Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Many institutions of higher education have been reluctant to outsource their IT functions for fear of losing control over a vital resource. This fear is even more pronounces when IT is an integral part of delivering a mission-critical product or service. In addition, colleges and universities go to great lengths to differentiate themselves from the commercial world by placing special emphasis on job security. Outsourcing is believed to undermine this principle.
Higher education may consider one or more forms of outsourcing IT operational services to deal with increasingly complex and time-sensitive demands. By considering the experiences of their peers and taking certain proactive steps, institutions can avoid common problems and ensure greater success when outsourcing IT functions.
In recent years, information systems have become increasingly crucial to the ability of an organization to compete effectively. However, the increasing importance of I/S has placed a strain on the ability of an organization to produce and manage information in a timely, relevant, and cost effective manner. Many organizations have begun to rely more heavily on external vendors to meet their I/S needs (outsourcing).
Relying on an external supplier for a resource may allow an organization to take advantage of economies of scale, thereby generating cost savings, but it also often means relinquishing some degree of control over that resource. Several factors must be considered by managers in order to make rational outsourcing decisions which do not adversely affect competitive strategy.
Over the last decade, the relationship between I/S and the competitive advantage of the firm has become an integral part of many organizations. While many believe that major gains in competitive advantage through I/S are increasingly difficult to achieve, the relationship between the two is still crucial to organizational survival. Surveys of I/S executives and general managers indicate that these managers believe that strategic planning and competitive advantage among the most important issues they face. Much of the literature in this area addresses the role of I/S in creating the competitive framework necessary to respond to opportunities rapidly and effectively. Little work addresses the issue of factors that may affect the ability of an organization to use I/S as a competitive weapon.
The following discussions will provide an assessment of the implications of the use of outsourcing with respect to the competitive advantage of an organization and will provide a framework within which outsourcing decisions may be made.
Despite the recognized importance of information systems as a competitive weapon, there is a gap “between strategic (I/S) planning and competitive strategy”. One reason for this gap is the relative lack of organizational knowledge about how to effectively utilize I/S as a strategic weapon.
However, even with better knowledge about strategic I/S, the capability to effectively use I/S meet to opportunities is still constrained by increasing demands and a shortage of I/S professionals. Backlogs of two to three years are not unusual in organizations today. There are too many demands and too few I/S professionals.
The need for information in strategic aspects of the firm places increased strain on the already overloaded information systems function. One response to the overload is the use of external vendors who are able to provide needed services in a timely, cost effective manner (outsourcing).
Organizations are spending more and more of their I/S budget on outside consultants both for basic functions and for more sophisticated applications. Outsourcing is projected to be a multi-billion worldwide industry by 1995, and includes activities ranging from facilities management and systems integration to hardware installation/maintenance and software development/support/training.
When an organization relies on an external entity to supply a critical resource, there may be a negative impact on competitive advantage. Organizations are beginning to see the detrimental effects on competitiveness caused by outsourcing the manufacturing function. If not properly managed, outsourcing the I/S function can pose an equally dangerous, although somewhat different, threat to competitive advantage. One study indicates that loss of control and competitive strategy are two reasons many organizations hesitate to use third party for business applications.
As suggested by Newman and Brock, whoever controls the “fabrication and flow” of information possesses a distinct advantage over the competition. “The goal of … (achieving competitive advantage) is to attempt to dominate the industry”. While industry domination may not always be the end result, I/S can serve as an important weapon in a firm’s competitive environment.
Forces of the Competitive Environment
Michael Porter has described five “forces” which combine to form the competitive environment. Porter’s description is broader than the traditional view of competition. While most people probably think of competitors as those businesses which sell a similar product and compete on a basis such as price or product differentiation, Porter includes forces such as suppliers and customers as competitors. “Competition in an industry is rooted in its underlying economic structure and goes well beyond the behavior of current competitors… The essence of formulating competitive strategy is relating a company to its environment.
A brief overview of Porter’s five forces is provided below.
Threat of Entry The threat of entry into an industry depends on the barriers to entry into that industry, such as economies of scale, capital requirements, switching costs, entrenched product differentiation (brand loyalties), and access to distribution channels. When the barriers to entry into an industry are high, the threat of entry is low and an existing industry player can compete more easily.
Intensity of Rivalry among Existing Competitors: The intensity of rivalry within an industry depends on the number of firms in the industry, on the balance of power among those firms, on the stability or growth of the industry market, and on the existence of barriers to exit from the industry.
Pressure from Substitute Products: Any industry can be vulnerable to competition from an industry that offers a product from which can perform the same function as its own product. The impact of substitute products is reflected by the industry’s overall elasticity of demand.
Bargaining Power of Buyers: A buyer group (customer) can be a significant influence in limiting the competitive advantage and overall financial return of a company or industry if the buyer group’s business constitutes a high percentage of the industry’s sales. Additionally, if the buyer group has “perfect” market information and low switching costs, the buyer group possesses similar influence.
