Abstract
Technology Futures
My long managerial career has taught me many things, not least that social and cultural factors in organizations are at least as significant in affecting change as technologies. So I am naturally suspicious when others proclaim technological change as pre-emptive and dominant. A recent Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report has prompted me to re-examine some of these issues.
And there is certainly a lot of traction to the role of ‘big data’ at the moment. Robin Smith and Dion Lindsay tackle this elsewhere in this issue of BIR and Sandra Ward emphasizes its importance and the opportunities it provides to business information professionals in the Editorial. The authors of an excellent recent EIU study also predict this area as one of the main trends to examine and act on.
Agent of Change: The Transformative Effect of Technology on Organizations
The EIU suggests that if one were to ask corporate leaders to list the ‘megatrends’ that are shaping the business world of tomorrow, three are likely to top most lists. One is the accelerating shift in economic power from West to East. Another is financial market instability and recession, at least for those in the world’s more developed economies. The third is technological progress. Of these three, the last is likely to have the most direct impact on how businesses operate and how they are organized.
As difficult as the task is, business leaders and their teams must deploy their crystal balls and think ahead about the types of changes that may be wrought by technology-led innovation. The past two decades are littered with examples of businesses that have guessed wrong about a technology – and the uses to which it can be put – and have paid the price with reduced market performance or, in many cases, disappearance from the scene altogether.
This report aims to assist management teams in this process by synthesizing different views of how technology changes will impact on organizations in the period between now and 2020. It is based on in-depth discussions conducted with several prominent business and technology thinkers as well as other senior business leaders from across different industries.
EIU also canvassed a group of over 500 senior executives and other managers from across the world on their expectations of technology-led change in the years ahead. The opinions expressed by this eminent group are certainly not unanimous, as is to be expected.
But there is a large degree of consensus on several of the major implications of technology development for the business world. Foremost among them is the view that technology disruption will continue, and is likely to accelerate, in the decade ahead, confounding the beliefs of some that innovation and disruption are slowing. New business models will emerge on the back of technology advances, and organizational structures and the nature of many jobs will change. Not all will prosper, however: nearly four in ten survey respondents worry that their organizations will not keep pace with technology change and will lose their competitive edge.
Other predictions put forward by the experts and practitioners include the following:
Few industries will remain unchanged by technology disruption. Six out of ten business leaders agree that their main vertical market will bear little resemblance in 2020 to how it looks today. Media and entertainment, banking and telecommunications top the list of industries thought most likely to converge with another in the next decade. One in ten respondents fear that their organization will disappear altogether.
For those who can master it, ‘big data’ will become a business of its own. Firms already collect vastly more data than they did a decade ago, and new sources – from smart meters to smartphones – will add much more data to this flow. New or more advanced business models based on specialist analytics services are likely to emerge as a result. The European Commission estimates that government data alone could add some €40bn (US$55bn) a year to the European economy by stimulating the growth of new information services.
Mid-size companies will be less common in 2020, not least as micro-entrepreneurs proliferate. Technology advances will support a rise in micro-entrepreneurs in the decade ahead, and will enable these tiny businesses to act like far larger ones. This has direct implications for mid-size companies, which will increasingly need to choose whether to become larger to compete on scale, or smaller to compete on speed. Many will face this decision in the years ahead.
The importance of middle managers, too, will diminish. Meanwhile, greater analytics capabilities and other technologies will enable organizations to devolve far more decision-making authority to managers and employees at the periphery. Notwithstanding challenges relating to compliance and other areas, nearly two-thirds (63%) of those polled see this happening, which in turn will allow many to say goodbye to the generalist middle manager of old. This will be part of a wider shift towards flatter, more meritocratic corporate structures, encouraged by the spread of younger generations in the workforce.
Job growth may be increasingly decoupled from economic growth owing to automation. At the very least, it is becoming clearer that the productivity gains from technology are allowing firms to create more output from less input, as some experts argue. This is a triumph for business, but will create a stark challenge for job creation. Indeed, the technology advancement to come will place a wider range of jobs than ever under the threat of displacement. The very same trends, however, will also create numerous new occupations that do not exist today.
As transactions are automated and collaboration becomes more virtual, the purpose of physical stores and offices will change. Just as banking transactions are now largely automated, with bank branches becoming more consultative spaces, the same will happen to other customer-facing physical premises. For knowledge workers, meanwhile, a hybrid working pattern will deepen, with more working from home, while offices evolve into spaces for networking and meeting.
Thanks to powerful personalization technologies, customer ‘co-creation’ will become a major source of innovation. Indeed, one of the most striking findings of this survey is the sharp rise in the role of the customer in generating new ideas. By 2020, customers are expected to overtake in-house research and development (R&D) as the primary source of new product and service ideas.
Respondents also believe that customers will by then be nearly as important a source of ideas for business process improvement as their own employees.
The organization of 2020 will be more transparent than ever before. Firms will find it increasingly hard to hide poor service, high pricing or unpopular practices, as technology makes them more visible to end-consumers. Just as social media aided political protests around the world in 2011, so too will it allow consumers to put firms in the spotlight. In the austere decade that lies ahead, firms will need to behave better than ever, or risk a consumer backlash.
Although the next decade will be marked by extensive technology-led change, two constants will remain. One is that technologies by themselves will not bring about improvements in models or operations; for this, the business processes being powered by technology must also undergo change. The other is that new technologies and processes will only be as effective as the people who use them. Failure to appreciate the cultural obstacles to technology-led change will remain a recipe for falling behind.
Further information from: www.managementthinking.eiu.com
Accenture’s Technology Vision 2012
Accenture publishes its technology vision annually. It is a distillation of their research over the course of the previous twelve months, the experiences of their research teams and the input of their clients. The report outlines the emerging technology trends that forward-thinking CIOs will use to position their organizations to drive growth and high performance rather than just focusing on cost-cutting and efficiency improvements.
Accenture argues that business leaders now accept that their organizations’ future success is bound up with their ability to keep pace with technology. CIOs have to play a key role in helping these business leaders recognize and seize the opportunities enabled by new trends – but the price of progress will have to be paid as well as new risks assumed.
The report identifies six technology trends that will influence business over the next three to five years:
Download the full Vision report from: www.accenture.com
E-Books
The growth of e-books (and e-book readers) for consumer markets has been well documented elsewhere. The development of e-titles in the professional, academic, business and legal markets has been rather more measured. The issues of e-book usage in companies were very well charted by Paul Byfield in BIR 28(4), December 2011, pp. 251–255. Two developments in this particular Initiatives column illustrate strands of this publishing medium.
LexisNexis Announces LexisNexis Digital Library
LexisNexis Legal & Professional have announced an agreement with OverDrive, a global distributor of e-books and other digital content to libraries and schools, to create the LexisNexis Digital Library. This offers legal professionals access to what is claimed to be the largest collection of legal e-book content on all major mobile devices and desktop platforms. It also enables organizations to share individual e-book titles among multiple users, purchase e-books centrally and manage their library. The intention is that organizations will be able to reduce significantly the costs associated with storing, filing and distributing traditional print books.
