Week 10: Redesign Principles

In this lecture, it introduced different redesign principles and tactics. The principles can usually make the processes better and raise the process performance on different ways. Here the principles and tactics will be illustrated with some examples.

Principle #0: Streamline

Its tactics are to cut down unnecessary and redundant activities and paperwork so that avoid the non-valued tasks added to business process. In addition, some similar value-added activities are combined into one for drastic improvements. 

Example: Ford’s account payable process 

In the past, when Ford’s purchasing department wrote a purchase order, it sent a copy to accounts payable. Then, when material control received the goods, it sent a copy of the receiving document to accounts payable. Meanwhile, the vendor sent an invoice to account payable. It was up to accounts payable, then, to match the purchase order against the receiving document and the invoice. If they matched, the department issued payment. The department spent most of its time on mismatches, instances where the purchase order, receiving document and invoice disagreed. 

Now, when the purchasing department initiates an order, it enters the information into an online database. It doesn’t send a copy of the purchase order to anyone. When the goods arrive at the receiving dock, the receiving clerk would check the database if it matches. If so, she/he accepts them and enters the transaction into the computer system. This reduces the headcount and processing time and makes the information more accurate.

Principle #1: Lose Wait 

The principle claims reducing the waiting time between processes. Its tactics is that requires running the activities in parallel and keeping communication in closed loop so that reduces the cycle time of the process and shortens or even avoids the delays of core activities. Besides, its other tactics include not gating main process, designing for continuous flow and modifying upstream relieves downstream. 

Example: McDonald’s food ordering process

In the past, its staff always served customers one by one. Until picked up and delivered all the food required by one customer, this staff asked the next customer which set she/he would like.

Now, another staff has asked the next customer which set she/he would like, while one staff is picking up the food to the pervious customer. This reduces the waiting time of the food ordering process for each customer. Customers no longer wait too much time in the queue.

Principle #2: Orchestrate 

It aims to find the swiftest and most capable companies to execute the non-core business process. In this principle, the tactics include in the following: 

• Partnering a process with another company 
• Outsource a process to another company 
• Insourcing a process back into the company 
• Routing the process through an informatory 

Example: Hong Kong Housing Authority’s estates management

Hong Kong Housing Authority always outsources the cleansing service and the security service of its public rental housing estates to a cleaning company and a security company.

Principle #3: Mass-customize

It claims the process more flexible and customised at any time, any place, and any way. In this principle, the tactics include in the following: 

• Expanding the time window for the process 
• Creating more options for the physical space 
• Creating modular process platforms 
• Offering customization to customer 

Example: IKEA



IKEA offers the opportunity to its customer that freely designs her/his dream room for dynamic customization or designs based on the original furniture.

Principle #4: Synchronize

It claims to synchronize the physical and the virtual parts of the process. In this principle, the tactics include in the following:

• Matching the offerings on the physical and virtual parts of the channel
• Creating common process platforms for physical and electronic processes
• Tracking the movement of physical products electronically

Example: Apple store

Apple welcomes its customers buying its products at both the physical store and the online store. Customers can check back their past purchases of product online.

Principle #5: Digitize and Propagate

Its tactics are to shifting the data entry to customers and digitizing it such as source data automation and self-service. In digitize, the process will be paperless and also makes the information more easily accessible upstream and downstream. Besides, it claims that shrinking the distance between the information and the decision.

Example: PolyU’s Application for Admission

Now, if the applicant wishes to apply a programme at PolyU, she/he only needs to fill in the online admission application form. Also, she/he is needed to upload her/his public examination certificate, rather than needing a hard copy. This can shift the data entry to the applicant and digitize the information. Moreover, fewer papers are required.

Principle #6: Vitrify

It provides glass-like visibility through fresher and richer information about process status. It claims to provide on-demand tracking information for customers of the process and reporting capabilities that provide on-the-fly analysis. Also, it designs standard partner interface processes for seamless exchange of information.

 

Example: Amazon’s ordering process

Amazon allows its customers checking back the current delivery status of their bought products so that they can know the detailed information of the delivery.