Bargaining Power of Supplies: A supplier group can be a significant influence in limiting the competitive advantage and overall financial return of a company or industry.
Each of these five forces may affect the way in which an organization chooses to compete. There is also a general consensus in the literature that these forces relate to the use of I/S as a competitive weapon. For example, Newman and Brock outline a plan for creating an information system for competitive advantage based on Porter’s five basic forces. However, one force in particular becomes especially important when a firm considers outsourcing: the bargaining power of suppliers. If an outsourcer possesses an unequal amount of bargaining power in the outsourcer/client relationship, then the client organization may be limited in its ability to compete in its own marketplace.
Because outsourcing is still evolving, there are a few proven examples of this situation arising. However, the possibility does not go unnoticed. For example, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) is currently investigating reports of reciprocal relationships between banks and their outsourcers. There are reports of outsourcers having members on the board of directors of client banks, as well as, purchasing stock from and making deposits into these client banks. This situation could give rise to unequal bargaining power between banks and their outsourcers. Therefore, the FDIC is reported to be considering regulations on outsourcing in order to “improve the soundness of the banking industry and the competitiveness of the computer outsourcing industry”. While these occurrences may not be widespread, evidence of unequal bargaining power does not occur outside of the banking industry. Porter indicates that there are several ways in which a situation of unequal bargaining power may arise. Five of these ways are discussed below.
Importance of Resource
A supplier group is powerful if its product is an important input to the buyer’s business. Many organizations can not operate without ready access to their systems. In such an organization, it is important that information be provided in a timely, relevant, and cost effective manner. Failure to provide this information may inhibit the capability of recognizing and responding to opportunities in the marketplace.
Note that some firms use I/S not to attain competitive advantage, but as more of an operational support tool. Many retail stores, for instance, have adopted point-of-sale technology, but they do not necessarily use the available capabilities to the fullest. Some stores may only use point-of-sale simply to generate sales and receipts. The information system in this case may not be as “important” to the company as many other information systems are.
Operation or development of an I/S internally does not always insure that the quality of information will be enhanced. However, getting control of a vital resource to an external vendor, if not properly managed, may result in diminished quality. For example, there is a possibility that services provided by an external vendor may fail to meet quality standards such as timely delivery. In addition, there is little precedence for who has the legal liability for poor quality. Although outsourcing contracts are not lifetime commitments, they usually extend over a two or three year period; a long time to incur poor service. In addition, even if there is no substantial penalty for breaking the contract, premature termination results in costs to the client in terms of either finding another outsourcer or bringing the outsourced activities back in-house.
Outsourcing contracts are binding commitments, and if clients are not careful, outsourcing can result in greater costs and lower quality. “While the outsourcing field is still in infancy, experts say the deck is stacked against you. Unless the outsourcer is blatantly negligent, abuses information or has negotiated a particular liability in writing, there is very little for which outsourcing vendors can be held liable”. Thus, if the outsourced activity is organization-critical, and the supplier (outsourcer) mismanages the activity, the client’s business may suffer and there may be little retribution for the client. If a system is especially important to an organization, giving a high degree of control over that system to another party is risky.
Switching Costs
Unequal bargaining power may arise if a supplier has built-up switching costs. When a firm agrees to let an external organization develop or operate a business-critical information system, these characteristics may exist. There may be a substantial costs associated with switching a systems supplier. After significant time and pesos/dollars have been invested in one supplier system, it is very difficult and expensive for an organization to basically, “start over” with another supplier. Additionally, an organization may be somewhat “tied” to one supplier because of existing equipment or software, or because of organizational expertise with a particular system.
One company was recently penalized for breaking an outsourcing contract when the company moved from mainframes to client/server systems and the outsourcer could not support the new/client server architecture. In this case, the client chose to switch, but the costs were substantial. However, remaining with the outsourcer would have inhibited the firm’s ability to pursue a newer, perhaps more cost effective platform. If an organization’s users particularly comfortable with a particular operating system, environment, or application, then the users will certainly resist switching to another system – even if the other system is better.
Competition Among Outsourcers
A supplier may be powerful if the supplier group is dominated by a few companies and is more concentrated than the industry itself. When you purchase a system built on proprietary technology from a supplier, for instance, there may be absolutely no competition for that supplier for subsequent system purchases and changes. If your purchased system utilizes the supplier’s special-purpose terminals, for instance, you may have no other source from which to purchase additional terminals. Mainframe computing users experience this situation far more frequently than do microcomputer users, who generally purchase much more “open” systems.
