what the customers require and value. Business is all about creating to the customer what he or she needs. Another help provided by CRM is the targeting of the customer groups that relate to the customer groups. These are the viable marketing centers for the company. This is closely followed by modeling the goods and services produced by the company so as to meet the needs stated by the customers. For this to be successful efficient modes of services and product delivery ought to be in place. Consequently, an assessment is then taken concerning the customer activity and the marketing of the products and services offered.
Bibliography
Araneta, Michael, 2006, CRM at China trust Commercial Bank: Winning, One Customer at a Time, Financial Insights: Asia/Pacific IT Benchmarking Advisory Service: Case Study, China.
Baltzan, Philips, Lynch & Blakey, 2010, Customer Relationship Management
Managing Global Information Systems, McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd.
Boulding, W., et al 2005, a Customer Relationship Management Roadmap: What Is Known, Potential Pitfalls, and Where to Go, Journal of Marketing
Vol. 69 (October), 155–166.
Howitt, Peter, 2008, Competition, Innovation and Growth: Theory, Evidence and Policy Challenges, Brown University, viewed on September 8, 2011 from http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/60/62/41708270.pdf
Lee Gil-Hyung and Kim Young-Gul, 1998, Implementing an Interrelated IT Innovation in the Korean Industry.
Mishra, Alok & Mishra Deepti, 2009, Customer Relationship Management: Implementation Process Perspective, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 83-97.
N. Sheth, Jagdish, 2001, Customer relationship management: emerging concepts, tools, and applications, Tata McGraw-Hill Education, New Delhi.
Osarenkhoe, A., & Bennani, A. n.d., the management of customer relationships: a study of the forces influencing the implementation of a sustainable customer-centric strategy. Viewed on September 8, 2011 from http://www.iamot.org/conference/index.php/ocs/4/paper/viewFile/972/396
Reynolds, Janice, 2002, a practical guide to CRM: building more profitable customer relationships, Focal Press, New York.
S. Winer, Russell, 2001, a Framework for Customer Relationship Management, Stern School of Business New York University.
Vahtera, Annukka, n.d., Organizational factors affecting it innovation adoption in the Finnish early childhood Education, Turku School of Economics, Rehtorinpellonkatu 3, 20500 Turku, Finland. Viewed on September 8, 2011 from http://is2.lse.ac.uk/asp/aspecis/20080094.pdf
