NHS IT Project

The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system provided by the UK Department of Health (DoH). It is mostly funded by taxation including national insurance payments and the majority of the DoH's spending is on the NHS (£98.6 billion for the year 2008-2009). They claim to be committed to providing quality care to meet the needs of everyone when they need it, based on a patient's clinical record and not their ability to pay (Heath, 2008). With such bold claims and with such vast sums of money spent on the service, they are instantly placed under huge pressure to deliver a high level of service. However, they have not always delivered to the standards that they strive and so they have had to try to redeem themselves. Hence, in October 2002, they established the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) and in April 2005, a new agency called NHS Connecting for Health (CfH) was formed to deliver the programme. This extremely ambitious project was an attempt to replace an ageing patchwork of 5,000 different computer systems with a single, centrally-mandated electronic care record for patients which would connect in excess of 100,000 doctors, 380,000 nurses and 50,000 other health professionals. (Heath, 2008)

There are 10 major components which are at the heart of the NHS IT project (Heath, 2008):

The Spine
The 'Spine' is the central database where electronic patient records known as summary cared records are stored. It is part of the NHS care records service (CRS) and only NHS staff that are equipped with smart cards and pin numbers will be able to access this information. The Spine also supports 2 other key components which are 'Choose and Book' and the 'Electronic Prescriptions Service'.

NHS Care Records Service (CRS)
This will provide doctors with instant electronic access to the medical records of patients, eliminating the need for paper and saves time in manually searching through documents. Each electronic medical record will be formed from information which may be held in various locations but is brought together when needed. A summary of the record is held on the Spine so that vital information such as name, address, date of birth and allergies can be readily accessed by doctors. More detailed information such as tests, X-rays and scans are held locally.

Choose and Book
This is an electronic booking service which gives GPs the ability to make hospital appointments at convenient times and places for patients. The system should cut lengthy delays between visiting the GP and receiving an appointment from a hospital which often takes weeks under the current system.

The Electronic Prescription Service (EPS)
Instead of using paper orders for prescriptions, EPS allows GPs to generate electronic prescriptions. This should improve accuracy and safety by ensuring prescription information is only inputted once. The EPS will also be combined with the CRS to record what medicines have been prescribed and actually given to patients. EPS is being implemented in 2 releases: the first adds barcodes to paper prescriptions to speed up repeat prescriptions while the second release will add electronic signatures to authorise electronic subscriptions.

N3 National Broadband Network
The N3 will replace the old NHSnet network infrastructure and will be one of the world's largest Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). The N3 is a high-speed broadband network vital for delivering new services such as X-ray storage service Pac (Picture Archiving and Communications System) and electronic prescriptions. The estimated savings from this new network are a massive £900m over a period of 7 years.

Picture Archiving and Communications System (Pacs)
This system allows images from X-rays and scans to be stored in a digital format, eliminating the need for using film. This will speed up the delivery of information as doctors will be able to access images remotely from laptops. Costs of storing and processing film will also be saved.

The Quality Management and Analysis System (QMAS)
QMAS is a national IT system which gives GP practices and primary care trusts feedback concerning the quality of care that is delivered to patients. It monitors the performance of each practice measured against national achievement targets. Additionally, it allowsGP's pay to be linked to performance, determining up to a third of their salary.

GP2GP Record Transfer
The GP2GP is a system which allows patient records to be transferred electronically between different practices and is particularly useful when a patient changes doctor. Currently, patient records are printed and posted and requires retyping at the other end but electronic transfers will not require this retyping, making it a more accurate, secure and faster approach.

NHSmail
The previous mailing system was known as 'Contact' but the new NHSmail is a more secure national e-mail and directory service developed by Cable and Wireless, and is freely provided for NHS staff. Users ofNHSmail have a permanent e-mail address which is kept as they move around the NHS. It also has some more advanced features such as calendars, shared folders and automatic encryption of e-mails.