Principle #7: Sensitize

Its idea is to fit the process with sensors and feedback loops to prompt action. In this principle, the tactics include in the following:

• Building in customer feedback loops to detect process dysfunction
• Enabling software smarts to trigger quick business reflexes
• Attaching environmental probes to the process to monitor change

Example: Eureca Solutions’ waste management

Its system can monitor and record all waste streams by Eurocode with percentages recycled or sent to Land Fill together with the tonnages involved.

Sources/References:

[1] Outsourcing of the management of public rental housing estates, Hong Kong Housing Authority, http://www.aud.gov.hk/pdf_e/e49ch10.pdf

[2] Besta Design Software, IKEA, http://www.ikea.com/ms/zh_HK/rooms_ideas/planner_besta/index.html

[3] Apple Store, Apple, http://store.apple.com/hk-zh/
[4] eAdmission, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, https://www38.polyu.edu.hk/eAdmission/index.jsf

Week 8: Process Redesign (1)

Recall of BPR Methodologies of Last Class

BPR is expected to rethink and redesign the processes from the groundwork and to reach a noticeable improvement of work. But it cannot be promised success in each BPR project, due to possibly improper implementation or lack of leadership. Thus, it could be understood for the importance of BPR Methodologies in my idea enable and guide the implementation of reengineering processes undertaken on an organized manner and decrease the possibility of the failure on the BPR projects.

To recall BPR Methodologies in the last lecture (Lecture 7), there are five phrases involved including Triggering and Executive Visioning, BPR Project Mobilisation, Process Redesign, Implementation and Organisational Transformation, and Monitoring and Maintaining.

Process Redesign of Phrase 3

This lecture mainly describes and analyses the phrase 3, Process Redesign in BPR Methodologies as follows.

Process Redesign consists of five steps including Scoping, Modeling, Analysis, Redesign, and Integration. In this lecture, it concentrated to describe and analyze such activities on scoping the process with the case study of Palorna Bank:

• Operationalize process performance targets;
• Define process boundaries;
• Identify key process issues;
• Understand best practices and define initial visions;
• Familiarize participants with BPR software; and
• Outline data collection plan and collect baseline data

Operationalize process performance targets

In my opinion, the organisations MUST define, list and prioritize goals because NOT all process redesign goals have the equivalent value. Says, some are more important, and some others are less important correspondingly. For example, a service-centric organization prefers reducing the processing time of customer requests than improving quality of other aspects. It is a usual situation under the resource constraints. Therefore, besides prioritizing goals, process performance targets and major resource constraints have to be clearly illustrated.

Define process boundaries

This activity directs the BPR team where and what the data can be collected, hence the BPR team understands and answers who customers of the process are, what process triggers and deliverables are, what external partners are, and what are sub-processes as the example of this lecture note.

Identify key process issue

Afterwards, the organisations identify what key process issues are from customers, suppliers, service provides, employees, etc., and assess, categorize and then condense key process issues in a summary list.

Understand best practices and define initial visions

The activity undertaken is as crucial as operationalizing process performance targets. In case the BPR team reviews successful cases of redesign process of other organisations, the BPR team can learn a lesson from reengineering practices that knows what and how should do. It helps to shape the initial vision and image of the reengineered process.

Familiarize participants with BPR software

In addition to participants need to train their application skills on the BPR software, so as to further each participant familiars with the BPR software on the new process. 

Outline data collection plan and collect baseline data

Last but not least, the BPR team should have a data collection plan including identifying key informants of data, data types, data collection methods, and so on. Despite of its difficulties in the data collection, it is well prepared for the modeling phase if baseline data collected. Hence, it can be acted as a pre-activity for the next phrase upon my view.

Paper Review

The paper (Tamrin, Minah, Jonathon, and Mohd Yuszreen 2010) describes and proves what necessity is in redesign process through the case study of Labuan Fire and Rescue Department (LFRD). LFRD could not record the inventory data systematically due to lack of a systematics inventory management system. This resulted to data missing or redundant. As the result, LFRD decided to redesign its inventory process which manages its inventories with e-inventory management system.

