KUST IN TIME-JIT LOGISTICS

Just-in-time JIT Logistics

Just-in-time JIT Logistics

Introduction

Today acknowledging that Japan has its own weaknesses with technology, particularly in white-collar office settings, they nevertheless urge senior managers in the West to consider the solid foundation on which Japanese IT management rests. Although most bosses in the West identify the importance of data expertise, their know-how with it as a strategic business device is often frustrating. Invite any group of older bosses in the joined States or Europe to register their accusations about IT and they will normally recognise five problems: IT investments are unrelated to enterprise strategy. Payoff from IT investments is inadequate.

System designers do not consider users' preferences and work habits. These problems are not new. Such lists have been circulating for the past 15 years, and companies have spent millions of dollars on consulting fees trying to resolve the problems -- with little to show for their money. The problems are now so entrenched that top managers are adopting extreme attitudes and deploying extreme policies. Some outsource as many IT activities as possible, in the often mistaken belief that outsiders can manage the function better. Others cling to the vain hope that a new generation of "power users" will come to the rescue by developing creative software built around laptops and Internet browser software. We've even heard one executive declare that somebody should "just go ahead and blow up the IT function." Why is there such confusion? Because information technology is at once exalted and feared. On the one hand, managers insist on elevating IT to the level of strategy; on the other, they recognize that integrating IT with business goals is only marginally easier than reaching the summit of Everest. It can be done, but it's difficult -- and the cost of failure is high. We believe that Western managers should back away from the immediate problems. They need to reflect on how they are framing the underlying IT-management issues. Too many executives in the West are intimidated by the task of managing technology. They tiptoe around it, supposing that it needs special tools, special strategies, and a special mind-set. Well, it doesn't. Technology should be managed -- controlled, even -- like any other competitive weapon in a manager's arsenal. We revamped our own thinking in the course of a research project designed to compare Western and Japanese IT management. We were startled to discover that Japanese companies rarely experience the IT problems so common in the United States and Europe. In fact, their senior executives didn't recognize the problems when we described them. When we dug deeper into 20 leading companies that the Japanese themselves consider exemplary IT users, we found that the Japanese see IT as just one competitive lever among many. Its purpose, very simply, is to help the organization achieve its operational goals. Where a Western CIO might spend time trying, often fruitlessly, to develop a Just in time strategy that perfectly mirrors the company's business strategy, a Japanese executive would ...