Business Management and Information System Essay

Business Management and Information System - Essay Example The article specifically outlines ten events and forces that have led to this. Out of these ten events and forces, all bar one – fall of the Berlin Wall – have been enhanced by ICTs. This paper uses the principles of business process reengineering (BPR), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and knowledge management to critique the ideas Friedman’s raised in this article. Business process engineering The world is increasingly being driven by customers, competition and change. These three challenges have necessitated companies to be constantly on the lookout for new solutions to their business problems, hence the emergence of business process reengineering (BPR). In his book, â€Å"Business @ the Speed of Thought†, Bill Gates states that the 1980s was about quality, the 1990s about reengineering and the 2000s about speed. It is this speed of innovation independent of location that Friedman speaks of with regards to the emerging economic powers of China, India , and Russia that America must be wary of. BPR is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance such as cost, quality, service and speed (Muthu et al., 1999). The purpose of which is to redesign the strategic and value added processes that transcend organizational boundaries. IT is a key enabler of BPR, an attribute that is manifest in the roles that it plays: before the process is designed, while the process design is underway, and after the design is complete (Attaran, 2004). Friedman points out that misnomer that many Americans have been led to or lead themselves to believe that China, India, et al are racing them to the bottom whereas in actual sense they are racing the US to the top. These emerging economic powers have rich educational heritages an ambitious youth and access to work experience from leading corporations that have outsourced, offshored to their countries and access to a wide range of information over the Internet. According to Friedman (2005) American multinationals previously outsourced and offshored to minimize cost but now it is because they are unable to find the talent they need locally so they source it abroad. The seven principles of BPR according to Hammer 1990 are: outcome orientation, integration, local responsibility, pooling or resources, fasten processes, empowering and control, and reducing data duplication. Outcome orientation implies that the organisation needs to organize around outcomes and not tasks. The goal is not just to focus on a few things at a time, but to focus on the right things, to target those activities that will make the biggest impact in terms of customer perceived value. Outsourcing – one of the forces that has led to flattening of the world – is focused on moving those activities that are not core to the company to be done by companies that can perform them better and cheaper. Out sourcing improves efficiency and reduces cost. Another ICT-driven force that Friedman cites as a world flattener is offshoring. Offshoring is the migration of jobs, but not the people who perform them, from rich countries to poor ones. It is also referred to as offshore outsourcing and works much in the same way as outsourcing. It is almost obvious that organizations that hope to

After CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENTSS, the us social movement of the 1960s and Article

After CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENTSS, the us social movement of the 1960s and 70s - Article Example The focus gears toward the point that it was through a series of historical incidents and the aggressiveness for change that women’s rights had been recognized and that choices, which had not been available before, is now a part and parcel of a woman’s everyday life in America. The narrative highlighted the typical woman of the 1950s whose duty as a homemaker offers no other viable option except child rearing. The women of that era had the singular choice of getting married and then staying at home to care for her husband and their children. As the man sets out to provide for the family, the wife stays at home and tends to the domestic needs of the family. The book, The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan enlightened on the shared emptiness and dissatisfaction that housewives share because of a lack of endeavors. This ignites the kindled spirits of the 1960s which formed the Women’s Liberation and the very foundation of radical feminism (â€Å"Makers: Women Who Make America Part I Awakening†). These notions were further challenged by brave women who had the courage to question societal norms and the view of women as second-class citizens to the 1970s when job options remained limited. In the tennis match dubbed The Battle of the Sexes, between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, the former shattered Riggs’ hubris as a woman beats him in the highly publicized game. As King said herself, â€Å"That night it wasn’t about tennis. It was about history. It was about social change† (â€Å"Makers: Women Who Make America Part II Changing the World†). Similarly, women’s newfound power were shown through the focus on contraceptives, specifically pills, where the power to decide is now lodged with the woman. This is also supported by the Supreme Court Decision in Roe vs. Wade where a decision for abortion within the first trimester of the pregnancy is left to the discretion of the woman and her physician. The interviews of women who were part