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members are often asked to attend different sorts of training technique course; this sort of continuous on-job training helps to keep employees competitive. When it comes to Orbi, ―we haven’t designed a distinctive program to educate related employees, because the system is still in its experimental phase (the staff of the Exhibition Department of TAITRA).‖ In this project, SSRC also functions as a training center that introduces new technology to both TAITRA and prospective exhibitors, as well. Additionally, the SSRC employs many temporary workers for general services and collection of reflections regarding Orbi platform from both exhibitors and buyers in the exhibition. It is predicted that TAITRA will propose a new education system in order to advance employees knowledge in technology transfer.
In terms of leadership, since TAITRA’s high-level managers consider Orbi as simply supplementary material, rather than future crucial business strategy, they would not be receptive to making any changes in their leading style, let alone empowerment. ―We are not yet sure that Orbi will bring us a great benefit in the exhibition industry,‖ said the head of the Exhibition Department of TAITRA. This rigid system will be of great resistance when bringing such an innovative system into practice.
5.1.5 Reward System
The employee appraisal system is explicitly stipulated in the TAITRA’s organizational norm. The staff of the Exhibition Department of TAITRA stated, ―we always measure our employees’ performance according to the rules; no more, no less.‖ In the case of TAITRA, it is nearly impossible to give an employee extra remunerations for developing an experimental system as of yet; that is to say, a project participant would get no additional compensation for their work, unless Orbi is viewed as a prospective business solution in exhibition industry. In regard to the temporary workers, the SSRC provides some prizes in order to stimulate their work effectiveness, since the PM believes that, ―for part-time workers, the best way to advance their performance by substantial compensation.‖ Through this encouragement, SSRC hopes to quickly and completely collect feedback about Orbi, so they can improve the system accordingly.
5.2 Findings
In terms of the analysis in the previous section, we discovered that there are some
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goals that TAITRA would benefit from in building organization change capability in mobile service. We’ve summarized these propositions in the following sections.
5.2.1 Strategy
Change-readiness IT capability. To introduce a new mobile service, firstly TAITRA should establish a flawless mobile IT environment, including improving the IT architecture and IT infrastructure, and making sure that the employees have enough capabilities to deal with the customer relationships via this new technology.
Organizational learning. TAITRA needs to build a knowledge management system to collect not only the know-how about products, but the managerial skills, business experiences, and even operating errors of the business and its employees. Because the management of cross-department business knowledge is crucial to business growth, TAITRA should focus on enhancing this interdepartmental communication, so that knowledge can be easily accessed and shared between all employees in the company.
Otherwise, with managers actively working to improve their own skills and encouraging their subordinates to do the same, a company can continuously advance its core competences to remain competitive in the market in today’s changeable business environment.
Quick response to the market. The sensitivity of market tendencies can be developed by aggressively observing the market and exploring customers’ requirements. In terms of mobile service, providing faster response time to customers would give TAITRA an advantage over other competitors.
5.2.2 Structure
Flat and flexible structure. An organization with too many layers of structure will be rigid in operation. Mobile transmission technology helps divide an organization into easily manageable units and increases its ability to interact with customers. Therefore, adopting a flat structure is considered the best method for increasing flexibility.
Moreover, appropriate empowerment is adopted to quicken their response to market trends.
Good cross-department communication. Customers’ requests are often different and varied; single-function teams are no longer able to provide these sorts of new services in a quick and efficient way. For this, an interdepartmental project team is needed to
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handle the ever-changing requirements of the market. Communication, much like how oil in a machine which keeps everything working properly, serve as a foundation for good teamwork. A requirement for almost every leader nowadays is to be a good communicator, able to resolve conflicts when they occur among different departments.
5.2.3 Process
Elastic operating process. For an interdepartmental team launching a new project, the methods to achieve the proposed objectives should vary with the business environment. TAITRA has a standard operating procedure for most inner functions, but a flexible process is still needed for other, more varied projects.
5.2.4 People
Focusing on employees’ multiple competences and characteristics. Since customers’
requests are so unique and varied, multiple skills are necessary to deal with their problems. Therefore, TAITRA should focus more on differentiating and broadening their employees’ capabilities.
Complete training program. Training keeps workers competitive, so TAITRA has always valued their training program for their employees. But for mobile service, TAITRA should also develop advanced program to improve their skills in that area. IT members, of course, need more knowledge to handle the new technology, but other employees should also learn how to operate the system, so that they can introduce Orbi to their clients.
5.2.5 Reward System
Performance-based appraisal system. To evaluate an employee’s performance, TAITRA has a complete set of assessment rules to evaluate his or her achievements.
However, there is no extra incentive for working on the development of new services.
This is somewhat a barrier for the development of the Orbi platform. Therefore, additional prize should be offered to encourage employees to work hard to innovate new methods for projects.
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