...Applied Business Research Project: Benefits of Business Group Collaboration Systems April 12th, 2009 Table of Contents Abstract 3 Purpose of the Report 4 Background of the Company 4 Discussion of Current Business Issues 5 Research Findings on the Topic 6 Recommendations for the Executive Management Team 8 Bibliography 10 Abstract One of the fastest moving industries is gas and convenience store market and also one of the toughest to maintain. Facing giants like Wal-mart, BP, Circle-K, and Exxon Mobil, Phillips 66 and many other retail chains like yours often results in competition operating across the street from one another. So in this type of industry that has a saturated market of convenience, how do you make profit and retain customer loyalty through business strategies that differentiate you from the competition? Does it begin in the gas price? Perhaps it begins with the sale of milk with cookies? No, I think it begins with business intelligence that tells you the customer sees the lower gas price, stops in to pay for and sees the coffee and donut deal that further lowers his cost of gas. How does all that happen? According to an Oracle White paper “Daily Business Intelligence requires an information delivery environment that offers advanced analytics that are easy to use.”(Mirani, Jagdish) This business intelligence often filters through many departments before it ever reaches the executive decision makers, which ultimately leads marketing...
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...workplace, the cost reduction when compared to conventional in-session, live learning or training, is significant. Quality of teaching is another advantage. Because the physical barriers of distance are eliminated, it becomes possible to deliver educational sessions from the reputable and knowledgeable instructors, anywhere in the world. The advantage of flexibility must not be overlooked. Students and teachers may attend from any location, anywhere in the world. I unable to attend, the online learning environment will typically have a session recording function to allow students to go back later and review the session at their convenience. Online learning allows students to gain confidence and pride in their work. Email , chat, online discussion forums...
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...company like P&G, finding methods of collaboration that are effective throughout the company can be difficult. That's why P&G has been active in implementing IT that fosters effective collaboration and innovation. Procter and Gamble utilizes a distributed development strategy, to form a basis for the distributed development strategy Procter and Gamble must make use of a collaborative environment. both as a way to develop groundbreaking innovations more quickly and to reduce research and development costs. P&G is using collaboration systems to execute its business model and business strategy by allowing researchers to use the tools to share the data they've collected on various brands; by giving marketers a more effective way to access the data they need to create more highly targeted ad campaigns; and enabling managers easier ways to find the people and data they need to make critical business decisions. To do this P&G needed to develop alternatives to business practices that were not sufficiently collaborative. Such as e-mail. Although seemingly a tool used for communication it is not a sufficiently collaborative way to share information and does not support 3D visual data to be shared easily. Another challenge for P&G was managing information and applications across multiple platforms. In order to ensure that this problems are overcome, Procter and Gamble considered a...
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...Collaborative Learning Community (CLC) * Introduction: * Group work can seem like a daunting task, particularly in an asynchronous environment in which communication occurs primarily online or, at a distance. Even if you are enrolled in a course that meets weekly, conflicting schedules can make it difficult to arrange outside meetings with your group members. However, with proper planning and clear communications, teams can work effectively and efficiently with little or no face-to-face contact. Achieving good outcomes requires that individuals with different strengths, weaknesses, and perspectives come together to arrive at consensus. Several tools have been created to help your group get started, get organized, and stay on task. With these tools and tips, you will find that working as a team of educated professionals is not only more efficient but more rewarding as well. This professional collaboration is after all, the nature of nursing. Nurses work with others to help others. Working in teams produces the best outcome for patients and the nursing profession. The first step in working effectively as a team is to arrive at consensus. Before the real work begins, the entire group must agree on fundamental aspects of the work to be done. Together, the group must decide: What the outcome or final product should look like? What the objective is and what method should be used to achieve it? Who should be responsible for doing what tasks, given their experience...