‘As today’s lawyers increasingly use tablets, smart phones and laptops as part of their everyday work, they need more flexible and cost-effective ways to use and share legal e-books,’ said Bob Romeo, CEO of Research & Litigation Solutions at LexisNexis Legal & Professional. ‘Working with OverDrive, we’ve created LexisNexis Digital Library so our customers have quick mobile or desktop access to more trusted legal e-books than any other source, along with the ability to economically expand and manage their library.’
The core of the service is a website created by OverDrive and customized for each law firm or organization. A librarian or designated administrator serves as the manager of a virtual library, ordering titles and supervising lending of all electronic content. This arrangement is more efficient compared to each individual e-book user purchasing and managing their own digital content. Additionally, the site enables the administrator to generate detailed reports to obtain greater insight into e-book usage patterns and to inform better digital content decisions for the firm or organization.
Legal professionals at customer organizations check out and return titles via the primary website, a mobile-optimized version of the site or through a downloadable mobile application. In addition to simultaneous access to many titles for multiple users, users may also check out multiple copies of the same e-book depending on how many copies the library purchases. Additionally, each e-book title has a checkout expiration deadline that automatically returns it to the library for use by others.
‘We’re proud to work with LexisNexis and add law libraries to our growing network of more than 18,000 libraries worldwide,’ said OverDrive CEO Steve Potash. ‘Our proven system and large, diverse catalogue of e-books will complement the LexisNexis offerings and become an asset to the legal community.’
Users of the Library have access to the largest collection of e-books for legal professionals. LexisNexis offers more than 1,100 electronic legal titles itself and, as a result of the agreement with OverDrive, LexisNexis customers also have access to and the ability to purchase more than 700,000 titles from OverDrive’s Content Reserve collection development portal, which offers a variety of subjects from business and technology to travel and language learning.
LexisNexis e-books are compatible with a wide variety of major devices, including Windows PC, Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Kindle (US only), Sony Reader, NOOK, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone. Similarly, LexisNexis Digital Library websites and mobile apps will work on all major devices. Additionally, because the new LexisNexis Digital Library is publisher agnostic, users can also add titles from other publishers and centrally manage their loan – eliminating the inefficiency of using multiple platforms or sites to manage an entire collection.
LexisNexis Digital Library is customized for each law firm, corporation or organization, with flexible licensing to fit the specific needs of each individual customer. It is also intended to offer significant cost savings by eliminating the cost of printed books and the need to replace books that users do not return. Digital libraries also reduce the costs associated with the physical management and shelving of books.
Further information from: www.lexisnexis.com/ebooks
E-book Readers in Management Education
Dominic Broadhurst (see Business Information Review, 27(3), September 2010, pp. 144–151) and Janette Watson of the University of Manchester have conducted an interesting investigation of the use of e-book readers by MBA students at Manchester Business School. They undertook a pilot study with a small number of MBA students in order to gauge the effectiveness of e-book readers as an alternative means of accessing their course readings to conventional print media.
Unsurprisingly, they introduce the findings by a statement we all can recognize: The overriding conclusion from this pilot and our review of what is happening elsewhere in the business school and university sectors is that the pace of change is unrelenting! Just as you think you have a solution or have identified all the issues, along comes a newer solution, an upgraded piece of technology, or enhanced customer requirements!
They go on to emphasize that developments are being driven by a combination of factors including:
Speed of technological change, especially in the handheld device sector.
Willingness and in some cases, determination, of the student/customer to move away from printed study packs and the outdated means of accessing study materials.
Recognition and willingness of the institutions to look at alternative solutions to the status quo. This in turn is powered by a number of key drivers which include:
Desire to always provide innovative and practical solutions to a premium customer base.
Environmental sustainability issues, especially in reduction of print study packs.
Changing trends in supporting teaching and learning.
There are still a number of hurdles to overcome before the solutions available can meet both the requirements of the students and the aspirations of the institutions. In summary, these equate to moving to a new way of learning and accessing/assimilating knowledge provided. Some of these relate to the technological shortcomings, which in all likelihood will be overcome in a short space of time. Some relate to legal issues such as copyright, this may require more effort and joint working with publishers and other stakeholders, which nevertheless we believe will be solved as ultimately it is in everybody’s interests.
Others relate to the wider pedagogical misgivings in some institutions and on the part of some students. In essence, however, once these technological and practical issues are resolved in tandem with the legal issues the human doubts will probably also diminish. The desire to embrace new technology and learning methods is there, and the remaining pieces of the puzzle are not far away.
As the authors’ say, who knows exactly how the future will turn out? They believe that two things are certain: first, things will change radically in terms of the teaching and learning experience, and second, there will a period of constant innovation and refinement. The key as ever for the institutions is to be on track, if not ahead, of these developments, and the same applies to the library in terms of working with partners in the institution. Our objective is to ensure the library’s crucial role in supporting the teaching and learning agenda both dovetails and adds value to all of this.
Dominic Broadhurst and Janette Watson. E-book readers for full-time MBA students: an investigation in Manchester. Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship, 17: 170–182, 2012.
Further information from: www.tandf.co.uk/journals/WBFL
New Products and Product Development
Daily Global Intelligence Briefing Podcast from Exclusive Analysis
Exclusive Analysis (EA) is a specialist intelligence company that forecasts commercially relevant political and violent risks worldwide, particularly oriented to multinational operations. The Company sets out to forecast the drivers of change behind political, economic, social/cultural and regulatory environments. It has a global network of analysts and other contacts who report information into a systemized intelligence methodology which drives the forecasts. EA is concerned with forecasting and does not offer any other brokerage or physical services which might affect their independence and integrity.
One of EA’s main products is its daily Global Intelligence Briefing, which takes place every morning at the firm’s London headquarters. The short briefings from regional/sector forecasters on the most significant risk events of the day and their commercial implications are now available for download as a podcast.
Kevin Liu, Director of Marketing at Exclusive Analysis Ltd, said: I trust the multimedia output will help clients receive daily forecast updates more efficiently and reduce information overload. We understand that many of our clients are on the go and we hope that being able to download and listen to our forecasts and analysis on their iPhone or mobile device will help do just that. It will also enable those who are not familiar with what Exclusive Analysis does to get a glimpse of the kind of output we produce.
It is compatible for: iTunes, Google Reader, My Yahoo, Zune, Microsoft Outlook and BlackBerry Social Feeds.
Further information from: www.exclusive-analysis.com. Exclusive Analysis can also be followed on Twitter at @EA_Foresight.
Wall Street Journal Launches Senior Information Technology/Management Journal
The Wall Street Journal has launched ‘CIO Journal’, a premium news and information service for chief information officers and senior business executives interested in technology. Set to launch in the spring, the service will provide coverage of real-time news and ongoing topics that are highly relevant for senior business technology executives.
