Using IT as a Competitive Advantage

(I submitted this piece in my masters' class and thought to share it here)

Introduction

Information Technology includes information that businesses create and use and the integrated system (hardware and software) for information management (Porter and Millars, 1985). Since information is a potential strategic resource for competitive advantage (Porter and Millar, 1985), it is a likely source of competitive advantage. However, there are conditions for this to take place. According to researches based on the Resource-based View (RBV) of the firm, IT can constitute sustainable competitive advantage if complemented with other internal organisational elements that are inimitable due to social complexity (requiring a mix of intangible firm elements), causal ambiguity (cannot be easily traced to a particular element of the organisation) and path dependencies. Alone, IT does not offer much differentiation as most firms can access common IS resources i.e. ERP, CRM, social media platform, etc. Other conditions include alignment with core processes and strategies, scalable and adaptable IT infrastructure, skilled human resources, IS managerial knowledge, general infrastructure/telecommunications, industry standard/partners as well as sensing and experimentation (Ravichandran & Lertwongsatien, 2005; Melville et al., 2004: 311; Tallon and Pinsonneault, 2011; Carlo et al., 2012). As a valuable resource, IT is much more beneficial when geared towards revenue-generation more than cost reduction (Mithas et al., 2012).

General Electric

General Electric exemplifies the above point very well. The company’s IT investment and use is remarkable, earning it a place among 21 most admired companies making IT a competitive advantage along with Google, P&G, Microsoft and Mayo Clinic (Columbus, 2013). GE’s case is noteworthy as it is not an IT company. It operates in complex, heavy-duty industries involving oil and gas, aviation, healthcare, manufacturing and power generation. Two areas where GE has effectively used IT are in data visualization and social media.

GE uses data visualization to communicate complex activities and information to internal and external stakeholders. According to Linda, executive director of global brand marketing, GE has recorded huge success and media attention since it began using this medium six years ago to show major causes of death across different races (Gavett, 2013). It used it to compress the whole history of summer events since 1900 into a simple illustrative chart. Also, data from its 713 gas turbines are gathered every 15 minutes and displayed in graphical chart indicating power state (on or off), capacity and maximum output of each turbine.

GE’s adoption of online social networking has equally received attention. The conglomerate uses its own social media platform called GE Colab which ‘combines the capabilities of Facebook, Twitter, and other social applications, allowing easy networking, information sharing, instant communication, advanced search, blogging, videoblogs, and more’ (Deiser and Newton, 2013). This has increased media literacy, leading to more flexible interaction among senior and junior staff across divisions, departments and countries.

Theory Validation

GE’s story validates two theoretical models. Firstly, it supports the theory that alignment between IT and business strategy is positively associated with agility (Tallon and Pinsonneault, 2011). Established 130 years ago, GE is still agile, exuding the ease and speed commonly found in relatively new comers like Google and Amazon in experimenting and encouraging technology use. Through reverse mentoring (Deiser and Newton, 2013), management executives sit with techies at Silicon Valley to be taught latest technological trends.  

Secondly, it validates the Ravichandran & Lertwongsatien’s (2005) RBV-based research model regarding pre-conditions for effective IT use. Summarily, the model implies that IT can only yield sustainable competitive advantage if used strategically, integrated with core competencies and combined with internal firm’s capabilities and resources. One of the ways GE integrates IT into its work processes is in using data visualization to narrate complex stories and make its activities easy for everybody to understand. Matched with its capabilities as a leadership factory with good management records whose former employees usually become CEOs in other firms (Lehmberg et al., 2009; Deiser and Newton, 2013), it is no wonder that GE makes the list of companies making IT a source of competitive advantage.

Lessons

Companies aspiring to adopt IS should ensure the IT solutions fit their organisational objectives and strategies. IT should be actively used for work with a view to generating more revenue. For example, a bakery company could use IT to manage orders and inventories and maintain customers’ profile including such details as their interests and purchase behaviors (how often they buy or eat bread weekly). This information will aid projection and help to target specific customers on particular days.

References

Carlo, J. L., Lyytinen, K., & G. M. Rose, (2012) ‘A Knowledge-Based Model of Radical Innovation in Small Software Firms’, MIS Quarterly, 36 (3) pp.865-895.

