Integrando nueva tecnología a los procesos organizacionales de la empresa

Abrir artículo en el Browser. September 12, 2006 Integrating New Technology into Organizational Business Processes Article published in DM Direct Special Report September 12, 2006 Issue< By Cheryl Strait Transforming business processes to coordinate with new technology capabilities requires collaborative and strategic discussions within an organization, especially across functional areas. Process discussions across functional areas should involve IT personnel, business process subject matter experts, training and development personnel, and executive sponsors. The goal of these discussions is the identification of integration points and elimination of duplicate processes and applications. Figure 1: Collaboration and Strategic Discussions Enable Transformation Executives continue to approve budgetary spending for technology to reap the ROI that technology companies promise their products will yield as an outcome of operational efficiency gains. However, the most important thing executives must remember when faced with promised technology ROIs is that realizing gains does not occur with technology implementation; ROI occurs when business processes are reengineered to successfully integrate with the new technology. The integration of technology with business processes sets the stage for operational transformation, enabling the desired efficiency gains to be realized. In other words, integrating technology and business processes is the first step. The next step is for people to change their behavior to incorporate the newly integrated business processes and technology into their daily work habits. Widespread collaboration and strategic discussions are crucial to realizing an organization's desired ROI goals when planning a new technology deployment. Achieving integration of technology with business processes requires a collaborative effort within a well-defined technology process reengineering team. Players assigned as team members to the technology process reengineering project should include executive sponsors as well as individual owners of the organization's business processes, technology, and training and development. Each individual plays an important role in realizing organizational business transformation. Executive sponsors - Executives provide leadership, commitment, visibility and direction to the project. Their involvement establishes a sense of urgency crucial in motivating project teams and the organization as a whole. Business process owners - Business process owners provide identification of impacted processes and visibility into process details. These individuals play a key role in identifying process integration points and duplicate processes across an organization. Technology owners - Technology owners are the subject matter experts for the new technology. They provide the expertise in understanding how business processes can be automated or integrated with the new technology. They also assist with identifying duplicate technologies that may exist within the organization. Training and development owners - Training and development activities are important to successfully managing organizational change. Training and development owners are responsible for keeping the end user in mind, defining communication requirements, and outlining requirements for education and training. As the team is formed, they can pose initial questions to each other to start heading down the path of successfully integrating technology with business processes and achieving effective organizational change. Figure 2 provides example questions that will assist the team with focusing their efforts: Figure 2: Questions for Project Teams to Focus Efforts As the project team progresses through their process reengineering discussions, the level of content detail will continue to evolve. Ongoing discussion is critical to ensure that all process integration points are unearthed and appropriately dissected to identify duplicate processes and technologies. The larger the organization, the longer these collaborative discussions will take. Executive sponsors should emphasize the importance of being actively involved throughout the initiative to all team members. This involvement is the basis of a thorough understanding of all impacted processes and necessary for the accurate identification of process integration points and duplicate process activities. Effective collaboration and strategic discussions by the project team provides the foundation for organizational transformation. Change management experts tell us that successful organizational transformation requires involvement by all individuals who will be impacted by the change. For individuals to incorporate new processes and use new technology effectively, they must change their individual work habits. Modifying these habits involves understanding and accepting the need for change and feeling a level of control over it. This does not mean that every individual has a seat at the meeting table. It means that there must be active communication between the project team and the individuals who will be impacted by the new technology and reengineered processes in order for change to occur and to ensure the organization's goals will be met. Through the combined dedicated efforts of an impacted organization, technology ROI is achieved. Cheryl L. Strait is a principal consulting manager at Robbins-Gioia, LLC. She has more than 20 years of experience in business management, including significant experience in project management, process re-engineering, organizational change management and records management. She may be reached at cheryl.strait@robbinsgioia.com. For more information on related topics visit the following related portals... Business Intelligence (BI), Business Process Management (BPM) and ROI. (c) 2007 DM Review and SourceMedia, Inc. All rights reserved. SourceMedia is an Investcorp company. Use, duplication, or sale of this service, or data contained herein, is strictly prohibited

