TOCI was established in 1992 and has since evolved into a leading independent IT infrastructure design and relocation provider for Data Centers and Office Space. TOCI is a tiny, family-owned and controlled firm with a very unique set of talents and expertise. Because my company is smaller, we can provide a more family-oriented service and have been able to keep clients for a long period due to our performance. Few firms in our area can compete without technical skills and ability, giving us an advantage over our competition. We have an extremely competent and knowledgeable staff that is comprised of technical experts in IT relocation projects, technology refreshes, data center and office space design services, structure cable design and wiring, and wireless connectivity among other things.
The key issues in my organization come down to the size of the staff, the finances of the organization, and the services we provide. Due to our smaller staff compared to our competitors, we cannot take on as many projects as they can at one time since it will spread the organization too thin to work effectively. Furthermore, we have only been able to compete in the New York, New Jersey, and Canada area due to our smaller staff, which affects the number of clients we can have. Financially, we have trouble competing with others in our field. Because of this, we cannot have as large of a staff, cannot have as wide of a range of location of our clients, and cannot continue to compete at the level we are at if taxes increase too high or we are unable to retain or recruit as many clients to make a profit. The services we provide are very specific in nature, and it can sometimes turn away clients who are looking for a fuller, more complete package of services which they can receive from other competitors in our field.
Some challenges that are evident for the future include our finances, our staff size, and our range of services, which has been addressed previously. Although we face these challenges at this time, we have been able to work through them by being subject matter experts and have developed a solid and respected reputation in our field. We must continue to combat these challenges moving forward and ensure we address these issues before they become too large to handle for my organization to continue work.
Scope for this paper
TOCI has been operating in telecommunications industry that is a very specific and difficult field to stay competitive in. This industry services many other industries, especially in consulting, but utilizes a similar analytic approach as applied to the field of telecommunications. Within the industry, work such as IT relocation projects, technology refreshes, data center services, office space services, structure cabling design and wiring, and wireless connectivity. Technology is the cornerstone of the telecommunications industry and to stay competitive you must be constantly pursuing and furthering your knowledge in the field and the growth of technology as it is ever changing and getting more advanced.
Analysis of Each Delta Component
Data
Context: Target niche: customers and employees of TOCI.
Current (AS IS) Stage: Need to collect more representative sets of data, based on interviewing senior management of the company.
Aspiration/Goal (TO BE) Stage (in 3 years): Improve data maintenance mechanisms.
Major differences between current state and goal: New sets of data, as collected from different departments, should be better critically and analytically assessed, based on their relevance to the set of corporate goals.
Key obstacles to achieving goal: restricted budget; HR problem.
Actions/recommendations to reach goal: use statistical software, engage personnel to help to collect data.
Enterprise Technology, Platform, Techniques and Tools
Context. The company has to keep on extensive improvements of its organizational IS to optimize business processes.
Current (AS IS) Stage. The internal organizational IS is outdated and experiences little capacity for data storage, mismatch to privacy issues and time tracking / scheduling options.
Aspiration/Goal (TO BE) Stage (in 3 years): implement SafeWork as the best solution to track decision making and time analytically, forecast expenses, time schedules, distribution of projects assigned to different employees, etc.
Major differences between current state and goal: the present IS does not allow to track working time and set schedules for employees in the current organizational structure.
Key obstacles to achieving goal: HR resistance to changes; poor organizational training.
Actions/recommendations to reach goal: install the project management software: SPSS, IBM, SQL, SSIS and SafeWork time tracking application, based on Windows OS.
Leadership and Culture
Context. The organization has to address global issues, as cooperating with foreign partners, investors, and stakeholders. In this relation, analytical solution on business intelligence are required.
Current (AS IS) Stage: At present time, the company fails to elaborate the effective response to challenges in the global market perspective.
Aspiration/Goal (TO BE) Stage (in 3 years): improve organizational culture through ethical (moral) leadership “by rewarding, encouraging, empowering, motivating, managing ethical accountability, and demonstrating ethical decision making, ethical leaders establish the ethical tone of an organization” (Watts, 2008, p.6) to ensure productive organizational development (Northouse, 2016).
