修身，齐家，治国，平天下

修身，齐家，治国，平天下

马华 - 全面转型程序

Total Transformation Process for MCA

Background

After the Party election of 328, MCA has a new leadership. The party had gone through an internal conflict for months after GE308. After the party election, it needs for a total transformation. The main purpose of a total transform is to gain back people confidence towards the party. The party needs to do a better job to reduce voters’ dissatisfaction. Many voters are dissatisfied with the government. Policy of the government not favors certain group of people. In addition, in order to gain more support, MCA has to work harder to show its sincerity to help and fight for them.


New political roadmapping

The country has emerged to a new political situation that has never happened before. Basically the changes are from two perspectives. The first one is from the environment. The second is from the rival parties (they have gained acceptance). The following point justifies the reasons of why:

The change in political environment:
- The political roadmap has changed
- A gap exists between what the voters’ expect and what the party could perform
- Expectations from the voters have changed
- New media has emerged (i.e. internet)

The change of rival parties:
- The rival parties offer a new hope to voters
- The rival parties are gaining governing experiences
- The rival parties are good at publicity and adopting offensive strategy
- The rival parties are to certain extent merging into a large and congruence coalition


Eliminate unhealthy culture

But the existing organizational structure, the bureaus, the areas and branch leaderships as well as the services provided by the party and their total delivery systems are too rigid for the new changes in the environment and rival parties. The party has approximately 190 branches. But leaderships at the branch and area level have little knowledge about the changes and show no urgency for further improvement. Many of the local giants are strong and holding power. The obvious rush for higher posts in the party have reflected that the focuses of the leaders are in gaining more power and better position, and wait for a better future in the party (eg. Business opportunities, chances to be appointed as high office posts in the government, or chances to run for next election, etc). Another is the sharing of power among the local giants has brought in a very bad image to the party. The people will have a very bad impression that the party is belong to a couple of local giants; for the benefits of their small groups of people only, and not to serve the general public. These serious problems and unhealthy culture within a large party cannot be easily eliminated without an effective Total Transformation Process.


MCA has internal strength

No matter how bad or worst the situation of the party is in the current political situation, looking back to the internal aspect of the party, MCA has their own internal strength. They have a strong human resource base. Their members have many talents and are from diverse expertise. They have many professional and experts. Their organizational networks are widely connected. They have multiple resources available, their grass root members are full of field service experiences, their state and area structure are strong, and most members have large networking capabilities. If these internal strengths are not utilized and managed effectively, if their talented people, professional and expertise are not being adopted and utilized to strengthen their position, then, this is really a huge waste to the party as well as to the country.

MCA has many resources and talented people

MCA has to reform. They have to transform themselves into a stronger and more reliable organization. The party leaders need to make right decision. They have to assess the current political environment and the country situation. MCA has to plan strategically. They have to identify the most important tasks to be completed in a short period of time. They have to set priority among all tasks that need to be completed. They shouldn’t just rush for higher position and sit there waiting for the opportunities. They can no longer move without direction. Their activities cannot have no focus. Otherwise the resources and talents will be wasted. At the end, no objectives is achieved. In order to achieve its objectives, MCA needs to reform. A Total Transformation Process is necessary and timely.

MCA is in need for a Total Transformation Process

First of all, the party has to look into a better process for transformation. To do that, the party needs to identify a process strategy for transformation. The process strategy is the pattern of decisions made by party leadership in managing processes so that they will achieve their competitiveness in the country general election compare to rival parties. Process strategy is the selection of the human resources, talents, tasks, work flows, methods, system and procedures that transform inputs into outputs. It begins with identifying what need to be done internally and externally.
To begin, the leadership needs to underlie all total work structure and work breakdown activity throughout the organization. Then, they have to identify the flow of the work activity, their inter-connectivity and the processes needed to achieve those activities. The most important thing here is to ensure that all those activities and processes are along with the party’s objectives that need to be achieved.

Set short term and long term objectives

The party needs to set both long term and short term objectives. The long term objectives are those listed in the constitutions. It will take a longer time and more resources to achieve. A lot of ground work need to be done and most has no immediate effects. Nevertheless, due to the current political situation, the party needs to focus more resources to improve their short term objectives to gain back voters support before the next general election. As far as short term objective is concerned, the priority now is to see how fast the party could provide a new image to their voters. To change to a new image, branding strategy is important. Marketing consultant is needed to draw a complete plan to rebranding the party image.