Not BPR team of LFRD only listed and prioritized goals, identified some particular of work activities, and the related resources and familiarized the new system, but also produced a deliverable with increasing speed of activity, human error reduction, and cost reduction. However, writers told that LFRD BPR project cannot be considered to success.

Comment: According to learnt from this lecture, I totally agree upon this statement because key process issues did not been identified by LFRD in its BPR project. It cannot be said that missed one of such necessary activities in the process redesign. Therefore, the example illustrates all activities have to be performed on scoping the process from the paper, also give me a learning experience and advanced understanding of the topic from the practice.

Source/Reference:

[1] “Redesigning Enterprise Processes for e-Business: Scoping An Enterprise Process” by El Sawy, Omar A. 2001 URL: http://zonecours.hec.ca/documents/H2011-P6-2647625.El-SawyChapter4.pdf

[2] "Business Process Reengineering in Labuan Fire Services Operations: A Case Study" by Tamrin, A., Minah, J., Jonathon, L., and Mohd Yuszreen, Y. 2010
URL: http://wwwkal.ums.edu.my/ljms/2010/LJMS_vol4_2010_14-25[2].pdf

Week 6: How IT affects BPR?

It is realised that the position of IT on the BPR project has been different from before. Its role is being an enabler since it allows organisations to redesign the business processes. IT capabilities support and automate the processes in an efficient and effective way so as to enable the value to achieve the business strategy, rather than for a drastic rise in the revenue only.

For example, most organisations handle the typical works with software systems such as ordering fulfilments process and even creating documentation reports. Staff stores the data or files into the shared database or the server. The centralisation is so that other colleagues can easy access. It directly reduces delays in activities between each other since information sharing and instants feedbacks possible. Hence, the role of IT is crucial on the BPR project because it would contribute to the communication between different processes.

Here is one real example [1] of Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) could be demonstrated how IT coordinates the business processes.

The Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS), call centre and IT sub-division helpdesk hotline of HA was challenged and unsatisfied because of its poor customer service, such as overload call centre, the system not respond to the callers’ enquiries as quickly as possible, easy loss of caller information and unrecorded talk time, shortage of support service for customers, and old FAQ and manuals, etc. HA therefore appointed an outsourcing company, EPRO, which supports to reengineer the business processes about the calling service. 

EPRO integrated IVRS, call centre, and helpdesk into a single platform. The new system with the shared database which provides voice guidance in terms of the pre-defined call flow, so that the callers can easy access to different enquiry information, and also take corresponding actions by step-to-step. The support service of complaints and enquiries handling has got largely improved. Besides, the new system closely follows complaints and enquiries cases, and then HA staffs would answer back to the caller as soon as possible while it always updates the status. The response time of the process can shorten. It can be proved that not only does IT facilitate the business processes, also improves the service level and customer satisfaction. 

The above diagram, The Leavitt Diamond, describes that the four components are interacted with each other included information technology use, organizational form, requisite people skills, and business processes. The other three must be changed at the same time while one is changed. Again, use the case study of HA [1], it was decided that the business processes needed to be redesigned due to poor service support and low customer satisfaction. Then, EPRO deployed the new technology, WISE-xb IVRS, to improve processes. It is sure that new people skills is necessary, so organisational form may be changed. This shows the principle of The Leavitt Diamond. In my view, it must be therefore easier to understand and handle since the complex function is broken down into four smaller one. Hence, it explains why that organisation in the paper [2] (Delvin Grant and Erhan Mergen, 1996) also adopted this framework for reducing the product cycle time. 

Last but not least, BPR is a radical one-time redesign and drastic improvement, mostly with IT. Due to its one-time approach, after a BPR project finishes, the organisation usually expects to get feedbacks what need to be follow up or continuous improvement for the quality. Hence, most organisations employ Total Quality Management (TQM) which is incremental and continuous improvement with minor IT to measure the performance and the quality after the BPR project. The below diagram describes why TQM and BPR share a cross-functional relationship.

