76
Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13 - INNOVATION AND
STRATEGIC PLANNING
Learning Objectives
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:








Define strategic planning and explain why it is important to achieving effective end-user information
systems.
Define characteristics of innovations, innovative people, and innovative organizations.
Understand the relationships between technology and innovation.
Discuss the use of technology to deliver products and services.
Explain how technology can be used to restructure work processes.
Give examples of how industries have used technology to gain a competitive advantage.
Explain the role of R & D to developing technical solutions to problems.
Offer guidelines for developing an EUIS strategic plan.
Lecture Outline
13.1
13.2
13.3
13.4
Introduction to the Chapter
Effective Use of EUIS Must be Planned and Managed
Adoption, Infusion, and Assimilation of Technology
Innovations, Innovators, and Innovative Organizations
13.4.1 Characteristics of Innovations
13.5
13.4.2 Characteristics of the User Population
13.4.3 Characteristics of Innovative Enterprises
The Infusion of Technology: Descriptive Models
13.5.1 OTA Model of Technology Infusion
13.6
13.5.2 Day's Five Stages of Office Systems Evolution
Using Technology to Redesign Work Processes and Gain Competitive Advantage
13.6.1 Using Technology as a Catalyst for Improving Performance
13.7
13.8
13.6.1.1
Replacing old procedures
13.6.1.2
Eliminating work and combining tasks
13.6.1.3
Finding synergy between technology and people
13.6.1.4
Changing job roles
13.6.1.5
Integrating functions
13.6.1.6
Making systems more innovative
13.6.1.7
Translating problems into opportunities
13.6.2 Using Technology to Gain Competitive Advantage
13.6.2.1
Nurturing innovation
13.6.2.2
Supporting Research and Development
Strategic Planning for EUIS
13.7.1 What Is Strategic Planning for EUIS?
13.7.2 Why is Strategic Planning Important?
13.7.3 The Strategic Planning Process
13.7.4 Who Should Do Strategic Planning?
13.7.5 The Strategic Plan
13.7.6 Putting the Strategic Plan into Action
Summary
Regan/O’Connor Instructor's Manual
77
Chapter Overview
EUIS strategic planning is part of an important process that aligns use of technology with overall goals
and objectives of an enterprise. Business needs should drive the selection of technology, but, at the same
time, technology is an enabler that creates new opportunities for the business. The major opportunities
offered by EUIS technologies are associated with their potential for transforming the way work is done.
Thus, fostering innovation is an important aspect of strategic planning.
Innovation is a two-edged sword: it is both applauded and feared. While enterprises acknowledge the
value of new ideas, corporate cultures do not always foster and reward innovation. Technologies, like new
ideas, bring both threats and opportunities. Capitalizing on technology to improve productivity and
quality of worklife is complex and challenging. It requires foresight, careful planning, and good
management.
Innovation is best characterized as a process whereby individuals or enterprises adopt, use, and assimilate
new technologies. Rogers suggested five characteristics of innovations that influence adoption of new
technologies: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability. Rogers also
described people as to how receptive they are to innovation on a scale ranging from the very innovative to
laggards. Quinn revealed the characteristics that innovative enterprises have in common: flexible
management, attacking problems from several angles simultaneously, allowing for chaos within
guidelines, and freezing plans only when necessary.
The infusion and assimilation of technology into the work environment is a change process. Two
conceptual models of technological change were presented. The Office of Technology Assessment's
(OTA) Model of Technological Change, developed by Joseph Coates, describes the process in three
stages: substitution, adaptation, and transformation. L. H. Day offers a five-stage model: conception,
initiation, contagion, consolidation, and creative evolution. Left to chance, the adoption, infusion, and
assimilation of technology can be haphazard and painstakingly slow. However, the process can be
managed and accelerated through effective strategic planning directed at transforming work processes.
Transforming work processes requires innovative approaches to business needs. When technology is used
innovatively, it offers new opportunities for managing information and empowering individuals and work
groups. EUIS planners and analysts are challenged to design systems that capitalize on technology for
productivity improvement and competitive advantage. Enterprises that succeed will reap benefits in
improved products and services.
Without strategic planning, enterprises miss opportunities and often gain only immediate, short-term
benefits. Strategic planning is a process of defining major business goals and objectives for an enterprise.
It identifies actions required to move an enterprise from where it is to where management determines it
should be. A strategic plan for EUIS should support the goals defined in the corporate strategic plan.
Strategic plans are translated into action through policies, programs, projects, and procedures.
Teaching Suggestions
Lecture/Discussion Opener. Discuss the relevance of Machiavelli's statement made in 1513 to the challenges faced
by today's enterprises as they attempt to transform themselves to meet the challenges of worldwide competition in
the 21st Century.
Lecture/Discussion Opener. Encourage students to think about how difficult it is for them to change their own
behaviors even when they want to very much. Then compare that to the magnitude of the task when an organization
attempts to implement innovations that require many individuals to change their behaviors. You could compare IT
78
Chapter 13
strategic plans to students' New Year's resolutions. Traditionally, IT strategic plans were lists of applications, by
priority, and a list of technologies to be bought. In other words, strategic plans were simply lists of good intentions.
When one does not fulfill New Year's resolutions one usually just makes another list. Key to IT planning is that the
promises of technologies match the organization's goals and priorities. In this way, a strategic plan is viewed as a
useful document.
Lecture/Discussion Opener. Begin class by asking students to draft their own five year plan. Where will they be?
What will they be doing? Discuss variables that might impact those plans. Then, discuss variables that could
influence an organization's EUIS strategic plan. Conclude the discussion with discussion of "if it's so hard to plan
strategically, why do it?"
Invited Lecture. Invite your campus' Chief Information Technology Officer to address your class on the topic of
strategic planning. Ask the CITO to bring copies of planning documents. Analyze the discussion by using
Rogers' characteristics of innovations, the user population, and innovative enterprises.