Rebranding the party image

The first step of rebranding is probably to change those frontliners and restructure the whole service delivery process. We need more new talents and professionals in the fore front of the battlefield. These people are the first group of people the voters will meet. They should be trained on how to handle voters. They should know how to educate the voters, to change the voters thought, and to convert voters to MCA supporters. Resources should be diverted to support these important tasks.

New professional and talented faces

Next, a total revamp in middle and lower level of the organisational structure is needed. New faces means new image. This is an absolutely effective strategy for a fast change. Older generation are associated with older images. When you see your primary school teacher, you will always can recall your old school days, both good and bad memories and images will appear in your mind. Apparently, MCA need to decide, they really need to seriously decide to make a strategic manoeuvre. Failing to do this, the party will face a serious disaster. In order to totally change to a new image, everything associated to old problems has to be eliminated.


Focus on voters’ needs

Next, the party need to consider an effective service delivery process that link frontliners to the important leadership/management group of the party. However, the leadership needs to prioritise a set of service that they can offer to the voters. A political party is to provide what services they can offer to their voters. In other words, what they can fight for the voters, what the voters can get as a result of supporting the party. However, the party leadership should identify what services are regarded as acceptable by all and what services are regarded as wasting of time. If the party is concentrating on doing something not what the voters want, more resources will be wasted for unwanted services and this is normally due to bad leadership.


Action, action, action

Next the party leadership needs to look into the process of providing those services effectively. Without a proper and effective implementation plan, the objectives of the party can never be achieved. We do not want to be regarded as a talk-only-no-action party like some rivalry parties. The party needs to draw a complete and effective implementation plan to realise all the objectives.



How to draw an effective action plan

Assuming the party leadership already has a set of prioritised goals that need to be achieved in the near future, the next thing would be to finalise an action plan. The recurring question is how to provide a workable and effective process that can ensure the implementation of the party’s plan is effective and thus the objectives of the party can be achieved. This plan needs to be completed by the party themselves. No body can help the party in this work. They are a lot of internal structure and unique relationships need to be sorted out by its leaders first. Professional advice from consultants can only be treated as guideline.


New collaborative style leadership and cross functional team

In order to achieve a total transformation, the party need to detail a couple of important points. To transform MCA into new MCA, the leadership needs to identify and address core aspect of changes that can bring back voters’ confidence.

The new transformation process requires a new collaborative style of leadership, in which the leaders at all level act as partner rather than rivals. Teams are composed of individuals with broad process knowledge, and they are measured on performance. The transformation processes cut across boundaries between bureaus, they have cross functional team, and cross functional coordination is very important to the success of transformation process.


Full support from leaders

The transformation process needs a systematic procedure as well as full resources and full support from the party leadership. The first step is to look into the following aspect of resources:

- Process structure
- Voter involvement and participation
- Resource flexibility
- Capital intensity


Strategic move

Many issues from services to voter direct contact need to be looked into. The whole transformation process and its related action plan need to take the following strategic moves into consideration. These are:

- Strategy development
- Policy research
- Publicity
- Satisfaction survey
- Deliver promises

Guideline for total transformation

However, before we can achieve the total objectives, we need to look into the detail structure and system and identify areas for improvement. Among the areas that are important and can be top priority of the party leadership are:


Nature of Transformation processes
A good strategy for a service transformation process:
• Depends on the type and amount of voter contact. Direct Contact to Voters
• Voter contact: the extent to which the voter is satisfied, is positively responded, and receives personal attention during the service process.
Dimensions of voter contact
• Physical presence (face-to-face interaction is sometimes called a moment of truth, or service encounter)
• What is processed
People-processing services
Possession-processing services
Information-based services
• Contact intensity
Active contact: the voter is very much a part of the creation of the service, and affects the service process itself.
Passive contact: the voter is not involved in tailoring the process to meet special needs, or in how the process is performed.
• Personal attention
When contact is more personal, the voter “experiences” the service rather than just receiving it.
• Method of delivery used
Face-to-face or telephone versus regular mail or standardized e-mail message


Voter-contact matrix
(fitting the service processes with voter contact)

Voter contact and customization
• A key competitive priority is how much customization is needed
• Competitive priorities require more customization, the more the voter is present and actively involved.

