Although there are various models provided by textbooks to understand and measure organizational effectiveness, the basic meaning of organizational effectiveness remains unchanged: It is for the organization to be doing everything that it knows how to do, and to be doing it well. The organization knows how to manage its employees, and to manufacture the products or provide the services that it originally set out to manufacture or provide. However, in order to be effective in its operations, the organization should be managing its employees well, and manufacturing good quality products or providing high quality services to its customers.What is more, in the organizational environment of today, the organization that is effective in its operations must be effectively using information technology.
This is, in fact, one of the requirements of organizational effectiveness (Helms). The computer software designed for the organization in our time helps to organize plans, letters, legal documents, articles, and countless other files as well as indispensable documents. In other words, software can help to modernize as well as simplify the whole process of working with computer documents (New Software, 2006).This helps the organization to do its job well, seeing that computer software is designed to perform routine tasks that humans might perform only with mistakes because they dislike and get easily wearied with monotonous tasks. What is more, time is money in the business world. By using computer software to handle routine tasks with speed, the organization is using its human resources at jobs that only skilled human beings would be able to handle.
Hence, everything at the organization runs well.The computersoftware does its own job excellently, while the skilled human beings, without wasting time on routine tasks that computers can handle, perform jobs that computers cannot do. Thus, computer software adds to the skills and specializations at the workplace. Another very important application of computer technology is in the area of knowledge management at the organization.Knowledge management refers to “a range of practices used by organizations to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge for reuse, awareness, and learning across the organizations” (Knowledge Management, 2007). The foundation of knowledge management lies, no doubt, in the premise that it is only with knowledge that human minds can evolve, and it is only with learning that organizations may grow to reach their highest potential.
An excellent example of the use of knowledge management is today’s organizational growth with respect to globalization, which entails the internationalization of organizations including the goods that they produce or the services they provide. Organizations that must reach out to the international public because it is a competitive disadvantage not to – must know about the cultures of different peoples, for example, before they can market and sell their goods and services in the new markets successfully.What is more, it is information technology that is speeding up the process of globalization with respect to organizations today. And, “information technology,” by its surface meaning itself entails knowledge management at its best. Thus, L.
Prasak (2001) writes, referring to the combination of globalization and information technology: “This combination of global reach and speed compels organizations to ask themselves, ‘What do we know, who knows it, what do we not know that we should know? ’”Knowledge management can lead to organizational effectiveness. For an organization to manage knowledge, it is essential for its employees to share information, and perform their jobs effectively knowing everything they need to know. Computer technology makes this task a breeze. The latest software and Internet-based applications help to bridge communication gaps.
As a matter of fact, Information technology has gifted the organization with new communications tools that allow collaboration in addition to cooperation in the form of wireless communications, electronic mail, shared electronic databases, videoconferencing, and various other groupware technologies. At present, businesses may hope to not only put the best persons on the job but also reduce time lost to travel as well as the need for relocation. Furthermore, computer technology allows for convenient communication between an organization and its international partners or consumers.This, too, adds to organizational effectiveness.
As a matter of fact, it takes all the stakeholders of an organization to make it function well. The organization sets out to please its consumers with its products or services. By reaching its partners and consumers through effective routes made available by computer software, the organization would indeed perform its job most effectively. No organization can be truly effective today without the use of the latest in information technology. The Internet technology makes it simple for organizations to search for information about their potential markets.What is more, in order to perform its functions well, Organization A has to reach the stakeholders including its target consumers on time.
If Organization A fails to do so, its competitor (Organization B) that uses Internet technology effectively to market its products online might be able to attract Organization A’s target customers to itself because Organization B has the tools to reach its target consumers faster.Therefore, in order to gain a competitive advantage, Organization A would also have to use the latest in information technology and market its products online. As a matter of fact, the more effectiveness an organization, the more innovatively does it use computer technology to perform its functions well. As the leader of the retail industry, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. utilizes the concept of “operational innovation” by inventing new ways of doing work. So far, the company has developed unique features in its business models and customer interface.
Indeed, Wal-Mart is known for its friendly service, employee training programs, and store greeters. By practicing operational innovation, the company has produced superior profitability for itself. Moreover, the company is a recognized leader in supply-chain management. By integrating and innovating the processes for engaging and communicating with suppliers, Wal-Mart has turned out to be a leader whose innovations cannot be easily replicated by competitors (Close, 2006). An example of management innovation at Wal-Mart is that its sales records are directly communicated to its banks at the points of sale.
Hence, when a product barcode is read at checkout, the purchase is not only listed on the customer’s receipt, but also communicated directly to banks. This means that Wal-Mart’s suppliers would be paid immediately upon the sale of their products at Wal-Mart. Prompt payment allows the company to negotiate volume discounts from its suppliers. This, of course, translates into lower prices for customers (Powell, 2001).
The mission of Wal-Mart is to attract the highest number of consumers through lowest prices anyway.Thus, the organization becomes effective through the use of specialized computer software. Additionally, Wal-Mart’s effective use of computer technology serves as a model for other companies that seek effectiveness in their overall functions. Wal-Mart understands that it is impossible to be effective without the use of latest technology. Innumerable other organizations are nowadays applying this concept, too, and making profits by doing so.