CIO Journal, overseen by editor Michael Hickins, will be available online and via a standalone iPad app, and optimized for access via most smartphone devices. Subscribers will receive full access to WSJ.com and every morning a daily email featuring exclusive content, as well as a summary of the major news they need to know – not just in technology, but from the greater economic and business world at large, with analysis to help them connect the dots.
‘In the age of innovation, the chief information officer has evolved into a central, strategic player in the corporation,’ said Alan Murray, The Wall Street Journal’s Deputy Managing Editor and Executive Editor, Online. ‘CIOs are no longer just running service organizations; they are central to the most critical issues facing the company, including digitization, mobility, cloud computing, and security. CIO Journal will provide CIOs and their staff a single and definitive source for the information and tools they need to fulfil that expanded role.’
CIO Journal is the latest in a series of premium content verticals from Dow Jones that also includes CFO Journal, Wall Street Journal Professional Edition, DJ FX Trader and Dow Jones Banking Intelligence.
Deloitte LLP has entered into an exclusive arrangement to sponsor a regular stream of CIO-centric content and timely features, including research, topical digests, perspectives, and insights and technical analyses. Deloitte LLP also has a similar exclusive arrangement to sponsor a regular stream of CFO-centric content for CFO Journal, which launched in 2011.
‘We work daily with CIOs who want and need broad business insight and context, along with deep technology knowledge and experience,’ said Janet Foutty, principal and national managing director of technology, Deloitte Consulting LLP. ‘There is a surprising gap among top-tier publications in offering a business-led, technology-enabled point of view for the senior technology executive. In today’s environment, given the staggering pace of change and innovation, CIO Journal will be a valuable source of news, information and insights.’
CIO Journal is anchored by a team of reporters and editors dedicated towards breaking important news to help business technology executives make better strategic and planning decisions. The service also aggregates news from Dow Jones’ 2,000 journalists worldwide, as well as from sources from Factiva, which includes more than 31,000 global business and news sources, many of which are not available for free on the Web.
Further information from: www.wsj.com
Wharton Offers Research Data to Wider Corporate Community
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school, is recognized globally for intellectual leadership and ongoing innovation across every major discipline of business education. Wharton attempts to bridge research and practice through its broad engagement with the global business community. The School has 5,000 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students; more than 9,000 annual participants in executive education programs; and an alumni network of 88,000 graduates.
The Wharton School has long been associated with the creation and maintenance of internationally recognized data sets, especially in the area of finance and economics, traditional research strengths. It set up the Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) in 1993 and this is now a leading, comprehensive, internet-based data research service used by over 300 academic, government and non-profit institutions. WRDS provides users with one location to access over 200 terabytes of data across multiple disciplines such as Finance, Marketing, and Economics, and integrates data from 40 vendors on a single platform. WRDS provides a variety of data delivery options, including a web query method, and provides researchers with the ability to reduce their research time and execute strategy development on the powerful WRDS Cloud. WRDS has evolved to become a major business intelligence tool for a global research community.
In a major initiative in 2012, WRDS is now widening access and has launched services to corporate clients.
‘The expansion of WRDS into the corporate sector brings tremendous resources to businesses in need of world-class research support and services,’ says Wharton Deputy Dean Michael Gibbons.
Wharton Professor Robert Holthausen, chair of the WRDS Advisory Board, agrees: The data available through WRDS is held up to the highest standards of academic rigour. As has always been the case for our institutional subscribers, corporate clients can now access WRDS to efficiently and seamlessly conduct research and test financial strategies with total confidence in their results.
Currently, WRDS is used by over 30,000 academic researchers and finance professionals in 27 countries around the world. In addition to top universities, clients include the US Treasury, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia. Its services are ideally suited for corporate clients such as investment banks, hedge funds, economic consultants and litigation support businesses.
‘By using WRDS, clients reduce their research effort from months to days,’ says Deirdre Woods, Wharton Associate Dean and CIO. ‘With intuitive and flexible access to multiple sources of reliable data as well as delivery options such as executing research on the WRDS computing cloud, WRDS is a critical resource to meet today’s business research needs.’
Run by a staff of doctoral-level research specialists, WRDS’ corporate clients will have the same access to expert research support provided to institutional clients, including online assistance, a 24/7 monitoring system, research applications, programs and utilities.
In addition to WRDS’ systems-side partner SAS, other vendor partners include FactSet Research Systems, Hedge Fund Research, Inc., Zacks Investment Research, Capital IQ’s Compustat, the NYSE Euronext Trade and Quote Database (TAQ), Thomson Reuters, and the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP).
Picking out one of these – the controversial area of hedge funds – the HF Research Database is the most comprehensive resource available for hedge fund investors. It includes fund-level detail on historical performance and assets, as well as firm characteristics on both the broadest and most influential hedge fund managers. HFR has developed the industry’s most detailed fund classification system enabling granular and specific queries for relative performance measurement, peer group analysis and benchmarking. HFR produces over 100 indices of hedge fund performance ranging from industry-aggregate levels down specific, niche areas of sub-strategy and regional investment focus. With performance dating back to 1990, the HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index is the industry’s most widely used standard benchmark of hedge fund performance globally.
Further information from: http://www.whartonwrds.com
LexisNexis Releases First Major UK Applications, On the Case and Legal Terms
LexisNexis UK has announced the release of its first UK legal applications. Combining the content of LexisNexis and the ease of use and seamless design of mobile applications, LexisNexis claims to be the first major content provider to create apps for its UK legal subscribers: Legal Terms and On the Case.
Following feedback from customers about the increasing need to access information on the move, LexisNexis has developed two iPhone apps that are designed to be user-friendly and give customers fast and accurate information. These apps can also be accessed on the iPad and iPhone formats.
Nick West, director of Legal Markets, said: The On the Case and Legal Terms apps fuse the accuracy, content and easy-to-use search you would expect from LexisNexis, with access from iPhone and iPad. Legal practice is evolving rapidly, and lawyers are increasingly expected to advise clients whilst on the move. By listening closely to our customers’ needs, we are creating ever-more flexible products – giving our users the ability to access our market-leading information away from their office as easily as they can at their desk.
Both are free to subscribers of LexisLibrary and can be accessed with current customer ID and passwords. The two products are:
Legal Terms: this provides LexisLibrary subscribers with on-the-go access to key points of law. Covering a wide range of legal topics, customers can find the meaning of a legal term, the legislation where that term was defined and read the key cases about that definition. It also provides links to related terms.
On the Case: provides LexisLibrary subscribers with mobile access to a wide range of case law. On the Case allows customers to search for cases by name, citation or key word, displaying results along with key words and a summary. To guide customers towards good law, each case is given a status signal indicating its treatment by the courts.
Further information from: www.lexisnexis.co.uk
FT Launches ‘Financial Times Live’
Forty years after its launch and after five years of successful global expansion, the Financial Times has re-launched its conferences and events division as ‘Financial Times Live’, making live video streaming, webinars, a video archive and Twitter chats as core elements of its corporate events.