Secondary Uses Service (SUS)
This is a database containing more than a billion confidential patient records used to improve NHS treatment and healthcare. Records are held on almost all patients in England who have stayed in hospitals, visited outpatients or attended accident and emergency. Data is analysed internally and encrypted data fromSUS is passed to the Dr Foseter Unit - an academic body which uses this data to analyse outcomes such as death rates in hospitals, with the ultimate intention of improving NHS Care.


Hailed as “the biggest non-military IT development in the world” (Guardian News and Media Limited, 2008), and is estimated to achieve savings of £1.1 billion by 2014 (National Audit Office, 2008). The National Audit Office expects the system to cost £12.7bn over 10 years and be complete by 2014-2015 (see table below). However, it was originally only expected to cost £2.3bn over 3 years and it is also now four years behind schedule. Worryingly, some officials involved in the program have been quoted in the media estimating the final cost to be as much as £20-30bn which exceeds the original budget by approximately 440-770%. (Fleming, 2004) This project may prove to be an over ambitious project by the government and appears to have fundamental flaws in its implementation and further delay could severely damage public confidence.

(National Audit Office, 2008)

Implementation of the programme was divided into 5 areas of England known as "clusters" and a different Local Service Provider (LSP) was responsible for delivering services to these regions. In total, 4 suppliers were contracted who were CSC Alliance, BT Health London, Accenture and Fujitsu. This strategy was effective in reducing risk as committing to only one supplier would mean that the whole project could fall apart if they did not deliver to expectations. However, the NHS has been putting its main suppliers under immense pressure as it has tried to keep within budget and there have been consequences. In July 2007, Accenture pulled out of the project and in May 2008, Fujitsu had their contract terminated and now only half of the of the original IT providers remain.

A number of these programmes have met their deadlines and have been implemented across the NHS such as the N3 broadband network,Pacs digital X-ray scheme and an Electronic Prescription Service. However the Summary Care Records Scheme has been delayed due to technical problems relating to iSOFT’s Lorenzo patient software and disagreements over patients being asked for their consent for their medical records to be digitized. Consequently the dates for the new systems to “go live” have been delayed.

One of the most important issues with regards to the patient record system is that information stored is kept confidential and secure. The NHS has developed ‘Care Record Guarantee’ guidelines which must be adhered to in handling this electronic data. Access to records through smartcards and passcodes are dependent upon the role and level of involvement within patient care and can be audited. Any departures from these rules result in strict disciplinary measures being taken for unacceptable misuse of this information.

It is questionable whether this level of security is enough, with 50 million people’s records on the database. In 2004, the NPfIT won the "Most Appalling Project" Big Brother Award for their plans to computerise patient records whilst neglecting the need for adequate privacy safeguards. Another reason which underlines the opinion that security is a fundamental issue is that there is actually no option to opt out of having your demographic details stored unless there are special circumstances such as if the police or social services requests these details to be kept off the database. Therefore many public and private sector workers can quite easily gain access to details such as your address and phone numbers from social workers and pharmacists for example. Reasons such as this have prompted civil liberties campaigners such as the anti-database state pressure group, NO2ID, and The Big Opt Out to voice their concerns over confidentiality and the security of medical data uploaded to The Spine. The adoption of encryption and digital signatures would help to reinforce the security of this information but question marks still remain over whether the level of security will be sufficient.

There are a number of issues that must be considered in the government’s decision to go ahead with this massive investment in the NHS. Past experiences highlight the government’s incompetence in the management of such large scale IT projects.

The Rural Payments Agency (RPA), who are responsible for managing farm subsidy payments in the UK were prevented from achieving targets they had set due to a combination of IT failures and poor management. A Single Payment Scheme was established by EC Council Regulation 1782/2003 which replaced eleven separate payments to farmers.

The RPA developed custom software and created databases where data was stored on computers disconnected from the main system. However this was a fundamental error as the system required the data in order to function correctly. Overall this project highlighted incompetence in terms of project management, inexperience and poor planning. This had a detrimental effect upon farmers who required such subsidies in order to maintain their activities.