Columbus, L., (2013) 21 Most Admired Companies Making IT a Competitive Advantage. Available at http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2013/04/01/21-most-admired-companies-making-it-a-competitive-advantage/ (accessed: 24/05/2014)

Deiser, R. and S. Newton, (2013), 'Six social-media skills every leader needs', Insights & Publications. Available at http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/high_tech_telecoms_internet/six_social-media_skills_every_leader_needs (accessed: 26/05/2014)

Gavett, G., (2013), ‘How GE Uses Data Visualization to Tell Complex Stories’, Harvard Business Review. Available at http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/05/how-ge-uses-data-visualization/ (accessed: 25/05/2014)

Lehmberg, D., Rowe, W.G., White, R. E., and J. R. Phillips, (2009) 'The GE paradox: competitive advantage through fungible non-firm-specific investment', Development and Learning in Organizations, 24(3)

Melville, N., Kraemer, K., & V. Gurbaxani, (2004) ‘Review: Information Technology and Organizational Performance: An Integrative Model of IT Business Value’, MIS Quarterly, 28(2) pp.283-322

Mithas, S., A. Tafti, I. Bardhan, & J. Mein Goh, (2012) ‘Information Technology and Company Profitability: Mechanisms and Empirical Evidence’, MIS Quarterly, 36 (1) pp.205-224

Porter, M., & V. E. Millar, (1985) ‘How Information Gives you Competitive Advantage’, Harvard Business Review, pp. 1-13

Ravichandran, T., & C. Lertwongsatien, (2005) ‘Effect of Information Systems Resources and Capabilities on Company Performance: A Resource-Based Perspective’, Journal of Management Information Systems, 21(4) pp.237-276

Tallon, P. P., and A. Pinsonneault, (2011) ‘Competing Perspectives on the Link between Strategic Information Technology Alignment and Organizational Agility: Insights from a Mediation Model’, MIS Quarterly, 35(2) pp.463-486

Diving into Android for one of the finest clubs in the world

I am in the kitchen, cutting and slicing some ingredients I'm going to be using to create a mobile application for one of the finest (and biggest) clubs in the world.

When done, I'm update this post

Before, I'll try to provide updates before completion

The current focus is a quick refresher course on the Android platform 4.0 (ICE CREAM SANDWICH). And these links have been a great help

http://www.vogella.com/articles/Android/article.html#overview_adt

http://developer.android.com/design/get-started/creative-vision.html

Watch out!

Rich User Interface Design Effects Application Success

This link has got good pieces of advice for lazy developers around town http://www.theserverside.com/tip/Rich-user-interface-design-effects-application-success

Squeezed some juice out of Google Maps!

HOW TO IMPLEMENT COVERAGE AREA FUNCTIONALITY BY BUILDING ON GOOGLE MAP
BACKGROUND

Google Maps is a great tool for the free price and certainly, pricing will have little or no effect on the rate of adoption of this tool should there be a price tag on it.
I was faced with a situation where the only recourse is Google Maps. Basically, customers or visitors to the site I was working on should be able to check if internet service is available in their areas before taking the next step to place orders online or going to any nearby reseller locations. You can test or see how this works on the website. http://www.swiftng.com/products_services/coverage.php.

TECHNOLOGY USED
The technologies/tools below are used to implement this functionality:
1. AJAX
2. Javascript
3. WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL and Php)
4. Google Maps

HOW THESE ITEMS WERE MIXED TO COOK THE DELICIOUS MEAL
For a starter, php handles the server-side scripting, the duo of JavaScript and AJAX take care of the client-side scripting while all BTS coordinates (latitude and longitude points) are stored in the MySQL database. I loaded Google Maps on the web page and use JavaScript and AJAX to respond to the map’s click event. When a user clicks on any point on the map, I get the coordinates of the clicked point from Google Map and asynchronously and quietly call a server-side function that does the coverage check. An SQL script on the server uses some math function to query the database and check if the customer’s coordinates are within the 1000 kilometer of any of the Base Stations in the database. Based on the returned value, a balloon notification is displayed on the map to show service availability or not.

The trick is to sneak in the coverage-checking code into the Google Map object's click event. In that same routine, you can get the latitude and longitude of the point users click on the map, do your check and use the map's OpenInfoWindow function to display result to users.

An example of the code is:

GEvent.addListener(map,"click", function(overlay,latlng) {
if (latlng) {
var array1 = latlng.toString().substr(1).split(",");
var varLat = array1[1].trim(); //alert(varLat);
var varLng = array1[0].trim();
var result = roundNumber(varLat, 7);
varLat = roundNumber(varLat, 7);
varLng = roundNumber(varLng, 7);
//var test = map.fromLatLngToDivPixel(new GLatLng( 3.2691500, 6.4452111));
//call a checkService function
CheckService(varLat, varLng);

var myHtml = "Coverage Area Check
" + isAvailable;
//call a routine to check if this latitude/longitude is within any POP latitude + radius
map.openInfoWindow(latlng, myHtml);
myHtml = "";
isAvailable = "";
}

Experimenting with Adobe Creative Suites

I was on leave from my place of work (Swift Networks Ltd) from the 22nd to 30th of June. I spent all the time at home. Can you imagine? Wasn't i bored?