Process divergence, and flow
• Process divergence: extent to which the process is highly customized with considerable latitude as to how it is performed
High divergence involves much judgment and discretion. Consulting and law, for example
Low divergence is more repetitive and standardized
• Process flow, closely related to divergence, may range from highly diverse to linear.
Flexible flow means movements in diverse ways.
Line flow means movement in fixed sequence.

Service process structuring

Two process structures should be formed:

Front line office: a process with higher voter contact where the party representative interacts directly with the voters

Back office: a process with less voter contact and standard services with some options available. Effective marketing and advertising are important. Back office is a process with low customer contact where the party frontliners interact very little with the voters



Process reengineering for MCA


a. Critical processes
• Emphasis is placed on core processes and critical areas.
• Processes are broadly defined in terms of costs and value.
b. Strong leadership
• Party leadership must provide a strong leadership for the reengineering success
c. Cross-functional teams
• Reengineering works best at high-involvement of total party resources.
d. Information technology – used to facilitate the whole process of transformation
e. Clean-slate philosophy
f. Process analysis. Understanding current processes can reveal areas where new thinking will provide the biggest return

Improvement of the Transformation Process

i. The systematic study of the activities and flows of each process to improve it.
ii. The purpose is to understand the process.


Transformation process analysis across the organization

How can transformation processes be analyzed, understood, and redesigned so they are providing the most value to the voters as well as the people.
1. Emphasize that transformation processes are everywhere, in all bureau and area office nationally of the party and process analysis focuses on how work is actually done, how services are delivered, and voters’ requests are documented and periodically reviewed and checked by party higher leadership.
2. Service offices are often the first areas that come to mind because they are closely related with the transformation processes.
3. Bureau at the national, state and area are crucial to the party’s success.
Disconnects are often the worst and opportunities for improvement the greatest.



A six-step action plan for MCA Total Transformation

A six-step blueprint transformation process analysis
Step 1: identify opportunities.
• Give particular attention to important processes
Voters complaints
New policy change and publicity
Request fulfillment
Voters relationship
• Look at strategic issues.
• Encourage party frontliners who perform the transformation process to the voters to continuously bring forward ideas (also known as a feedback suggestion system).
Step 2: define the scope
• Establish the boundaries of the transformation process to be analyzed
• Assign resources that match the scope of the transformation process
• Design teams may be established for large projects
Facilitators
Steering team
Step 3: document the transformation process
Step 4: evaluate the transformation process performance
• Identify metrics: performance measures or KPI that are established for the transformation process and the steps within it
• Create multiple measures for such things as
Quality of services
Voter satisfaction
Time to perform each step or whole transformation process
Cost
Errors
Effectiveness
Success rate
On-time delivery of services
Flexibility of resources

Step 5: redesign the process
• Uncover disconnects or gaps between actual and desired performance
• Find root causes of performance gaps
• Design and document new process
Step 6: implement changes
• Widespread participation from all over the country in analysis is essential, for commitment and expertise
• View and manage implementation as a project



Redesign a new process for all bureaus


1. Generating ideas: questioning and brainstorming
A questioning attitude: ask six questions about each step in the process
• What is being done?
• When is it being done?
• Who is doing it?
• Where is it being done?
• How is it being done?
• How well does it do on the various metrics of importance?

2. Creativity can be stimulated by having a brainstorming session: a time when a group of members, knowledgeable on the process propose ideas for change by saying whatever comes to mind
3. Benchmarking
4. Four basic steps of benchmarking
• Planning: identify process, leader, performance measures, KPI
• Analysis: measure gap, identify causes
• Integration: establish goals and resource commitments
• Action: develop teams, implement plan, monitor progress, return to step 1


Managing transformation processes effectively


Seven mistakes to avoid in managing processes:

1. Not connecting with strategic issues
2. Not involving the right members/grass root leaders in the right way
3. Not giving the design teams and process analysts a clear charter, and then holding them accountable
4. Not being satisfied unless fundamental “reengineering” changes are made
5. Not considering the impact on voters and the country
6. Not giving attention to implementation
7. Not creating an infrastructure for continuous improvement


Adopting effective tools and systems for the transformation processes

Adopting effective tools and systems for MCA total transformation process is important. Experts are needed to help select the right tools. They needs to study the current structure at national, state, and area level, to understand their processes, activities, and systems, and then identify areas for improvement and areas for change. Select the right tools to be installed or implemented. Train and educate their members to use the tools. Monitor and control the performance.

