Contemporary Marketing Life Druckers Coming Of The New Organization - Essay Example

A review of Drucker’s the coming of the new organization Name Tutor Course Date Introduction The current society is thriving in what is referred to as information age, digital age or new media age. This is a period in the history of the human kind characterized by the abandonment of the traditional functions of industrial revolution. These shifts are drifting towards information-based economy (Domingo, 2001). The emergency of the information or digital age is attributed to digital revolution that is going on; this is the same way industrial revolution triggered the industrial age (Dalpiaz, Giorgini & Mylopoulos, 2013, pp1). The phenomenon behind the information age is that industries that employ digital technologies tend to create a knowledge -based environment that is composed of high-tech facilities that aids in carrying out their functions. This evolution of the information technology in the contemporary society has greatly altered how functions are done nearly in every sectors of the economy. It has engineered rapid world communication and networking hence, shaping the modern society. Peter Drucker one of the renowned management scholars in US argued that the future nature of corporate functions would greatly change due to the adoption of information technology. He wrote an article in 1988 and books explaining how this phenomenon would be, and indeed, the current society is witnessing this prediction coming true. Information and communication technology has had profound advances in the last three decades. In the modern world, many functions and tasks are performed with much ease and with fewer personnel because the digital technologies have simplified every aspect (Ball, 2012). This proves that the prediction of Drucker in 1980s right. Some of the major advances that the society has witnessed in the last few decades in information and communication include; the development of the systems of wireless headsets designed to improve on-site communication. This development emerged in early 1980s. Another notable development of communication technology in the same period is the development of the Macintosh computers by Apple Company. These computers were the most widely produced computers having a mouse and a graphical interface (Ball, 2012, pp1). Immediately, in mid 1980s, Microsoft Company developed windows 1.0. The CD-Rom was also released having the capacity of storing 270,000 papers. In late 1980s, companies starts electronically linking the global distribution companies with computerized reservation systems. The 1990s period saw big strides in the advancement of the communication technology; early 1990 saw the development and launch of the World Wide Web a platform that gave birth of the use of the internet a mother of all the recent technologies (Ball, 2012, pp1). Microsoft Company created a collaboration tool with Windows 95. In addition, audio slides, screen sharing, and file sharing collaboration became real. In late 1990, the event planning application service providers (ASP) were launched; consumer-oriented sites and online credit card came into existence. The commencement of the new century ushered in new-sophisticated technologies; some of these new technologies have replaced the later technologies and has made organizations functions to be even simpler. Early this century, the first virtual show known as Expo-exchange was held successful (Ball, 2012, pp1). Apple Company started releasing the “I” applications series such as the iPod and iTunes stores. At this time, Wikipedia, which is known to be the largest and common general references site on the web, was launched (Ball, 2012, pp1). There were a tremendous growing numbers of people all over the world searching online travel sites. In 2003, Intel Corporation incorporated Wi-Fi a wireless internet receiving capability in its chip; this led to the adoption of the wireless internet. Social media through web technology such as Face book web page and You Tube a first video sharing site came into existence (Ball, 2012, pp1). Later in 2007, Apple Company started manufacturing iPhones revolutionizing the mobile phone industry. Late 2000s, digital televisions were started broadcasting replacing the analogue televisions. The new decade saw the introduction of the iPad; this was another revolution in portable tablet computers (Ball, 2012, pp1). The number of mobile phones subscribers increased to over 4.7 billion people all over the world. The current times is now characterized by Smart phones and tablet computers. Therefore, communication and technology industry has undergone a tremendous transformation in the last few decades (Ball, 2012, pp1). The transformation is expected to still go on at the same rate. Ina few decades to come, more sophisticated technology would be in existence. One notable point is that the new technology tends to have their roots fro the old technologies. Business organizations that have been in existence for a long time have also struggled to adapt to the ever-changing technologies. However, the rate of the technological change seems to be too fast as compared to the rate of their adjustment (Tingley, 1989, pp1). Old business organization such Coca Cola, Apple, Microsoft, Southwest Airline, Wal-Mart, Nokia, Nestle and many more have tried to incorporate the new technologies into their operations. They have severally adjusted their organization structures and management functions to suit the changing technology and social environment (Dalpiaz, Giorgini & Mylopoulos, 2013, pp1). Socio-technical theory of management requires that organizations should be ready to adjust and balance the socio-technical aspects in both internal and external environment of the organization (Dalpiaz, Giorgini & Mylopoulos, 2013, pp1). When an organization does this, it places itself in a position to cope up with competitive corporate world hence, perform well. Generally, since 1980s, the nature of work in business organizations and the entire society has changed a t a great deal. New technologies have made some work that seemed impossible to become possible (Tingley, 1989, pp1). Moreover, new technologies have created new tasks that need expertise skills to perform them. Thus, the nature of the work in the organizations has indeed been altered. Nowadays, business organizations employ various experts to take care of the technical aspects through maintenance and repair (Tingley, 1989, pp1). These kinds of tasks were minimal in early 1980s because most of the works were manual, it did not require complex skills (Dalpiaz, Giorgini & Mylopoulos, 2013, pp1). For example, account exercise was done even before these new technologies. In the current times, the same exercise is still done but in different ways. Initially it was done manual when the accountants perused through the paper records to keep appropriated the financial records but nowadays, this is normally done by the aid of the computer-based