Another example of mismanagement is the failure of the upgrade to the Air Traffic Control System (NATS). The failure of the project was due to poor management, its lack of managerial and technical competence. The use of three different service providers did not help to maintain effective control over the system and despite 450,000 hours of testing two million lines of code (Erskine, 2002) it still had a number of breakdowns. This was due to bugs, a lack of stability and reliability in the system which resulted in flight delays and cancellations.

In summary, the implementation of IT software to create an electronic patient database is necessary in order to improve efficiency and the standard of care. When the project is eventually completed, the benefits should become apparent, with patients benefiting from having shorter waiting times and faster treatments. However, it is essential that such an investment must provide significant savings in the long term to an already expensive health system. Otherwise taxpayer’s money which should be spent on patient care and wellbeing is squandered on untested technology.

This assignment was produced in collaboration with Rishi Chada


Bibliography

BBC News, (2008), NHS IT 'at least four years late'

Retrieved: 15/12/08, from

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7403286.stm


BBC News, (2008), Privacy foes named and shamed

Retrieved: 15/12/08, from

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3933679.stm


Erskine, R., (2002), At last a silver lining around the troubled NATS Air Traffic Control System, Technical Report, Software Forensics Centre,

Retrieved: 12/12/08, from

http://www.cs.mdx.ac.uk/research/SFC/Reports/TR2002-02.pdf


Fleming, N., (2004), Bill for hi-tech NHS soars to £20 billion, Telegraph Media Group Limited

Retrieved: 13/12/08, from

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1473927/Bill-for-hi-tech-NHS-soars-to-andpound20-billion.html


Guardian News and Media Limited, (2008), Four-year delay for NHS's new IT system

Retrieved: 15/12/08, from

http: /www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/may/16/nhs.health


Heath, N., (2008), The 10 projects at the heart of NHS IT, CBS Interactive Limited

Retrieved: 14/12/08, from

http://www.silicon.com/publicsector/0,3800010403,39328119,00.htm

Krigsman, M., (2007), UK Rural Payments Agency (RPA): IT failure and gross incompetence screws farmers IT Project Failures, ZDNet

Retrieved: 15/12/08, from

http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=536


National Audit Office, (2008), The National Programme for IT in the NHS: Progress since 2006

Retrieved: 16/12/08, from

http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/0708/the_national_programme_for_it.aspx


NHS, (2008), About the NHS

Retrieved: 14/12/08, from

http://www.nhs.uk/aboutnhs/Pages/About.aspx


Rural Payments Agency, (2008), About RPA

Retrieved: 16/12/08, from

http://www.rpa.gov.uk/rpa/index.nsf/UIMenu/F51B6B0D961521A7802570450051BAB9?opendocument


TheBigOptOut.org, (2008), About the campaign

Retrieved: 12/12/08, from

http://www.thebigoptout.com/?page_id=3


Wikipedia Foundation, Inc, (2008), National Health Service (England)

Retrieved: 14/12/08, from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Service_(England)

SAP R/3 Implementation at Geneva Pharmaceuticals

Geneva Pharmaceuticals (US hub of Novartis International AG) is one of the world’s largest generic drug manufacturers. Revenues of $300 million were achieved in 1998 and it holds a portfolio of over 200 products in over 500 package sizes. Its main business processes are manufacturing and distribution, with the majority of orders emerging through Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). In 1996, Geneva recognised the limitations in its existing information systems in that they were not capable of integrating across the different functions. Manufacturing, for example, could not share information with accounting or sales and this led to entries having to be manually input twice. Geneva believed an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software system would provide better integration of data across different functions making it more efficient, improve data accuracy and lower maintenance costs. The new system was to be phased in three stages.

These consisted of Phase I (focused on the supply side processes), Phase II (focused on the demand side processes) and Phase III (aimed at the integration of the supply side and demand side processes).