• Flowcharts

- Diagrams that trace the flow of information, voters, facilities, or resources through the various steps of a process.
- Flowcharts show how the party create their outputs through a myriad of cross functional work processes, allowing the design team to see all the critical interfaces between bureau and branches.

• Service blueprints

- A special flowchart of a service transformation process that shows which of its steps has high voter contact and high success rate of services provided.
- Special feature: line of visibility that identifies which steps are visible to the voters.

• Process Charts

- Concentrates in more detail on a smaller number of steps than does a flowchart.
- It is an organized way of documenting all of the activities performed by a person or a group of people at a service centre, with voters, or working with certain documents or policy.

• Time study method

- Selecting the work elements within the process to be studied
- Timing the elements
- Determining the sampling size
- Setting the final standard

• Elemental standard data approach

- Database of standards compiled internally for basic elements
- Works well when work elements within a certain jobs are similar to those in other jobs
- Sometimes the time required for a work element depends on variable characteristics of the jobs


• Predetermined data approach

- Published database that divides each work element even more, into micromotions

• Work sampling method

- Estimates proportion of time spent on different activities

• Learning curve analysis

- Takes into account learning that takes place on ongoing basis
- Learning curve and concept of doubling

• Data analysis tools
a. Checklists: a form used to record the frequency of occurrence of certain process failures.
b. Histograms and bar charts
• Histogram: summarizes data measured on a continuous scale, showing the frequency distribution of some process failures.
• Bar chart: a series of bars representing the frequency of occurrence of data characteristics measured on a yes-and-no basis
c. Pareto Charts: a bar chart on which the factors are plotted in decreasing order of frequency along the horizontal axis.
d. Scatter diagrams: a plot of two variables showing whether they are related.
e. Cause-and-effect diagram: relates a key performance problem to its potential causes (sometimes called a fishbone diagram).
f. Graphs: representations of data in a variety of pictorial forms, such as line and pie charts.
• Line charts
• Forecasting

• Data snooping

- The power of the data analysis tools is greatest when they are used together.
- Data snooping is the use of the tools to sift data, clarify issues and deduce causes.

• Simulation

- The act of reproducing the behavior of a process using a model that describes each step of the process.
- Shows how the process performs dynamically over time.

The issue is implementation

The Government may have the best policy, the best strategy and the best method, but without an effective implementation, it will never acheive its target.


You may have a good policy, strategy or method, but without a good team to implement it, there will be no success.

Title: The success and failure of Technology Roadmapping initiatives: perceptions of participating managers.

Abstract

Purpose:
The issue of effective technology management is becoming increasingly important and critical in delivering competitive advantage to companies today. The effective management of technology requires appropriate methods or systems such as Technology Roadmapping (TRM), which can support the development and implementation of integrated strategic business, product and technology plans. As a result, there is a growing use of TRM by many firms in Malaysian. However, not all TRM initiatives result in technology roadmaps being adopted and used to manage the technology. This research aims to investigate the success and failure of TRM initiatives and it has the following objectives: (1) to explore differences between companies that implement TRM and those that did not, (2) to investigate main drivers and perceived factors that block implementation, (3) to identify implementation problems of the detail process of TRM, and (4) to test the application of a refined TRM in a practical setting.


Design/methodology/approach:
The research was conducted in three main stages. Initial pilot case studies were conducted to explore differences between companies that implement TRM and those that did not as well as to investigate main drivers and perceived factors that block implementation. Then, an in-depth case study was conducted to identify implementation problems of the detail process of TRM in a firm that has successfully used TRM for a relatively long period of time in its technology planning process. Finally, a field test using action research was carried out in a company with their managers’ direct involvement in order to test the application of a refined TRM in a practical setting.

Findings:
Many issues and challenges of applying technology roadmapping were identified and discussed and a gap is identified within the existing TRM process.

One of the major findings of implementation problems is that many companies had stopped using the process after having tried it for just once and the reasons are related to the process itself (it is difficult to fit the process into the current strategic planning system for technology). In addition, it is difficult to keep the record up-to-date on an ongoing basis due to time consuming and perceived unimportant of the process. It is difficult to understand the terms used and follow the process, and rely heavily on outside expert to guide the whole implementation process. Managers have no previous experiences, lack of confident, lack of skills and knowledge, etc. A knowledge gap exist which caused many misinterpretation and confusion. A detail report is produced from this research about all grievances, comments and perceptions from managers.