The new format was launched at the FT Digital Media Conference on 7 March 2012 in London, attended by a variety of digital visionaries, media executives and entrepreneurs. Over two days, six sessions with distinguished speakers including Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia and Andy Bird, Chairman of Walt Disney International, were live streamed via its website. The FT first trialled live streaming during a panel debate at its FT Innovate conference in November 2011. Viewers were encouraged to log in online and ask UK digital champion Martha Lane Fox and FT management editor Andrew Hill questions live via Twitter. Online mentions of the FT Innovate event are estimated to have reached up to 3.5 million people in the space of a single hour.
Jayne Van Hoen, Managing Director, Global Conferences and Events at the Financial Times, said: Social media has dramatically enhanced the reach and impact of our events in recent years with a rapidly increasing number of delegates sharing experiences and content online. Financial Times Live will reach a far greater global audience than previously possible, enabling participation for delegates who are unable to attend in person as well as a platform for pre and post event networking online.
The FT’s conferences division has for 40 years delivered high-level summits, conferences and strategic forums, generating content and networking opportunities for its customers. FT Conferences grew from 16 events in 2006 to 75 events last year and in 2011 grew its revenues by more than 10 per cent.
Further information from: www.ft-live.com
Knowledge Sharing Reducing the Risk of Fraud
In today’s uncertain economic climate, businesses need to do as much as possible to protect themselves from the risks of fraud and bad debt and business information company Equifax believes information sharing is key to achieving this. It has therefore developed a business information package that provides an insight into existing information it holds about organizations’ structure and the financial status of Directors which might suggest the risk of fraud, but facilitates information sharing amongst companies to alert each other to new risks if a mutual customer’s financial performance declines.
‘With Equifax’s Commercial Silver package, businesses gain free membership to our Credit Communities service, allowing them to share critical data on potential or existing customers with other Equifax members,’ explains Mark Nuttall, Director, Equifax Commercial & SME. ‘This includes notifications of court actions and bounced cheques, failed Direct Debits or Letters Before Action. Combined with the other data we provide this means organizations can more effectively protect themselves from bad debt or fraud.’
Designed for credit professionals who are handling a reasonable number of customers on a sales ledger every day, the Equifax Commercial Silver package is made up of a series of information tools to add a greater level of protection. In particular it is designed to identify the early warning signs of potential fraud.
It will help uncover the poor track record of a director, as well as information on businesses with similar postcodes or sharing an address, which might suggest fraudulent activity. Postcode linked data also provides an insight into a geographical area in which a customer operates which may ring alarm bells. It also allows users to identify which industries have been checking the business in question, and the number of checks being made, which will give a useful indication of an organization’s overall credit activity.
Equifax’s Credit Communities, which Equifax Commercial Silver users can also utilize, is a real-time data intelligence sharing tool that provides the facility for members of the community to add and share trusted, up to the minute information – both positive and negative – on the account behaviour of their customers. This information includes payment terms, stopped or bounced cheques, County Court Judgments, bankruptcy, opened accounts and increased credit limits. Available online, Credit Communities offers a unique email alert system, allowing members to immediately take into account any changes in a customer’s credit or financial status.
‘It’s easy for businesses to think it won’t happen to them, but in 2010, corporate fraud totalled £1.4 billion’, added Mark Nuttall. ‘Fraud is a very real risk to all organizations, especially as businesses continue to struggle in a tough market. But with our Equifax Commercial Silver package, clients can access an unrivalled level of unique and up-to-date information to help reduce the risk of fraud and bad debt and save themselves money. This allows them to make informed business decisions, knowing their organization is protected.’
Further information from: www.equifax.co.uk
Management INK blog from Sage
If it is not too incestuous, we would like to highlight a new service from Sage Publications. Management INK puts the spotlight on research published in its more than fifty management and business journals. The posts on Management INK provide an inside view of the research that is being published in top tier SAGE journals.
At the time of writing, the featured items were:
A Just Cup of Coffee: From Fair Trade to Human Happiness. What Is It Like To Have Power? Social Marketing and Healthy People. Testing a Model of Work Performance in an Academic Environment. Is Green the New Black? The Importance of Being Trustworthy. Power in Leader–Follower Work Relationships. What Are the Predictors of Recruitment Effectiveness?
Readers are encouraged to write about this research on their blogs, microblogs, or newsletters. Cynthia Nalevanko (cynthia.nalevanko@sagepub.com) is the editor of INK.
Further information from managementink.wordpress.com. Follow INK on Twitter @SAGEManagement.
Mobile Technologies
One of the dominating current trends amongst hardware and software vendors, information companies and, particularly, personal and business customers is the ubiquity and power of mobile technologies. As the 2012 Business Information Survey (BIR, 29(1) 2012) discovered: The new orthodoxy is a kind of all encompassing 24/7 networked world, an environment in which work and non-work time is almost inseparable. The market for mobile digital devices seems infinite, one smarter and with more capacity than the other released just months earlier. A growing proportion of web browsing happens on smartphones like the new Mac iPhone 4S and tablets like the iPad, and no longer on PCs and laptops in homes and offices.
So a new report on mobile futures is of great interest.
A Mobile Future in Focus
comScore is a leading Internet marketing research company providing marketing data and services to many of the Internet’s largest businesses. The company tracks all Internet data on its surveyed computers in order to study online behaviour. It has produced an excellent recent white paper on mobile technologies – ‘2012 Mobile Future in Focus: key insights from 2011 and what they mean for the coming year’.
It examines the mobile and connected device landscape, covering several mobile markets measured by comScore, through an exploration of key trends driving smartphone adoption growth, mobile media use in categories such as social networking and retail, mobile ecosystem dynamics, and shifts in multi-device digital media consumption in 2011. The report highlights insights primarily from mobile markets in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Japan, and Canada.
The white paper says: 2011 was a pivotal year for the mobile industry, marked by the dramatic rise of smartphones in the mainstream, the burgeoning of tablets and other web-enabled connected devices, and a cultural shift toward cross-platform digital media consumption. With mobile becoming an increasing part of comprehensive digital marketing strategies, it becomes more important than ever to understand how the current trends are shaping the mobile environment, with an eye to what lies ahead for 2012.
This report examines the mobile and connected device landscape across the mobile markets measured by comScore – primarily the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, and Canada – through an exploration of dominant themes in smartphone adoption growth, mobile media use in areas such as social networking and retail, platform ecosystem dynamics, and shifts in multi-device digital media consumption.
The white paper summarizes its conclusions under five headings.
Further information from: www.comscore.com
European Mobile Trends
According to Forrester, almost 40 per cent of the Western European adult population shows sophisticated mobile usage; this represents a whopping 131 million customers with whom firms can engage. Forrester’s webinar ‘2012 European Mobile Trends and Key Takeaways From Mobile World Congress’ hosted by Thomas Husson, Principal Analyst at Forrester, dug deep into the mobile market. An audio recording and presentation slides for this session are freely available via the Company’s website.
