A company's existence hinges on the effectiveness it has in taking in profit, building up a competitive advantage, and making a product that lives up to scrutiny and competition. Information systems kick start your capability for a competitive advantage. I need to talk about three companies that provide services and product that stand out as living up to not only that standard but lead each respective industry by way of their distinct differences.
What these businesses understand is the advantage you gain by increasing the ease an employee can access information within their system, which results in customers gaining this information. By providing services to other businesses, as these companies do, it multiplies their profit potential individually and further on to their customer. What they have in common is a sophisticated information network and culture of sharing knowledge and experience and passing it to their customer in a relevant way. They also are early adopters of the type of information technology that expands the capability of a business by sharing information.
Partner's Healthcare
Partner's Healthcare facilitates sharing records with physicians and patients by way of e-records that are universal despite what individual hospital you might go to. It allows you to quickly access and disseminate information from a doctor in regards to your health. By better understanding what your health needs are, you have the ability to make better choices in caring for yourself and others. Also because of the availability of information systems at home's, this allows Partner's Healthcare to provide the broadest range of services to a patient at home. They set themselves apart in the healthcare industry for how well they have integrated e-records and other technologies into their system far above the average healthcare company.
Nucor Steel
The steel industry is one of the most competitive markets in the US because of the cost of labor in the US and competition abroad. Nucor has several strategies that bring it to bear in the market. Firstly, there has never been a successful certification of a union in any Nucor plant, sited as one of the major costs of steel production in the US. Secondly, 70% of the steel they send out as a finished product come from recycled material. Thirdly, they were the very first company to introduce computer information management systems in the engineering process. And lastly, with huge amounts of capital coming into the US, often times that money goes to acquiring raw goods because relative to the home country the US dollar is low and provides a value for those goods like steel girders required for buildings, and bulkheads for ships. All partly because of the choice in 1966 by the company to purchase an arc furnace rather than the much more inefficient blast furnace.
Buckman Labs
You can see Stanley Buckman here, the founder of Buckman labs, a research and development firm based in Memphis, TN that helps refine the qualities of paper and pulp products suited to the need of their customer. They are also heavily involved in any chemical needs, such as water treatment, fertilizer, and many many others. One of the very first research firms to promote, rather than internal competition, the sharing of information and techniques. Initially this was as simple as salesman carrying chemical testing equipment kits with them to a sales meeting to be able to tell a customer on the spot what sort of product would be best for the needs of the customer. This type of information for the salesman is both valuable and creates a notion of respectability towards the customer whom in this case are intelligent engineers with specific needs. All of this at a time when the typewriter was the best word processor.
Today they set themselves apart in information systems by network of everyone in their company, even the CEO to answering the questions and needs of an individual employee. This is called K'Netix. By making the expertise of every employee easily accessible. They started building this system and hiring information professionals in 1992, far before the times of today where it is blatantly obvious how essential these systems are to any business. Do you have a website? They treat knowledge management as their chief asset as a company, and it shows in their global sales force.
These examples shown here thrive despite the global competition, despite the failings of government policies toward their industry. They promoted sharing ideas within the company, and even to the competition because the value of sharing that information raised all waters, and the profitability of every company. The outcome is a strengthened business and industry. We have the fortune of them being in the US.
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