The full value of TRM process can only be realized if it is used continuously and the information is kept current. This requires a feature that can build-in the process into the organization’s daily operating system. A careful consideration to add this feature is important to ensure the process could integrate with other parts of the organization, compliment with other systems, and work well under a specific environmental context, e.g. culture, in order for it to be used on an ongoing basis. In this sense, it was believed that the ‘soft’ aspect management is especially important but was neglected by the existing TRM process. This is because the existing TRM process is facilitated by a ‘prescript’ and ‘hard’ approach. The process needs to be integrated with the ‘soft’ aspects of management. A new method is proposed and it has incorporated ‘soft’ aspect of management in order to make it a better approach.

Relevance/contribution:

The findings from this research are of interest of many TRM initiatives. This research is relevant because the findings provide useful guidelines for managers to implement TRM in future. The implications of the findings to both theory and practice are discussed in this paper.

Many issues and limitations were raised in this paper about the implementation problems with the existing and proposed TRM. The proposed method may not be able to solve all of the problems however a few managers believe that it could reduce obstacles, commit resources, and reward improvement. These are the necessary steps to fully realize the benefits of the method and bring the method forward. In the academic community, such a method could invite debate from many contrasting views. For industrialists, only benefits over its cost can justify such a method. Therefore, further research is needed to test the wider applicability of the proposed method.

KPI is driving the Government forward

Using KPI to improve operating system performance in Government Depertment

Performance Measurement System or Balanced Scorecard
The Next generation Managerial Tool - for Corporate and Governemtn

Background
"How to develop an effective performance measurement system for supply network" has now become a high priority for many manufacturing companies. The objectives of this research are to explore and understand performance measurement used in supply network; to develop a framework that can capture the above findings; and to test a practical tool to facilitate the process of evaluating and identifying key performance measures for different supply networks. The methodological approach adopted here is a combination of distilling best practice through case study research and thorough testing of the supply network performance measurement tool using process approach. This will generate empirical evidence on the used of a performance measurement tool for supply network and for the construction of a framework. The major deliverable will be a workbook on supply network performance measurement. The workbook will incorporate a detailed description of the framework and tool, examples of its application and detailed advice on how it should be applied in industry. As the objective is to make a contribution to both academic knowledge and industrial practice in the field, the following sections will review the perceived gap in the literature from academic and industrial practice perspectives

Academic literature
In the academic literature, much has been written about the development of extending performance measurement research in a supply network context (Lee and Billington, 1992; Mason-Jones and Towill, 1997). Many researchers had proposed performance measures used in a supply network by a firm. Among the benefits of using these supply network performance measures are: to acquire competitive advantages; to reduce transaction cost; to cultivate relationships and understanding among members in the chain for performance improvement (Bullinger et al., 2002; Gunasekaran et al., 2001; Lai et al., 2002). However, the research in this field has been focused on the design and implement a performance measurement system for an individual business unit (Neely et al, 1996). Two examples of performance measurement tools in the literature that have received considerable attention are the Balanced scorecard and Cambridge’s performance measurement process. Balanced scorecard developed by Kaplan and Norton (1996) from Harvard Business School is particularly preferred among the American’s executives and is being widely promoted in the Asia Pacific region. Recently, many researchers have proposed the use of the balanced scorecard in supply networks (Brewer and Speh, 2000; Bullinger et al., 2002). The Cambridge’s performance measurement process: Getting the measure of your business (Neely et al., 1996); have proved to be a useful way of assessing business performance. The tool is used mainly in western companies in Europe, and thus their use does not appear to be wide spread. In general, the performance measurement tools discussed above have been focused on an individual business unit, they have been criticised for lack of network perspective. Consequently, their advance in the supply network is limited. Future work needs to build upon this by extending the work in the context of supply networks



However, without a clear direction for improvement and common companies’ goals in a supply network, testing the relevance and viability of performance measures would be highly difficult. In an actual situation, firms in different parts of a supply network tend to work on improving performance in those areas within their interest (Lai et al., 2002). Their impact on the performance of other network members is usually ignored. It is not difficult to understand and believe that a supply network does not focus on a single firm. Firms are embedded in relationships; and thus strategic actions are not limited to any single firm within a network. Rather it involves part or even most of the networks to which a firm is linked (Hakansson and Ford, 2002). Under this circumstance, firms are not completely free to choose their performance measures without taking into consideration the interdependency among network members. Consequently, the ability to act is constrained by the existing network structure and no company is likely to have complete control over it (Hakansson and Ford, 2002). Unfortunately, many researchers had fail to recognise this network perspective of a balanced performance measurement system (Bullinger et al., 2002; Gunasekaran et al., 2001; Lai et al., 2002) and thus effective supply network performance measurement systems are still in their infancy


