Electronic Business: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (4-Volumes) P175 pdf

We must become a more agile organisation able to respond to our customers and partners needs at “internet-speed.” … The IT technology is the engine room of this change providing the

As the main supplier of geographical

in-formation in Britain, NMA needed not only to

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advance online services, but also to change the

organisation’s internal culture to a customer-led

one The prevailing view amongst over 90% of

senior executives interviewed was that e-business

was not only about electronic service delivery,

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employees’ ways of working, in terms of approach

and attitude:

For the future NMA, there is no business but

e-busi-ness! We must become a more agile organisation

able to respond to our customers and partners

needs at “internet-speed.” … The IT technology

is the engine room of this change providing the

infrastructure, information systems and user sup-port in transforming the organisation However,

if we are to succeed in achieving our strategic aims and becoming an e-business, it is essential that we develop new ways of working We must improve our day-to-day business practices and ensure that we get the best out of people, knowl-edge, systems and facilities (Chief Technology

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The process of strategy formulation resulted

in a series of 21 investment projects that were JURXSHGLQWRVWUDWHJLFLQLWLDWLYHVUHÀHFWLQJWKHLU interconnected nature (Table 2)

3XWWLQJWKHFXVWRPHU¿UVWLQLWLDWLYH involved

the adoption of e-business principles and technol-ogy to ensure that each customer and partner is managed at segment and individual levels In the words of the Initiative Manager:

Table 2 Projects under the e-strategy

Strategic Initiative Corresponding Projects

Putting the

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Customer Web sites New Web site for the organisation Customer Relationship Management On-line Service

Digital Mapping

Strategic alliances Establishment

Joined-up government Alliance Extranet

The new mapping

agency

New ways of working and Project Platinum Knowledge management

“Help yourself” (personalised online support for all employees) 5DLVLQJWKHUHWXUQDQHZ¿QDQFLDOPRGHO

Developing the

market

Developing the Digital National Geographic Database E-Brands

Location-based standards E-Business channels Market Development team Pricing and licensing

Enabling

infrastructure

Enhancing the IT infrastructure Off-site 24/7 availability Enterprise Wide Software Suite (ESS)

This initiative is critical because it will allow us to

create and deliver more innovative products much

faster to our customers It will allow us to become

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range of activities (Initiative Manager, 2001)

Customers were offered online access to a wide

range of mapping data, product demonstrations

to show the versatility of NMA data and

tailor-made Web gateways into the mapping agency,

each fostering improved, more focused customer

service These gateways included facilities for

the online ordering and delivery of existing data

products at any time of the day or night or requests

for special mapping surveys Each customer Web

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partner as well as access to generic information

and functionality available to wider groups

By December 2002, the implementation of a

portal Web infrastructure environment increased

WKHHI¿FLHQF\RISHUVRQDOLVDWLRQDQGFXVWRPLVD-tion provided to customers In parallel, the NMA

Web site was redeveloped to become a gateway

for location-based services and information and

an enterprisewide software was implemented to

allow better customer relationship management

Users of the new Web site were able to access

loca-tion-based information and services either directly

provided by NMA or indirectly by partners and

account holders (customers and partners) could

order digital and graphic mapping online

The strategic alliance initiative involved

the establishment of a strategic alliance to help

drive the location-based information industry

forward in a cohesive manner and develop

col-laborative working between NMA and other parts

of the government with the help of e-business

technology It involved joined-up geography by

using NMA data and referencing framework to

combine other location-based information from

other government bodies, for example, land

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parcels, and land use It also marked a change in the way NMA was making available its datasets

to users, by enabling partners to commercialise WKLVGDWDRQEHKDOIRI10$LQDPRUHÀH[LEOH way The initiative manager talks of the overall project as follows:

This initiative ensures that our NMA has the right strategic relationships to help grow the geographic information industry Our organisation holds an important position in the location based informa-tion industry but must work with key players in government and the private sector to realise the vision (Initiative Manager, 2001)

The new mapping agency initiative focused

on the people implications of the transformation

of NMA into an e-business The Project Manager states:

Whilst each of the other four strategic initiatives GHOLYHUVLQLWVRZQZD\VLJQL¿FDQWFKDQJHWRWKH business, this initiative is the one that touches every single person in NMA These projects are all closely related to our people and the way we do things The focus is on simple and more effective ways of working whilst focusing on the needs of the customer (Initiative Manager, 2001)

