The Strategic Management of Technology. A Guide for Library and Information Services

312 Pages·2004·1.872 MB·English

by  David P. Baker (Auth.)

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The Strategic
Management of
Technology
A guide for library and
information services
D B
AVID AKER
CP
Chandos Publishing
Oxford • England New Hampshire • USA
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Chandos Publishing (Oxford) Limited
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First published in Great Britain in 2004
ISBN:
1 84334 041 0 (paperback)
1 84334 042 9 (hardback)
© D. Baker, 2004
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Preface
Technology is pervasive in our world; major technological
advances have shaped and changed society out of all recognition.
Take the typewriter. In the 1880s, there were only 7,000 clerks
(mostly women) in England and Wales. The introduction of the
typewriter meant that by 1910 there were nearly 150,000
(Williams, 1982). And the rest, as they say, is history. Since the
beginning of the twentieth century, technology in general – and
information and communications technology (ICT) in particular –
has transformed the way we live. Unless you are a hermit, anyone
in western society will use a whole range of technologies – e-mail,
World Wide Web, mobile phone, television, satellite, etc. Just look
around your place of work and count up the number of ‘gadgets’
that are indispensable to you.
But it is not just the pervasiveness of ICT that challenges us
personally and professionally; it is also the speed at which the
technology is changing and developing. You only have to reflect
on the extent to which key technologies of today were not in use
even five years ago. The Internet is the obvious example. We may
think that we have been using it forever, but when did most of us
actually start using it? And how many of our children have known
any different?
Technology needs managing if it is not to manage us – look at
the number of major projects that go spectacularly wrong, such as
TAURUS (Drummond, 1999), air traffic control, passport office,
tilting trains. Billions of pounds wasted or mismanaged (Collins
and Bicknell, 1998). Where new technology has been badly
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Strategic Management of Technology
introduced, was it the implementation or the overarching
approach that went wrong? There is much evidence to suggest
that many of the technology failures that we read about in the
papers were as much about inadequate senior management as
about operational ineffectiveness and inefficiency.
This book emphasises the importance of taking an effective
strategic approach to the management of technology. It argues
that operating in this way will minimise the chances of failure, as
exemplified by the cases cited above. Developing and
implementing a technology strategy, if done thoroughly and
thoughtfully, should mean that the many critical success factors
that need to be taken into account when managing, implementing
and developing technology are recognised as just that and are
responded to accordingly.
But effective strategic management is more than that. It is about
positioning the organisation to best advantage, taking account not
only of its relative strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities
and threats that may present themselves over the time period
covered by the strategy, but also of its environment and its
capacity to invent, innovate, and improve through technology. It
also stresses the importance of integration – of strategy, systems,
technology, planning, process, people, resources and functions.
Above all, it proposes that organisations – and their senior
managers in particular – need to ‘think outside the box’ in order
to ensure that they are preparing for the future rather than living
in the past.
There are many references in the book to private sector
organisations and their approach. Wherever possible, these
references are related across to the public sector, where the
majority of library and information services (LIS) are located. This
proved a relatively straightforward task, given the increasingly
competitive and commercial nature of the sector. It is hoped that
in referring to the private as well as the public sectors the reader
will have a broader set of experiences and tools on which to draw
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Preface
when considering the strategic management of technology. For the
public sector manager in particular, it is envisaged that the key
perceptions, drivers and approaches to technology management
and development will provide a valuable insight into the workings
of the technology suppliers with which LIS managers increasingly
have to deal. Strategic technology management, like any other
form or branch of management, is ultimately about doing. To this
end, a number of case studies and practical examples, based
primarily on my own experience, have been included.
Bibliography
Collins, T. and Bicknell, D. (1998) Crash: Learning from the
World’s Worst Computer Disasters.London: Simon & Schuster.
Drummond, H. (1999) ‘Are we any closer to the end? Escalation
and the case of Taurus’, International Journal of Project
Management, 17(1), 11–16.
Williams, T.I. (1982) A Short History of Twentieth-Century
Technology, c.1900–c.1950. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
p. 292.
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Acknowledgements
This book grew out of study for a Master of Business
Administration degree with the Open University. The qualification
centred upon technology management in general and the strategic
implications in particular. The work ended with a dissertation on
the subject of why technology projects fail. Projects in the LIS
environment were studied. Some of the conclusions from the
research have made their way into this book. I am grateful to all
who supported me during the MBA programme and especially to
those who participated in the research project. I must thank MCB
Press for permission to reprint Case study 1, which first appeared
in their journal Interlending and Document Supply, vol. 31(2). I
am also grateful to my past and present employers for their
support during the time when this book was being researched and
written and the earlier MBA research was being undertaken.
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List of abbreviations
ANSI American National Standards Institute
BIDS Bath Information and Data Service
BPR business process re-engineering
CSF critical success factor
CTI Computers in Teaching Initiative
CURL Consortium of University Research Libraries
Docdel document delivery
e-Lib Electronic Libraries [Programme]
EDDIS Electronic Document Delivery: the Integrated Solution
FDI Fretwell-Downing Informatics
FMEA failure mode and effects analysis
HE higher education
HEFCE Higher Education Funding Council for England
HEI higher education institution
HSA hard systems approach
ICT information and communications technology
ILDRMS Inter-Lending and Document Request Management
System
ILL inter-library lending
IPR intellectual property right
ISD Information Services Directorate
ISO International Standards Organisation
IT information technology
ITATL IT-assisted teaching and learning
JANET Joint Academic Network
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Strategic Management of Technology
JISC Joint Information Systems Committee [of the UK
Higher Education Funding Councils]
JIT just-in-time
LIS library and information services
LR likelihood ranking
MAN metropolitan area network
MLE managed learning environment
PEN plan effectiveness number
PRINCE Projects in Controlled Environments
PRN priority risk factor
RAE research assessment exercise
R&D research and development
RAN regional area network
RDA Regional Development Agency
RLSG Research Libraries Support Group
SCAITS Staff Computing and IT Skills
SMEs small- to medium-sized enterprises
SNEL Sudanese National Electronic Library
SR severity ranking
SSM soft systems methodology
SWOT strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats
TA technology assessment
TLTP Teaching and Learning Technology Programme
TQM total quality management
UEA University of East Anglia
UKHE United Kingdom higher education
VCA value chain analysis
VLE virtual learning environment
VRE virtual research environment
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List of figures and tables
Figures
1.1 The transformation process 17
1.2 Primary and secondary inputs/outputs for
document delivery 18
1.3 Elements of a technological system 19
1.4 A linear technology trend 20
1.5 S-curve technology trend 20
1.6 A technology life cycle 25
1.7 Substitution of competing technologies 26
2.1 Innovation framework 52
2.2 Management of continuous improvement 62
2.3 The Abernathy–Utterback model 64
2.4 Barras’ reverse product cycle 64
2.5 Porter’s industry competition model 69
3.1 Simple model for portfolio analysis 89
3.2 Quality function deployment 95
3.3 Stages in a technology assessment 98
3.4 Generic value chain 103
3.5 The SCAITS strategic planning web 111
4.1 Boundary examination 124
4.2 Five Ws and H 125
4.3 Relevance tree 135
4.4 Feed forward control 137
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