Industrial practice
Recently, interviews were carried out on this subject with two senior managers from industrial companies. The report is attached (refer to paper for Asian Finance Conference, 2005). From the interviews, high on the managers’ priority list of concerns was their inability to effectively implement a supply network performance measurement system throughout their supply networks. During the discussions, many factors were discovered and the managers expressed their interest in the development of a management tool to incorporate these factors. Their initial conclusion was that existing tools for performance measurement were inappropriate as long as the network issues were not taken into consideration. They are making this subject of high importance for future research.
Current experience and initial discussions with these practitioners suggest that effective strategy may well require both the use of a specific tool as well as a thorough understanding of performance measurement systems in supply network environment. If this is the case, the tool may be very sensitive to the environment in which they operate. Therefore, the research proposed here needs not only to explore and understand the current use of performance measures (and identify a suitable best practice tool) in supply network, but also to prove its utility by successfully reapplying it in a new environment.
Therefore, the objective is to identify, document, develop and empirically test a tool which will be useful to practising managers. As a result of the tool application, new knowledge will be generated and used as a basis for framework development. The tool will serve as a management tool to facilitate the process of evaluating and identifying key performance measures for different supply networks. The framework provides explanations of the data captured by the tool and serves as a guideline with practical advice on the tool application in industry. In general, the framework and tool will help managers to understand supply network performance measurement better

References


Brewer, P.C. and Speh, T.W. (2000), "Using the balanced scorecard to measure supply chain performance", Journal of Business Logistics Vol. 21 No. 1, pp. 75-93.

Bullinger, H-J., Kuhner, M. and van Hoof, A. (2002), "Analysing supply chain performance using a balanced measurement method", International Journal of Production Research Vol. 40 No. 15, pp. 3533-3543.

Gunasekaran, A., Pater, C. and Tirtiroglu, E. (2001), "Performance measures and metrics in a supply chain environment", International Journal of Operations & Production Management Vol. 21 No. 1/2, pp. 71-87.

Hakansson, H. and Ford, D. (2002), “How should companies interact in business networks”, Journal of Business Research 55, pp. 133-139.

Kaplan, R. S. and Norton, D. P. (1996), The balanced scorecard - translating strategy into action, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.

Lai, Kee-hung, Ngai, E.W.T., and Cheng, T.C.E. (2002), "Measures for evaluating supply chain performance in transport logistics", Transportation Research Part E 38, pp. 439-456.

Lee, H.L. and Billington, C. (1992), "Managing supply chain inventory: pitfalls and opportunities", Sloan Management Review Spring, pp. 65-73.

Mason-Jones, R and Towill, D.R. (1997), "Enlightening suppliers", Manufacturing Engineer August, pp. 156-160.

Neely, A. D., Mills, J. F., Gregory, M. J., Richards, A. H., Platts, K. W., and Bourne, M.C.S. (1996), Getting the measure of your business, Findlay, London



* Related research
Neely, A. D., Mills, J. F., Gregory, M. J., Richards, A. H., Platts, K. W., and Bourne, M.C.S. (1996), Getting the measure of your business, Findlay, London.

Yee, C.L., (2004), “Developing a framework and tool for understanding supply network strategy”, Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. Centre for Strategy and Performance, Manufacturing and Management Division, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge.

TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT

Technology can be considered as a specific type of knowledge that may appear in explicit or tacit form (Gaynor, 1996; Phaal et al., 2004). Explicit technological knowledge can normally be codified in terms of texts, drawings, or formulas; embodied within a physical artefact, such as a machine, equipment, or product which always associated with hard sciences or engineering (‘Hard’ technology). Tacit technological knowledge cannot be easily articulated, and normally appear in the forms of experiences and skills. It is normally associated with the ‘soft’ aspect of technology such as innovation processes, organisational learning processes, and new product development and introduction processes (Phaal et al., 2004).
The management of technology is becoming increasingly important in today global competitive environment (Gaynor, 1996). According to the European Institute of Technology and Innovation Management, technology management addresses the effective identification, selection, acquisition, development, exploitation and protection of technologies (product, process and infrastructural) needed to achieve, maintain [and grow] a market position and business performance in accordance with the company’s objectives (EITM). This definition highlights the importance of establishing linkages between commercial and technological functions in order to achieve the business objectives. This requires effective knowledge management and supported by appropriate management tools or processes (Gaynor, 1996). However, there is lack of effective processes to technology management. Consequently many technological investment projects, such as on robotics, computer integrated manufacturing, and flexible manufacturing systems had failed (Gregory, 1995). The failure is not due to the technologies itself, but because the links between technology and strategy to satisfy the business needs were not well understood (Gregory, 1995). As a result, companies today are aware of the importance of technology strategy and concern about how to deploy and manage technology to support the goals of the business. Clearly, there is a need to understand the potential of existing and new technologies, integrate and exploit them to provide new capabilities, products and process in the context of business and corporate strategy (Roussel et al., 1991). Furthermore in a fast changing technological age, the frequent interaction between users, manufacturers and scientists to provide innovative capabilities is getting important. Periodical technological review may be changing from annual to day-to-day basis. Companies’ managers need to build-in the technology management process into their daily operating system and routine in order to ensure critical changes are closely monitored. In order to do that, there is an increasing industrial focus on management tools or methods that can satisfy the above needs (Phaal et al., 2004). An important aspect of such a method is that it encourages collective discussion among managers from different functional departments such as commercial and technology, and linkages between technology resources and company objectives. A technology roadmap process is an example of such a method that can be used for exploring and communicating the linkages between technological resources, company products, and business requirement.

Linking Strategy to Implementation

Most organisations (large, medium or small) in the world today are facing a similar problem - strategy can not be effectively implemented. The consequence of not implementing the strategy effectively would be low performance. This has lead to a popular criticism "Talk only, no action". Thus, having the right strategy is not sufficient. The leader of an organisation can not just sitting down there waiting for the strategy to be realised by itself. Right strategy should be coupled with an effective implementation plan. How to develop an effective implementation (action) plan is the concern of many organisations today. Research in the more well developed countries and from world leading universities has undegone major change. This change is characterised as paradigm shift. The generation of a new type of knowledge (called mode 2) has improve organisation performance further. The adoption of tools and methods to link strategy and implementation has proven to be successful.

Managing a country

Understand what is politics?

Politics is defined as

• the science which has for its object the ascertainment of political facts and arrangement of them in systematic order as determined by the logical and causal relations who exist between them
  
• a branch of the social sciences dealing with the theory, organization, government and practice of the state

The roles of Politics

• To reshape or influence governmental structures or processes
  
• To influence or replace governmental office-holders
  
• To influence the formation of public policies
  
• To influence the implementation of public policies
  
• To generate public awareness of, and response to, governmental processes, personnel and policies
• To gain a place of influence or power within government

Political values

• People are to judge whether they are satisfied / not satisfied with the performance of the government
  
• People expect that power should be used in certain ways
  
• People evaluate power is used or misused
  
• People are to judge whether the resources of the country are properly and carefully utilized
  
• People expect good health care
  
• People expect equal opportunity in education and business
  
• People expect guaranteed jobs

• People expect justice and the rule of law

Scope of political science (Undertand politics from 4 perspectives)

• Political theory
  
• International relations (national security, diplomacy, international law, regional organizations, warfare)
  
• Comparative politics and government (executive, legislative and judicial bodies)

• Public administration (methods of managing and administrating government. Government needs trained personnel, for more cooperation and coordination, management and supervision, for more efficient performance of government functions and for better government organization)

Political party

Political party is a formal organization whose self-conscious, primary purpose is to place and maintain in public office persons who will control, alone or in coalition, the machinery of government.