One of the key issues is the development of a mobile strategy by companies and a system of metrics to monitor its effectiveness. The Webinar shows how marketing leaders like Sophie Heller, VP Marketing Communication at ING, are applying Forrester’s Mobile POST methodology to develop and demonstrate the ROI of their mobile strategy: Forrester’s mobile expertise helped me successfully deploy an effective mobile strategy. I used Forrester’s data and expert analysts to create a road map and choose the best technology for our mobile strategy, which is essential to our broader corporate strategy.
Forrester’s Mobile POST methodology starts with an analysis of the mobile behaviours and attitudes of target customers. It then considers the company’s business objectives. Those form the basis for an effective mobile strategy design, and the right technology choices to maximize the organization’s return on investment. The recent Forrester work in this area has focused on helping marketing professionals to:
Tap into European mobile eCommerce opportunities and benefits.
Create products and services propositions based on Forrester European mobile Technographics.
Extend branding and marketing efforts to mobile environments for increased customer convenience and loyalty.
Make the most of mobile marketing and advertising.
Further information from: bit.ly/Jp5k8x
Intranet Focus: IM studies, Research Notes and Mobile Technologies
One of the leading international IM thinkers and consultants over more than thirty years is the indefatigable Martin White. He is always good value and has great insight into the information sector (see Business Information Review 27(4), December 2010, pp. 242–245). The main vehicle for his work over the last decade has been Intranet Focus Ltd, an IM and intranet management consulting services, which has carried out a wide range of projects in the UK and the rest of Europe, the USA and the Middle East. The Company’s clients include large non-governmental organizations, multi-national companies, charities, universities and government agencies. It develops intranet strategies, benchmarks intranets against current good practice, advises on information architecture design, and develop roadmaps for intranet enhancement. It supports the selection of content management, document management and search software on a vendor-independent basis.
The Company produces a series of excellent Research Notes which have now been made freely available via its website. These are published monthly and are based on the requirements that emerge from its consulting work. Three in the series are:
But in the context of this Initiatives column we are particularly interested in Research Note 03/12 March 2012, Enterprise Mobile – Planning for 2013.
The level of understanding about the potential of mobile access to gain competitive advantage is increasing rapidly, with organizations now recognizing that the benefits will come from the adroit integration of smartphones, tablets and PCs. In this Research Note the results of recent surveys and research is analysed, including Apple’s enterprise strategy, the dark side of mobile and information security issues. Ten recommendations are offered to organizations starting to think about how best to implement mobile access in 2013.
Although there were many organizations exploring the potential of mobile access to information in 2011 the emphasis was on the use of smartphones. Most of the early adopters were in the IT industry, anxious to gain experience that would enable them to offer commercial solutions in 2012. In the course of 2011 there were a number of important developments in enterprise mobile delivery, notably the realization that Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) was going to be a very important strategy to support, and in addition tablet devices (in particular the Apple iPad2) began to be widely adopted in organizations around the world.
Over the last decade intranet investment has focused on providing support to employees based in offices. Most organizations have a substantial number of employees who are almost constantly on the road, working with suppliers, customers and prospects. There is now the capability to deliver a wide range of information content and services (notably collaboration) to these employees, making use of a combination of smartphone, tablet and pc devices. The need to support a BYOD policy means that employees may well start asking why their organization is being slow to move into mobile services when they see competitors being more innovative and committed to this approach.
Intranet Focus’ recommendations on ten of the actions that need to be taken in the course of 2012 include the following:
Identify what section of your organization’s activities would be most vulnerable from a competitor making a strong commitment to mobile. It will be very difficult to play leapfrog later.
Work out how mobile developers will be found and trained. Without development skills nothing is going to be possible, and good developers are already in short supply.
Plan, launch and evaluate pilots that are scalable if they work as anticipated. There will be no time to go back to the drawing board.
Get granular about security. Like ‘collaboration’ the word has many interpretations and it is important to find out exactly what the issues are and how they can be solved.
Think PC/tablet/smartphone all the time. Mobile employees are going to use all three devices and will be looking to the organization to provide a seamless experience even with a BYOD policy.
Look carefully at mobile data tariffs, especially in Europe. At the same time work out how employees are going to be reimbursed for corporate use of their own mobile devices.
Track industry developments and learn from others. The mobile business is going to be shaped by a small number of powerful global companies.
Talk to your vendors about their mobile support roadmap. Many vendors still seem to be in denial about the impact of mobile access because of the challenges they face in modifying their platforms.
In particular, talk to your enterprise search vendor. Tablet users will expect to be able to search enterprise repositories.
Take the decision to be your organization’s mobile champion. The career possibilities significantly outweigh the risks.
Further information from: www.intranetfocus.com
Social Media
Sentiment Analysis Metrics for Social Media
Thomson Reuters has announced an extension of its machine-readable news offering to include a sentiment scoring service for social media. The new capability will mine the expansive wealth of social media and blog content to deliver digestible analytics on selected companies and market segments, to help trading and investment firms identify and capitalize on new opportunities.
The impact of social media has expanded beyond personal use. Financial markets have seen a dramatic rise in the volume and influence of industry blogs, social-networking and commentary websites. According to Aite Group, 35 per cent of quantitative firms are using some kind of machine readable newsfeed, up from 2 per cent just three years ago.
Thomson Reuters News Analytics enables clients to use a unique set of analytics such as sentiment, relevance and novelty indicators that capture market opinion, for algorithmic trading systems as well as risk management and human decision support processes. The new service provides access on up to 50,000 news sites and four million social media sites, and allows customers to sift data quickly to interpret the extensive amount of available data on the internet more effectively.
The service utilizes information delivered by Moreover Technologies, an aggregator of global news and social media, to create intelligent information clients need to power their trading strategies. Thomson Reuters News Analytics software is available as a deployed solution or can be hosted in Elektron, the firm’s high performance data and trading infrastructure.
Rich Brown, head of quantitative and event driven trading solutions, Thomson Reuters, said: Investment firms are embracing new data, tools and techniques to help make sense of the massive amounts of unstructured data available on the Internet. When properly analyzed and understood, this data can complement a firm’s trading and investment strategies and give it a competitive edge. This launch will give investors additional capabilities to gauge stock, sector, and market sentiment, and to translate these emerging sources of market insight into data that can be incorporated into both quantitative strategies and as a way to provide a broader context to human analysts.
Paul Farrell, president, Moreover Technologies, said: Organizations need the ability to rapidly collate and analyze an increasing number of opinion-forming media sources. We are excited to be working with Thomson Reuters to bring trading firms the most current and actionable social media information on which they can make more informed decisions and maximize the performance of their trading strategies.
Thomson Reuters News Analytics offers a bottoms-up approach to analyze and provide sentiment on individual companies as well as commodity and energy topics. Data can be aggregated at the stock, sector, market, and country levels to track sentiment on desired parameters. Customers have the ability to filter the available content to hone in on specific information sources they want to target and use analytic tools to spot trends and anomalies.