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...Virtual Office MODULE: LECTURER: STUDENT: What is Virtual Office? A Virtual Office is a workplace that is not based in one physical location but consists of employees working remotely by using information and communications technologies. Such organizations are virtual not only in the sense that they exist largely in cyberspace, but also in that they are unconstrained by the traditional barriers of time and place. A virtual office is characterized by the use of teleworkers, telecenters, mobile workers, hot-desking, and hoteling, and promotes the use of virtual teams. A virtual office can increase an organization's flexibility, cost effectiveness, and efficiency. Justification for a Virtual Office An organization’s most important asset has always been and will always be its employees. For obvious reasons, however, organizations continue to expect more from their employees each year. Companies simply cannot afford to add new resources whenever the workload increases. The result is that the demands on the average professional employee continue to increase, and indications are that this will be the case for the foreseeable future. In other words, the pressure on an employee to perform - and even outperform - has never been greater. To respond to these challenges, employees need access to business tools that allow them to do their jobs efficiently. Since much of their work depends on exchanging...
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...L'Oreal decided to use Microsoft SharePoint server to create a global knowledge management and collaboration platform. The system runs on a corporate intranet called M@sternet that spans the globe and coordinates the work of hundreds of teams in over 150 subsidiaries. L=2:57 "The L'Oreal Group is the world's largest cosmetics and beauty company. It is headquartered in the Paris suburb of Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, France. 96% of L'Oreal revenue is generated from cosmetics, from hair color products to skin care, sun protection, make-up, perfumes and hair care. L'Oreal also is active in the dermatological and pharmaceutical fields. The company was founded in 1907 by Eugene Schueller, a young French chemist, who developed an innovative hair-color formula. In 1920, the small company employed three chemists. By 1950, the research teams were 100 strong; that number reached 1,000 by 1984, and is nearly 2,000 today. While L'Oreal got its start in the hair-color business, the company soon branched out into other cleansing and beauty products. L'Oreal currently markets over 500 brands and many thousands of individual products in all sectors of the beauty business: hair color, permanents, styling aids, body and skin care, cleansers and fragrances. The company's products are found in a wide variety of distribution channels, from hair salons and perfumeries to hyper - and supermarkets, health/beauty outlets, pharmacies and direct mail. L'Oreal has five worldwide research and development...
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...L'Oreal: Knowledge Management Using Microsoft SharePoint. Hand in 22 April 2015 Tags: Global brand coordination; sharing business knowledge; collaboration and coordination of effort worldwide; enabling a single community; ease of integration with desktop MS Office. Summary L'Oreal decided to use Microsoft SharePoint server to create a global knowledge management and collaboration platform. The system runs on a corporate intranet called M@sternet that spans the globe and coordinates the work of hundreds of teams in over 150 subsidiaries. URL:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MvWkDXFz0w&NR= Case "The L'Oreal Group is the world's largest cosmetics and beauty company. It is headquartered in the Paris suburb of Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, France. 96% of L'Oreal revenue is generated from cosmetics, from hair colour products to skin care, sun protection, make-up, perfumes and hair care. L'Oreal also is active in the dermatological and pharmaceutical fields. The company was founded in 1907 by Eugene Schueller, a young French chemist, who developed an innovative hair-colour formula. In 1920, the small company employed three chemists. By 1950, the research teams were 100 strong; that number reached 1,000 by 1984, and is nearly 2,000 today. While L'Oreal got its start in the hair-colour business, the company soon branched out into other cleansing and beauty products. L'Oreal currently markets over 500 brands and many thousands of individual products in all sectors of the beauty business:...
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...Chapter 2 Global E-Business and Collaboration 75 Collaboration and Innovation at Procter & Gamble CASE STUDY L ook in your medicine cabinet. No matter where you live in the world, odds are that you’ll find many Procter & Gamble products that you use every day. P&G is the largest manufacturer of consumer products in the world, and one of the top 10 largest companies in the world by market capitalization. The company is known for its successful brands, as well as its ability to develop new brands and maintain its brands’ popularity with unique business innovations. Popular P&G brands include Pampers, Tide, Bounty, Folgers, Pringles, Charmin, Swiffer, Crest, and many more. The company has approximately 140,000 employees in more than 80 countries, and its leading competitor is Britain-based Unilever. Founded in 1837 and headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, P&G has been a mainstay in the American business landscape for well over 150 years. In 2009, it had $79 billion in revenue and earned a $13.2 billion profit. P&G’s business operations are divided into three main units: Beauty Care, Household Care, and Health and Well-Being, each of which are further subdivided into more specific units. In each of these divisions, P&G has three main focuses as a business. It needs to maintain the popularity of its existing brands, via advertising and marketing; it must extend its brands to related products by developing new products under those brands; and it must...
