6 PROPOSED MANAGERIAL
ACTIVITIES AND FUTURE
RESEARCH
In this section, areas for future application of new
web-based solutions are proposed. Development
possibilities can be divided into four main
categories: (a) improved efficiency; (b) improved
service delivery performance; (c) improved
innovativeness; and (d) analysis of performance.
(a) Efficiency can be improved most by
developing content management. Efficient content
management is essential for an expert organisation
because it needs to collect, store, retrieve and
distribute large masses of information. Streamlining
and automating these content management processes
frees time for creative work and shortens turnaround
times.
(b) The service delivery performance of the
cases researched was usually not very good. There
were two main reasons for this: (1) the sales
organisation did not know the available capacity and
promised overly optimistic delivery times; and (2)
an unmanageable project and contents extended
turnaround times. In addition, due to unmanageable
projects, the amount of work-in-progress was not
known very specifically, and consequently, neither
was the available capacity. Especially in
organisations of roughly ten employees, there could
be so many on-going projects and commissions that
new information technology tools for capacity,
project and content management would be useful. A
human being cannot manage these information flows
without such programmes or with mere basic office
applications. The tools should also be flexible
enough to deal with change (e.g. adapt project
schedules) because there are often deviations in the
activity of the case companies, such as rush orders.
(c) In addition to project efficiency, the
companies should concentrate on enhancing the
innovativeness of project results. This means
innovative customer solutions, service concepts and
operational models. A centralised web-based idea
database could be used as an aid in innovation.
Users could enter ideas and customer needs data
through a web browser in a distributed way. The
ideas and customer needs could subsequently be
developed in a face-to-face creative process. Ideas
could also be developed to a certain point in a web-
based discussion forum.
(d) Performance is rarely analysed in the studied
case companies. The calculation methods for the
performance indicator values should be included in
the system, which would allow reports to be
compiled automatically from the initial data entered
into the system.
Further studies could focus more on how web
technologies are applied in practice in the core
processes of small and micro-sized knowledge-
oriented service businesses and how they could be
applied in the future. Further research would then
present different operational models that are or could
be built on web technologies.
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