Phase I

This phase of the operation looked at the supply side of the process which included the manufacturing and procurement planning. Originally this type of work was carried out manually and was very labour intensive. All the data had to be re-entered at all the various stages and this increased the risk of error and additional costs. Thus the introduction of SAP R/3 appeared to be the most appropriate choice.

Geneva employed a consultancy firm Whitman-Hart who had previous experience in R/3 and also appointed Verne Evans to be project manager for the implementation process. The team opted for the accelerated SAP (ASAP) methodology as it promised a short implementation period of only six months. Four months after implementation and having spent an inordinate amount of money and time there was minimal progress made. This was due to the fact that there was no real commitment or co-ordination between the consultants. The project manager was inexperienced in R/3 and the other consultants were technical specialists and had no business experience. They failed to critically evaluate the problem and did not modify the software that was needed to meet the company’s requirement.

After this initial setback Randy Weldon was appointed the new project manager to resolve this problem. He had experience in R/3 and also management experience with ERP previously. This provided the foundation for successful implementation of a new system. He encouraged commitment from all members of the team to ensure that targets would be achieved.

A year into the implementation process proved to be quite successful and have shown improvements in certain areas but still required more refinement to the other integrated areas of the process.


Phase II

The second phase dealt primarily with the demand side processes but this phase presented a much greater challenge than the first phase due to the complexity of Geneva's sales and service processes. Since Phase I was fairly disastrous, a number of major personnel changes were made. Anna Bourgeois was assigned overall responsibility of the project as she had over 3 years of R/3 experience and an extensive knowledge of EDI. Arthur Anderson replaced Whitman-Hart as they were knowledgeable in the technical and configuration aspects of implementing SAP. Finally, another consulting firm - Oliver White was brought in as they had extensive experience of dealing with process changes in manufacturing businesses. They decided that Phase II would be carried out in 3 stages: conceptual design, conference room pilot and change management.

At the conceptual design stage, key users with the most knowledge of the existing process were interviewed with help from Oliver White consultants. A core team of 20 was split into 5 groups in the conceptual design stage to examine different areas of the distribution process. The use of small teams with the most relevant expertise was used to give the best results possible. They found 13 different areas which could be improved, 4 of which were key areas and emerged repeatedly from cross-functional analysis by the 5 groups. These 4 key areas were product destruction, customer dispute resolution, pricing strategy and service level. Models were constructed to identify how they could improve these areas using policy initiatives.

Results from the conceptual design stage were used to test prototype R/3 systems for each of the 4 key improvement areas in the conference room pilot stage. The prototypes were used to test different aspects of the redesigned processes in a simulated environment. This was extremely important for preventing errors from reaching the final versions.

In the change management phase, there was a huge emphasis on staff training. Firstly they wanted to make sure that staff knew about the changes that were taking place and did this by distributing newsletters, and displaying signs to tell them that their jobs were changing. A dedicated telephone line was created allowing employees to voice any concerns they may have. There was also an intensive, full-time training period which lasted 3 weeks. This would ensure that they could deal with not only the technological changes, but also the changes in work process, culture and habits.


Phase III

The principal aim of Phase III was to integrate supply and demand and Verne Evans (who was also in charge of Phase I) was brought back in to lead Phase III. This decision was a little strange as this person was also responsible for the shortcomings of Phase I. SAP added a new advanced Purchase Optimiser (APO) module to assist with data analysis and this was exactly what Geneva needed for their sales and operation planning (SOP). In the previous manual SOP system, too much time was wasted on data re-entry and validation and one of the most important benefits of the ERP system is that it can save a lot of time, allowing staff to direct their efforts to other important tasks. The key business metric targeted for improvement in Phase III was that they wanted to fulfil a customer order by a promised time. They also wished to implement "just-in-time" production scheduling which would allow the company to continuously update its manufacturing capacity and scheduling in response to changing customer demands. They believed that top quality customer service would be a driver of success.