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...completed as (part of) the requirements for 'Collaborative Business Processes 31247' What are aspects of collaboration in business goals, deliverables, activities, design and technology? Collaboration involves the use of Information Technology and other tools to assist groups of people to achieve a shared task. Collaboration processes are infused in business processes and therefore are present in the creation of business goals, deliverables, activities, design and technology. Business Goals The creation of business goals is an important process in establishing the foundations for a business’ direction. Collaboration tools are used to facilitate team meetings and the communication of ideas between members of a group. The use of such tools fosters discussion allowing each member to provide their specialised skill set and knowledge to the group. The use of online collaboration resources, such as social networks and web applications allows each member of the group to contribute from any location or device that has Internet access. Deliverables The creation of deliverables is subjected to a collaboration process. Reports, overviews and analysis are made through a collaborative effort with several people often contributing to the creation of a deliverable item. Those items can then be further subjected to a collaborative process and used by another group of people to create another item, report or idea. Collaborative tools, such as Google Docs, allow members of...
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... The main business strategy has three focus points. It needs to uphold the popularity of its existing brands, via advertising and marketing; it must extend its brands by developing new products under those brands; and it must invent and create new brands. P&G spends 3.4 percent of revenue on innovation because it is so important to them, therefore it is important for the researchers, marketers, and managers to collaborate to achieve their goals to be an innovative company and to create new and successful products. 2. How is P&G using collaboration systems to execute its business model and business strategy? List and describe the collaboration systems and technologies it is using and the benefits of each. P&G is using collaborative systems by generating the majority of their ideas using sources from outside the company. This not only helps develop new innovations quicker, it also cuts down on research and development costs. They switched from using email to using Microsoft products. This included instant messaging, unified communications, Microsoft Live Communications Server functionality, Web conferencing with Live Meeting, and content management with SharePoint. This was helpful to the company because it was quicker to communicate, and you could share data more efficiently to the people who need to see it. They also adopted Teamcenter product lifecycle collaboration software from Siemens, which supports sharing of 3D visual product data. This enables...
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...Look in your medicine cabinet. No matter where you live in the world, odds are that you’ll find many Procter & Gamble products that you use every day. P&G is the largest manufacturer of consumer products in the world, and one of the top 10 largest companies in the world by market capitalization. The company is known for its successful brands, as well as its ability to develop new brands and maintain its brands’ popularity with unique business innovations. Popular P&G brands include Pampers, Tide, Bounty, Folgers, Pringles, Charmin, Swiffer, Crest, and many more. The company has approximately 140,000 employees in more than 80 countries, and its leading competitor is Britain-based Unilever. Founded in 1837 and headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, P&G has been a mainstay in the American business landscape for well over 150 years. In 2009, it had $79 billion in revenue and earned a $13.2 billion profit. P&G’s business operations are divided into three main units: Beauty Care, Household Care, and Health and Well-Being, each of which are further subdivided into more specific units. In each of these divisions, P&G has three main focuses as a business. It needs to maintain the popularity of its existing brands, via advertising and marketing; it must extend its brands to related products by developing new products under those brands; and it must innovate and create new brands entirely from scratch. Because so much of P&G’s business is built around brand creation and management, it’s...