Importance of the Client
A supplier is powerful if the firm in not an important customer of the supplier. If the firm is one of many customers, and in particular, if the firm is one of the smaller customers, the outsourcer will be less likely to respond to the firm’s individual needs and will possess greater bargaining power. Additionally, outsourcing is a secondary business to many firms and may thus be seen by them as less important than their primary business. In most outsourcing systems cases, the system and contract are large, and the business is in fact important to the outsourcer, thereby reducing the power that the outsourcer has in the relationship. Nevertheless, every supplier has some customers who are more important than others, and if you are a smaller, less important customer, then bargaining power is seriously reduced. Such an “insignificant” customer may have trouble getting prompt service or required changes to a system.
Threat of Vertical Integration
A supplier is powerful if it poses a credible threat of forward integration. Although there are very few cases of this outcome to date, there is always the danger that the outsourcing firm, having learned a great deal about the firm’s business through its contact with the firm’s information systems, will eventually enter the same business. When IBM contracted with Microsoft to write the original MSDOS, they certainly could not have foreseen the extent to which Microsoft would later extend their product offerings in both software and hardware. Microsoft is now a threat to enter just about any market, and has significant power in dealing with virtually any other company.
Outsourcing has become a big business that is expected to rapidly expand for the next several years. Of properly managed, outsourcing can be used to enhance an organization’s ability to use I/S in order to compete more effectively. However, before deciding to outsource, one issue firms should consider is the potential effect on the firm’s competitive position if outsourcing enhances the power of the supplier are (1) the importance of the outsourced activities to the client firm; (2) the cost associated with switching to another outsourcer either at the end of or during the current contract; (3) the extent of competition among relevant outsourcers; (4) the importance of the client firm to the outsourcer; and (5) the potential for the outsourcer to enter the client firm’s business through vertical integration. Any one of these factors could counteract the benefits of outsourcing and, in worse case scenario, could negatively affect the client firm’s business.
Outsourcing decisions must be made with care regardless of whether the outsourced activities are basic functions such as hardware maintenance or are critical to the firm’s strategic mission. However, firms should be especially careful if they decide to outsource activities related to their competitive position. Otherwise, they could encounter a variety of problems ranging from diminished quality to finding themselves actually competing with their outsourcer for business.
Reference:
http://jitm.ubalt.edu/IV-2/article4.pdf
Posted by ♪_TARIZTA_♪ at 8:29 AM
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On the assumption that you heard/read the SONA of the President last last month, (July 2009), identify at least 3 areas related to ICT and identify how these areas can improve our quality of life.
In the recent State Of The Nation Address (SONA) of President Gloria Arroyo, the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector was only briefly mentioned. However, I perceived some areas related to ICT and how these areas can improve our quality of life.
1. Country’s first automated Polls
The country has long targeted to automate its polls because the traditional manual voting process had created massive irregularities and spurred public violence.
As Filipinos, we hate knowing that we are being taken advantage of whether be it in terms elections or anything in general. We hate that we are being governed by unworthy people and people who are not deserving of the position. How then are they able to achieve such feats? We can’t be possibly sure but a rational explanation would be that we are being cheated in the elections. And thus, by applying this technology we are able to prevent this from happening. The users will benefit from it and the country as a whole because the integrity of the elections would be objectified and strengthened. The public will also be satisfied because faster results are guaranteed by the usage of automated and online elections. The government will also be benefited because lesser costs will have to be allocated for the elections in the long run. The initial costs might be high because of the need for technology and infrastructure upgrades and manpower training, but the succeeding costs in the next elections will be lower.
2. Philippine Cyber Corridor project
The Cyber Corridor is envisioned to be home to numerous cyberservice providers that supply expert services in various field of ICT like business process outsourcing (BPO), contact centers, animation, medical and legal transcription, software development, e-learning, e-entertainment and gaming, and other back office operations (e.g., finance and accounting, human resource development, etc.).
The Cyber Corridor promises a number of benefits. The first is job generation. Two million jobs are projected by year 2010 plus additional upstream jobs in training and construction, and downstream jobs in transport, food services, and infrastructure. The second is regional development -- from Baguio to Zamboanga. This will indeed change the face of the nation. The third is locator options. The important factors for consideration will be cost, lifestyle, scalability, retention. The fourth is dispersion of demand. This will minimize wage inflation and poaching/attrition.
Also, The Cyber Corridor will make the most of the Filipino’s edge in English communication and information technology skills. In this corridor, the English and information and communication technology skills of the youth give them a competitive edge in call centers and other business process outsourcing.
3. Creation of DICT
Pres. Gloria Arroyo made a final push for the creation of DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) in her last State of the Nation Address (Sona).
Speaking before members of both chambers of Congress, the chief executive urged the country to “have a Department of ICT” as she highlighted the huge role that the BPO sector has played in the local economy.
The establishment of DICT could further promote ICT in the country as a tool to create jobs, improve government services, and empower Filipinos.