REFERENCES: 

[1] EPRO Telecom Case Studies: Hong Kong Housing Authority Contact Centre Outsourcing Services, 2003, Available at: http://www.eprotel.com.hk/en/our_client-case_studies-detail_1a.php
[2] Applying Quality to Leavitt’s Framework to Solve Information Technology Problems: A Case Study, Delvin Grant and Erhan Mergen, 1996, Available at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=883459&show=html

Week 5: The Principle of BPR

BPR is defined as “the fundamental re-thinking and radical re-design of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed”, repeatedly told by Dr. Helen DU during her lectures. In my understanding, the basic idea behind this term is to eliminate some redundant processes and also combine some processes into one. I think, also, the organisation may actively execute the centralised operation in its business processes with the shared database. Its benefits are the reduction of operational cost and cycle time in the process, the increased efficiency of the process, and the increased data consistency on the process. 

A paper (V. Grover and M. K. Malhotra 1997) described and verified those benefits with the two successful examples of BPR, one is Ford’s accounts payable process, and another is Detroit Edison’s work order process. Nevertheless, here my statement is that not all organisations can be easy implement the BPR in achieving dramatic performance gains due to the lack of consensus on the massive and complex BPR methodologies. Therefore, as the authors wrote, we may realise some rationales behind the BPR and myths through the successful instances. 

Reengineering reflects this horizontal view by emphasizing notions of processes, process owners, teams and empowerment, and de-emphasizing hierarchical structures. In fact, the organisations have many processes that usually have the customer involvement such as the ordering process, so the customer focus is necessary in BPR for enhancing the customer responsiveness and increasing the process performance. In addition, junior staffs always start the work on the activities until the top management delegates. It causes the longer lead time and approval delays in the traditional top-down organisational approach. Hence, empowerment is crucial that low level staffs would have the decision making. Moreover, use the example of the ordering process again; it takes lots of staffs in different departments and organisations to handle many sub processes from customer request and order fulfilment to collecting payment, so that it is usually a cross-functional work. Therefore, my opinion is that reengineering to a business should bring a positive impact because its effort not only improves the business process, but produces new products and service and increases the revenue and the operating savings.

Even though the authors indirectly said that these myths might be true and appropriate only in some organisations, my thought is that those are worth to stay on our minds because they are a good guideline for helping the organisation reengineering of the business process. Last but not least, I quoted the part of the contents with my lots of reflection for sharing in the following. 

• ""Reengineering is a radical one-time approach" is changing … some firms are finding that continuous improvement through stewardship of processes may be more beneficial in the long run…, "Reengineering should focus on cross-functional core business processes" is fine, but many piecemeal improvements within functions can also add up to significant change and have proven very successful." – The improvement is not one-time and needs a lot of time which can bring the greatest benefit to and influence on the business included the processes and the reduction of the operational cost and time. I think that it is an incremental effort to the business. 
• ""Reengineering involves breakthrough performance gains" is being challenged as benchmarking and measurement of these gains can prove elusive. In many cases, more moderate gains that are consistent with the organizational culture and orientation define success."  –  This is realism and true that most organisations directly associate the performance gain from the reengineering with their business objectives itself. If reengineering would help organisations to achieve the organisational goals, it can be defined as the success to reengineering. Therefore, it is a harsh measurement of performance. 
• "" Reengineering enables change primarily through IT" … Many of these innovations do not involve or require IT." – Since the technology advances, not ten years ago, many business processes now may be paperless and electronic. Some applications get improved by IT such as eChannel System. It can reduce the processing time. Hence, my opinion is IT now acts as a critical role of reengineering efforts. Business aspect is still important in this time. 
• "" Reengineering enhances individual capacities through empowerment and teams" is all well and good but many process-change projects are being defended based on cost objectives … some bottom-up process change initiatives with strong inputs from line workers have proven successful…" – I just said earlier in this post, top-down processes only lead to longer cycle time and approval delays on the processes. Hence, in terms of speed, I rather accept the bottom-up approach to the business processes in order to improve processes and speed up processes. Organisations need to accept the empowerment in the organisational structure if dramatic improvements. 

Thus it can be concluded that, not only does BPR effort significantly improve the processes in the business, it also increases the profitability. Besides, redesign the process must be a continuous and incremental improvement rather than one-shot, also focuses customer, then organisations can maximize the long-run benefits on BPR projects. 

