Showing posts with label information. Show all posts
Showing posts with label information. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Creating Localized Customer Service through Digital Technologies



Digital technologies are an important development in service management.  The paper by Setia et. al (2013) discusses how digital technologies can create higher customer-oriented businesses in localized markets. They focus on two customer service capabilities such as customer orientation capability and customer response capability. To gather their results they used 170 branches of a large Indian bank.

Because the modern market requires a more rapid pace of innovation, shorter product cycles, adjusting customer needs and international commerce there is a need for companies to differentiate themselves based upon better customer service.  Through strong customer oriented strategies and responses they are better able to align their operations to local customer needs.

The goal is to create stronger business outcomes that raise customer retention, lower operational costs, and increase market impact. To do this well requires collecting the right information and using that information to improve upon corporate strategy. How that information is collected and processed will determine the digital design and information quality.

There are four characteristics of information quality:

1.) Completeness that provides enough useful information to impact employee performance.
2.) Accuracy that the information is correct.
3.) Format that presents the information for useful purposes.
4.) Currency that represents the newness of information.

The researchers found that the information quality influences customer service capabilities.  There is need for a fundamental shift from resource acquisition to capability building platforms. The use of proper data collection and usage can create better methods of localizing services for greater impact. Decision makers will need to turn this information into human action that raises customer service perceptions and performance.

Setia, P., et. al. (2013). Leveraging digital technologies: how information quality leads to localized capabilities and customer service performance. MIS Quarterly, 37 (2).

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Why is Wikipedia not a Strong Source for Papers?


By Dr. Andree Swanson

Wikipedia is not considered a valid and reliable reference.  Most professors will not accept citation or reference from Wikipedia.  First, it is most likely copied and pasted from the web.  Second, the information may not be accurate.

In April 2006, when I first wrote this article, this paragraph looked like this:

The content of Wikipedia is free, written collaboratively by people from all around the world. This website is a wiki, which means that anyone with access to an Internet-connected computer can edit, correct, or improve information throughout the encyclopedia, simply by clicking the edit this page link (with a few minor exceptions such as protected articles)...On Wikipedia...you are welcome to...edit articles yourself, contributing knowledge as you see fit in a collaborative way.

Today, the anonymous authors have been busy and changed the content.  Here is how the above paragraph looks today in December 2013:

Wikipedia is written collaboratively by largely anonymous Internet volunteers who write without pay. Anyone with Internet access can write and make changes to Wikipedia articles, except in limited cases where editing is restricted to prevent disruption or vandalism. Users can contribute anonymously, under a pseudonym, or, if they choose to, with their real identity.

The content on Wikipedia is not verified and may contain more opinions and errors than other, more academic, sources.  Students are better off to use the expert(s) that are readily available, the author(s) of their textbooks.

Websites presenting original material can readily serve as references/sources.  Additional articles, which you might find through search engines such as Google Scholar or databases such as Proquest or Ebscohost are much better.

For example, the New York Times tells a tale of deception in “Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar” Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/weekinreview/04seelye.html?ex=1291352400&en=6a97402d6595c6f1&ei=5090

Read more about it at the New York Times Growing Wikipedia Refines Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy” Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki.html?ei=5088&en=646c3d018ce68f36&ex=1308196800

All sources used in a paper must, of course, be properly cited and referenced to avoid any instances of plagiarism. Whether writing for a course or creating handouts for a presentation, avoid the temptation to use Wikipedia as a source.