Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Extra Credit


Electronic Health Record

 

Electronic health record (EMR), not to be confused with electronic medical record is a comprehensive electronic method of maintaining the entire medical record of a patient.  In contrast, the electronic medical record is often simply medical practice specific, and offers little to no portability of information.  According to Medicare, there is now a carrot/stick approach to entice MD’s and other practitioners to adopt such software and it isn’t cheap.  Software can run 10’s of thousands of dollars on up, depending on scale of use.  Medicare is currently offering incentives to adopt approved software now rather than later.  If the practitioner waits until 2015 or later, he/she will face a 1% to 3% penalty per year.  Also, “meaningful” use must be proven to receive the incentives.  This usually happens in a doctor’s office by integrating prescriptions that are automatically sent to the pharmacy. 
The Idea is to be able to offer a one stop shop for a patient’s medical record regarding imaging, pharmacy, doctor visits, rehab, etc…In theory, this can drastically cut down on prescription errors, and duplication of effort patients dread so often when seeing multiple doctors.  The whole concept presents an opportunity cost for the practice.  Major Hospital chains and big practices have more resources to adopt such change, but many smaller “one doc shops” cannot afford to purchase, train, implement, and maintain such an investment even with the incentives.  Some smaller primary care practices are simply not seeing Medicare patients all together.  All in all, this brings up a valid point regarding healthcare and associated costs, especially the imposed costs of doing business. 
citations:

Monday, December 3, 2012

Extra credit post: Motorcycle Innovations


 

    In my small hometown, the first group of people who bought motorcycles were all killed in motorcycle related incidents. Ever since then, I have always considered the motorcycle as a very dangerous transportation vehicle and difficult to drive. But now a new type of motorcycle that looks like a mini car will be launched in 2014. This marks the end of a traditional motorcycle era and the beginning of a more innovative era. This event is significant in that it will bring more safety, energy efficiency and potential climate benefit for this world.

 

    Daniel Kim, the owner of San Francisco-based Lit Motors, is developing a new type of motorcycle that is safer than the traditional one. They named this motorcycle C-1. It is enclosed with steel-reinforced shell and doors. It can reach a speed of 120 miles per hour. The metal shell gives drivers better protection during a collision. In addition, the gyroscope technologies enable this motorcycle to keep its balance. The benefits it brings to people is safety; people can drive in bad weather such as rain, snow or windy days. Moreover, this motorcycle use electric batteries to save energy. Gasoline powered cars, a nonrenewable resource, are sources of pollution and contributor to climate change. The development of this electric motorcycle is a good solution for global warming.

 

    The company has developed a prototype and hopes to launch commercial products in 2014 with a $24000 price tag per motorcycle. The price would be cut down to $14,000 in 2016. The company's target markets are older motorcyclists and younger commuters. But I think they need to move into markets in China and India. It is difficult for further automobile development in these countries because of their large populations and limited city land. Motorcycles are always a good transportation tool for people who live in these countries. Although the price cannot compete with the cars, this type of motorcycle will become popular in niche markets. Practicing managers should grasp this opportunity to develop the new motorcycles.

 

Citation

1. A Motorcycle that won't wipe out. By Olga Kharif on November 21, 2012

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-21/danny-kims-motorbike-wont-wipe-out

2. For Some Drivers, an Electric Motorcycle Could Be the Best of Both Worlds.

By BRIAN X. CHEN  on October 10, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/11/technology/start-ups/for-some-drivers-electric-motorcycle-could-be-the-best-of-both-worlds.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

3. Lit Motors unveils all-electric, fully enclosed motorcycle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0m-cUxMcJw

 

 

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Extra Credit Blog - Current Event