Further information from: www.thomsonreuters.com
Knowledge Management
Much of the regeneration of interest in Knowledge Management (KM) described in the Business Information Survey (BIR 29(1), March 2012) in the past few years has come from the enormous interest in social media. KM, for instance, is concerned with knowledge sharing, of tacit and explicit knowledge, within and between individuals, organizations and communities. Social media provide the means to do much of this. So it is interesting to try to chart the key issues in KM thinking and practice. A good way to do this is to examine the programme for a major conference, e.g. KMUK 2012 held at the De Vere West One Conference Centre in London, 13–14 June 2012. This is, to use a much overused term, a road map to this developing field. Even if you could not get to the conference, many of the presentations are, in one form or another, available on the web.
KMUK 2012 shows how KM professionals can communicate with confidence at the most senior levels, engage with business issues and speak in the language of the business. The two day conference agenda addresses the key issues around communication, relationship building, influencing and engagement, as well as offering experience of implementing cutting-edge initiatives and programmes. In a period of economic uncertainty when organizations are seeking to improve processes and stabilize the business, KM has a key role to play in leading this change, and creating a sustainable strategy will be a top priority for many knowledge managers. Some of the well known KM gurus, all outstanding speakers, appear again including David Snowden, David Gurteen, Nick Davies and Chris Collison.
The scheduled presentations include:
Enabling innovation through knowledge management. Biological models of rapid discontinuous change; Getting the modularity/granularity of knowledge objects right to allow for combination and recombination under rapidly changing circumstances; Anomaly detection and reporting as strategic innovation, not just operational monitoring; Stressing the organization so it can adopt new forms and ways of thinking; Using technology to enhance, not replace human sense-making. Dave Snowden, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Cognitive Edge.
What KM practitioners can learn from positive deviance: What is meant by positive deviance?; The Vietnam malnourished children story; Exploring the underlying principles; What KM practitioners can learn from this approach. David Gurteen, Founder, Gurteen Knowledge.
Assessing the impacts of metaphor-stimulated constructive dialogue: Findings from a three year action research project. Action research to drive success in knowledge transfer; Using knowledge projects to create value; Understanding behavioural diversity in order to enhance business outcomes; Exploring activities to engage stakeholders better, increase staff retention and knowledge sharing and reduce work stress; Starting small and deliver positive value. Arthur Shelley, Founder, Intelligent Answers (constructive metaphors).
Case Study – Applying a knowledge management framework to support organizational change in the NHS. Case study 1: Support for change in informatics – a hands-on approach; Case study 2: Looking at clinical commissioning – support from arm’s length; Outlining the vision for the future – embedding a learning culture. Andrew Lambe, Knowledge Management Lead and Sofia Layton, Knowledge Management Consultant, DH Informatics, NHS Connecting for Health (see Business Information Review, 2011, 28/4: 236–241).
Case Study – Implementing a risk-based knowledge retention and transfer programme. Identifying the risks of knowledge loss or knowledge ‘unreadiness’; Integrating the analysis into an enterprise-wide knowledge map; Applying case specific knowledge retention strategies; Developing and supporting knowledge elicitation, transfer and capture skills in the workforce; Ensuring consistency with the corporate risk management processes for maintaining operational control. John Day, Head of Knowledge Management and Intellectual Property, Sellafield Ltd.
Case Study – Focusing existing knowledge management approaches on the issues created by an aging workforce. Exploring Shell’s award winning KM approach and its focus on the Big Crew Change: Debriefing experts before they retire; How to filter, refine and learn from the experts; How to ensure their legacy lives on; Applying this methodology within Mega Capital Projects all around the world. Andy Boyd, Knowledge Management Team Lead, Shell Projects and Technology.
Case Study – Deploying a global intranet across a diverse firm. Understanding cultural differences and change management when deploying KM in different countries; How to approach building a global intranet; Gaining essential buy-in – ensuring you have a senior sponsor for the KM programme; Experiences and lessons learnt. Anna Gagliano, Head of Global Knowledge, Aedas.
Case Study – Building, supporting and measuring a global knowledge organization. Introducing a consistent, strategically-aligned service delivery model; Managing cultural change throughout the global knowledge organization; Supporting and enabling a self-service culture – learning, coaching and experiences; Recognising success – demonstrating return on investment and lessons learnt. Brigitte Ireland, Global Knowledge Awareness & Learning Leader, Ernst & Young.
Case Study – From zero to hero: A knowledge management ‘comeback’ story. Challenging the old perceptions around knowledge management and ‘just doing it’; Ensuring KM is now part of Plan’s 2015 global strategy; Case study: Developing and implementing a global knowledge management strategy for an NGO working in 68 countries, with limited resources and the challenge of accessibility of corporate systems for frontline staff, as well as language and cultural differences; Being accountable and transparent – tracking and mapping out initiatives. Adrienne Monteath-van Dok, Research Coordinator, Plan International.
Case Study – Global knowledge exchange using Web 2.0 at Siemens, Building Technologies Division. Overview of ‘References+’, our innovative community platform; Communication and delivery – exploring a wide range of content types including knowledge references, discussion forums, profile pages and microblogging; Measuring success of business and user experience – quantitative benefit results from user surveys; Lessons learnt and moving forward. Johannes Müller, Senior Manager Knowledge Management, Siemens Switzerland Ltd.
Case Study – Turning ‘social’ networking into ‘business’ value: How Yammer is transforming the way that people connect, communicate and collaborate at Deloitte. The journey so far – deploying Yammer into our UK and global network; Introducing social tools into the business environment – challenges and achievements; Getting the governance and support structure right – experiences and lessons learnt; Creating success for the long term – integrating Yammer into the collaboration landscape. Hank Malik, Enterprise Content Management and Sue Mucenieks, UK Collaboration and Communities, Deloitte.
Case Study – Knowledge management at the frontline: KM as a key enabler of Singapore Armed Forces’ full-spectrum capability. Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) operates not just as a conventional war-fighting force, but as a full-spectrum force, including counter-piracy, maritime security, peace support, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) operations. The importance of KM in helping us sense-make and operate in today’s fast changing and complex operational environment; How we leverage on knowledge to operate in complex full-spectrum operational environments; How we are fundamentally changing our training and pedagogical approaches to build up our knowledge capital, to equip our people to operate in such dynamic and complex environments; How information sharing and knowledge exchange with partner navies and other multi-national agencies has helped us make sense of the complex maritime environment and to help us guard against the maritime terrorism threat; How we have developed knowledge-based capabilities to help us utilize both explicit and tacit knowledge, plan and support HADR operations. Brig General Lee Shiang Long, Head, Joint Communications and Information Systems Dept and Colonel Chew Lock Pin, Head C4 Plans Group, Singapore Armed Forces.
Case Study – Efficiency and effectiveness: Implementing strategy through knowledge management and innovation. Case study and reflections on the impact of process change vs. behaviour change. Understanding the business needs and goals; Delivering new products and efficiencies to support and win business; Developing, measuring and reporting on KPIs for internal benchmarking; Using powerful end outcomes to show true value; Lessons learnt in implementation – behaviours that work. Colette Bewley, Director of Development and Innovation, Burges Salmon.