systems. Thus, some tasks have remained with time by they are being done differently. In the contemporary business world, most employees now enjoy autonomy; they no longer wait for their supervisors to monitor them to perform (Domingo, 2001, pp1). This is because the new technologies have enabled the alteration of the management styles where for example, employees are paid according to their work output. Therefore, workers discipline themselves and work hard to ensure that they attain their own set targets to earn more. Moreover, the management asks the employees to set for themselves their targets (Domingo, 2001, pp1). Therefore, new technologies have led to less reliance to command and control thus, the management has been eased from supervisory function. In the last three decades, there is been changes in how the managements of various firms manage the human resources. Early 1980s, the methods that were used in supervisory function included, calling of registers, physical monitoring workers at their places of work, recording the arrival and departure time at places of work, physical confrontation with lazy workers and many more. In the modern days, these methods no longer work because technology has replaced them (Garrido & Lalouf, 2012). While others have been improved to become more conventional. For example, some software have been installed in the departmental computers and they report the work output per hour for every employee to the main server computers in the office of the manager. Therefore, the managers just check online the output per worker and deduce if actually they are working or not; then they take the necessary action. The supervisors now need not walking around monitoring the workers (Garrido & Lalouf, 2012). Moreover, some surveillance cameras have been placed in strategic places to at least catch up the events in every department. The presence of these technological devices makes workers to be disciplined and work without physical monitoring. Some of the Management theories that have changed human resource management in the contemporary corporate world are motivation theories. In definition, motivation is a force that tends to cause the change from desire to attaining the goals desired. Since the past, some managers believed in incentive theory of motivation (Chen, 2014, pp1). This theory postulates that workers are motivated to work hard because of the external rewards such as increase in monetary values. However, the modern communication technology has shown that monetary rewards are not only motivating factor. Modern managers apply the both the intrinsic and extrinsic type of motivation to achieve employees’ full potential output. Intrinsic motivation states that motivation is driven by an interest or the enjoyment of the task; this motivation tends to exist within the workers other than depending on external rewards (Chen, 2014, pp1).Thus, the modern managers use both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation rather than incentive theory to manage human resource. Technological advances also have triggered the change in organization structures. An organization structure is a structure that shows how functions such as coordination, supervision, allocation are conducted within an organization (Drucker, 1988). Before the digital age, the most common management structure was bureaucratic structure and traditional structure of hierarchy. Nevertheless, the advent of technology has rendered these types of management structure useless. Nowadays, the managers apply democratic and transformative structures. These structures aim to recognize value and appreciate the participation and presence of every worker in an organization (Drucker, 1988). Most organizations employ professionals with different skills, therefore every worker concentrate on their areas of specialization and are expected to deliver. Therefore, most of the employees report top management. One of the organizations I happened to work in recent times had adopted the modern ideas of management and structure. This chain store sold a variety of household and offices stuffs. As a worker in this organization, the managers played the managerial tasks just from their officers. Jobs were assigned via short messages or email a day earlier. So I woke up in the morning, I knew what kind of the work I would be doing in the course of the day in the stores. As a casual worker, there were no specific tasks but we were shifted everyday to perform different tasks to gain experience at least in every department to be able to multitask. After some few days, the supervisors would ask us through emails to raise any challenges we encountered in our various department. This was means to know the areas of weaknesses and make some appropriate improvements. The supervisors and the managers asked opinions from the workers on how particular tasks have to be improved, thus, there was a collective decision making. Peter Drucker actually acted as a prophet in his articles and books when he postulated that organizations would undergo great transformation because of the advent of information technology (Drucker, 1988). This is what we are now experiencing barely two decades after his writings. Most organizations have been forced to cut down the number of workers technology has replaced them. A single machine can now do a task that was done by many people within the shortest time possible. Therefore, Drucker was right when he said when organization would start transforming data to information they would experience a lot of alteration as seen in new organization structures. The transformation would still be realized even in future since more and more high-tech technologies are being innovated every day. References Ball, C. (2012). Technology-How to use it better; 1980-2012 a 30+-year timeline of meetings technological innovation. Accessed on web 30th Aug 2014. Retrieved from http://www.corbinball.com/articles_technology/index.cfm?fuseaction=cor_av&artID=88 78 Chen, W . (2014). “Psychological needs satisfaction, motivational regulations and physical activity intention among elementary school students”, Educational Psychology, 34, 4, pp. 495-511 Dalpiaz, F., Giorgini, P. & Mylopoulos, J. (2013). “Adaptive socio-technical systems: a requirements-based approach”. Requirements Engineering, 18, 1, pp. 1-24 Domingo, R. (2001). The coming of new organization. Accessed on web 30th Aug 2014. Retrieved from http://www.csis.ysu.edu/~rjohn/lectures2/week02/The_Coming_of_the_New_Organizati on.PDF Drucker, P. (1988). The Coming of new organization. Harvard business review. Accessed on web 30th Aug 2014. Retrieved from http://home.base.be/vt6195217/neworganization.pdf. Garrido, S, & Lalouf, A. (2012). “The Socio-Technical Alliance:Review of Policy Research, 29, 6, pp. 733-751 Tingley, G. (1989). The challenge of new organization. Operational Research and the Social Sciences. pp 305-310. Accessed on web 30th Aug 2014. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4613-0789-1_44. Read More