Group Collaboration and Web 2.0 Applications: | Knowledge sharing/retention, innovation and talent management | | | | [Type the author name] | 8/16/2009 | |

Instructor Background
Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. (ACS) is an outsourcing company for business process outsourcing and information technology services and has more than 70,000 employees worldwide. ACS has three divisions: IT services, Government Solutions and Financial and Accounting Services (F&A). The contractual agreements between ACS and the clients are not uniform. Each contract has specific Service Level Agreements (SLA) that ACS must perform. In the event that the SLA of the contract is not meet on a monthly basis then financial penalties are assessed according to the contract.
The Mission Statement describes to goals of the company. The following two excerpts from the Mission Statement are an important to the success of ACS in providing exceptional service to the clients:
We will design innovative solutions to meet our clients’ business requirements and deliver only the highest quality of service.
We will marshal talented, committed people and create an environment in which they can grow professionally through their achievements.
In addition to the Mission Statement, the core of the ACS culture is referred to as the Hustle Principle. The Hustle represents a “can-do” attitude. In essence, the Hustle Principles require above average individual and team performance, dedication and achievement to provide top quality service to the client by going above a beyond of what is expected.
Abstract
Group collaboration has many uses and this report focus on three primary aspects: Knowledge sharing/retention, innovation and talent management. Knowledge sharing, innovation and talent management are the driving forces for companies to remain or gain competitive advantages, thus, supporting a Web 2.0 in-house-networking system should be viewed as a part of strategic planning.
The development of this proposed plan will benefit ACS by reducing the risk of penalties from service level failures because knowledge and information can be stored in a central location accessible by all employees. The research provided in this proposal will support the need for this tool in order for ACS to remain the premier service provider in the industry.
Purpose of the Report
The objective is to develop effective group collaboration using a social networking type system to improve knowledge sharing, innovation and preparing for the millennial workforce/talent management. The networking system will be an ASC developed system customized to meet this objective.
Background of the Topic
The primary purpose of this topic is to improve knowledge sharing among the different contracts to ensure that all SLA’s are obtain to prevent penalties from be assessed by the client. As ACS continues to grow, the need for problem solving will continue to increase and ACS has a wealth of knowledge but employees have no way to share this knowledge. This knowledge includes best practices used by the individual contacts which provide innovative and high quality service to the clients. This can be accomplished by creating a group collaboration system using Web 2.0 application. The Web 2.0 application will be similar to current social networking sites, such as Facebook; however, the proposed site will be for business networking.
According to an article in the Market Wire, 2008, “we identified a clear shift among organizations to look towards workforce collaboration and Web 2.0 tools to connect people, generate content, capture knowledge and make it easily accessible”. The use of a company networking systems would accomplish this objective.
Knowledge sharing has been a concern for many organizations because as the “Baby Boomer” generation begins to retire and employees leave an organization the years of knowledge these people have also leave the organization. Although this is a concern for ACS the major concern is to prevent financial penalties. Since best practices are not share among other contracts then management of new contracts do not have the benefit of the knowledge from existing, successful contracts. Organization which are complex in structure, as ACS is, often have to rely on the skills of management and the expertise of employees to achieve strategic goals (Magdaleno, A., Cappelli, C., Baiao, F., Santoro, F., & Araujo, R., 2008).
In addition, according to Magdaleno, etal, 2008, “business processes rely heavily on tacit knowledge. For that reason, they increasingly face the challenge of making information easily accessible and shared”. ACS needs a Group collaboration system to overcome this problem of knowledge sharing and developing a company networking seems to be a viable solution.
Innovation is an important part of the ACS Mission Statement. This is the heart of ACS because the client’s expect ACS to solve problems with innovate ideas. Currently, clients do not want be told that they have problems; rather, clients want ACS to identify the problem and provide a solution. A business networking system will provide ACS with “collaborative tools” that will give ACS an opportunity to “unlock organization-wide and global intellect, and use that to foster the joined up thinking that will drive innovation” (Bicknell, D. 2009).
Millennial workers are the next generation of the workforce. This generation has grown up with technology and embraces technology as no other generation has. “Millennial workers have differing attitudes regarding technology use and adoption in a work environment, when compared to their older colleagues” (Millennia Workforce, 2008). In order for ACS to continue to grow, ACS needs to improve technological resources to draw this young, talented generation. Group collaboration is natural to this generation and they expect to have this type of resource available to them.

