...[pic] Too Far Ahead of the IT Curve? By John P Glaser Introduction Question: Peachtree Healthcare’s patchwork IT infrastructure is in critical condition. Should the CEO approve a shift to risky new technology or go with the time-tested monolithic system? Freshly showered and cooling down after their squash game, Max Berndt drank iced tea with his board chairman, Paul Lefler. Max, a thoracic surgeon by training, was the CEO of Peachtree Healthcare. He’d occupied the post for nearly 12 years. In that time the company had grown—mainly by mergers—from a single teaching hospital into a regional network of 11 large and midsize institutions, supported by ancillary clinics, physician practices, trauma centers, rehabilitation facilities, and nursing homes. Together, these entities had nearly 4,000 employed and affiliated physicians, who annually treated a million patients from throughout Georgia and beyond. The patients ranged in age from newborn to nonagenarian; represented all races, ethnicities, lifestyles, and economic conditions; and manifested every imaginable injury and disease. Many of them, over the course of a year, would be seen at more than one Peachtree Healthcare facility. Max’s marching orders were to ensure quality, consistency, and continuity of care across the entire network—and to deliver all that with the highest levels of efficacy, economy, and respect for patients and staff. Max, still sweating lightly, finished his tea and ordered more. He and Paul commiserated...
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...Overview All organizations want to grow and prosper. To obtain that growth and prosperity, organizations set longterm goals and use numerous tools such as metrics and analytics to measure the effectiveness of their goals. If the performance measures (metrics, for example, revenue per employee or percentage of orders shipped on time) and the analysis tools (analytics) applied against the outcomes are appropriate, they will help the organization to determine the best course of action to achieve its goals. The role of all managers is to help develop organizational strategies that encourage and achieve those goals. Information systems (IS) is the top-level term that refers to computer systems used within organizations that help them collect, store, retrieve, and analyze data for the purpose of supporting and extending the business side of an organization; information technology (IT) is the term that refers to the technology side of IS, responsible for the hardware, software, and networks of computer systems. At one time it was commonplace to link strategy with IS. Statements about information systems were taken as true and at face value, simply because they sounded so right. What an IS department wanted, it usually got, because what was wanted often seemed strategically important to the organization. The bursting of the ―tech bubble‖ in 2001 changed the way that companies regarded their investment in information systems. The effective management and use of information systems is...
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...www.hbrreprints.org HBR CASE STUDY AND COMMENTARY How should Peachtree try to fix its IT infrastructure problem? Four commentators offer expert advice. Too Far Ahead of the IT Curve? by John P Glaser . • Reprint R0707A Peachtree Healthcare’s patchwork IT infrastructure is in critical condition. Should the CEO approve a shift to risky new technology or go with the time-tested monolithic system? HBR CASE STUDY Too Far Ahead of the IT Curve? by John P Glaser . COPYRIGHT © 2007 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Freshly showered and cooling down after their squash game, Max Berndt drank iced tea with his board chairman, Paul Lefler. Max, a thoracic surgeon by training, was the CEO of Peachtree Healthcare. He’d occupied the post for nearly 12 years. In that time the company had grown—mainly by mergers—from a single teaching hospital into a regional network of 11 large and midsize institutions, supported by ancillary clinics, physician practices, trauma centers, rehabilitation facilities, and nursing homes. Together, these entities had nearly 4,000 employed and affiliated physicians, who annually treated a million patients from throughout Georgia and beyond. The patients ranged in age from newborn to nonagenarian; represented all races, ethnicities, lifestyles, and economic conditions; and manifested every imaginable injury and disease. Many of them, over the course of a year, would be seen at more than one Peach- tree...