To have a Department of ICT will reap the benefits of an e-enabled society, where everyone would have access to the Internet, where there are equal opportunities for jobs and livelihood, where there would be a competitive business environment conducive to investments, and where online government services are delivered directly to its citizens.
References:
http://iskwiki.upd.edu.ph/
http://www.cict.gov.ph/
Posted by ♪_TARIZTA_♪ at 8:17 AM
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If you were hired by the university president as an IT consultant, what would you suggest (technology, infrastructure, innovations, steps, processes, etc) in order for the internet connectivity be improved?
While the University compares favorably with other major universities, our increasing dependence on information technology has strained our existing infrastructure, and we are no longer able to provide acceptable quality of service to the University community. This affects our ability to recruit and retain faculty and students, as well as the productivity and effectiveness of all members of the campus community.
If we are to do more than merely catch up, we need to go beyond one-time, piecemeal upgrades to a new way of thinking about information and communication technology as central to everything that takes place in a university. If we act quickly and boldly, we can see great improvements within a year; within three to five years the university can regain national prominence in information and communication technology infrastructure.
Changes in attitude and organization, as well as basic infrastructure, will be necessary. The ideal is a distributed but coordinated infrastructure support program throughout the University, with the appropriate balance between local provision of services and support and central guidance on standards and policies.
Improvements in physical infrastructure are needed right away. The goal is to guarantee a high level of end-to-end performance, giving faculty and students the ability to move very large amounts of data rapidly from their desktops and labs to other points on or off campus, seamlessly, securely, and reliably. To meet this goal, we must rebuild our networks: in buildings, across campus, and to the outside world through upgraded Internet connectivity and Internet2 capability. Ultimately, no problem should be intractable because of insufficient computing power or network capacity.
In addition, because many of today’s high-end technologies will become tomorrow’s basic infrastructure, the University must continually invest in pilot projects involving emerging technologies—such as wireless networking—so that it is well positioned for large-scale implementation across campus of those technologies that prove successful and desirable.
As an IT consultant, I recommend that the University take these actions:
Human capital
Through recruitment and in-house training, upgrade faculty, staff, and student skills and maintain those skills at a high level of competence.
Invest significant additional resources in “side-by-side” IT training and consulting assistance for faculty, graduate students, and staff who use the technology in teaching and research.
Make a long-term commitment to recruiting, training, developing, and retaining qualified IT staff in the current, highly competitive market.
Policy, governance and management
Establish, streamline, or otherwise optimize management and governance mechanisms for information and communication technology to ensure that timely, informed, strategic decisions are made for the campus as a whole.
Provide central guidance in the areas of financial control, legal issues such as intellectual property, security and risk management, adherence to the academic missions of the University, and coordination of overall services.
Allow for local information technology services to be provided whenever possible through stronger capability and leadership within schools.
Foster more effective planning and use of resources through continued unbundling of unrelated information and communication technology services and establishment of clear pricing guidelines, overseen by a “Campus IT Pricing and Services Commission.”
Security and quality assurance
Create a campus-wide security and information assurance office, with appropriate representation from various information and communication technology administrative units, to rigorously and continuously review and assess security policies and practices.
Establish a crisis response team, with representation from campus service providers, to coordinate University-wide response to potential technology-based attacks or mishaps.
Physical infrastructure
Beginning soon and continuing until completed, upgrade in-building network infrastructure to support up to 1 Gbit/s connectivity to end-user locations, with minimum desktop performance of 100 Mbit/s.
Immediately begin upgrading campus backbone infrastructure to provide backbone bandwidth capacity to support target 10Gbit/s aggregate service.
Upgrade external Internet connectivity and Internet2 connectivity.
Equip many more classrooms than at present with network access and a significant number of classrooms with multimedia access.
Maintain and enhance the Media Union—an important resource for advanced experimentation in the use of new media—by keeping its technology at the leading edge and retaining professional experts who can use, demonstrate and teach the skills to apply that technology.
Advanced technologies and services for emerging technologies
Invest right away in the following pilot projects and initiatives:
A pilot initiative in wireless networking, with the eventual goal of campus-wide installation.
Several advanced prototype demonstrations of services underlying research and instructional applications, such as high performance computing, very large data sets, management of massive, real-time data, collaborative technologies, and visualization and virtual reality technologies.
A pilot “Voice over IP” initiative, taking advantage of technology that allows voice communication (what we now call telephone service) to be carried across data networks based on the Internet Protocol (IP).
A high-performance end-to-end computing and networking initiative to take advantage of the full potential of emerging infrastructure and computing capabilitiles.
Continue investing in initiatives that involve limited, early use of new and emerging technologies, with an eye to eventual campus-wide deployment.
How to speed up an internet connection?