REFERENCES: 

[1] "Business Process Reengineering: A Tutorial on the Concept, Evolution, Method, Technology, and Application" by V Grover and M K Malhotra 1997, pp. 193-213

Week 4: The Strategic Alignment Model (SAM)

Source/Reference: 

[1] "Strategic Alignment: Leverage Information Technology for Transforming Organization" by J C Henderson and N Venkartraman 1993 

[2] Lee Cheuk Him’s post, Week 4 – The Strategic Alignment Model (SAM), URL http://leech-9076.blogspot.com/2012/02/source-reference-1-strategic-alignment.html

Subject:

In Lecture 4 – Which alignment strategy in SAM model is the best? and why?=======================================================================
Response:

It cannot be strongly defined that which alignment perspective the best is. The answer is largely dependent on the strategy of the organisation, the nature of its business, the needs of customers, and the business environment Sometimes, there is only one is ‘feasible’ to the organisation. However, it is possible that not the only one is aligned between the business and the IT strategy simultaneously due to many influencing factors. The alignment was used may even shift to the other potential perspective(s) since those of independent variables change over the time. Therefore, it is crucial that the top management must realise what the concepts of dominant alignment perspectives in the SAM are before adopting them.

The SAM (Henderson and Venkatraman, 1993) consists of four domains, Business Strategy, IT Strategy, Business Infrastructure, and IT Infrastructure. Thus, there are a total of four dominant alignment perspectives resulting from the cross-domain alignments. Each alignment perspective has also three external or internal domains made and one of domains usually is a driver of the rest domains. Each alignment perspective has its existed value. In the following, the actions of four dominant alignment perspectives are introduced on each in this post.

SAM: Strategy Execution perspective

The alignment perspective that is the most focus and classic of general companies is the Strategy Execution perspective. The driver is the business strategy. It supports the top management articulates the business logic and choices related to a business strategy so that the IS manager designs and implements the IS infrastructure and processes that support the chosen business strategies. And, the performance is measured by the financial parameters typically, cost center focus. E.g. some companies can reduce the time required to the processing orders by the IS after employed the Strategy Execution perspective. It directly reduces the operational cost for the entire process. The cost center will not contribute the profit making of the business even though so.

SAM: Technology Transformation perspective

The alignment perspective is appropriate to the firms of technology development. The Technology Transformation perspective is again driven by the business strategy as well as the Strategy Execution perspective. Nevertheless, here the role of the top management is a technology visionary that is responsible to identify the best possible IT competencies through appropriate positioning in the IT marketplace included the strengths and the weaknesses of the IT infrastructure, and so far how the risks posed by of the new IT manage. And, the role of IT manager is a technology architect that designs and manages the technologies defined by the top management, so that the architecture can support the IT vision and mission. The technology leadership is a standard to measure its performance of IT market position. Benchmarking approach will be the best practice to compare the organisation itself with other same industry and make such improvements.

SAM: Service Level perspective

The third one is described is the Service Level perspective which is a customer-oriented alignment, aims to deliver the best value to satisfy the customer demands by the alignment of IT infrastructure. It is appropriate to the service industry. The driver for the alignment perspective is the IT strategy. It supports the top management prioritizes and articulates to allocate the limited resources within the organisation and also in the IT marketplace, and can be responsive to the growing and fast-changing demands of customers. And, the IS manager, as the role of executive leadership, supports key areas of the internal business and balances the short-term objectives with the long-term investment in IT. Therefore, the performance criteria are the degree of the customers’ satisfaction. Besides, the role of the business strategy is relatively indirect to influence the perspective.

SAM: Competitive Potential perspective

The key of the Competitive Potential perspective is to how enable the adoption of new business strategy with emerging IT capabilities. From the new business strategy then realises the competitive advantages of the organisation. So, the driver of the alignment perspective is the IT strategy that focuses to provide the value-add to the business strategy and enable the new strategic opportunities for the business. The top management acts as a business visionary that must enable to smooth transform the business through IT for achieving the vision. The IS manager acts as a catalyst who identifies and interprets the trends in the IT environment to assist the business managers to understand the potential opportunities and threats from an IT perspective. The business performance is measured by the business or product leadership such as the market share, the growth and the new product introduction.

