Computer Technology and the Networked Organization - Think the Unthinkable - Article Review

After reading "Think the Unthinkable" article on Oticon Corp., I do not think Oticon would be a good role model for "effectively" integrating information technology into the office. I think that the new CEO, Lars Kolind, brought integrating information technology into Oticon's office but I don't think I would say it was the most effective approach. Although when you read "Complexity of New Office Designs" it discusses how more companies want the open spaces for the team approach concept but I took that as creating larger spaces within the company so that employees could go to that area with their team while still maintaining individual office space for each employee and not just have your entire office open like Oticon did. As Mary Colette Wallace spoke in her article "Office design should reflect the needs of the work and employees, as well as the structure of corporate philosophy" (Internet - http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/nov00/wallace.htm), this holds true in most situations. Kolind brought information technology into his new office design by having the immediate teams of any given project are able to roll to a corner of the open building and communicate and exchange data as a team. Let's consider all of the noise from other teams that may be six feet away from you as they strategize, this would be very distracting and you would be unable to concentrate and focus on your team.

To have a successful organization that utilizes information technology you would have to have more than just one strategy and/or new technique that you would incorporate to help make the company successful. In order to be successful you would have to look at the production issues vs. people issues and how both play a role in achievement to the success of the company. Kolind created an environment that he thought would bring teams together and streamline the process. However, you would have to take into consideration the issues of personnel versus just changing the office environment. There are a lot of individuals that do their best work in a private area where they can focus and not be interrupted by other groups that may have nothing to do with a given individual. I agree that putting teams together in an open environment could potentially allow for open dialogue to exchange new data and information to be used as a basis of discussing or deciding the final outcome of a project. I think that Kolind assessed the company's operations and evaluated where he could implement the best practices to improve the efficiency and by also freeing up other resources to work on what was important, getting the new technology in the hearing aid business and having it available to the customer.

Kolind chose to invest in Oticon Corporation (not only his individual time and money) as he knew that during the economy at that time, he felt that by taking a chance on this company they could survive the downturn and then excel as the economy improved. We do not know based on the article whether his strategies worked but his concept had good intentions. I believe further information would be necessary to determine if Oticon is a good model for effectively integrating information technology into the office.

In order for any given company to be competitive with other companies they need to have some kind of information technology department