Functions of political parties

1) A link between people and government
(the mechanisms through which the citizens’ needs and wishes are communicated to the government. Without parties, individuals would stand alone and ignored by government)

2) Aggregation of interests
a) Parties struggle to capture power, they strive to form order out of chaos.
b) Parties seek to widen the interests they represent and harmonize these with each other
c) Parties help interest groups moderate their demands
d) Parties help resolve interest group conflicts by aggregating their separate interests into a larger organization
(Political parties are coalitions of interest groups)

3) Political socialization
a) Ground for political training and enhance leadership
b) Leaders learn to speak, conduct meeting, carry out door-to-door campaign

4) Mobilization of voters
a) Parties use mass media to educate the people politically
b) To mobilize masses and to get them vote

5) Forming a government
a) Political parties try their best to win majorities, to form a government and remain in power
b) Political parties, then appoint people to high-level jobs in the executive departments, this allows the PM to implement the policy effectively. The PM can implement his policies without much delay
c) The party control of the government is not absolute, parties have to deal with established bureaucracies of government that have considerable power of their own
d) It is essential for parties to recruit winning candidates in the election and to identify people who will fill important positions in the government

6) Viable opposition
(oppose, criticize the policies and activities and act as a check and balance)

(a political party is different from interest group because a political party is the only organization that runs candidates for office under its label)

Pressure Groups

A pressure group or interest group

Is any collection of people organized to promote a goal they share or to resist some objective of government of other groups that somehow relates to the political process

A pressure group is define as:

• Is any voluntary organized group of individuals outside the governmental structure which attempts the nomination, appointments of government personnel, government administration and public policies
  
• They have a formal structure of organization
  
• They are able to aggregate and articulate interest
  
• They influence public policies
  
• They try to influence power rather than exercise the responsibility of government themselves
  

Types of pressure groups

1) Associational pressure group
- Trade associations
- Labor unions
- Professional body
- Farmers groups

2) Non-associational pressure group
- Religious group
- Ethnic groups
- Non-smoker groups

3) Institutional groups
- Government bureaucracies
- Members of armed forces
- Members of Parliment

4) Anomic groups
- Hindraf (born due to oppose to specific policies)

The Roles/Contributions of Pressure Group

1. A mechanism for political representation. The people’s interests are well represented in a political system in an organized way.
2. Allows the political process to be more responsive.
3. Plays the role of a mediator between people and the government. Help the administrators or legislators to secure information on facts and attitudes.
4. Supplement the government agencies.
5. Each citizen may be weak as an individual, it may be difficult for an individual to put his/her demands or grievances, but through an association individual become strong.
6. Prevents the concentration of power.

Methods of influence strategy and tactics

Direct methods
a) By seeking the election of like-minded representatives
b) By seeking access to public officials
c) By mounting mass-media campaigns.

Indirect methods
a) MP are also members of the group
b) Bureaucrats spouse are members of the group
c) Part-time trade representative who have continuous access to political representatives or ministers
d) Retired bureaucrats join NGOs, private companies

Make use of Politics in a right way

Understand how politics work

- Exists because we do not agree with one another
- Is about choosing between competing interests and views often demanding incompatible allocation of limited resources
- Is about trying to get what you want for yourself, or alongside others, for a common cause.
- Is about reaching a compromise, and finding ways for those who disagree to rub along with one another.

Politics matters because

- There are conflicts and differences of perspective in society about when to do, what resources to collect for public use and how those resources should be spent.
- If everyone agreed we should value the environment and the future of the earth there would be plenty of scope for disagreement about what to do, what course of action to take and at what level of urgency.
- So if people agree about the goal there remain a lot of arguments to be had about the means to achieve the goal. A lot of collective decision making involves redistribution, and so politics can involve intense arguments about who gets what.
- Politics always involve regulation or intervention that passes costs on to some rather than others. And in the details of implementation – the way that a policy is put into effect – there is plenty of scope for further differences of opinion and interest.

Politics is important

- It reflects the tensions created when human beings rub up against each other and at times it does more than just express those conflicts, it finds a way of settling them.

Politics – is one of the ways we know of how to address and potentially patch up the disagreements that characterize our societies without course to illegitimate coercion or violence.

Politics – especially in democratic societies, enables people to compromise and reach an agreement. It is a means to orderly and legitimate self-rule.

Politics – can provide a means of getting on with your fellow human beings that aims to find a way forward through reconciliation and compromise without recourse to straight forward coercion or outright violence.

Politics in right use

- It provides a way to live in an ordered manner with your neighbors, but one that unavoidably often calls on you to sign up to deals and compromises that might not be yours first or even tenth choice, but which nevertheless have something in them that enables you to put up with them.
- It might not be very inspiring. But, when it works politics delivers one great benefits
- It enables you to choose, within constraints, the life you want without fear of physical coercion and violence being used against you
- Create space for human choices and diverse lifestyles, create positive context and stable environment for you to live your life.

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