Estudio de mercado 2007 para la industria de la música. emarketer

Abrir artículo en el Browser. MAY 9, 2007 The Music Industry Enters Uncharted Territory Dancing to a new beat. desc fotof With falling CD sales and single downloads failing to pick up the revenue slack, the music industry worldwide has been singing a sad song for the last few years, but that tune is about to change — along with almost everything else in the music business. "eMarketer estimates that the worldwide market for recorded music, live music and music licensing will reach $67.6 billion by 2011, up from the 2006 total of $60.7 billion," says Paul Verna, eMarketer Senior Editor and author of the new Global Music: Tuning into New Opportunities report. "Over that period the industry will grow at an average annual rate of 2.19%." Sales of CDs, which currently account for 55% of the industry's total revenues, will continue to decline sharply, falling to 29% of the overall business by 2011. On the other hand, digital music has been growing exponentially in the past few years and is expected to continue on a healthy growth trajectory, reaching $14.8 billion in worldwide revenues by 2011. The question on the minds of everyone in the recording industry, however, is: Will the digital segment compensate for the losses in physical sales? The answer is a qualified "no." "Nevertheless, growth in other sectors will make up for the shortfall in CD sales," says Mr. Verna, "resulting in net growth for the industry as a whole." That growth will come predominantly from online and mobile music, the live concert industry and the licensing of music for public performances, commercials, TV shows, films and video games. From a marketing perspective, these growth areas happen to lend themselves to creative brand exploitation. "In fact, the climate for marrying brands to musical artists has never been more favorable," says Mr. Verna. "Whereas in the past, rock musicians tended to view commercial associations as 'sellouts,' today the media landscape is rife with name artists who have attached themselves to top brands: U2 and the Apple iPod, Bob Dylan and Victoria's Secret, Robbie Williams and T-Mobile — and the list goes on." With new revenue streams available to artists, songwriters, publishers and record companies, the importance of CD sales relative to the overall mix is diminishing. As Jeff Rabhan, an artist manager, told The Wall Street Journal, "[CD] sales are so down and so off that, as a manager, I look at a CD as part of the marketing of an artist, more than as an income stream. It's the vehicle that drives the tour, the merchandise, building the brand, and that's it." "In the music business, the beat may be changing," says Mr. Verna, "but the beat goes on." For a look ahead at all the many changes coming to the music industry, read the new eMarketer Global Music: Tuning into New Opportunities report today. Get more articles like this one delivered for free. Click here for the eMarketer Daily newsletter. COPYRIGHT ©2007 eMarketer Inc. All rights reserved

Impresión en 3D.

TECHNOLOGY

Beam It Down From the Web, Scotty By SAUL HANSELL Published: May 7, 2007

Jamie Rector for The New York Times Objects made by the new printer.

PASADENA, Calif. — Sometimes a particular piece of plastic is just what you need. You have lost the battery cover to your cellphone, perhaps. Or your daughter needs to have the golden princess doll she saw on television. Now. Related Beaming Up 3-D Objects on a Budget (April 5, 2007) Video: Fab@Home Demonstration (fabathome.org) Fabjectory (fabjectory.com) In a few years, it will be possible to make these items yourself. You will be able to download three-dimensional plans online, then push Print. Hours later, a solid object will be ready to remove from your printer. It's not quite the transporter of "Star Trek," but it is a step closer. Three-dimensional printers have been seen in industrial design shops for about a decade. They are used to test part designs for cars, airplanes and other products before they are sent to manufacturing. Once well over $100,000 each, such machines can now be had for $15,000. In the next two years, prices are expected to fall further, putting the printers in reach of small offices and even corner copy stores. The next frontier will be the home. One company that wants to be the first to deliver a 3-D printer for consumers is Desktop Factory, started by IdeaLab, a technology incubator here. The company will start selling its first printer for $4,995 this year. Bill Gross, chairman of IdeaLab, says the technology it has developed, which uses a halogen light bulb to melt nylon powder, will allow the price of the printers to fall to $1,000 in four years. "We are Easy-Bake Ovening a 3-D model," he said. "The really powerful thing about this idea is that the fundamental engineering allows us to make it for $300 in materials." Others are working on the same idea. "In the future, everyone will have a printer like this at home," said Hod Lipson, a professor at Cornell University, who has led a project that published a design for a 3-D printer that can be made with about $2,000 in parts. "You can imagine printing a toothbrush, a fork, a shoe. Who knows where it will go from here?" Three-dimensional printers, often called rapid prototypers, assemble objects out of an array of specks of material, just as traditional printers create images out of dots of ink or toner. They build models in a stack of very thin layers, each created by a liquid or powdered plastic that can be hardened in small spots by precisely applied heat, light or chemicals. 3D Systems, a pioneer in the field, plans to introduce a three-dimensional printer later this year that will sell for $9,900. "We think we can deliver systems for under $2,000 in three to five years," said Abe Reichental, the company's chief executive. "That will open a market of people who are not just engineers — collectors, hobbyists, interior decorators." Even at today's prices, uses for 3-D printers are multiplying. Colleges and high schools are buying them for design classes. Dental labs are using them to shape crowns and bridges. Doctors print models from CT scans to help plan complex surgery. Architects are printing three-dimensional models of their designs. And the Army Corps of Engineers used the technology to build a topographical map of New Orleans to help plan reconstruction. Entrepreneurs like Fabjectory are beginning to find interest in 3-D printing among aficionados of online games, like Second Life and World of Warcraft, in which players design their own characters. Electronic Arts hopes to offer a similar service to create three-dimensional models of characters in Spore, a game to be introduced later this year. Eventually, 3-D design software will let people make sculptures and design housewares at home. But 3-D printers may be useful for people who do not want to learn how to use such sophisticated programs. IdeaLab hopes companies will sell three-dimensional designs over the Internet. This would allow people to print out replacements for a dishwasher rack at home. And it would open up new opportunities for toys. "You could go to Mattel.com, download Barbie, scan your Mom's head, slap the head on Barbie and print it out," suggests Joe Shenberger, the director of sales for Desktop Factory. "You could have a true custom one-off toy." How many people will want such a thing? It is impossible to say for sure, but some who work with the current crop of 3-D printers say they will be very attractive when the price puts them in reach of home users. "When laser printers cost more than $5,000, nobody knew they needed desktop publishing," said A. Michael Berman, chief technology officer for the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, which has a half-dozen 3-D printers for its students to use. "The market for 3-D printing isn't as big as for laser printers, but I do believe it is huge." And Desktop Factory's version is meant to be compact enough for a home office — 25 by 20 by 20 inches — with a weight of less than 90 pounds. The origin of Desktop Factory was not so much a desire to print Barbies as a frustration with the Internet. After making a lot of money starting Internet companies like CitySearch, IdeaLab lost even more with flops like eToys. With its investors disgruntled, the company shrank, slowed down and turned its attention from the Web to technologies like solar energy and robotics. "We traded bits for atoms," Mr. Gross said.