Well, first we need to decide where you sit in the grand scheme of things. You will likely make your connection through one, or a combination of, a few options in internet service providers: Dial Up, Satellite, DSL, Wireless LAN, Cable Modem, FTTH/FTTP, or a dedicated service line such as T1/T3/DS3+. If you're on a T1 or better you're likely not complaining. Paying for such a service means that you should be getting the individual monitoring by your ISP to make sure you are getting what you are paying for. If you're not, switch providers. Fiber to the Prem/Home (FTTP/FTTH) subscribers are relatively new and from my experience well maintained. This brings us to the most likely candidates to look for connection improvement.
Dial Up- Your max: 56kbps (actually about 53kbps of true data after overhead). If you are on dial up, you are going to see 'slow speeds' by today's standards. The internet as most people know it has evolved around content, and content isnt small. One of two factors will most influence your connection quality through dial up- subscription rate in your area and phone line quality from your home to your provider. The sad news is, there is little you can do about either. If your area is over-subscribed (ie, more subscribers than your ISP can support connections to) you are likely going to see long waits connecting and/or frequent disconnects. Bug your ISP and hope they listen, or utilize secondary connection numbers (this may result in long distance tolls unless you are offered more than a single 800 number to dial into). The quality of your local phone lines, similarly, is going to be largely out of your control as well. If you find yourself removed from urban areas, there is a good chance you are still behind very old telephone lines. One rough, yet handy, test is to pick up a -corded- handset and listen for background noise. ANY clicking, humming, buzzing, or any other noise other than a pure dial tone is going to negatively influence the transmission of data over the lines.
The good news is, this gives you a defined disturbance that you can file a complaint with your TELEPHONE provider over. Potential culprits: poorly grounded electric fences (learned from experience), copper phonelines with cracked insulators, poor house wiring.
DSL- Ahhhh.. DSL. Your Max: 256kbps-24Mbps (variable by area) DSL is, generally speaking, either good or bad in an area. Assuming exceptional line quality and a relatively short distance to your area's gateway (DSLAM), the most common/significant factor influencing DSL speeds is subscription for an area. This is for a different reason than dial up however. DSL does not provide (even though they sell it essentially as such) a set data rate to each individual. Instead, they offer a 'pipe' of sorts of a set rate to an area. That rate is shared among all subscribers serviced by that 'pipe'. This is not a bad thing, unless the area is oversubscribed. Oversubscription can only be fixed by your ISP. Line quality and distance from your area's DSLAM will determine the number of useable channels through which you can communicate. As with dial up, this is somewhat fixed unless you can prove a case of poor line quality AND convince the owners of your local phone lines to improve it (may or may not be your DSL provider). With DSL you might still listen for clicks and humming, but utilizing the higher frequenices as DSL does means inaudible interferences may also (and more commonly) cause you a problem.
Satellite - Satellite internet is great if you are very remote, and can handle latency. There are several implementations, but if you are using satellite it is probably your only option (unless you have chosen it over dial up for *hopefully* higher bandwidth). Once you have been installed, about the only influences on your conenction speed are weather and alignment. Alignment is a quick fix, while weather is entirely out of anyone's control.
Wireless LAN- Wireless service, if offered in your area, will vary depending on several factors, most notably: distance to your access point, broadcast frequency of the access point, line-of-site obstruction (largely composition of obstructions) to access point, and number of subscribers. Increasing your connection quality centers around optimising the factors- get closer, remove obstructions (or move to a clear line of sight), or attempting to connect through a less populated node.
Docsis Cable Modem- Docsis Cable Modems can theoretically support up to about a 54Mbps connection speed.
Current plant and docsis standards, however, make those speeds less than reliably attainable. You should be aware of the speed to which your modem is provisioned (you will pay varying prices for different speed 'packages' through most ISP's). Most Cable Modem connections that have a problem see it somewhere from the Node to the house. The Node is the point in your neighborhood where the fiber (fiber optics passing light) network ends and is converted to an analog signal passed over a coaxial network (the copper cable you plug into your TV/DVR/MODEM) to your home. While there are countless variables that can impact the plant, you should be concerned about 4 signal levels: Transmit, Transmit SNR (Upstream Signal to Noise Ratio), Receive, Recieve SNR(Downstream Signal to Noise Ratio). You can view 3 of these levels by browsing to your modem's diagnostic page. To do this, point your browser to 192.168.100.1. This is the internal IP of your cable modem giving you access to a web interface displaying many useful statistics. The ones you want will be under the 'Signal' tab. Ideally look for:
Recieve Power: -5 - 5 dbmv
Transmit Power: 45 - 51 dbmv
SNR in both cases should be between 34db
These are ideal signal levels. While your connection might still be ok slightly outside of this range, you will want to get them balanced as close to the medians of the ranges if you are suffering slow speeds. A good service technician should know how to properly balance these levels. A second place to look while in the modem diagnostic page is at your event log. T3 and T4 timeouts are bad, and again should be addressed by a service tech. Some things you could consider if the appointment is a while out: keep your modem on a power purifier or UPS for clear, uninterrupted power; if your receive power is low, try removing unnecessary cable splitters; look for cracks, cuts, or exposed coaxial cable.
