New ways of working
How Malaysian companies can be empowered by Internet
I WOULD like to talk about how we work, the way we conduct our business and organisational lives.
We are all creatures of habit; we get used to things and like to keep it that way. So the inner life of most organisations is pretty much like how it was 20-30 years ago. Yes, there are computers doing more of the heavy lifting and modernisation has happened here and there.
But more fundamentally speaking, I think we should admit we are slow in changing our ways of working.
There are some reasons why business and organisations should be set up differently in 2016.
Many of these reasons are driven by technology, the emergence of the still young but seemingly endlessly powerful Internet.
Let me take you through five ways businesses can be empowered by the Internet.
No. 1 is digital discovery, purchase and payments.
We all know this. Increasingly people want to do most of their shopping online. In Malaysia this is still emerging as mainstream behaviour, but its growth is as certain as the Jalan Tun Razak traffic jam. So, all businesses must adapt.
No. 2 is the transition of the standard business applications to a new type of software that is accessed by using the Internet and not residing on your own servers that your local IT runs.
This is called using ‘the cloud’. The innovation speed and quality of these global platforms are dramatically better than any local software for instance.
No. 3 is how new applications can dramatically increase collaboration and communication in the company.
When data and software are stored in the cloud, we can share information with all employees, we can have just one version of the same data and we can use the latest collaboration software to make the use both functional and fun.
In Maxis we have a Facebook-like interface for our internal communication system. Over 90% of our employees are active users, both readers and writers. I wanted to test these numbers, and promised to give a Monday off if I got 300 Likes on my posting that day. I got 1000 Likes in 90 minutes. People like to be engaged (and they like days off, I guess). No. 4 is digitalisation. This is my latest obsession at work. Everything can be digitalised, even if you hadn’t really thought about it. You can start by attacking the symptom, the massive amount of paper that is used to run your processes.
By attacking that symptom (let’s say, by removing all printers or at least hide them in dark spaces), you will have to address the problem, which is process and habits that require paper. The solution is to make everything digital.
Your performance management should be digital, so should all your people processes, your approval processes, your claim processes (simply send a picture of the receipt and all is done), your procurement, your contract management, your everything. Walk around your office today and take a look at a random desk and pick a random piece of paper - then ask yourself why it isn’t digitalised. The benefits are more plentiful than I have the space to elaborate here.
Lastly, all of these things I mentioned are now available on the mobile phone or another wireless device, freeing up the employees from the desk and the standard setup of a computer and a fixed phone.
Ah, it’s so great to be empowered by the mobile phone. It really does make you more productive, more empowered and more engaged. Try the opposite, leave your phone in the drawer for a day and see for yourself.
Productivity isn’t the only goal, but we are all also in a war for talent. The young workforce of today, and not to speak about tomorrow, is completely comfortable with a wireless, cloud-based, sophisticated social network existence.
More than being comfortable, they expect this technology context to also be a reality at work. They will increasingly choose employers who have embraced new technologies.
It is not just technology that is up for change - we also now know more about the relatively new science of management.
It is just through a parallel transformation of technology and management mindset we will get to a really different place with our inner ways of working.
And we need to get there, there are too many reasons why we should and there are too many competitors planning to do exactly that. Malaysian businesses, it’s time to embrace New Ways of Working. They say the first step is the hardest. The first step in this case is to acknowledge that we have to change. That can’t be that difficult.