$SURJUDPPHFDOOHG³1HZ:D\VRI:RUN-ing” addressed issues associated with the current organisational structure, people, culture, com-munication, and the way employees worked The clear target was to make these elements more streamlined, adaptive, responsive, and customer-driven This included changing the existing working practices, the implementation of new performance management, and reward systems focused on rewarding performance, changing the way information and knowledge are captured, coordinated, and made readily available within the organisation (knowledge management), and the implementation of a new software which

allowed employees to manage their personnel

records online whilst also eliminating

unneces-sary paperwork, procedures, administration, and

costly support functions

The organisation needed new competencies

and skills among existing managers, so that they

could drive forward the change programme

Cur-rent management capabilities were characterised

by excellent technical abilities but poor people

management skills, especially in terms of

manag-ing change and risk It was considered that, in order

to change the culture of the organisation, leaders

and management teams had to develop themselves

in readiness to embrace the new challenges and

opportunities facing NMA Therefore, a new

SURJUDPPHHQWLWOHG³3URMHFW3ODWLQXP´ZDVGH-signed to help leaders understand how they could

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the competencies and skills required in leaders,

and set in place a programme which could develop

the behaviours supporting those competencies

As part of this initiative, a set-piece event—NMA

Experience—was organised in December 2001

The event was attended by all the employees and

was designed to explain to everyone the new vision

and values of the organisation as an attempt to

change the strong supportive civil service culture,

rich in custom and practice, develop a new culture

in line with the new direction of the organisation,

and encourage creative and innovative behaviours

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focused, quick, working together, able to take

some risks, interested and excited by challenge,

personally accountable, commercially oriented,

and rewarded for results

Developing the market initiative involved

developing new partnerships and using new

chan-nels to reach new customers In the past, NMA

focused on an established core of customers in

a relatively mature market with sectors such as

central government, local government, and

utili-ties These customers increasingly expected better

quality products and services in a market that

tion needed thus not only to develop the existing PDUNHWVEXWDOVRWR¿QGQHZPDUNHWVDQGZRUN with partners to develop new applications that will SURYLGHEHQH¿WVWRHQGFXVWRPHUV7KLVLQYROYHG adopting a proactive brand strategy, with a focus on digital location-based information and the launch

of a new idea of geographic database—Master Map Innovative in concept, Master Map was not

a map in the traditional sense but a digital map framework through which customers could access the precise mapping data they needed It offered a KLJKOHYHORIÀH[LELOLW\DQGDFRPSOHWHUHIHUHQFH system for Britain’s geographical data As the

supports customers evolving needs, develops existing markets and opens new opportunities to ensure that NMA is the content provider of choice” (Initiative Manager, 2001)

Enabling infrastructure initiative involved

building a robust new infrastructure of systems to underpin the e-business A considerable amount

of infrastructure has been put in place to support the whole of the e-strategy but particularly the Master Map idea The Internet, extranet, and intranet applications were all upgraded and, in RUGHUWRHQKDQFHFXVWRPHUEHQH¿WDQGRSHUDWLRQDO HI¿FLHQFLHVWKHROGV\VWHPVZHUHUHSODFHGZLWK

a single, integrated, enterprisewide software application platform This integrated software

package, called Enterprise-Wide Software Suite

(ESS), offered a single repository for all NMA’s data and was implemented in association with technology partners One of the programme managers expressed a commonly held view:

The Enabling Infrastructure provides the foun-dation for the success of the e—Strategy The application and technical environment that we EXLOGPXVWSURYLGHWKHHI¿FLHQFLHVWKDWDOORZXVWR operate in an increasingly dynamic and delivery focused organisation Information Technology (IT) provides the infrastructure, information systems and user support in transforming the

organisa-the e-business activities will be sustainable To a

lesser or greater extent, we have all been frustrated

when a system let us down, whether it be our own

personal Internet Service Provider or a corporate

system As our business becomes increasingly

dependent on IT systems, we have to avoid those

frustrating (and potentially damaging) failures,

as it is through the Enabling infrastructure

initia-tive that we aim to do this (Programme Manager,

Enabling Infrastructure, 2002)

IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES

Organisational Restructuring

In order to successfully implement the e-business

strategy, the structure of the organisation was

reviewed and reorganised in November 2001

As the CEO summed up the rationale for this

strategic initiative:

The need for accurate, reliable locational

infor-mation underpins so many of the new services

coming on stream and in Britain, no one has better

locational information than us … But to stay at

the forefront of the geographical industry we must

keep pace with the market That’s why we’re not

only investing in e-business initiatives but have

already put in place a whole new organisational

structure to make it a reality (Chief Executive,

2001)

The realignment of internal group structures

and board responsibilities resulted in:

busi-nesses, based around distinct customer

groups—Digital and Graphic Brands The

two brands’ businesses were focused on

introducing new and innovative ways of

working with commercial and government

partners to meet different customer group

needs Amongst such innovative approaches were the establishment of a joint-venture company with a commercial partner, with the aim of providing consistent and maintained points of interest data for the industry and

an estimated £35 million content deal with a mobile phone operator that would allow mo-bile users to access coloured maps featuring real-time displays of various locations

that was charged with championing the transformation of the way the organisation did business and in particular managing the implementation of the e-business strategy

Ownership of the Strategy

Ownership, accountability, and leadership were essential elements of the successful implementa-tion of the NMA e-business strategy As change was intended to be transformational and to af-fect all the aspects of the organisation and the levels within it, the entire programme has been top-down driven, with the provision of a clear, sustained direction that was well resourced and coordinated The instigators of the transformation were the leaders of the organisation and the Strat-egy and Operating Board—including Executive and Nonexecutive Directors—had been heavily involved in the e-business strategy and monitor its implementation In addition, each strategic initiative had a director-level owner who was ac-FRXQWDEOHWRWKHERDUGIRUGHOLYHULQJWKHEHQH¿WV

of that initiative Full-time initiative managers who focused on coordinating activity within their initiative have been appointed

At project level, business owners have been LGHQWL¿HG ZKR ZHUH FKDPSLRQV IRU WKHLU SURM-ects within the implementation Project owners were responsible for ensuring that their projects GHOLYHUHGWKHEHQH¿WVDQWLFLSDWHGLQWKHVWUDWHJ\ Where IT projects were involved in the delivery, the business owners worked in close conjunction with IT Programme and Project Managers

Risk Management, Change Control,

and Financial Monitoring at

Appropriate Levels

Mechanisms have been implemented to ensure

the adequate management of risks, costs, and

change control during the implementation The

Operating Board received updates on

implemen-tation progress, including costs, on a fortnightly

basis with a more detailed review undertaken

six-weekly through a business health check

exercise In addition, a weekly implementation

steering group (chaired by the Director of

Busi-ness Change and including the Initiative Owner

Directors) monitored strategic level risks, costs,

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to project contracts and business cases were

ap-proved by initiative owners and reported to the

steering group Furthermore, programme and

project boards have been established within each

initiative and these dealt with the day-to-day detail

of implementation monitoring, cost control, and

minor change control

Internal Communication

In order to engage all employees in the business

transformation associated with the

implementa-tion of the e-business strategy, considerable effort

has been put into a coordinated programme of

internal communication, which included:

December 2000 and June 2001, including

interactive and multimedia demonstrations

of live and prototype systems

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onwards

Board—cascade briefed by managers to all

staff and reported on Intranet

with project aims and progress

activity to help focus all staff on the busi-ness transformation

Further Restructuring

In May 2002, a new Human Resources Direc-tor, recruited from the commercial secDirec-tor, was appointed to drive forward the people side of the change programme At her initiative, in August

2002, a team of senior managers undertook an HLJKWZHHN UHYLHZ H[HUFLVH HQWLWOHG ³(PHUDOG City”) which involved looking forward to the future and identifying the challenges and oppor-tunities that the organisation was likely to face LQWKUHHWR¿YH\HDUV¶WLPHDQGKRZWKHEXVLQHVV could be driven forward

Following this review, in September 2002, the board announced a further restructuring of the organisation to help develop stronger teams and networks around the core processes (Figure 1) DQGWRFUHDWHDPRUHÀH[LEOHVWUXFWXUHZLWKPRUH ÀH[LEOHSURFHVVHVDQGFRPPXQLFDWLRQSDWWHUQV 7KLVZDVDFFRPSDQLHGE\DUHYLHZRIVWDI¿QJ levels in different functional and subfunctional areas and 300 people were, consequently, re-leased A consequence of this restructuring was that a number of old divisions and functions were either eliminated or merged, in order to obtain D OHDQHU ÀDWWHU VWUXFWXUH DQG LQFUHDVH RYHUDOO HI¿FLHQF\RIWKHEXVLQHVV

The proposed new structure involved merging the Digital and Graphic Brands businesses into a single Sales and Market Development Group and creating a separate Programmes and Products Group, each headed by a Director The Business Change Group activities were absorbed within other parts of the organisation To give greater integration to corporate communications, the Corporate Communications Department has been integrated into the Human Resources and Corporate Services Group led by the HR

Direc-other groups.