This is all geared towards directly improving you internet connection quality. Increasing your connection quality is the only way to increase your available bandwidth, and ONLY if you suffer from mentioned service degredations. Keep in mind that there are a number of PC tips that can keep your PC running at top speed, so as not to slow down your perceived connection speed.
Internet connection can be simple if you keep some basic ideas in mind.
For example, remove viruses and spyware from your system, and run a unprivileged user account for Internet access to slow down any future infections from the wild Internet. Viruses, stealthkits (also known as rootkits), and spyware will compete with or take over your Internet connection and prevent you from enjoying it yourself.
So it is important to scan your system routinely for such problems.
Do not compete with other computers for Internet access via a common (shared) connection such as wireless, broadband cable, or telephone service. Do not operate your main computer as a gateway for other household computers to access the Internet. Such shared connections cause the computers to compete with each other and additional delays are inserted for the computers to communicate with each other about sharing the Internet connection.
Telephone modem connections to bulletin boards and Internet access are limited by the Federal Communications Commission to slow speeds useful over voice-grade telephone wiring. So, if you upgrade from telephone modem access to another service such as wireless, broadband, or optical fiber, then such a connection will speed up in a noticeable way.
Where two local wiring options are available to the Internet from your computer, opt for the faster one. For example, a broadband cable modem can offer either Category 5 cable or USB cable connections (USB is faster than Category 5). Also, a broadband cable modem will be faster than a telephone modem, but the telephone modem can serve as a good backup capability, if desired.
If you can afford it, get an optical fiber connection to the Internet or possibly two-way satellite Internet access for highest connection speeds. Optical fiber run directly to the computer (with a small connecting device) has superior connection speeds for two-way networking that no other fielded technology can surpass.
Finally, learn to check your Internet connection speed online, and routinely check it to recognize when Internet congestion or other slowdowns are occurring.
Improve your Broadband Connection
Broadband Connection Speed
The only thing better than a fast broadband Internet connection, is a faster broadband Internet connection. Broadband Internet speed tests allow you to measure your current broadband speed against that of faster broadband Internet connections. There are various programs and software packages that you can purchase through which you can increase the speed of your Internet connection. You can also make adjustments to the hardware components(Upgrade processor speed and memory levels) of your system maximizing your computer’s broadband connection potential.
If you’re not looking to purchase additional software / hardware add-ons, there are manual “tweaks” that you can make to your system through which you can boost your broadband speed.
Increasing Your Broadband Internet Speed
Let’s assume that you access the Internet via a broadband LAN line. The following are 3 examples of ways through which you can manipulate your network settings and increase your broadband speed:
Reduce your network latency by increasing the request buffer size
Tests of LAN broadband connections have shown that delays can be caused as a result of the default request buffer size setting of 4356 decimal. As it is, it has been proven that an increase to a 16384 decimal setting can allow for better performance. (Such an increase is only possible if you have the necessary memory) By utilizing this slight “tweak,” you can noticeably increase your Internet speed and broadband networking capabilities.
Altering your network task scheduler
If you’ve encountered long waits when trying to open network folders, then this “tweak” is for you. One of the default settings with broadband networking is that when you open a network folder, your system performs a test of the networked computer in order to search for scheduled tests. By disabling this option for a LAN connection, you can increase your broadband networking speed.
Increasing your network transfer rate
Transfer rate, also referred to as throughput, refers to the speed at which data can be moved from 1 location to another. Network redirector buffers serve the purpose of optimizing your disk performance, and therefore allowing for the fastest possible broadband networking speed. If you increase the number of network redirector buffers functioning on your system, you could greatly increase your throughput. An Internet speed test following this change will yield noticeable results.
Internet Speed Tests
If you are looking to perform an Internet speed test for your system, there are various tools online through which you can provide your ISP, your area code, your connection type, etc., and receive a reading of your broadband speed compared to the top providers in your area. This allows for you to realize if your broadband speed is lacking in comparison to others, and work to maximize your broadband networking potential. This can be achieved through implementation of the above tweaks or through hardware upgrades and software purchases.
Checking Your Internet Connection Speed with Your Service Provider:
-Go to your Internet service provider's website and log into your account. Your Internet connection speed should be listed in the details of your account.
Checking Your Internet Connection Speed through a Speed Test Website:
-There are several websites on the Internet which will perform an Internet connection speed test check for you. Some links are:
www.speakeasy.net/speedtest
http://www.speedtest.net/
http://us.mcafee.com/root/speedometer/default.asp
Checking Your Internet Connection Speed in Windows XP:
-Right click or roll over your Internet connection icon that usually appears in the right hand bottom corner of your computer. (It typically looks like two computer monitors). The Internet connection speed will be displayed. For example it will say something like 100 mbps .