Conclusion

Implementing an ERP system into a business is a huge project but it is definitely evident that the benefits of having an ERP system are enormous. Geneva encountered various issues during their implementation and these should be avoided by any company hoping to use ERP. They employed the wrong personnel for the tasks required in Phase I and as a consequence, changes frequently had to be made. Another failure from Phase I was that they did not meet the time constraints they set themselves but perhaps the biggest problem was that the time frame was never set appropriately in the first place. After Phase I, there were massive improvements and in particular, they provided excellent training to ensure that staff would have no problems coping with the changes that ERP would bring.


This assignment was produced in collaboration with Rishi Chada


Bibliography

Bhattacherjee, A., (1999), SAP R/3 Implementation at Geneva Pharmaceuticals

Sandoz, (2006), Sandoz U.S. History
Retrieved: 08/12/08, from
http://www.us.sandoz.com/site/en/company/profile/history/content.shtml

Permalink to Zoho Accounting Application Form

http://creator.zoho.com/alany1987/accounting_application_form/form-perma/Job_Application/

Is The UK becoming a Surveillance Society?

Surveillance is any collection and processing of personal data, whether identifiable or not, for the purposes of influencing or managing those whose data have been gathered [1]. Until modern times the scale of surveillance was generally small and the watching unsystematic. There were cost limitations as people would have to watch over each other and this could be impractical. Today, the most important means of surveillance comes from the use of computer power rather than people watching over each other. The massive growth in computer application areas and technical enhancement makes communication and IT central to surveillance and makes the idea of a ‘Big Brother’ type society possible.

All societies that are dependent on communication and information technologies for administrative and control processes are surveillance societies [1]. Nowadays, routine and mundane surveillance, usually mounted by organisations and agencies is embedded into every aspect of life. Everyday life is subject to monitoring, checking, scrutinising and it is now difficult to find a place that is totally secure from some form of purposeful tracking, tagging, listening, watching, recording or verification device. All of this is due to the various low cost ways to conduct surveillance.

The United Kingdom in particular is viewed as a pioneer of a mass surveillance society. At the end of 2006, a surveillance studies network described the UK as ‘the most surveilled country’ among the industrialised Western states. Since October 2007 telecommunications companies have been required to keep records of phone calls and text messages for one year. In 2008 plans were being made to collect data on people’s phones, e-mail and web-browsing habits. The database would hold information such as telephone numbers dialled, websites visited and addresses to which e-mails are sent but not actually the content of e-mails or telephone conversations. All of this would all be included in the Communications Data Bill [2]. Perhaps the most worrying part is that Britain is suggested to be the worst Western democracy at protecting individual privacy. This suggestion is not too far-fetched as there have been many embarrassing cases of data loss such as in 2007, when 2 computer discs were lost which included bank details of 25 million people [3].

Although mass surveillance is widely viewed with negative opinion, there are a number of reasons to justify why it is used on this scale. The most obvious reason is security – the UK is swamped with closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras. It is reported that there are 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain; that is about one for every 14 people [4] and on average, people appear on CCTV about 300 times per day. The effectiveness of CCTV is yet to be fully proven but one review concludes that CCTV does have a significant desirable effect on crime, even if the overall reduction is only 4% [5]. Sometimes the convenience of using telephone or credit cards means that we rarely think twice about the fact that calls and transactions are traceable and that others may profit from obtaining this data. In fact, Mr Bowden, the chief privacy advisor, EMEA Microsoft, suggests that 10-20% of the population will not even care much about privacy [6].

Another case of where convenience is the over-riding factor in people’s acceptance of being surveilled is with Oyster travel cards. Around 5 million Londoners who use this have records of their bus, tube and train journeys kept for the previous 8 weeks. Police have also been quick to take advantage of this to track the movements of criminals [7]. Mobile phones are also being used to track the movements of people. As long as a phone is switched on, mobile phone triangulation has now made it possible to establish the location of a mobile phone up to an accuracy of a few metres. In the UK, a request by the government means that the location of everybody’s mobile phone is recorded continuously by telecommunications companies and the data is kept for at least twelve months [8].