As a result of these changes, the new structure

due to be implemented starting with November

2002 incorporates seven major groups (Figure 2):

strategy; human resources and corporate services;

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innovation; data collection and management;

programmes and products; and sales and market

development

The previous structure created in November

2001 in relation to the e-strategy implementation

served its purpose of focusing the organisation

of work on developing new products and markets and gave an impetus to particular projects It allowed NMA to strengthen its digital offering and also gave the graphic side of the business the FRQ¿GHQFH DQG VSDFH WR GHYHORS DQG EHWZHHQ them both business groups could identify notable successes

The new structure implemented in September

RIIHUHGDPXFKKLJKHUOHYHORIIXQFWLRQDOÀH[-ibility It gave clarity to the end-to-end processes

of the business—from collecting data, through the production processes, and on the supply of data

Figure 1 Core business processes in NMA

Figure 2 The new organisational structure

Data Collection and Management

The National Geospatial Database

Production and technical product marketing

Sales and customer marketing

Strategy and International & Government Relations

Finance and Procurement Human Resources and Corporate Services Information Systems, Web, Research and Innovation

Supported by

CEO and management team

Strategy

Human Resources and Corporate Services

Finance

Inf Systems, Web, Research and Innovation

Data Collection and Management

Programmes and Products

Sales and Market Development

to partners and customers, whilst allowing the

development of stronger cross-functional teams

and networks around core processes The number

of hierarchical levels between top management

and business groups teams has been substantially

reduced and the seven groups have been organised

along business processes, giving a lot of

opera-tional freedom to Group Managers This freedom

was balanced by a stronger planning process in

the organisation, with group teams working with

the strategy people on the overall planning

The different cross-functional teams created

meant increased horizontal communication

be-tween groups as well as vertical bebe-tween the top

management team and group teams, facilitated by

the use of modern information technology The

new organisation of work was trying to combine

the strengths of a functionally arranged organi-sational structure, offering a better coordination RIWKHFRUHEXVLQHVVSURFHVVZLWKWKHÀH[LELOLWLHV

in terms of vertical communication offered by a process-based structure

The transition from the old structure to the new one was a lengthy process The old structure was effectively being moved to the new structure on a level by level basis As employees in the positions made redundant under the voluntary redundancy scheme were leaving the organisation, the remain-ing positions were beremain-ing rearranged in the new VWUXFWXUHDQGVWDIIZHUHQRWL¿HGDERXWWKHQHZ positions Transition structures were being used to prop up the old structure and keep the day-to-day operations going The implementation of the new

Figure 3 Event chart, e-strategy implementation and follow-up (2000-2004)

New CEO

(August 2000)

New ways

of working Project Platinum

Emerald City

NMA Experience

21 Projects

Change Programme E-Strategy

(September 2000)

(January 2001)

- Vision

- Values

- Int Comms

(December 2001)

New HR Director

(May 2002)

Enterprise Wide Software Suite (ESS)

(August 2002)

(December 2002)

Organisational Change

- Reorganisation

- New structure

(April 2003)

New strategy 2005-2008 Focus

4 Years

People Data Delivery Customers

In parallel with these structural changes,

in order to track and predict customer, market,

DQG EUDQG SUR¿WDELOLW\ D &RUSRUDWH %DODQFHG

Scorecard with six performance dimensions

¿QDQFLDOSHUIRUPDQFHTXDOLW\RIVHUYLFHÀH[-ibility; competitiveness; resource utilisation;

and innovation) has been introduced as a way of

consolidating corporate performance measures

and focus them upon core strategy components

The aim of introducing the balanced scorecard,

in addition to other measurement tools such as

customer satisfaction surveys, employee

opin-ions, and monthly business health checks, was to

provide the management board with the means

to monitor the progress of the business on an

on-going basis In addition, the strategy team could

liaise better with individual business planners

(Business Groups’ Directors) for coordinating

business processes across teams and establish

integrated performance measures

By December 2004, all the 21 projects

com-prising the e-strategy were fully completed and

their success benchmarked against their key

de-liverables A new business strategy 2005-2008,

focused on how NMA will be meeting customer

needs in the next four years, was created, building

on some of the success aspects of the previous

e-strategy: the creation of better data collection,

maintenance and management systems as well as

the development of new products and geographic

solutions through partnerships with other public

and private organisations An event chart of the

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An overall assessment of the change efforts