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...Topic: Examine groupware systems including their various types and examples of organisational activities they support, and discuss how they would evolve in the future. Student number: 21819254 Introduction Nowadays, usage of IT systems in enterprise environment is growing at an incredible pace. The main purpose of it is to help groups of cooperating individuals to overcome time and spatial barriers. Enterprise systems implementation has led to the problem of cooperation between companies to reach their goals and successfully operate in the current market environment. The rising demand for collaboration software has led to the groupware market expansion. Collaborative software has influenced the expansion of enterprises by improving the effectiveness of a range of tools such as the ability to communicate over long distances. This software had a significant impact on expansion of enterprises and increased efficiency of its work, for example, the communication over long distances. Along with development of technologies, the way workers operate in organisations has completely changed. Monotonous and time consuming tasks can be easily solved using the computer. Consequently, this change led to increase in the number of “knowledge workers”, workers, whose main capital is knowledge (Davenport, Thomas, 2005). Organisations more often require employees, who have the skill and experience of working within a team. Obviously, teamwork has a significantly greater efficiency, especially in...
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...Chapter 8 E-Supply Chain, Collaborative Commerce, and Intrabusiness EC Learning Objectives Upon completion of this chapter, you will be able to: 1. Define e-supply chain and describe its characteristics and components. 2. List supply chain problems and their causes. 3. List solutions to supply chain problems provided by EC. 4. Define c-commerce and list its major types. 5. Describe collaborative planning and Collaboration, Planning, Forecasting and Replenishing (CPFR), and list their benefits. 6. Define intrabusiness EC and describe its major activities. 7. Discuss integration along the supply chain. 8. Understand corporate portals and their types and roles. 9. Describe e-collaboration tools such as workflow and groupware. Content How General Motors Is Collaborating Online 1. E-Supply Chains 2. Supply Chain Problems and Solutions 3. Collaborative Commerce 4. Collaborative Planning, CPFR, and Collaborative Design 5. Internal Supply Chain Solutions, Intrabusiness, and B2E 6. Integration Along the Supply Chain 7. Corporate (Enterprise) Portals 8. Collaboration-Enabling Tools: From Workflow to Groupware Managerial Issues Real-World Case: Portal Speeds Product R&D at Amway Appendix 8a: Intranets Answers to Pause/Break Section Review Questions Section 8.1 Review Questions 1. Define the e-supply chain and list its three major parts. A supply chain that is managed electronically, usually using Web technologies...
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...10.3 Aside from allowing others to view your documents, how can you use a Google Docs document collaboratively with others? There are undoubtedly many ways of sharing ideas. Some of the most common ways of sharing ideas in corporate world is to have meeting where we invite a group of people and the discussion leads to some conclusion how things should look like. These sort of sharing ideas are especially useful for people who are located at the same site or atleast able to login remotely around same time. Here the collaboration is more verbal and not all participants in the meeting may know what the others are saying. Sometimes a copy of a document is send to all intended candidates to review and make comments. The document can be in a word or any text format that can be opened by intended users. This way of sharing documents between multiple users are very useful to extract their opinion and thoughts. However the problem with this approach is that there need to be at least one person who can collaborate with all the users and make updates to the document. Sometimes it is not always possible to capture all the updates that were done in a systematic way. Once the document is updated from all user comments it is sent as a final draft to all the users. While this is a better way of sharing documents to arrive at a common goal, with the change in technology there are other better ways of doing things as well. One of the leading document collaboration tools that are used these...
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...Research Paper: Enterprise Collaboration Systems Introduction Enterprise Collaboration Systems or ECSs are systems that create team and workgroup collaboration. They enhance communications, productivity and provide support in business operations. Some basic examples of ECSs are e-mail, chat, and videoconferencing (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011). As we dive into this research paper more detailed explanations will be made of what the systems are and how they help organizations collaborate and enhance quality of work. ECSs also include applications that are sometimes called office automation systems, which are systems that create workflows to get rid of paper and create a smoother experience for users (O’Brien & Marakas, 2011). Organizations have many systems and ECSs are not ones to be left out. Information systems perform three vital roles in business firms. They support organization’s business processes and operations, give users more valuable information to help with good business decision making, and create strategic competitive advantages. Information technology, with the help of the Internet, provides us with the avenues to communicate ideas, share resources, and coordinate our cooperative work efforts. The goal of ECSs are to enable us to work together easily and effectively by helping us to, communicate, by sharing information with each other, coordinate, by helping us organize our work efforts and use of resources, and collaborate, by helping us work together cooperatively...
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