Thus, the four dominant alignment perspectives can have their different degrees of functionality to the business. However, the IS manager should carefully consider which alignment perspective is feasible to adapt the business because inappropriate alignment can hinder the development and integration of the business strategy and the IT strategy and cause the adverse effect to the business of the organisation. Besides, if the organisation has multiple goals, it may usually need more than one alignment to the business. The organisation would shift its alignment as the organisation strategy, customer needs, or the business environment is ever-changing. So, the coordination of multiple alignments is necessary and important.

In addition, the IS manager needs to understand and examine both the business and the IT strategies and infrastructures in order to a smooth running on the business. Also, both the CEO and the CIO need to determine where it is preceded related to the business strategy and the IT strategy. Hence, they must communicate with others senior executives and also assess where the company is preceded related to the business strategy and the IT strategy. 

In fact, it proved that the model is designed to encourage and facilitate the appropriate response to changing business conditions. An organisation may be comfortable in one alignment perspective now, but may change to others in the future which depend on its business environment and competitors. As said by Henderson and Venkatraman, “We do not believe that there is one universally superior mode to formulate and implement strategy. If there were, it would not be strategic because all firms would adopt it”. In conclusion, there is no the best alignment perspective, and there is only the appropriate alignment perspective to the business under business conditions.

In the following, there are my little comments on the post of the classmate.

My comment: Lee’s view and argument are same as mine that also think no one is the best alignment. And, it only depends on many business conditions such as the business nature. In addition, I agree the communication is one of important components before employing an alignment so that realises more about the business and IT strategies and infrastructures together and facilitates the development of the alignment.

Week 3: Continued Starbucks Coffee Case Study: PEST Analysis, plus Sullivan’s Framework for Internal Context

It is known that strategic framework now becomes the part of the bedrock of most organisations. There are IS/IT strategies behind their business for accomplishing their visions and missions. It strongly says, not only is there much closer and interrelated relationship between the IS/IT strategy and the business, but also reveals many internal and external factors of business affecting formulating the organisational strategy by this lecture. In my thinking, strategy formulation is not a result, not also an outcome, but only an on-going process and a mean as the business environment has been rapidly changing. It is that, in effect, gives the management of organisation strategic options against the potential competitors, increasing customer base, and reaching a profitable margin. It also introduced that there are two models for strategy formulation in this lecture, SWOT model and PEST model, respectively.

First, the SWOT model is important to the business for understanding the competitive advantages and the competitive disadvantages itself and the value creation. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Strengths are positive internal factors which help an organisation to accomplish its goals and objectives, but Weaknesses are negative internal factors which inhibit an organisation to accomplish its goals and objectives also. Special skills or knowledge, a positive public image and brand, financial sound, and an experienced sales force are parts of strengths owned by many successful organisations. Oppositely, shortage of skilled workers, lack of capital, an inexperienced sales force, and an inferior location are examples of weaknesses.

Apart from these internal factors, the organisation can scan potential opportunities and threats posed by pressure groups and stakeholders by this model. Opportunities are positive external options that help an organisation to accomplish its goals and objectives, but Threats are negative external forces that inhibit the ability of an organisation to accomplish its goals and objectives. For example, advertising the capabilities of Wi-fi internet services in branches, or expansion of the business to newly developed countries can be opportunities of an organisation. And, if an organisation faces loss of key staff, lack of financial resources, or increased competition, such will be threats to its core business.