driven by the e-business implementation between

2000 and 2004 suggests the e-strategy

implemen-tation was a success The progress made towards

transforming the way the organisation worked was

acknowledged by customers, partners, suppliers,

and e-business experts, and employees noticed a

marked improvement in their working

environ-ment In addition to this feedback, the e-strategy

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of the E-Envoy in 2004 and this rating indicated that the NMA’s strategy was seen as a success-ful plan of action that has largely been met with key deliverables offering customers and staff QHZEHQH¿WV$QRSHUDWLQJSUR¿WRI…PLOOLRQ was forecasted by April 2005 thanks to careful management of costs, growth in revenue, and rigorous prioritisation of investments

LESSONS LEARNED

The digital revolution offered huge opportunities for the organisation to improve the services that it provided to its customers, enhance its interaction with partners, and revolutionised the way people ZRUNHG¿UVWE\UHGUDZLQJWKHZD\LQZKLFKWKRVH VHUYLFHVDUHSURYLGHGWRFDSWXUHWKHIXOOEHQH¿WVRI technology and, second, by tailoring the services

to the needs of individual citizens, customers, and businesses Electronic service delivery enabled 10$WREHFRPHIDUPRUHUHVSRQVLYHDQGÀH[-ible, as well as creating the opportunity to harvest VLJQL¿FDQWHI¿FLHQF\EHQH¿WV

The steps taken to meet the organisational challenges of implementing the e-business strat-egy across the organisation therefore provide a list of best practices for this particular situation (see Table 3) Several success factors relevant to e-business implementation emerged from this account:

First, one major lesson from this experience was that a successful organisational transforma-tion involving e-business implementatransforma-tion requires clear leadership from the top management team The NMA e-strategy has been created as the strategic blueprint to develop the business and

¿UPO\SRVLWLRQLWLQWKHQHZLQIRUPDWLRQHFRQRP\ The strategy was transforming the business at all levels, culturally, technically, and commer-cially Fundamental to all of this activity was the requirement to create the environment in which NMA could successfully deliver its strategy for the business This has required the Senior

Man-Table 3 Best practices for the implementation of the e-business strategy

sector as a public sector executive agency moving towards a competitive commercial model

- Design a strategy that would capitalise on the unique position of the NMA

the market, as the biggest geographical information provider in UK with market-ready cutting-edge technology and high levels of internal capability - Establish strategic alliances to help drive the location-based information industry forward in a cohesive manner - Develop collaborative working between NMA

our unique position Something that enabled the or ganisation to have learning and, at the end of the experience, the learning would be r

Need to develop and communicate a clear e-business vision and the concept behind the change to the or

as a whole and to all stakeholders, especially end-users (customers and partners)

of the change to the people involved in the 21 projects and to all employees by using mobilising events such as ‘NMA ([SHULHQFH¶

the projects, lets the team know where they stand and where they are headed, and encourage commitment to the cause through the use of various internal communication mechanisms

was to move the senior management up in the eyes of the workfor

Table 3 continued

Create a feeling of ownership for the e- strategy at project level and a commitment at all levels of the or

owners involved early in the e-strategy projects - Communication events important in creating belief and feeling of ownership

channels between the project teams and between the Sales and Marketing teams and customers

put in place to develop channels for and manage the communication between the dif

and quarterly status meetings help to keep all parties updated on each other

progress and on the progress of the e- strategy implementation as a whole

2002) “Communication forms the gr

communication, consultation and involvement strategy is what will make it happen” (Pr

retain traditional loyal customers (public sector & utilities) whilst developing emer

- From products to relationships: shift from a customer relationship management (CRM) focused on products or processes to a CRM philosophy focused on customer segments and the solutions they require 

groups - Focus NMA

improving core business processes (data collection and management) and involve commercial partners in translating this digital data into business solutions that meet end users’

these companies rather than compete with them So partnership development is an important part of our strategy

ones, to get them develop solutions for us” (Senior manager

management side of the business.” (Business Impr

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innovation; data collection and management;

programmes and products; and sales and market... between the project teams and between the Sales and Marketing teams and customers

put in place to develop channels for and manage the communication between the dif

and quarterly status