Click here for larger image Multimedia Graphic 3-D Printing at Home

IdeaLab's new interest in things required it to build a machine shop, and eventually Mr. Gross bought a 3-D printer from Stratasys. IdeaLab engineers kept the machine going around the clock, experimenting with designs. Mr. Gross even downloaded a model of an octopus to print out for a project on vertebrates in his daughter's eighth-grade biology class. This convinced Mr. Gross that there was a market for 3-D printers, especially if the price could be cut. At first, the prospects looked difficult. The three leading 3-D printer companies all used different technologies, but none seemed simple enough to be modified for inexpensive home devices. Stratasys makes models out of liquid plastic using a very expensive heated print head that resembles a glue gun. 3D Systems uses lasers to harden liquid polymers. And the Z Corporation, a unit of the private equity group EQT, builds models by squirting a sort of glue over layers of sandlike plaster. In a brainstorming session, Kevin Hickerson, an IdeaLab engineer, proposed the method the company would ultimately choose. First the machine spreads a powdered plastic over a roller, which is heated to just below the plastic's melting point. Then a sharply focused beam of light melts dots of plastic on the roller. After the unmelted powder is brushed off, the roller deposits the hot plastic onto a platform. This process is repeated until the object is assembled from the bottom up. It took IdeaLab a year to prove that the basic approach would work and a second year to develop the technology to get the layers to stick to each other properly. (The model is gently squished, as in a sandwich press, after each layer is applied.) And it has taken two more years to write the required software and to create a working design for the first production model. IdeaLab has made about 10 of the printers so far. It is preparing to begin production at its combination office and factory in an industrial building half a mile from the company's headquarters. This summer it will start to deliver its initial test machines to the 200 customers who have agreed to buy them.

Jamie Rector for The New York Times The machine made a turtle, top, and Gumby, from a plastic powder.

Desktop Factory says the machines pose no hazard to users because they use a safe nylon-based material. Some in the 3-D printer industry say Desktop Factory may have cut too many corners. Its first model makes objects with rather jagged edges because it applies layers that are 0.01 inch thick, two to three times thicker than many other machines'. Moreover, it uses a nylon mixed with aluminum and glass that produces gray objects, with a rather sandy finish that many do not find attractive. Kathy Lewis, the chief executive of Desktop Factory, said the company saw enormous initial demand among small engineering firms that simply cannot afford the larger printers, as well as high schools and colleges that teach computer-aided design. To appeal to the home market, she said, the company is trying to develop new materials — a smoother plastic and a very soft, bendable substance suitable for toys. Much of the research in the field is about how to develop materials of various properties that can be applied in tiny digital specs. Cornell's 3-D printer, called Fab@Home, is particularly suited to those experiments because it moves a syringe in three dimensions that can be filled with any substance. So far, it has built objects out of silicone, plaster, Cheez Whiz and Play-Doh. Noy Schaal, a high-school freshman in Louisville, modified the design with a heated syringe to extrude a chocolate bar, decorated with the letters KY for Kentucky. (Koba Industries has started selling kits with all the parts needed to make the Fab@Home design for about $3,000.) Professor Lipson said researchers are developing ways to use the process to build parts with more complex functions. They have preliminary designs for batteries, sensors, and parts that can bend when electricity is applied. "A milestone for us would be to print a robot that would get up and walk out of the printer," Professor Lipson said. "Batteries included."

Copyright by the New York Times 2007