Over the last few years, using a combination of technology investments and process re-engineering, companies have substantially raised the productivity of transactional processes. Companies today are sitting on vast and unexplored surplus of intellectual capital of its workforce. This surplus can be tapped and exploited from the use of innovative participatory tools such as Web 2.0. Corporate leaders who are eager to find new ways to constantly innovate the business model in dynamic environment might find the use of such technologies quite useful. Web 2.0 promises further gains, although the capabilities differ from those of past technologies.
Issues surrounding business implementation of web 2.0
Top down organizational culture – Most of the companies in today’s world follow the top down approach in implementing a business process. Upper management sometimes believes the technologies will be adopted without management intervention. This approach might not work in the organizations where decisions making responsibilities fall with the top management. Participatory technologies such as Web 2.0 are founded upon bottom-up involvement from frontline workers.
Perceive value from web 2.0 - Earlier IT campaigns, focusing on identifying and prioritizing the applications that would generate the greatest business value, was relatively easy. These applications focused primarily on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of known business processes within functional divisions (for example, supply-chain management software to improve coordination across the network). By contrast, the value generated from web 2.0 tools cannot be perceived immediately, thus placing a bottleneck in its successful implementation.
Disconnection from regular work – Most of the time in an organization, Web 2.0 often considered separate from mainstream work. Thus, using Web 2.0 and participating in online work communities often becomes just another task on an already busy list of tasks. Participatory technologies have the highest chance of success when incorporated into a user's daily workflow.
Performance incentives - Traditional management incentives such as variable allowance, promotion etc aren't particularly useful in encouraging participation from the workers. In traditional technological platforms, the failure of employees to use particular application may affect its performance appraisal. The same evaluation criteria if imposed with participatory technologies often results in low quality outputs from employees. One of the more active approaches to unlock participation of good quality is to recognize the user desire to recognition. This can be done by bolstering the reputation of participants in relevant communities, rewarding enthusiasm, or acknowledging the quality and usefulness of contributions.
Identify the right participants – Another important issue to increase the quality of participation is identifying the right persons. Targeting users who can create a critical mass for participation as well as add value is key to success. Without the right base, efforts are often ineffective. To select users who will help drive a self-sustaining effort, the companies can target technology-savvy and respected opinion leaders within the organization.
The successful implementation of web 2.0 tools in the organization depends how successfully companies can overcome above issues and develop strategies that enhances user participation. Encouraging participation calls for new approaches that break with the methods used in the past by companies.
Issues surrounding business implementation of web 2.0
Top down organizational culture – Most of the companies in today’s world follow the top down approach in implementing a business process. Upper management sometimes believes the technologies will be adopted without management intervention. This approach might not work in the organizations where decisions making responsibilities fall with the top management. Participatory technologies such as Web 2.0 are founded upon bottom-up involvement from frontline workers.
Perceive value from web 2.0 - Earlier IT campaigns, focusing on identifying and prioritizing the applications that would generate the greatest business value, was relatively easy. These applications focused primarily on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of known business processes within functional divisions (for example, supply-chain management software to improve coordination across the network). By contrast, the value generated from web 2.0 tools cannot be perceived immediately, thus placing a bottleneck in its successful implementation.
Disconnection from regular work – Most of the time in an organization, Web 2.0 often considered separate from mainstream work. Thus, using Web 2.0 and participating in online work communities often becomes just another task on an already busy list of tasks. Participatory technologies have the highest chance of success when incorporated into a user's daily workflow.
Performance incentives - Traditional management incentives such as variable allowance, promotion etc aren't particularly useful in encouraging participation from the workers. In traditional technological platforms, the failure of employees to use particular application may affect its performance appraisal. The same evaluation criteria if imposed with participatory technologies often results in low quality outputs from employees. One of the more active approaches to unlock participation of good quality is to recognize the user desire to recognition. This can be done by bolstering the reputation of participants in relevant communities, rewarding enthusiasm, or acknowledging the quality and usefulness of contributions.
Identify the right participants – Another important issue to increase the quality of participation is identifying the right persons. Targeting users who can create a critical mass for participation as well as add value is key to success. Without the right base, efforts are often ineffective. To select users who will help drive a self-sustaining effort, the companies can target technology-savvy and respected opinion leaders within the organization.
The successful implementation of web 2.0 tools in the organization depends how successfully companies can overcome above issues and develop strategies that enhances user participation. Encouraging participation calls for new approaches that break with the methods used in the past by companies.
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