Moreover, in this lecture, we studied and discussed the case of Starbucks using the SWOT model. Hence, I do not repeatedly explain once again in terms of SWOT, contrarily analyse and review those factors Starbucks may face by the PEST model and my explanation. The PEST model analyse the following four types of factors included [1]:

• Political factors 
• Tax policy - Hong Kong has a low profit tax (~16.5%) which is among the lowest in the world, plus no tax on dividends and interest income [2] so that attracts more foreign investors to invest the local coffee business. It would advantage Starbucks to enlarge its business on Hong Kong branches. 
• Trade restrictions and tariffs - Hong Kong still acts as a duty free port with few barriers. Under the free trade agreement ruled by the government, there are no customs tariffs paid on goods imported into Hong Kong [2]. Not only it lowers the restriction of free trade, but promotes the corporate relationships between coffee production countries and coffee retailers. 
• Economic factors 
• Economic growth - A continuous economic growth in Hong Kong brings a positive impact on the business of an organisation so as to keep a healthy financial status in the business. 
• Inflation rate - Many countries are now facing the high inflation issue on foods such as coffee ingredients, Hong Kong cannot be excepted [3]. It increases the cost of coffees, and then the increasing cost transfers to its consumers. It affects the buying power of consumers due to more expensive coffees, and eventually reduces the revenue of the coffee business. 
• Social factors (socio-cultural) 
• Buyers' behaviour - Many people favour a coffee of famous brand and good company image rather than the poorer one because of offering their buying confidences. The buying confidence then affects the consumer buying pattern. 
• Lifestyle changes - Lifestyles of many people have become westernize (i.e. like drinking coffee more) as they become very busy with their works. It is because they may think coffee can fresh them during the work. It implies the demand of coffee is gradually rising. 
• Technological factors 
• Technology incentives - Some customers are working with their notebooks while they are enjoying their coffees in Starbucks. Starbucks provides them with a high speed Wi-fi access so that they can get on-line for free and comfortable within limited hours every day.

In fact, besides these four types of factors influence to the business of an organisation, there are the other two also, Environmental factors and Legal factors. Therefore, the PEST model can be called PESTEL model.

Further Observation

From these case analyses (of SWOT in the lecture and PEST here), it can be told that there is a complementary relationship between the two models. The PEST model favours to scan such external factors come from the surrounding environment (external macro-environment) in this society such as economic growth, political rules, etc. A big difference from the PEST model, the SWOT model would help organisations to define such factors come from mainly the business itself, such as its strengths and weaknesses, and something else about the micro-environment. In the case of the simplicity of the two models, it can be therefore said the management of an organisation can have a holistic assessment on its business easily with both the SWOT and PEST models included the strengths and weakness of the organisation itself, the business alliances and competitors of the organisation, and the external environment facing.

Furthermore, Sullivan’s Framework for the internal context is one of strategic tools that helps the organisation itself to easy locate what is its role and position of IS/IT based on these two attributes, Infusion and Diffusion. Infusion implies that the degree of dependence on IS/IT of the business, and Diffusion implies that the degree of decentralization of IS/IT control in an organisation. Thus, the management of an organisation only keeps its close eyes on the business environment, and often adjust the organisational strategy by this model as it changes. It can then meet the business needs and direction.

In the following, there are my little comments on the post of the classmate. 

Source: Chan King Lok’s post, Week 3 – The Strategic Framework and BPR for e-Business, URL: http://chankl-2107.blogspot.com/2012/01/week-3-strategic-framework-and-bpr-for.html

My comment: The last paragraph for Chan’s post described how e-Business strategies continuously change in the trend as technology advances rapidly. I agree the Internet evolved had been changing business strategies and communication channels with consumers and other business alliances, such as the 24x7 business transactions. It would aid to the businesses of organisations positively and then the national economic growth. It will be a virtuous circle.

REFERENCES:
[1] PESTEL Analysis of the Macro-environment, Oxford University Press. 2007., Retrieved 2009-01-27, Available at: http://www.oup.com/uk/orc/bin/9780199296378/01student/additional/page_12.htm
[2] Low and Simple Tax, InvestHK,
Available at: http://www.investhk.gov.hk/static/whyhk/hong-kong-tax-rate-low-tax-system-hong-kong-profit-tax-sale-tax-salary-tax-en.html
[3] Consumer Price Indices for December 2011, The Census and Statistics Department (C&SD), Retrieved 2012-01-20,
Available at: http://www.censtatd.gov.hk/press_release/press_releases_on_statistics/index.jsp?sID=2885&sSUBID=19984&displayMode=D