In the UK, there is anything up to 160 store loyalty card schemes. People may think that store loyalty cards are a great idea as using them can earn you discounts. However what some people forget is that the primary purpose of these cards is to collect information on shoppers spending habits. Nectar is the biggest loyalty scheme and they collect only data on how much is spent, where and when but this information can also be matched to other databases which include demographic information and so offers can be tailored to suit individual customers.

MP’s in the UK believe that the UK is not becoming a surveillance society but they admit that function creep (information collected for one purpose is gradually allowed to be used for other purposes which people may not approve of) still poses a danger. In particular, they were concerned that the increasing use of databases to store information on children could be used for predictive profiling, with the government able to single out children deemed by computers to be likely future criminals [9]. There are numerous rationales behind why politicians do not want the UK to be seen as a surveillance society. There are dangers present in large-scale surveillance systems as power does tend to corrupt or at least skew the vision of those who wield it. An example of this is in the USA, where many Muslim Americans find it difficult when trying to reserve flights as they will be subject to more intensive scrutiny than people of other races. This clearly goes against human and civil rights as white Americans will never really have to experience such problems. This is why people generally do not trust other people who know “too much” and consequently, this is why the UK government does not want their country to be viewed as a surveillance society.

In conclusion, it is evident that the UK is in fact becoming a surveillance society. MP’s may try to deny this but a 36-nation survey pointed out that Britain is one of the bottom five countries with “endemic surveillance”, with the 2 worst countries being Malaysia and China.
We are constantly being watched every day and with the exponential growth of technology, surveillance systems are always becoming cheaper to operate while also becoming more sophisticated. Police can find out information about your conversations, your contacts and friends, where you have been and the truth is: almost anything can be found out about anyone and nowadays, it is nearly impossible to remain unseen and anonymous.

References:

[1] Lyon, D, Surveillance Society – Monitoring Everyday Life, 2001
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance
[3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7103566.stm
[4] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6108496.stm
[5] http://www.crimereduction.homeoffice.gov.uk/cctv/cctv31.htm
[6] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6107764.stm
[7] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4800490.stm
[8] http://mrslippery.blogspot.com/search/label/data%20retention
[9] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/08/home_affairs_report_surveillance/

Compound Case Study

Compound UK is the selling division of a multinational pharmaceuticals company mainly concerned with selling products in the UK health sector. They also undertake clinical trials of new drugs with participating doctors. In the late 1980s and 1990s, the UK health sector underwent a period of major reform resulting in a reorganisation of the NHS and hospitals became more autonomous. Compound UK would have to deal with more complex sales situations and they responded to these changing conditions in 1993 by reorganising themselves into eight regions. The main purpose of this was to give each region a considerable degree of autonomy in planning and dealing with their own locality. Knowledge sharing was difficult as all members of the commercial function with the exception of the director would work from home, while employees from other departments would work at head office in Compound Square. Senior management believed that their selling activities could be improved by sharing information and knowledge across functional and geographic boundaries. Lotus Notes was viewed as the package that could meet those requirements. In addition it was believed it would also enhance team work between staff.

The Lotus Notes system failed to be introduced in time for the restructuring in 1993, there was a 6 month delay in this process. Compound should have introduced Lotus Notes at the same time as the restructuring and most importantly, training should have been provided for all staff and not just the new employees. Lotus Notes was certainly an improvement over the previous Jaguar system it replaced. However, there were problems that needed to be addressed. The issue regarding contact recording and the resulting league table performance put an inordinate amount of pressure on the sales reps. This resulted in low morale and eventually led to inaccurate sales figures being produced for the company.

