the virtual value chain
TRANSCRIPT
Virtual Valué Chain
In December 1995, an article by two assistant professors at HarvardBusiness School, Jeffrey F Rayport and John J Sviokla, appeared inthe Harvard Business Review, which argued that the physical valuechain was only one side of the equation; in every business where thereis a physical value chain, there is also a ‘virtual value chain’:
Virtual Valué Chain
Every business today competes in two worlds: a physical world ofresources that managers can see and touch and a virtual world made of information… Senior managers must evalutate their business – its strengths and weaknesses, its opportunities and risks – along with thevalue chain of both worlds, virtual and physical. Today events in either can make or break a business.1
Virtual Value Chain
• Estudio de caso : Colegio
Aschool, for example, has just as much of a physical value chainas a parcel distribution company, although it is dealing with childrenrather than packages. Its essential inputs are children (to be educated),trained teaching staff, teaching materials, ,etc.
Funciones de un Colegio
• Funciones de un Colegio
The most important of these is clearly the task of using the teaching staff and materials to pass know- ledge on to the schoolchildren, but there are also a series of supporting tasks – ensuring that children attend regularly; scheduling lessons, staff and classrooms; managing budgets. If we think about the value chain of a typical school, we would almost certainly see it in its physical terms –people, books and material – which is ironic given that one of its most significant inputs and outputs is very ‘unphysical’ knowledge. If we were to think about the virtual value chain of the same school, we would see things very differently.
Funciones de un Colegio
• Transito hacia el mundo virtual
To start with, we would probably want to translate the physical world with which we are familiar into information terms: not just numbers of pupils and staff, but the educational levels of each child and their particular strengths and weaknesses, and the skills and experienceof individual teachers. Rather than think of a class as being about, for example, history, we would want to know what the levels of knowledge of history the children had before the class started
Eliminación de Barreras de Entrada
• Transito hacia el mundo virtualThe next step in moving from a physical to a virtual value chain is to go beyond simply monitoring the physical processes, changing the way in which operations are managed by looking for areas where information can replace a process rather than just record it. In the example of our school, this might range from the comparatively familiar ideas of giving pupils computer-aided lessons .
The Virtual Value Chain
• Oportunidades de negocio
The school could sell information to their manufacturers on how effective particular teaching aids are, which the latter could then use to price their goods based on value added rather than conventional cost-plus
Investigación y Desarrollo Virtual
• Modelo genérico
we propose to use a generic model of the R&Dprocess, which we can use to illustrate some of the basic concepts of the virtual organization within R&D function
Where else in a business can more money be saved (or made) thanby shortening the time it takes to get a product to market?
Caso Zantec - Glaxo
Investigación y Desarrollo Virtual
DiscoveryHow do new ideas come into existence? They do not generally appearout of thin air. They tend to arrive through a synthesis and examinationof our own and others’ experience. We may, for example, take anexisting approach and modify it for a new situation;
New discovery = Experience × Insight
.Internet acelera la investigación y desarrollo.
Investigación y Desarrollo Virtual
InvestigationIf the discovery of ideas can be improved so much by keeping information in the virtual domain, it seems reasonable to ask whether we have to use the physical domain at all. If we can generate our ideas via the computer, wouldn’t it also be useful to be manipulate and experiment these ideas on the computer as well? A number of companies have asked themselves this question and concluded that this must be the most effective way to go.Caso Industria Farmaceutica
It is not surprising that, on average, around 30 per cent of a pharmaceutical company’s revenues go into new research and that a new drug costs approximately$350m to develop and takes 15 years to go from the laboratory to the patient
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Investigación y Desarrollo Virtual
Consumer testingAt the end of the day, once all this research, design and development has been completed, how can we be sure that the consumer is going to like our new product enough to buy it? This last part of the processcan be the most difficult of all. However good the science and engineering that has gone before it, if the consumer does not like the product it will not sell, or at least it will not sell well enough to recoup the R&D costs that have been incurred..
Investigación y Desarrollo Virtual
Caso BoeingFamously, the developers of the Boeing 777 did just that. Rather than start with a blank sheet of paper, they invited airlines in to make suggestions about what they would like. Not only that, but they involved advisors from four of the airlines buying the 777 (United,Cathy Pacific, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airlines) throughout the design process. These advisors made over 1,000 suggestions ranging from overhead baggage lockers to toilet seats.
Bibliografía
• Business in Virtual World. Fiona Czerniawska & Gavin Potter . Editorial Macmillan
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