This can also be accessed from the control panel. When you are in the control panel screen select the network connections icon. Select the network connection that you wish to check and double click on it, a dialog box will then display your speed amongst other details.
Checking Your Internet Connection Speed in Windows Vista:
-Click on the Internet connection icon that usually appears in the right hand bottom corner of your computer. (It typically looks like two computer monitors).Then click on the connection that pops up. A dialog box called the network and sharing center will pop up. For whichever connection you are trying to view the speed of click the blue view status words and a box will open which details your speed amongst other connection details.
This can also be accessed via the control panel. Click the icon for network and sharing center and repeat as above.
References:
http://www.umich.edu/pres/inforev2/infrastructure/
http://www.helium.com/
Posted by ♪_TARIZTA_♪ at 8:02 AM
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Many organizations have responded to the changing demographics of the workplace by implementing a variety of benefits and policies designed to help employees balance their work and non-work lives. These benefits and policies are instituted with the desire to create what has been termed as the "family-friendly" workplace. The terms "family-friendly workplace," "family-friendly company," and "family-friendly employer" refer to a workplace that, to some extent, acknowledges and responds to the work and personal/family responsibilities assumed by employees.
Barriers are defined as factors that prevent organizations from implementing, and/or factors that reduce the effectiveness of family-supportive benefits and policies after they are in place.
On our adopted organization, the barriers in their IS/IT implementation are the following:
Unemployment - While information technology may have streamlined the business process it has also crated job redundancies, downsizing and outsourcing. This means that a lot of lower and middle level jobs have been done away with causing more people to become unemployed.
Privacy - Though information technology may have made communication quicker, easier and more convenient, it has also bought along privacy issues. From cell phone signal interceptions to email hacking, people are now worried about their once private information becoming public knowledge.
Lack of job security - Industry experts believe that the internet has made job security a big issue as since technology keeps on changing with each day. This means that one has to be in a constant learning mode, if he or she wishes for their job to be secure.
Dominant culture - While information technology may have made the world a global village, it has also contributed to one culture dominating another weaker one. For example it is now argued that US influences how most young teenagers all over the world now act, dress and behave. Languages too have become overshadowed, with English becoming the primary mode of communication for business and everything else.
Barriers to strategy
Building on Porter's (1985) definition of strategy as, ' . . . the route to competitive advantage that will determine . . . performance', we can define an Information System Strategy as the analysis of the role that information systems can play in helping business units or companies to define a route to competitive strategy.
An information systems strategy brings together the business aims of the company, an understanding of the information needed to support those aims, and the implementation of computer systems to provide that information. It is a plan for the development of systems towards some future vision of the role of information systems in the organization.
Mintzberg (1987) suggests that strategy formation is a craft, rather than a science, and the process of crafting a strategy will involve negotiating various barriers. The barriers suggested in the literature include a number that affect any innovation, such as the hostile attitudes of management levels in a company, and the problem of recruiting appropriate staff. Some, such as the difficulty of measuring benefits, are more specific to IT implementation.
(The following data were from a study that had a survey of a big number of companies together with different financial services companies carried out to determine the extent to which the idea of 'information system strategies' was recognized in these organizations, how strategies, where they existed, were related to business aims, the elements of which strategies were composed, and the nature of barriers to design and implementation.)
Companies with a strategy were asked to identify the barriers either to setting up or implementing a strategy and to state whether the barrier had been major or minor. The results are shown in condensed form in Table 6. In Table 6, the ranking is based on the company citing a barrier as a major impediment. It is interesting, however, to look at the ranking that emerges when the change in proportions citing a barrier as a problem at set-up and implementation is used. This can be seen in Table 6, but is also set out in Table 7 for ease of reference.
| Rank | | % response |
| Set-up | Impln. | Barrier | Set-up | Impln. |
| 1 | 3 | Measuring benefits | 30.5 | 32.6 |
| 2 | 2 | Nature of business | 27.7 | 34.8 |
| 3 | 1 | Difficulty in recruiting | 24.1 | 36.9 |
| 4 | 6 | Political conflicts | 23.4 | 19.9 |
| 5 | 5 | Existing IT investment | 22.0 | 24.8 |
| 6 | 4 | User-education resources | 17.0 | 29.1 |
| 7 | 11 | Doubts about benefits | 15.6 | 8.5 |
| 8 | 9 | Telecommunications issues | 10.6 | 11.3 |
| 9 | 7 | Middle management attitudes | 9.9 | 13.5 |
| 10 | 8 | Senior management attitudes | 9.2 | 9.2 |
| 11 | 10 | Technology lagging behind needs | 6.4 | 9.2 |
Table 6. Rank importance of barriers to strategy
Some of the changes shown in the table might be called logical shifts: for example, one might expect greater difficulty in recruitment when an organization actually needs to recruit, at the implementation stage; one might expect the lack of resources for user education to become more apparent when user education for the new systems needs to take place; and it is not surprising that technology lag makes itself felt after the initial optimism of the planning stage.