Major differences between current state and goal. In the future perspectives, it would be essential to modify the current formal approach towards organizational communication between personnel in different company’s departments and shift their dedication towards mutual cooperation
Key obstacles to achieving goal: HR resistance to innovation; insufficient motivation to change; poor team work performance.
Actions/Recommendations to reach goal: set up responsive “computer systems to analyze data and support decision making” (Davenport 11); enhance business performance with analytical applications for generation the human / automated decisions to optimize business intelligence processes; integrate reliable decision support systems (DSS).
Analytical Targets, Priorities and Applications
Context. The highest priority for TOCI is to set analytically based decision-making approach into corporate culture, based on the “exploration-based learning process” (Hislop 87), as the organization has been framed into the context of customer-oriented strategic policy to address needs of clients (Mainaridi 2010).
Current (AS IS) Stage. Insufficiency in stability of IS functionality and data maintenance systems.
Aspiration/Goal (TO BE) Stage (in 3 years): improve IS, implement principles of analytical knowledge management in proposed solutions on software applications incorporation.
Major differences between current state and goal: currently the organization uses outdated standards for knowledge management to fail the dedicated fulfillment of the most essential priority: to meet customers’ needs.
Key obstacles to achieving goal: HR dissatisfaction; poor organizational performance; failure to address global challenges; undeveloped approaches to business intelligence in use.
Actions/recommendations to reach goal: According to Hislop (2005), exploratory based approach to analytical knowledge management that “involves the development and assimilation of new knowledge” will help to start exploration and direct observation on data, “through interpretation, experimentation, integration, and industrialization processes” (87-88).
Analytical Talent
Context. The context of the present business environment for the company includes intellectual capital as new wealth, which “output” is innovation” (Stewart 231).
Current (AS IS) Stage: The IS is to be improved with the shared approach to new intelligence based software applications space, based on Windows OS platform.
Aspiration/Goal (TO BE) Stage (in 3 years): discover of the best of work out of implementation of highly efficient analytical applications in use.
Major differences between current state and goal: When compared with the past teams, they did not require “the same amount of members, diversity, long-distance cooperation, or expertise that teams now need to solve global business challenges.” (Gratton and Erickson 109); however, in the light of the present business perspectives and processes of globalization that spread actively, modern companies should compete to address the global community of diverse customers wordwide.
Key obstacles to achieving goal: poor organizational cohesiveness; low corporate motivation.
Actions/recommendations to reach goal: keep on vision of ethical leadership; work in team that praises corporate responsibility; praise for analytical talent.
Action plan, roadmap & rationale for analytics
Top three (3) investments
domestic;
Foreign;
Partnership with global initiatives.
Corporate engagemnet.
Top three (3) applications
Safework;
Virtual design application (vda);
orion connection.
OVERALL IMPACT ON COMPANY STRATEGY
The implementation of the suggested SafeWork application will help to improve the present IS of TOCI, based on initiatives by project managers to improve analytical approach to leadership. It is efficiency of work that ensures transparency and fairness within the company team. Cohesiveness, respect, and mutual responsibility drive productive changes to shared decision-making. Improvement in internal and external communication enables prospective changes to data management principles that helps to address challenges in the context of transformational dynamics of globalization processes worldwide.
INDUSTRY FOUR PILLARS ASSESSMENT
The four pillars of analytical competition describe the ways companies can leverage data in order to improve their competitiveness (Davenport and Harris 2007). Telecommunications companies must embrace the four pillars in order to remain efficient and relevant.
Distinctive Capability
There’s not a big threat of new entrants into our industry. The telecommunications industry is one that requires a reputation in the field, which takes time, clients, and an expertise. Our specific expertise is that of another level and different skillset than those in our field, which is how we stay competitive without being a major player in regards to our size or client base. There are not many organizations that have the capabilities we have.
Enterprise-wide Analytics
The biggest challenge at TOCI to achieve enterprise-wide analytics is adoption and acceptance by the organization. Organizations like the Orion Connection employ people, and people generally do not like to change the way they do things. We have senior leadership that have been working in this industry for upwards of 30 years. With this much experience, it is difficult to employ change from newcomers when we have experienced and accomplished leaders with their own beliefs in methods and strategies.