No, not at all!

Because i had a fun time studying and using Adobe products (Adobe Flash CS5 and Photoshop CS5). There was actually a web project on the line and instead of using what has become second-nature to me (MS Visual Studio Web Developer, Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 and pure HTML and DHTML), i decided to use the latest technologies from Adobe.

It was a most productive time for me as i had all the time in the world to concentrate on Flash. I learnt all about tweening, action script and the rest fun aspects and practically experimented with them.

The outcome is this website, www.mmaniera.com. Yea, you could say it ain't got that sparking thing about it. Don't forget, am innately a SOFTWARE DEVELOPER and the budget for the project was so small i had little apart from the company logo to contract out. The rest i did all alone!

As i go back to work tomorrow, i already have ideas i have to put to bear on my company's new website (www.swiftng.com) which is still under development

Error: 5118 on MS SQL Server 2005

Are you getting this excepton you attempt to attach a database (.mdf) file using your MS SQL Server 2005 management studio?


Create failed for Database 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\ReportServer$SQLSERVER2005.mdf'. (Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo)
An exception occurred while executing a Transact-SQL statement or batch. (Microsoft.SqlServer.ConnectionInfo)
The file "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\ReportServer$SQLSERVER2005.mdf" is compressed but does not reside in a read-only database or filegroup. The file must be decompressed. CREATE DATABASE failed. Some file names listed could not be created. Check related errors. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 5118)


The links below will take you to useful blogs on the causes of this exception. I will not bother to repeat the causes

but give you a quick walk around to resolving.

http://blogs.msdn.com/sanchan/archive/2006/06/04/617585.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlblog/archive/2006/10/02/SQL-Server-databases-are-not-supported-on-compressed-volumes.aspx

I hardly found a simple approach to resolving this issue. I used compact/u in my Command Prompt but no joy. Eventually, this is what i try out on my system and it works. See if it will work for you too.

STEPS
1. Go to the file path of the .mdf file. Usually, it is "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1

\MSSQL\Data\ReportServer$SQLSERVER2005.mdf"

2. Right click on the .mdf file and click Properties.

3. When the Properties dialog box opens, click Advanced button

4. On the Advanced Attributes box, uncheck 'Compress contents to save disk space'.

5. Click Ok twice to exit the Properties box.

6. Go through steps 1 - 5 to decompress the log file (.ldf) associated with the .mdf file.

7. Now, try attaching the .mdf file again. It'll work!

Setting ListView Columns dynamically in Windows Mobile Applications

Hardcoding values into source code is never advised. It is particularly instructive in a windows mobile application as far as one is concerned about the various devices on which windows mobile OS runs. These devices have varied screen sizes and making your application adaptive to each device is definitely a show of good programming.

A good scenario for this is using ListView control to display records. It is easy to set the ListView columns to fit the screen of the Emulator or device you are using for your testing during development. That is called hardcoding. What happens after deployment to other devices? Granted, the ListView horizontal and vertical scrollbar will automatically help with rendering each row of record. But it may not be what you want as users will have to move back and forth unnecessarily. Or it may be needless since the rendering could have been more proper if the columns have been set dynamically.

The .NET GUI controls have Anchor property which can be used to stretch and adapt the ListView size to your device screen size. It is ok if your ListView has only one column. But what if there are 2 or more columns and column width ought to be allocated according to a pre-set ratio?

The code snippet below demonstrates how to dynamically set the columns width of a ListView at runtime. The logic is to allocate a percentage of the ListView control to each column. You can be sure that this logic, along with setting the Anchor property of the control to the right will always give your control a better rendering.

ListView1.Columns.Clear();
float fWidth ;
ColumnHeader colTo = new ColumnHeader();
colTo.Text = "Name";
fWidth = (0.38F * ListView1.Width);
colTo.Width = (int)fWidth;
ColumnHeader colMessage = new ColumnHeader();
colMessage.Text = "Number";
fWidth = (0.55F * ListView1.Width);
colMessage.Width = (int)fWidth;

//add the columns
ListView1.Columns.Add(colTo);
ListView1.Columns.Add(colMessage);

The two columns are allocated 38% and 55% respectively. The remaining 7% is an allowance for Vertical scrollbar so that Horizontal scrollbar will not appear automatically. I personally dislike having both bars on my ListView control.