| Rank | Barrier | % change |
| 1 | Difficulty in recruiting | +12.8 |
| 2 | User-education resources | +12.1 |
| 3* | Nature of business | +7.1 |
| 3* | Doubts about benefits | -7.1 |
| 5 | Middle management attitudes | +3.7 |
| 6 | Political conflicts | -3.5 |
| 7* | Existing IT investment | +2.8 |
| 7* | Technology lagging behind needs | +2.8 |
| 9 | Measuring benefits | +2.1 |
| 10 | Telecommunications problems | +0.7 |
| 11 | Senior management attitudes | 0.0 |
| * = Ties. |
Table 7. Change in significance of barriers from set-up to implementation
Logical explanations for some of the changes are more difficult to find, however: the nature of the business (degree of diversification, rapidity of growth, etc.) is perceived as a major barrier initially and by an even greater proportion during implementation - what is the explanation for this? Perhaps it is that anticipated problems in this area actually materialize. Also, the attitudes of middle management assume a greater significance at implementation - this may be related to the lack of resources for user education and to the perception that technology lags behind needs, i.e., is failing to deliver anticipated benefits. Perhaps the smaller increase for senior management attitudes is related to the marked decline in the significance of political conflicts. The downward shift in political conflict may also be associated with the decline in doubts about benefits, although the difficulty of measuring benefits remains a problem.
When we examine the extent to which these factors are perceived to be either major or minor barriers, the picture shown in Table 8 emerges.
| % response | Rank | |
| Set-up | Impln | Set-up | Impln | Barrier |
| 42.5 | 45.4 | 10 | 10 | Senior management attitudes |
| 53.9 | 52.5 | 6 | 6 | Middle management attitudes |
| 61.7 | 75.2 | 3 | 1 | Recruitment |
| 51.8 | 48.2 | 7 | 8* | Doubts about benefits |
| 63.8 | 63.8 | 2 | 4 | Measurement of benefits |
| 49.0 | 49.6 | 9 | 7 | Existing IT investment |
| 59.5 | 72.4 | 4 | 2 | User-education resources |
| 58.2 | 59.6 | 5 | 5 | Political conflicts |
| 66.7 | 67.4 | 1 | 3 | Nature of the business |
| 49.6 | 48.2 | 8 | 8* | Telecommunications issues |
| 39.7 | 41.8 | 11 | 11 | Technology lagging behind needs |
Table 8. Significance of barriers as either major or minor
From these various rankings, the difficulties in recruiting appropriate staff, the lack of resources to engage in user education, the nature of the business, and the difficulties of measuring benefits, emerge as the key features of IT strategies that are likely to cause problems for companies.
Further details of barriers and problems surfaced in the interviews. Even companies with a strong commitment were not immune to blind spots. For example, one interviewee said that:
...while there is this very strong belief in information technology, the top management have not believed in end-user computing... The main drive... is coming from DP because we see opportunities for managers, professionals, to help themselves. But it is not something for which there is a strong demand, and it is something which top management has treated as, you know, 'Why do you want to play with that, why don't you get on with your real job?'
The same person highlighted another inhibiting factor:
...another aspect of corporate style - the attitude to cost. The organization will quite happily invest millions almost at the drop of a hat in large-scale technology for big operational systems. I can get authority to spend a million or two on new hardware to improve the system in a ten-minute meeting with the managing director. And yet the same man will say, 'I might find a PC on the desk quite useful, but how much does it cost? [and then] 'It's not worth spending £2500 for a piece of junk on my desk.'
An interesting aspect of the recruitment problem was revealed in a financial services company which had a tradition of project teams directed by a senior manager from the user group and staffed mainly by users:
When we started all this there was quite a large army of part-qualified, or recently qualified, very bright, young actuaries, accountants, and so on, that we could pull on. An unfortunate effect of the systems we developed was that we reduced the need for the office to have a lot of those people - you didn't need lots of actuarial trainees with calculators doing these things any more. What we didn't see at the time was that we were cutting our own throats.
Now, over the last three or four years, that's been recognized in the office. Not just for computing reasons, but for all sorts of other reasons, it's starting to build up its professional input, its graduate trainees, again.
References:
http://www.smallbusinessbible.org/advan_disadvan_informationtechnology.html
http://informationr.net/tdw/publ/papers/1989ISstrat.html
Posted by ♪_TARIZTA_♪ at 7:52 AM
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