Senior Executive Commitment
Telecommunication consulting companies like TOCI are primarily dedicated to serving senior executives. We can help them make more informed decisions, as well as provide multiple courses of action and our recommendations. With our innovativeness in the industry, we can also come up with new and unseen ways to accomplish tasks, as well as being able to provide services that some of our competitors are unable to provide. Data analytics need to first be approved and used by our senior leadership. Once it is accepted there, we can then begin to implement it into use by our employees to our clients.
Large Scale Ambition
Exapnding the organization into newer, untapped markets, such as moving out of the northeast, would increase the organizations market share, income, and allow for an expansion of the workforce. By expanding the organization, employing more workers, and gaining new clients, we will increase our competitiveness within the industry.
INDUSTRY FIVE STAGES ASSESSMENT
Overall, with the telecommunications industry we are on a level 1 of the Five Stages of Analytical Competition (Davenport and Harris 2007). Analytics and its uses are ignored and underutilized by my organization, so without hesitation I must give my organization a level 1.
TOCI can certainly advanced to a higher level of analytical competition through employing and implementing it across the organization. With the use of more advanced business models, statistics, and more attention to detail and programming, we can easily move up to level 3 within the course of a year if we focused on improving our analytics. If we spent more time using and implementing the use of analytics, we would be a more successful and reputable organization, but we are stuck in the notion of completing the mission for the client which is a job well done. We are not thinking of how to advance our organization on a national scale, or even to adapt a more common day approach to it. We have the organization we work for and consult for under contract and are able to do that while furthering our business through other organizations when needed.
Conclusion
I have thoroughly discussed the use, as well as the lack of use, of analytics in my organization. This has shown me that my organization has been slacking in regards to our utilization of analytics. Specifically, how much information and knowledge we are missing out on, as well as the money and time we are leaving on the table. TOCI is not one of the major players in the telecommunications industry, and after analyzing its use of analytics for decision-making and other purposes; it is not much of a surprise. TOCI needs to make some adjustments in order to continue its growth if it wants to become a bigger player in this field. However, it is evident that TOCI has been an effective and successful organization. With that being said, through the implementation of analytics and a more aggressive business model, we can expand and become more of a competitor in this industry. Time will only tell, in regards to change as well as in regards to the methods of our senior leadership. Seeing other organizations surpass us would be reason to change, however, this has not been occurring. Until it begins to affect our ability to get jobs and complete them, I do not think it is reasonable to expect change in the near future. As we know, technology changes everyday, so the future of an organization in this field is never guaranteed because you can never stay stagnant in this game.
Works CITED
Davenport, T.H. & Harris, J.G. (2007). Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.
Hislop, Donald. “Knowledge Management in Organizations: A Critical Introduction”. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. Accessed 23 September 2015.
Mainaridi, Cesare. “The Right to Win.” Strategy + Business, Issue 61, 2010.
http://www.strategy-business.com/article/10407?pg=all
Gratton and Erickson.“Eight ways to build collaborative teams.” Harvard Business Review, November Issue, 2007: 101-109. Web. http://morris.lis.ntu.edu.tw/KM2016/wp-content/uploads/KM/W14-1GrattonErickson2007.pdf
Mainaridi, Cesare. “The Right to Win.” Strategy + Business, 61 (2010). Web.
http://www.strategy-business.com/article/10407?pg=all
Northouse, P.G. Leadership Theory and Practice, (7th Ed.). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications, 2016.
Stewart, Thomas A. Structural Capital Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations. New York: Currency and Doubleday, 1997.
Watts, Th. Business leaders' values and beliefs regarding decision making ethics. Morrisville, NC: LuLu.com., 2008. ISBN 9781435747685.
required exhibits
Agility and Flexibility
Productivity
Reduce SD Failures Risk
SU_01
...
1
SU_02
…
2
PM Project
SU_03
…
3
Project Plan
SU_04
…
4
Conception
SU_05
…
5
Teamwork
SU_06
…
6
Counseling
SU_07
…
7
Cooperation
SU_08
…
8
Coding (SD)
SU_09
…
9
Check Code
SU_10
…
10
Correct/Rev
SU_11
…
11
Testing
Gannt Chart (Project Schedule)