This blog post is intended to fulfill an extra credit assignment for Professor Voelker’s Strategic Management Seminar course (MGMT 6731) at University of Houston Clear Lake this Fall 2012 semester.  The extra credit assignment is to provide an additional overview of a current event associated with an assigned topic area, in this case relating strategic management and innovation.  To fulfill this requirement I have chosen what I have found to be an interesting current event regarding how businesses innovatively leverage new venues for selling products and encourage their advocacy during the holiday season to create additional sales, in this particular case what has now come to be known as “Mobile Tuesday.”
Along with our Thanksgiving holiday American’s have come to look forward to Black Friday sales as a way of officially recognizing the Christmas season is upon us.  What used to be the treasure trove all retailers looked forward to for moving their year end performance out of the red and into the black has been further extended with the invention of the web along with a means for secure online transactions by the resulting innovative creation a new sales holiday we have come to look forward to known as Cyber Monday.  Now if two back to back sales holidays weren’t quite enough to spur the ever budget conscious public into easing up on the purse strings controlling their pocket books, we now have a back to back to back sales holiday to look forward to - this time known as “Mobile Tuesday.” 
What drives the creation of these new sales holidays?  A new factor that must be considered when deliberating the four P’s of the marketing mix.  Technologies that create new venues for marketing and securing sales.  Whereas people used to have to go in person through store after store shopping around for the best deals, with the internet they were able to reside comfortably at their personal computer perusing many different online providers to choose the best deals for the products they desired to give during the holiday season.  Now with the creation of mobile networks and hand held cellular devices such as smart phones and tablets that most everyone can now afford, shopping is more convenient, easier and speedier that ever before.  Mobile Tuesday makes it possible to use your cellular devices wherever you are and whenever you want to quickly scan through a multitude of new deals and make associated purchases should you have been reluctant to make those initial holiday purchases earlier on either in person on Black Friday or online on Cyber Monday.
This is an important and evolving innovation development because it means business managers creating new strategies for marketing and to secure sales will need to stay abreast of the latest choices in information technology available to their customers.  The new technologies create the possibility for new venues driving sales.  This provides leverage to help keep organizations a step ahead especially when applying the appropriate level of marketing hype at opportune times such extending national holidays beyond their normal presence of sales duration.  This is also important not just for the business community as charitable organizations seeking to increase their share of contributions are quick to take up the new marketing opportunity themselves too. 
Citations:
1.       Zephrin Lasker, November 6, 2011.  Cyber Monday? How About Mobile Tuesday. Forbes.  Accessed at http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2011/12/06/cyber-monday-how-about-mobile-tuesday/  on November 29, 2012.
2.       Author Unknown, October 16, 2012.  Brooklyn Website Taking A Stab At ‘Mobile Tuesday’. New York Business Journal.  Accessed at http://www.bizjournals.com/newyork/news/2012/10/16/brooklyn-website-taking-a-stab-at.html  on November 29, 2012.
3.       George Koprowicz, November 27, 2012.  Giving Tuesday Is The Mobile Charitable Alternative After Cyber Monday.  Examiner.com.  Accessed at http://www.examiner.com/article/giving-tuesday-is-the-mobile-charitable-alternative-after-cyber-monday  on November 29, 2012.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

RFID- Post number 4


RFID

 

As prices for RFID continue to fall, this technology becomes a part of our lives more and more whether we like it or not.  Implications are broad, and include medical management, inventory control, passport/ID protection, etc…  Larger players such as Wal-Mart have profound impacts on smaller companies regarding RFID.  Regarding inventory control, Wal-Mart requires suppliers to provide RFID as part of its shipment packages.  Some suppliers are not otherwise incentivized to incur such an expense, but must do so anyway to continue doing business with Wal-Mart.  Over time, however, this seems to have lost momentum, and many stores do not use this technology yet.  RFID appears to be a great idea on the surface, but it is not without its critics.  As with most technology, there are others who can exploit weaknesses in RFID to steal identities of others, conduct corporate espionage, and pose risks to military/government organizations that use this technology.  There are also issues with standardizing chips that are used, so that they may be readable from company to company, and from any overseeing agency that needs to regulate a given industry.  Although there are a fair share of potential issues, RFID has many uses in the future, and managers of all industries may likely be exposed to this technology and must be aware of its implications. 

 

 

 

“RFID Technology Transforming Food Retailers Like Walmart”,


RFID's Second Wave, BusinessWeek, retrieved 11/20/2012.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Blog Post 4 – Current Event

This blog post is intended to fulfill a requirement for Professor Voelker’s Strategic Management Seminar course (MGMT 6731) at University of Houston Clear Lake this Fall 2012 semester.  The requirement in question is to provide an overview of a current event associated with an assigned topic area, in this case relating strategic management and innovation.  To fulfill this requirement I have chosen what I have found to be a very interesting current event on how busisnesses leverage social media to innovatively improve teamwork via internal communication, in this particular case as a system called “Colab” by General Electric.
How can a firm leverage the experience of all their employees in one fell swoop?  GE has the way.  It’s called “Colab”.  A social networking system internal to the company that allows employees to post items of interest they are in need of resolving and provides a mehanism where other employees who might have unique insights can offer helping advice.  The system was started up by the chief information office in the beginning of 2012 and already has over one hundred thousand users.  Emphasis has been on getting power users to try out the system and make value added feedback to the developers on what functionality they would find most useful.  Idea here is that if the power users actually take hold of the new system and refer there associates, then they system will take hold and be of value.  Evidently this concept is working great because GE reports they adding on the order of a thousand users ever few days.
Finding innovative ways to get the most out of your human capital is a key to sustained competitive advantage.  Leveraging technology such as social media to bring your people together who have common interests and complimentary experience is such an example.  Unleashing the creativity that comes along with such diveristy will yield great returns.
Citations:
1.      Robert Berkman and Ron Utterbeck, November 7, 2012.  GE’s Coab Brings Good Things to the Company. MIT Sloan Management Review. Accessed at http://sloanreview.mit.edu/feature/ges-colab-brings-good-things-to-the-company/ on November 12, 2012.
2.      Paul Wolf, November 12, 2012. Harnessing The Power of Thousands of Brinas.  Reinventing Government.  Accessed at http://reinventinggov.org/2012/11/12/harnessing-the-power-of-thousands-of-brains/ on November 13, 2012
3.      Karen Goulart, August 7, 2012. GE Brings Social Collaboration to Live with Colab. SearchCIO.  Accesseed at http://searchcio.techtarget.com/feature/GE-brings-social-collaboration-to-life-with-GE-Colab   on November 13, 2012.