Case Study – Walking the talk: Using a knowledge sharing approach to drive change. Engaging an audience of committed, vocal and technically focused individuals to determine an ambitious collective future; Using collaboration, communication, facilitation and training to help an organization increase awareness of its own sustainability measures; Demonstrating the commitment of the senior company leadership to driving change; Driving change towards a sustainable business through collaborative efforts. Dr. Susanne Etti, Global Sustainability Program Knowledge Manager, ERM.
Workshop – Creating sustainable change and overcoming resistance. The principles behind successful change management; The change journey and helping others through the process; Enabling leaders to drive change; Making the transition and sustaining the change; Applying these techniques and skills to real live projects. Simon Moran, Owner and Organization Transformation Specialist, Change & Co.
Workshop – The art of conversation: All of us are smarter than any of us. Highlights from recent research into conversation, and how it makes us smarter; How conversation can increase collective intelligence and improve innovation and group performance; Meaningful conversations – the five rules for more innovative meetings; The importance of social media and online conversations. Keith De La Rue, AcKnowledge Consulting
Interactive Session – The truth, the half-truth, and nothing like the truth. Chris Collison examines some of KM’s claims, and, with the help of the wisdom of the crowd, tests to see if they hold water – or leak like a sieve! Chris Collison, Knowledge Management Consultant, Coach and Author, Knowledgeable Ltd.
Panel Discussion – Delivering value through knowledge management. What does ‘value’ mean to your organization?; How does your organization measure return on investment?; Understanding and aligning KM with the strategic aims of your organization. Colette Bewley, Director of Development and Innovation, Burges Salmon, Anna Gagliano, Head of Global Knowledge, Aedas and Steve Perry, Head of Sectors and Communities, The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).
Further information from: www.km-uk.co.uk
Face-to-face Meetings are Key to Business Success
Although important relationships are globally distributed, business leaders say they want more collaboration in person when it comes to activities such as brainstorming for new ideas, managing a specific crisis or making presentations. This is among the findings from an Economist Intelligence Unit survey, ‘Business leaders’ views on interaction’.
In November 2011, the Economist Intelligence Unit surveyed a population of 862 senior executives from a range of industries. Survey respondents are distributed globally, with 37 per cent based in North America, 30 per cent in Western Europe, 23 per cent in the Asia-Pacific region and the balance from the rest of the world. More than one-half of respondents represent companies with annual revenues in excess of US$500m, and 34 per cent were ‘C-level’ or board-level executives. All respondents had positions of responsibility for, or influence over, strategic decisions on business communications.
While the primary function of meetings is to build relationships with customers, some 89 per cent of respondents say communications where the parties can see and respond to each other benefit internal business functions such as employee coaching and training as well as communications with partners and customers. An additional 43 per cent of respondents use meetings to discuss and resolve major issues with customers such as a service or product failure or dissatisfaction with the partnership. Motivations for expanding these meetings also include contract renewals, brainstorming sessions and being introduced to other clients or customers within the organization.
The EIU survey, sponsored by technology company Cisco, explores the challenges of global enterprise collaboration and the perceived value of different types of business communications, including telephone, instant messaging, email and conferencing. Respondents were also asked their views on what business processes can be most impacted through in-person interaction as well as on potential productivity gains through these efforts.
The 862 global senior executives surveyed identified a number of key trends in business communications. These include:
Face time is a priority. When it comes to different stakeholders, business leaders attach greater importance to in-person meetings with customers than with colleagues, partners or suppliers. More than half (54%) of respondents said they see meetings with customers as having the greatest impact on their business. This need for face time relates to how most respondents (56%) ranked the most important aspect of business collaboration: determining audience engagement and focus.
Email is getting in the way. Business leaders in all categories cite email as the primary tool used in collaborating with colleagues, partners and customers (as much as 66% for senior managers) with the telephone identified as the second most-used business communication tool (25%). However, neither text nor voice alone was cited as the best option in communicating critical information in a global business.
Motivations for more meetings differ regionally. Asked to pick their strongest motivation for meetings with colleagues outside of their own office, respondents from Asia-Pacific and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are most interested in resolving a problem quickly. However, US business leaders are motivated more by cost reductions in meetings with colleagues. Non-US respondents are also more interested in generating better long-term relationships during their meetings with partners and customers.
Industry dictates motivations as well. In meeting with business partners or suppliers, respondents in the consumer goods industry are most likely to meet face to face to give or receive direction, while business leaders in energy/transportation, technology and services are most likely to meet to generate better long-term relationships. Respondents in other industries are most likely to meet with partners to be motivated or inspired.
To supplement the survey, the EIU hosted a roundtable discussion with two industry leaders, Joan Parsons, head of US banking for Silicon Valley Bank, and Morten Hansen, a management professor at the University of California Berkeley School of Information and co-author of the book, Great by Choice, about their perspectives on business communications.
An analysis of the findings has been included as part of a video webcast sponsored by Cisco and available on the Company’s website. Interestingly, there is also a little test to enable managers to assess their own powers of in-person collaboration compared with their peers.
Further information from: www.cisco.com/web/telepresence/economist.html
Legal Sector
Another theme picked out in the Business Information Survey 2012 was the way in which changes in the legal services market were profoundly affecting information services provision in the sector. There is more of this ahead as IRN has identified in its latest report.
New Business Models Changing UK Legal Services Landscape
The UK Legal Services Market Report from IRN Research provides a market review of the UK legal services market, a market that is experiencing fundamental changes as new legal suppliers enter the market, some existing players change their operating and business models, and new ways of delivering and using legal services emerge.
The UK legal services market (including private practice firms, barristers, patent agents, and other legal professionals) was valued at almost £26bn in 2010 and annual growth of 5 per cent signalled a recovery after declining sales in 2009. In 2011, market growth is expected again but at a lower rate than 2010.
Underlying this overall growth rate there are clear differences between the fortunes of the top 100 or so law firms and the long tail of 10,000-plus law firms and solicitors that make up the rest of the market. Most of the top firms are out-performing the market overall in terms of revenue and profits growth while lower down the market many medium and smaller law firms are struggling to grow revenues significantly and are working on low margins.
While changes in the market place are predicted to reduce the number of law firms and solicitors operating in the market, there are no signs of this yet. The number of law firms in the UK is still growing; the number of practising solicitors has been rising year-on-year for the last five years; and the overwhelming majority of these are still based in private practice. However, solicitor numbers are growing at the fastest rate outside private practice and most notably in in-house corporate legal departments. Also increasing very rapidly is the number of paralegals employed in law firms.
The period 2011–2012 is likely to be remembered as the period when the transformation of the UK legal services market gathered pace. For some years, there have been competitors to traditional law firms offering legal services but the number of competitors is likely to increase led by the arrival of Alternative Business Structures (ABS). From January 2012, these allow non-lawyers to invest in law firms in England and Wales. Initially, the number of businesses applying to become ABS is small but more are likely to come forward in the next year or so.