Discussion of Current Issues
The current technology used for group collaboration is email, teleconferencing with WebEx capabilities. These methods are effective for meetings, presentations and communication to the client and other remote ACS employees; however, these methods are not effective for knowledge sharing and can inhibit innovation.
Email is the primary communication method used for corresponding important issues. This method of communication can be limited due to the architecture of the mail system. For instance, one contract has a problem and is looking for possible solutions, currently; one would have to email the current ACS population to find out if another contact had a similar problem and what the solution was. This would be ineffective given that ACS has over 70,000 employees and just think even is only an eighth of the employees responded that would equate to over 8,000 responses. Not only is this inefficient, but unrealistic that the recipient could read all the responses.
The situation described above shows that email is not effective for knowledge and information sharing because the email systems are limited due to the architecture; therefore, collaboration and employee interaction is also limited (Chapin, K., 2007). Whereas, with a Web 2.0 application these limitation can be overcome because a central location can be created to store knowledge which include best practices and problem resolution.
In addition, information retrieved via e-mail will only benefit the employee requesting the information then the information is usually stored on a hard drive not accessible by other employees (B., E., 2009). This process also inhibits the collaboration effort to retain capital intellect.
The proposed networking system would be an additional resource available to employees. This system not only acts as a central location for best practices but this will also allow employees to connect with one another. “The goal is not for co-workers to build purely virtual relationships, but to make connections to the right person or right piece of intellectual capital and then pick up the phone. It’s just a new spin on an old technique” (B., E., 2009).
Innovation is another factor to consider for the use of the application. ACS in the past has tried to inspire innovation from employees by running periodic contest; however, innovation cannot be restricted to a timeframe. Truly innovative organizations “develop and implement a forum for sharing. Promote the open exchange of ideas and collaboration among co-workers and team members. The forum could be face-to-face meetings or doing so online with message boards or blogs” (Ebersole, G., nd.). Face-to-face meeting are not practical at ACS since the workforce is spread out across the United States and globally.
Millennial workforce seeks out innovating companies. According to an article in Computerworld by Douglas Schweitzer, 2009, “they’re used to having all sorts of innovative tools, whether at home or at school, and coming to a work environment where they suddenly have to make do with slower connections or limited Web access just isn’t tenable. I’d go so far as to say that they consider the company old-fashion and not competitive if it can’t (or won’t) maintain the latest equipment available”.
Recommendation
A specific event prompted this proposal which will be used as an example to reinforce the need for an ACS networking system. One of the contacts, specifically the UTC project, was being penalized for months for SLA failure relating to the statement of work (SOW) concerning the debit balances on the books of client.
The account payable group was not performing within SOW; therefore, the contract was incurring monthly penalties and the client was not happy with the level of service. The penalties incurred for almost a year before someone thought to ask a manager of another contract on how they handled this portion of that contract. Apparently, this contract had a similar problem and this team was able to develop a solution to manage this process efficiently and effectively; therefore, preventing financial penalties and exceeding the client’s expectations. If this knowledge had been accessible then the penalties incurred could have been prevented.
Group collaboration and Web 2.0 applications have been increasing found to have a positive impact on organizations especially for knowledge sharing/retention, innovation and talent management. The Aberdeen Group has conducted research in these areas and the research supports the need for companies to develop in-house-networking sites. The subsequent paragraph(s) is research obtain from the Aberdeen Report (Martin, K & Saba, J., 2008).
The Aberdeen Group identified the Best-in-class organizations for use of Web 2.0 technology. The results from the Aberdeen Report, 2008 on collaboration and talent management are as follows:
Workforce collaboration: “The best in class organizations apply these tools both tactically and strategically…Tactically these tools were used to facilitate project-based team work with 64% of the organizations stating that this method was the number one method in which collaboration tools are used. Strategically, these organizations use Web 2.0 tools to connect workers with subject matter experts 69% of the time. Best-in Class organization are more likely to focus on capturing institutional knowledge, expertise and experiences, codifying it, and making it available throughout the organization for a myriad purposes” (Martin, K & Saba, J., 2008).
Talent Management: “Recruiting..helps internal recruiters stay connected to active and passive job prospects. This tool can be use to connect new employees with those who can be critical to their success, including mentors and coaches. Learning and development plays a critical role in an employee’s professional development” (Martin, K & Saba, J., 2008). This is the type of environment that will attract and retain young talented employees.
Based upon, the research provided in this report a formal recommendation to develop and implement a Web 2.0 in-house networking tool would greatly improve the efficiency and profitability of ACS. In addition, this type of tool will foster knowledge sharing/retention, innovation and talent recruitment to continue to drive ACS as premier service organization.

Bibliography
B., E. (2009, June). A New Generation of Systems Integration. CIO Insight, Retrieved August 16, 2009, from Devry University on-line library. Business Source Premier database.
Bicknell, D. (2009). Collaboration drives innovation. Computer Weekly [serial online]. April 28, 2009:14-16. Retrieved on July 17, 2009 from DeVry University on-line library. Business Source Premier database.
Chapin, K. (2007, May). Enterprise collaboration via ECM. Integrated Solutions. Retrieved on July 17, 2009 from http://www.isminfo.com/index.php?option=com_jambozine&layout=article&view=page&aid=5501&Itemid=69
Ebersole, G (nd.). 20 tips to initiate & inspire innovation, from your strategic thinking business coach. Retrieved on August 15, 2009 from http://ezinearticles.com/?20-Tips-To-Initiate-and-Inspire-Innovation,-From-Your-Strategic-Thinking-Business-Coach&id=732486
Magalhae Magdaleno, A., Cappelli, C., Araujo Baiao, F., Maria Santoro, F., & Araujo, R. (2008, Fall2008). Towards Collaboration Maturity in Business Processes: An Exploratory Study in Oil Production Processes. Information Systems Management, 25(4), 302-318. Retrieved August 2, 2009, from DeVry University on-line library. Business Source Premier database
Martin, K & Saba, J. (2008). Workforce collaboration and web 2.0: Improving productivity by facilitating knowledge transfer, The Aberdeen Group. Retrieve on July 17, 2009 from http://www.mzinga.com/a/pdf/mzingair-workforcecollaboration.pdf
Millennial Workforce: IT Risk or Benefit? (2008). Retrieved on July 17, 2009 from http://www.infosectoday.com/Articles/Millennial_Workforce.htm
Schweitzer, D. (2009, July). Younger workforce demands innovative tech tools, Computerworld. Retrieved on July 17, 2009 from http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/168481/younger_workforce_demands_innovative_tech_tools.html

Glenn Ebersole
Level: Platinum

J. Glenn Ebersole, Jr. is a multi-faceted professional, who is recognized as a visionary, guide and facilitator in the fields of marketing, public relations, management, ... ...