Sunday, November 18, 2012


Innovation of Robotic Lawn Mowers

 

Many American families have been using iRobot Corp.'s Roomba vacuum cleaner for many years. Now the technology has spread to lawn mowers. Robert Bosch, an auto parts giant,  began to sell robotic lawn mower last month. The well known auto company Honda Motor also released its robotic lawn mower product named Miimo, which looks similar to iRobot Roomba,   in Europe in August 2012. The robotic lawn mower is a combination of sensors and GPS technology. Not only can the robotic lawn mowers cut turf in random patterns or distinct lines, they can also reverse directions to avoid obstacles such as trees or lawn chairs. This is an important event that represents the regular mower's innovation. The robotic lawn mower is changing human life and becoming a part of our life.

 

The first model of robotic lawnmower was invented in 1995 by Husqvarnal Corporation, Europe's biggest high quality lawn mower and related products maker. This company currently dominates the robotic lawn mower market and its technology in robotics lawnmower is the best in the world. Other two companies Deere (DE) and Global Garden Products Italy also have launched commercial products in 2012. The most likely outcome is that traditional lawnmower will be substituted by Robot lawnmower if the price is competitive. It may become the fastest-growing outdoor garden tool in some markets, especially in Europe luxury end market. The total revenue of the robotic lawn mower in 2012 is $170 million, increased 30% compared to 2011. If the retail price can decrease from  2,000 to 1,000, "the market will become mainstream."  

 

Although it is a niche market and robotic mower's total market share cannot compete with the conventional mowers now , there are a lot of opportunities for those followers. Practicing managers should be ready to seize this opportunity to develop new robotic mowers. For the traditional lawn mower manufacturers, they should be aware of the threat from robotic lawn mowers.

The early robotic mower market entrants should establish entry barriers such as core technology and patent to increase innovation lead time. If they have enough lead time, they will be able to shape consumer preferences and build consumer brand loyalties to earn more market share and more profit.

 

Citation

1.Honda launches robotic lawn mower

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-08-21/honda-robot-mower/57185858/1

2. Rise of the Lawn-Cutting Machines

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-25/rise-of-the-lawn-cutting-machines

3. Lawn mowing robots bid for a share of a growing market , By Zoe Kleinman, 31 October 2012

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20102090

 

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Blog Post 3_Justin Heard


Determinants of an Innovation Process: A Case Study

of Technological Innovation in a Community Sport

Organization

Journal of Sport Management, 2012, 26, 213-223

©2012 Human Kinetics, inc.

 

The article looks at a community sport organization (CSO) undergoing a technological change.  This implementation of innovation was looked at as a case study.  Managerial, environmental, and organizational levels were looked regarding how innovation was handled at each level.  3 stages were used as adopted from research from Damanpour & Schneider (2006), as notated from the article.  These 3 stages are initiation, adoption, and implementation.  From a managerial prospective, having a pro-innovation leader proved to be a strong determinant regarding adoption of innovation.  Leadership commitment was also important. Projects have been cancelled with lack of strong commitment from leadership in this case study, and would otherwise not progress through all stages.  Financial resources and organizational capacity was another determinant in this study, and also had a strong influence regarding success of the implementation of new innovation within a CSO.  When adoption of new software is involved, involvement of outside influence is “paramount” in the implementation stage.  This is attributed to the training involved, and making sure end users are competent and confident with the new programs.  These findings are recommended by the authors to be used with a range of CSO’s, and across differing types of CSO’s seeking to adopt technology.  Having strong and committed leadership during this process is said to have a strong impact on the success or failure of adopting innovation, along with financial support and external assistance. 

 

Hoeber, L., & Hoeber, O. (2012). Determinants of an Innovation Process: A Case Study of Technological Innovation in a Community Sport Organization. Journal Of Sport Management, 26(3), 213-223.