League tables were devised to indicate centrally how many contact records and strategic selling sheets had been completed by each sales representative. However the use of league tables worked against the interests of Compound as many of the reps became disillusioned and believed that the whole intention of the system was merely to increase surveillance and control of their staff. Another problem that is inherently problematic with most league tables is that they measure only the results which in this case are contact records; they do not measure the quality of any work done. Some reps abused this system by going against the ethos of only recording 'relevant' calls and recording all the doctors, managers, accountants and even nurses they met. Lotus Notes was misused by the reps to enhance their position in the league table and hence further their careers within the company. Perhaps the idea of having league tables should have been abandoned. Alternatively, if league tables were to be incorporated then it should not only be dependent on customer contact but rather on sales which follow on from customer contact. To resolve this issue an idea might have been to limit the number of contacts within the practice or hospital so that reps could concentrate on developing and building upon relationships that they have already established. Additionally, the league tables could use a number of different indicators to measure performance in order to accommodate for quality of work as well as quantity.

The sharing of information and motivation of staff was effectively demonstrated in the approach that James Black, a Senior Manager, adopted to the programme. He developed a rapport with the reps, outlined what was required and encouraged a two way approach so that reps would feel confident enough to contact him for assistance whenever they needed to, even if contracts were unsuccessful. This approach should have been further developed and encouraged so that the company would ultimately benefit from increased sales contracts.

The rewards scheme could also have been managed differently. Compound wanted to encourage and motivate sales staff to collaborate within and between regional boundaries. When Lotus Notes was being introduced into the system the reward structure should also have been updated and improved. There were inconsistencies regarding rewards between different area managers and nothing introduced to encourage proper use of Notes. Some managers would award 30% of the reps salaries at their own discretion. However, others would allocate rewards depending upon whether reps worked overtime or surpassed targets. It could also be rewarded for more qualitative work such as training less experienced staff. A rewards scheme is a good idea as it is fairly unrealistic to rely on people's altruism to always work to their capacity but there should be a clear measure for the rewards scheme which should be using Notes in the proper way, i.e. collaborating and sharing knowledge. The only drawback of having a clear target is that staff will focus solely on achieving this in order to be rewarded. This is acceptable providing this measure is not detrimental to the interests of Compound.

In conclusion, the introduction of Lotus Notes was not a failure by any means. It could have proved itself to be more successful if management had provided better training for all staff and not made it a culture of pitting employees against each other by the use of league tables. In addition, the reward system adopted did not lend itself to encourage employees to be successful in gaining new contracts. They could have adopted a better method of measuring performance and also an improved rewards scheme, than the one they have currently employed. For example, rewards could be given to the entire team for achieving targets, which would result in greater motivation amongst the workforce. If Compound were to implement these new measures and consider the existing flaws in their system then the staff would feel more motivated and this would encourage growth in the company’s sales targets.

This assignment was produced in collaboration with Rishi Chada

Bibliography

Walsham, G., & Hayes, N., (2000), Sharing Knowledge through Lotus Notes in a Pharmaceuticals Company, Judge Institute of Management, University of Cambridge

MySQL - Advantages and Disadvantages of Open-Source Software in Business

Open-source generally refers to any program whose source code is made available for use or modification as users or other developers see fit. Usually, open-source software is developed as a public collaboration and made freely available to everybody (searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com). More detailed information on the rules of distribution concerning open-source software is available at www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php. MySQL is a database software built using the open-source concept which has actually become the world's most popular open source database (www.msql.com). It has also made a real impact in the overall database market, competing with closed-source software produced by huge companies such as Microsoft, IBM and Oracle. Businesses can adopt a strategy of using only open-source software, only closed-source software or a combination of both. This is a major business decision which has to be assessed by weighing up the numerous advantages and disadvantages of using open-source software in business.

The most obvious advantage of using open-source software is cost. Many start-up companies see cost as a major factor (www.tamingthebeast.net) and want to use a fully open-source solution to run dynamic web sites or servers. ‘LAMP’ is a software stack where the L refers to Linux (operating system), the A stands for Apache (web server), M is for MySQL (database server) and the P refers to PHP (Perl/Python programming languages). This presents an extremely low-cost solution for companies which is often too good to refuse, particularly for smaller companies. Examples of companies which have benefitted from this include Google, Yahoo!, and Travelocity who have now become very successful and profitable (Case Study). Using open-source software in a business also allows employees to work from home as the software is freely available. This may be important to a company and it was to MySQL, who in June 2006 had 320 employees of which 70% worked from home (Case Study).