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...exercising power, and isn't too fussy about how. As I've written before, one of the things that has surprised me most about startups is how few of the most successful founders are like that. Maybe successful people in other industries are; I don't know; but not startup founders. [1] I knew this empirically, but I never saw the math of why till I got this founder's email. In it he said he worried that he was fundamentally soft-hearted and tended to give away too much for free. He thought perhaps he needed "a little dose of sociopath-ness." I told him not to worry about it, because so long as he built something good enough to spread by word of mouth, he'd have a hyperlinear growth curve. If he was bad at extracting money from people, at worst this curve would be some constant multiple less than 1 of what it might have been. But a constant multiple of any curve is exactly the same shape. The numbers on the Y axis are smaller, but the curve is just as steep, and when anything grows at the rate of a successful startup, the Y axis will take care of itself. Some examples will make this clear. Suppose your company is making $1000 a month now, and you've made something so great that it's growing at 5% a week. Two years from now, you'll be making about $160k a month. Now suppose you're so un-rapacious that you only extract half as much from your users as you could. That means two years later you'll be making $80k a month instead of $160k. How far behind are you? How long will...
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...exercising power, and isn't too fussy about how. As I've written before, one of the things that has surprised me most about startups is how few of the most successful founders are like that. Maybe successful people in other industries are; I don't know; but not startup founders. [1] I knew this empirically, but I never saw the math of why till I got this founder's email. In it he said he worried that he was fundamentally soft-hearted and tended to give away too much for free. He thought perhaps he needed "a little dose of sociopath-ness." I told him not to worry about it, because so long as he built something good enough to spread by word of mouth, he'd have a hyperlinear growth curve. If he was bad at extracting money from people, at worst this curve would be some constant multiple less than 1 of what it might have been. But a constant multiple of any curve is exactly the same shape. The numbers on the Y axis are smaller, but the curve is just as steep, and when anything grows at the rate of a successful startup, the Y axis will take care of itself. Some examples will make this clear. Suppose your company is making $1000 a month now, and you've made something so great that it's growing at 5% a week. Two years from now, you'll be making about $160k a month. Now suppose you're so un-rapacious that you only extract half as much from your users as you could. That means two years later you'll be making $80k a month instead of $160k. How far behind are you? How long will...
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...Chapter 3 - Learning to Drive PA Driver’s Manual CHAPTER 3: LEARNING TO DRIVE This chapter provides information that will help you become a safe driver. It covers these topics: • Choosing Safety First • Driver Factors • Everyday Driving Skills • Special Circumstances and Emergencies CHOOSING SAFETY FIRST You have important choices to make – sometimes even before you start your vehicle – that will affect your safety when you are behind the wheel. Begin by making sure you and your vehicle are “fit to drive.” VEHICLE CHECKS: PREPARING TO DRIVE 1. Adjust the driver’s seat – You must be able to easily reach the pedals and other controls and have a clear view out the windshield. Your owner’s manual provides information about how to adjust your vehicle’s equipment. 2. Fasten your seat belt – Fasten both your lap and shoulder belts on every trip. Pay attention to the information about Pennsylvania’s seat belt law, child restraint law and airbag safety information found in Chapter 5. WEARING YOUR SEAT BELT is the single most effective thing you can do to reduce the risk of death or injury! DID YOU KNOW? In 2011, 78 percent of people involved in crashes in Pennsylvania were wearing seat belts. Drivers, ages 16 to 24, had the highest number of unbuckled injuries and fatalities of any age group and the lowest seat belt use. 3. Secure loose items in the passenger compartment – In a crash, loose items in your vehicle become projectiles that continue to travel the same speed your...
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...Red countering white, both fight for the attention desperately needed to keep all tires on course. An almost three-hundred and sixty degree view, yet I can’t see the road ahead because my eyes are focused on both horizons. One side constant, and one side flashes, the perfect balance between urban and rural. The Chicago skyline is barely visible in the rapidly falling sun, but the faint silhouette of the *Sears* tower remains as constant as the faux light that radiates from the surrounding sky. Directly opposite, the brief rouge flashes, from the windmills I’ve only once visited, echo each other in a pattern so fast it can be missed in as little as a blink. The momentary solace found within the clashing worlds of city and country is cut short...