Alongside ABS, other legal service models are appearing such as white-label legal services from organizations such as the AA and Saga in conjunction with law firms, branded franchise networks of high street law firms, and DIY online legal services.
Generally, it is expected that it will be the smaller and medium-sized law firms that face the most threat from these new supplies and particularly those that operate general practices covering various practice areas. Areas such as conveyancing, wills, divorce are high-volume, low margin sectors that involve a large amount of routine legal processing. So these areas offer opportunities for commoditization and economies of scale and appeal to some of the new larger players entering the market. Volume suppliers of these services amongst law firms are also doing well, so smaller law firms are fighting for a reduced share of the market.
Other issues likely to have an impact on the market in the coming months include: new compliance demands on law firms and solicitors from a new regulatory regime (Outcomes-focused regulations) introduced in October 2011; the proposed ban on referral fees; a reduction in funding for legal aid.
The report has sections for industry overview, market sizes and trends, market segmentation, key issues in the market, key players, PEST analysis, research on client preferences for legal fees and law firm concerns, market forecasts for 2012 and 2013.
The full report, The UK Legal Services Market 2011 (54 pp, PDF), is available directly from IRN Research, priced at £350/€420/US$550.
Further information from: www.irn-research.com
Information Industry
In another sign of tough trading conditions affecting the high value/high cost part of the information industry, LexisNexis has undergone a major restructuring exercise outside of its US homeland.
LexisNexis Business Services Restructured
LexisNexis, one of the industry giants providing content and technology to a big client list, has announced that it is combining its business intelligence activities across Europe, the Middle East and Latin America to form LexisNexis International Business Intelligence solutions (LNI BIs). The Company explains this: In response to increasing requests from customers to be served both locally and globally, this organizational change is designed to combine markets with similar characteristics and requirements and will operate under a common managing director and management structure. LNI BIs will serve 2,850 customers, over 62 countries, with more than 200 employees, giving significant global reach.
For Rob Veneboer, former managing director of Benelux, Germany and Channels and recently appointed managing director of the integrated structure, the impact for existing and future clients will be positive. ‘Our customers and prospects will benefit from our consolidated portfolio,’ said Veneboer. ‘This will ensure we can deliver the best possible services and products, building on our combined expertise and experience to innovate and deliver even stronger solutions for the future.’
Veneboer confirmed that day-to-day business is unlikely to change for customers. However, the Company argues that this consolidation of resources and expertise will open up further opportunities for providing clients with the highest quality service and solutions.
‘This combined focus marks a new era for us, our teams and our customers,’ said Veneboer. ‘With the integration of these countries into one unit, we are able to deliver world-class products and services to meet our clients’ needs.’
Further information from: www.reedelsevier.com
Aslib’s New Business Information Community of Practice Group
The City Information Group, so successful for 20 years or so under the initial leadership of TFPL’s Nigel Oxbrow, was wound up a couple of years ago. But even in a social media dominated virtual world, there is obviously still a need for UK business information professionals to gather together occasionally to discuss and debate matters of common interest. So it was with great interest that we report the success of ASLIB’s new Business Information Community of Practice (BICoP) Group launched in early 2012 with the aim of serving information professionals, information intermediaries and business members from academia, corporate and professional backgrounds.
The Group’s aims are:
To provide a community of practice group for ASLIB members concerned with supplying and using Business Information.
To promote and share good practice in the searching, retrieval, exploitation and management of Business Information.
To provide a forum for networking, discussion and support to professionals with an interest in this area.
Activities already under way include visits to a variety of organizations of relevance to business information, allowing members to meet and network with other people in the profession and learn how information needs are met in a range of different environments.
Specific events have also been organized including an initial and very successful meeting at the London Guildhall which addressed ‘Killer business information promotion techniques and how to develop your career’ including a presentation followed by questions on developing business information careers from the Sue Hill Recruitment team.
A second evening event was held at the end of April – ‘How Information Management, Knowledge Management and Records Management enhance risk management and governance, return on assets, new products and services, and thus profitability’.
Further information from Holly Shukla, Aslib Relationship Manager, hshukla@aslib.com and www.aslib.co.uk/sig/business_information.htm.
International Management
Another of the findings in the Business Information Survey 2012 is the profound effect of mergers on the culture of companies, particularly if one of the affected companies is based in another country. This, of course, has serious implications for the Information/Research function.
One of the Survey’s respondents described this extremely well: The culture and approach of the European company is very different to that of the new US part. The European company is well embedded in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Australasia. The US corporation is truly global, international, disaggregated, a mishmash of different cultures. It has a very different way of working with inevitable tensions with Europe and ex-colonial countries. But the new geography of the merged company has led to more collaboration, being more responsive to local cultures and needs, respecting native languages – a general softening of approach.
A new EIU report tackles this issue in depth. ‘Competing across borders: how cultural and communication barriers affect business’ is sponsored by EF Education First and explores the challenges companies face when they have to operate or compete in increasingly international markets. Specifically, it assesses the role that cross-border communication and collaboration play in the success or failure of companies with ambitions that are not hostage to national borders.
With their home markets in the throes of a prolonged stagnation, if not downturn, companies based in developed economies are turning more and more towards the developing world in the search for new customers and the hunt for new talent. Meanwhile, companies from vibrant developing economies whose ambitions have outgrown their own homelands are also seeking opportunities to grow through international expansion. These dynamics have combined to create a world of business that is thoroughly international, and in which it is commonplace for workers and businesses to communicate and collaborate with customers, colleagues, suppliers and partners in other countries.
The resulting need for harmonious and productive cross-border relationships that transcend cultural differences has placed new demands on companies and their workforces. The survey findings reveal a corporate world that has at least recognized a new reality in which the right products and services must also now be allied with the necessary cultural sensitivity and communication skills in order for companies to succeed in markets away from home. However, the views expressed in the survey by senior business executives from all corners of the world also indicate that many organizations have yet to adopt measures that will turn this realization into practice.
Some of the key headline findings of the report are:
Contrary to the expectations of many experts, the current economic downturn is spurring companies into becoming more international.
Several indicators corroborate this widespread internationalization of business. Almost nine in ten respondents to the survey on which this report is based think their company’s number of overseas clients will increase in the next three years.
Effective cross-border communication and collaboration are becoming critical to the financial success of companies with international aspirations.
The overwhelming majority (bordering on 90%) believe that if cross-border communication were to improve at their company, then profit, revenue and market share would all improve as well.
Most companies understand the cost of not improving the cross-border communication skills of their employees, yet many are not doing enough to address the challenge.
Some organizations appear to be underestimating the extent of the challenge.
Organizations with international ambitions increasingly expect prospective employees to be fluent in key foreign languages.
Not surprisingly, a majority of executives surveyed believe that their workforce will need to know English if the company is to succeed in its international expansion plans.
Misunderstandings rooted in cultural differences present the greatest obstacle to productive cross-border collaboration.
Linguistic diversity – or the lack of it – is considered by some margin, to be a greater business challenge in Latin America and southern Europe than elsewhere.
Further information on this complimentary report from: www.managementthinking.eiu.com