Another advantage is that the software can be developed by anybody. Many internet-enabled start-up companies value the ability to modify parts of the software to differentiate themselves in their own markets. As companies are free to modify the code to suit their own needs and it can also be developed collaboratively by the public, this allows for rapid implementation of new features and security fixes. Using open-source software also has the benefit of not being tied to a single software vendor. Being reliant on one company means that you are dependent on them to solve your problems and maintain the software which can be expensive. With open-source software, the communities of programmers can act as an invaluable resource for providing support and suggesting enhancements (www.tamingthebeast.net). However there are no guarantees with the support that the public can give and it may not always be a reliable resource. MySQL realised that not everybody would need comprehensive technical support but some would and this is the reason why they introduced the ‘MySQL Network’ in early 2005. This is a subscription service that provides updates, alerts, notifications, knowledge base and production level support (Case Study). Out of all the advantages, cost-saving is probably seen as the most obvious advantage, but a survey conducted by Computer Economics shows that this is not the case and in fact less dependence on vendors was the top advantage with 44% of the votes (www.computereconomics.com).

Despite these advantages, there are also a number of drawbacks with open-source software. In fact, in the survey conducted by Computer Economics 14% of voters actually believe there is no real advantage of open-source. One of the reasons why businesses may prefer closed-source software is that they are usually more feature-full and more powerful. In comparison to the huge corporations such as Microsoft and Oracle who can bring in revenues in the region of $15 billion, MySQL are tiny as they only generate revenues of around $30-40 million. With less financial support, it may be difficult to create a software package which can do everything that the commercial software can do. In some cases, a weakness of open-source software is that it sometimes suffers from not having the reputations or brand names that closed-source solutions have. Most of the time, open-source programs are only advertised on the internet as they have no substantial finance to undertake marketing campaigns. However this cannot be said of MySQL as despite their small size and small marketing budget, they are extremely well-known – a household name (Case Study).

Another issue is the level of support that open-source software gives. Although MySQL got round this problem by setting up ‘MySQL Network’, support is generally quite poor for their programs. Nobody is responsible for dealing with issues as all the software is free and therefore, there is no guarantee that problems can be fixed. Finding solutions is also sometimes tedious and requires reading through lengthy online discussions in order to find what you need.

As open-source companies are usually very small, they are easy targets for their larger closed-source competitors to ‘attack’. For example, In October 2005, Oracle announced the acquisition of Innobase – a company which exclusively provided a key input component called the transactional engine for MySQL. Major enterprise customers like Travelocity needed this component and in fact 30-40% of MySQL’s users required this component. In February 2006, Oracle pulled off another similar stunt when buying over the embedded database maker Sleepycat, who were expected to make a replacement component for MySQL. It was even reported that Oracle has tried to acquire MySQL but they declined the offer (Case Study). If a business uses open-source software, there is always the fear of open-source companies being bought over which would result in no further updates and also no support. The consequences could be fairly disastrous for a business relying on that particular software to make their business function.

In conclusion, for small companies with a low budget, the best and perhaps only solution is to use open-source solutions but for companies with more capital, the better solution is probably to use a commercial solution as they often provide better support. I believe that open-source is the significantly cheaper but higher risk option while closed-source is the expensive but reliable solution. It is vital that businesses asses all of their needs before making the choice on using open or closed-source software. For example, they should weigh up whether they value reliability and support over cost-savings as this could ultimately be a deciding factor. Every business is different; it is not always the case that one option is better than the other.

References:

MySQL Open Source Database in 2006 (B), Case Study, Stanford Graduate School of Business

http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid39_gci212709,00.html

http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php

http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/

http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles5/open-source-software.htm

http://www.computereconomics.com/article.cfm?id=1043