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...122 Harvard Business Review | July–August 2007 | hbr.org Marcos Chin The goal of forecasting is not to predict the future but to tell you what you need to know to take meaningful action in the present. EOPLE AT COCKTAIL PARTIES are always asking me for stock tips, and then they want to know how my predictions have turned out. Their requests reveal the common but fundamentally erroneous perception that forecasters make predictions. We don’t, of course: Prediction is possible only in a world in which events are preordained and no amount of action in the present can infl uence future outcomes. That world is the stuff of myth and superstition. The one we inhabit is quite different – little is certain, nothing is preordained, and what we do in the present affects how events unfold, often in significant, unexpected ways. The role of the forecaster in the real world is quite different from that of the mythical seer. Prediction is concerned P by Paul Saffo Six Rules for Accurate Forecasting Effe c ti ve t i MANAGING FOR THE LONG TERM | Six Rules for Effective Forecasting 124 Harvard Business Review | July–August 2007 | hbr.org with future certainty; forecasting looks at how hidden currents in the present signal possible changes in direction for companies, societies, or the world at large. Thus, the primary goal of forecasting is to identify the full range of possibilities, not a limited set of illusory certainties. Whether a specific forecast actually...
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...mind can stick with it and make things work for them as they go along in life. Not only in school you need to practice over and over again, but as you will see while you are at home, work or play you must have these things in place. Not so much in play, but even so finding out the good and bad about that college education will assist you in make the right goals as long as they are not too far-fetched or unable to be reached. Daily at the college you will have different activities to perform. You must plan ahead and make sure everything has been included to be completed by the due date(s). Even going to school online it’s good to be early to class, so you have time to sit and ponder your next step. The same thing in your personal life and responsibilities will reflect in everything you do. You seem to walk a tight rope when you have to balance what is needed at home and at school. That is why it is so important to make plans/goals for yourself so you don’t lose sight on what is at hand. Your personal life is a great learning curve one faces and respects. School is similar to that learning curve and as you go along you find yourself getting smarter and more efficient at what you do since you have been doing it over and over for weeks, months and or years it will become habit forming and...
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...between Market Structures Jessika Canales Díaz ECO /365 08/28/2010 Instructor: SR. Carlos Méndez David Differentiating between Market Structures In this simulation, the learner studies the cost and revenue curves in different market structures perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition, or oligopoly faced by a freight transportation company, and makes decisions to maximize profits or to minimize losses. The simulation also deals with the concept of Prisoner’s Dilemma and the price war scenario in a duopoly. Road, railroad, air transport, and water transport are crucial to a country needs. Food farm products, consumer’s goods, raw materials for industry coal for electric lumber for constructions, petroleum and chemicals… any commodity you can think of has a chain of transportations and distribution that delivers it to you’re door step. Freight transportation is an essential part of this chain. What are the various markets in with the freights transportation company operates? In this simulation describes the market structure that a freight transportation industry faces in various markets. You will learn about perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly. You will see how to identify and interpret cost and revenues curves for each market structures. You will also make decision related to maximizing profit for each market structures. My decision to continue operations means that parts of the costs of operation are recovered. You...
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...goes swimming everyday hoping to spot the swan and admire it. At first, she observers the swan from a safe distance, but after sometime she approaches the swan. One evening, as the moon rises, she finds that the swan has entangled itself in a fishing line. She sets the swan free, and they both float down stream, until the swan vanishes out of sight. It is unclear whether the swan lives or dies. The events in the story are arranged in a chronological order that covers the range of days in the life of the protagonist, focusing on her experiences in the nearby river. For the protagonist, each new swim is a new trial. Every time she crosses the river upstream, she/the reader encounters the same landmarks such as the bridge, the eddies, the curves, the banks and so on. The first and the last day the protagonist goes swimming are written so that they are longer than the other times the protagonist goes swimming because the first and the last days are more...
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...the quantity of calls demanded, you may conclude that the demand for phone calls is a. elastic. b. inelastic. c. unit elastic. d. stretchy elastic. B 2. Which of the following pairs are examples of substitutes? a. Popcorn and Soda b. Automobiles and bicycles c. Boats and fishing tackle d. Wine and cheese B 3. If a price in a competitive market is “too high to clear the market,” what does this usually mean? Assume upward-sloping supply curves. a. No producer can cover the costs of production at that price. b. Quantity supplied exceeds quantity demanded at that price. c. Producers are leaving the industry. d. Consumers are willing to buy all the units produced at that price. B 4. Which of the following statements is incorrect? Assume upward-sloping supply curves. a. If the supply curve shifts left and the demand remain constant, equilibrium price will rise. b. If the demand curve shifts left and the supply increase, equilibrium price will rise. c. If the supply curve shifts right and the demand curve shifts left, equilibrium price will fall. d. If the demand curve shifts right and the supply curve shifts left, price will rise. Section Two: Short Answer (250 words or less) 1. Define elasticity of demand. Provide an example. ANS: How much the quantity demand changes when the price changes. EX: If subway sandwiches were selling in large amounts when prices were $5, now the prices changes to $6.50 and up the demand for a $5 sandwich goes down because...
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...city of Atlantis is changed by many different economic points. The microeconomics ideas can be shown as the changes in the supply and demand and even the equilibrium, since the topics are only having affects on the small apartment. The macroeconomic ideas can then put into the category as price elasticity and/or the price ceilings since they have a bigger impact on the overall region beyond the local markets. This simulation had a shift in the supply curve and the demand curve which would cause bigger changes in the economic area. If the demand curve moves at all to the left, it would then show a decrease in demand and then cause less apartments to be rented. The other situation that would occur in this simulation was due to a large want for more property ownership instead of just renting, which then made the management company lower their prices to then be able to compete with the market. The equilibrium price was then lowered because the demand was decreased, while everything else remained the same. If the supply curve is to move to the right it would show more of an increase in the availability of apartments to rent in the area. This situation would happen if the management company were to look into expanding the building to have more apartments for rent. This would work only if there wasn’t any change in the demand, the result in this case could also have been lowering the prices to have all of the apartments filled. This could be a very good decision if there was a large...
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...Once again there are many things that stick out in this class as far as what has been maintained and absorbed. This week three things that I have learned: * Leaders do not have to be managers * Managers should have leading skills * Management in general has changed globalization Leaders do not always have to be managers. This was realized when I realized every person I know has some type of leadership skills. Are all of them managers in their professions? No. Not all times will a leadership value be for a business or organization; sometimes they are needed just in a social aspect. Even when you are in a business setting, leaders are available in some locations as well as managers. This happens when a company or person is too busy and they allocate the work to the other workers. I also realized I am not alone in feeling that manager should at least have leadership skills. Not the responsibility but they should be able to do this if the time would call for it. Having this skill helps in maintaining your people and assuring your continued success in the business. Also it reflects well on the employees who are managed by the manager. Having leadership skills increases the manager’s ability to perform effectively. In general management has changed because of the increased globalization. “To keep up with the jones’s” if you will it is needed to stay ahead of the curve and make partners to your businesses. Vendors, outsourcing and other partnerships have created...
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...I. THE COMMON SENSE OF DRIVING Keeping a point off your DMV record is not the only thing that occurs when you successfully complete this Traffic Violator Course. You will increase your knowledge of California's driving laws as well. Why is that important? When your safety is at risk, raising your driving consciousness is always beneficial. The unfortunate truth is many drivers get tickets simply because they are not paying attention or have forgotten some rule of the vehicle code. In other words, what you are about to read can save you money by helping you to avoid breaking the law, receiving a traffic citation, and having to pay the penalty. But more important, what you are about to read can easily save your life… or someone else's. A. THE SERIOUS RESPONSIBILITY OF OPERATING A MOTOR VEHICLE When you get behind the driver seat, you’re not just driving a car. You are driving a 2,000 pound plus piece of machinery. The lives of your passengers and all other drivers and pedestrians around you on the road are at risk. Driving is the most dangerous thing you do on a daily basis. One little mistake at any speed, whether at 65 mph or 35 mph, can be deadly. As a driver, your responsibility is not only to respect the law but also to appreciate the risks when you operate your vehicle, risks both to yourself and to the other drivers with whom you share the road. Yes, the key word here is SHARE. 1. MOTOR VEHICLE IS A WEAPON You don‘t believe that? Any object that weighs...
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