Non-Technological Innovations

Introducing something new to the organization can be called innovation whether it is technological or non-technological where the end result should generally be for its advantage, that is, beneficial for the growth of the company. Yet, an organization should strive to lead the technological as well as non-technological innovation, to set the standard through continuous research and development, because once a dominant design or service is established in the market by another company, it will be too late for a company to set a different industry standard based on its own product or service. Any organization, once it loses its “innovative being”, may be reduced to a mere follower and may have a hard time regain its market leadership where it has previously been.

We have witnessed this in the Nokia mobile phone where it misses the opportunity to maintain its leadership in the market. Nokia merely developed incremental innovations on their devices, perhaps enjoying its market leadership, until the arrival of the Apple iOS that introduced a much radical design, has changed the mobile phone game ever since. Thus, to be able to survive the intense competition with Apple and other players like Samsung in the handset business, Nokia announced their alliance with Microsoft last February 2011, a business restructure innovation, in order to produce a line of smartphones called Lumia running the Windows operating system. Nokia have to use this strategy to regain its leading position in the marketplace. Yet, the market pull for the Window-based handset is dismal and made a negative effect on the organization. Recently, Nokia has announced that they need to slash 10,000 jobs, or 19 percent of its workforce, and the shutdowns of research and development center in Ulm, Germany, and Burnaby, Canada, and a handset factory in Salo, Finland, in order to save at least €1.6 billion or Ph₱53 billion, by the end of 2013.

A change in the business process or management to reduce cost is an approach that could also be regarded as non-technological innovation as in the case of Nokia. Yet, management innovation does not only pertains to slashing of workforce and facilities or restructuring its business organizational process. It may also apply to new ways of managing people, creating incentives, measuring performance, creating positive cultures, hiring, and leadership. All of these are distinctly human, and less about technology. Companies are great not only because they are at the leading edge of technological innovation but also have the people skill, introducing non-technological innovation in the organization that would give importance in the workforce, making people happy.

Another innovation approach is to rely on complementary assets, such as name recognition, to increase market share. To mention some, “to Google” is almost synonymous with “to search something in the web”, Amazon on the other hand, for online retail, and Colgate for toothpaste. These companies thrived on their brand names in order to become leaders in their respective markets.

According to BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands in 2012, Google brand alone costs US$107,857 million, Amazon costs US$34,077 million, and Colgate costs US$14,948 million. The top 1 brand is Apple at US$182,951 million, followed by IBM at US$115,985 million and Google at third. These companies in the top 3 are all in the technology industry, yet McDonalds which is in the fast food business was able to make it at the top 4 at US$95,188 million.

For the past years, we have seen McDonalds introduced new ways in marketing such as updated regional slogans, as “I’m lovin‘ it” in the US while “Love ko ‘to” in the Philippines, and improved customer service not only in the expansion on their menu, which is a product development innovation, in response to changing consumer taste, but also the redesign of all its restaurants worldwide, another non-technological innovation approach, to carry the “Forever Young” brand. They reportedly invested US$1 billion to redesign nearly all of the 14,000 restaurants by 2015. McDonalds also has to rely on economies of scale, a distribution channel innovation, to reduce price which currently has 33,000+ locations worldwide.

These are some of the innovations that are non-technological, and as it seems, the benefits outweigh the negative result. Yet, some organizations may think otherwise as their application for non-technological innovations would vary depending on their company objectives.


References:

1 Management of Technology by Tarek Khalil, Chapter 5, Technology Life Cycles, Competition with Product and Process Innovation, p.89. McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Copyright © 2000

2 The New York Times Business Day Technology, “Nokia to Cut 10,000 Jobs and Close 3 Facilities” by Kevin O’Brien, June 14, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/technology/nokia-to-cut-10000-jobs-and-close-3-facilities.html?pagewanted=all

3 Non-technological Innovation by Jon Radoff’s Internet Wonderland, http://radoff.com/blog/2011/02/24/nontechnological-innovation/

4 BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2012, p. 34

5 McDonald’s, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald's

One more thing...
Sometimes, a simple non-technological innovation may have bigger impact not only in the organization, but also in the environment. Take for example the color-coding of the garbage cans for trash segregations, simple yet has profound effect on the environment as well as disciplining ourselves. Yet, it would not end there, as I would personally want to lobby the Color-Coded Recycle Management System where the Recycle logo should be placed in all product labels or packaging in a color-coded format so that consumers would be able to easily identify on which color-coded garbage to dispose of their trash. The color-coded garbages would still have their usual labeled trash instructions for the sake of those who have color vision deficiency.

Recycle Black for Plastic-based products

Recycle Green for Paper and Carton-based products

Recycle Red for Bottles, Aluminum Cans, and Glasses

Recycle Yellow for medical related items such as gauze, plasters, etc.

World IPv6 Launch Today

For more information on IPv6, visit http://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/ and http://www.worldipv6launch.org/

Mother’s Day at Kindermusik

My wife Florence, an awesome mom to our 8-month old daughter Maggie, spent their first morning session at Kindermusik in Regalia Park Towers, near EDSA Cubao. Teacher Jeannie, who began the program in 2003 in the Philippines and also a recognized Kindermusik Maestro Award educator globally, has offered a summer program called Village Adventures. It is more like an introductory summer program for a 60-minute session each for six Sundays.

There were actually several sets of program depending on your child’s age. Like the Kindermusik Village Adventures that my daughter has attended yesterday, is offered for children from newborn to 1 1/2 years of age. As mentioned, it is a short summer camp program since the regular session is in a 15-week stretch. Other Kindermusik offerings are: Our Time for 1 1/2 to 3 years old; Imagine That for 3 to 5 years old; Kindermusik for the Young Child for 5 to 7 years old; ABC Music & Me, a Preschool Music Program for 2 to 6 years old; Sign & Sing, a sign language curriculum for hearing children 6 months to 3 years old; and Family Time, a music class for families with multiple children for ages newborn and up.

Kindermusic session where children and parents alike
participate in the activities

It was bonding and fun-filled moments for the participants who were also first-timers in the program. My wife, who is likewise a licensed Kindermusik educator, was the one who attended to our daughter most of the time. I assisted my wife from time to time especially on the sessions where I was the one who needed to carry and gently rock our baby daughter because of her weight. Like me, there were also dads who had participated and helped with their wives as well in the different activities. It was truly a wholesome experience.

Teacher Jeannie leading the children and parents
during the drum session

Maggie playing with her rattle

Into the plastic tunnel

    

Tucked with wireless microphone, teacher Jeannie, together with her two co-teachers in yellow-striped uniforms led the singing, while the CD containing songs and music exclusive for the Kindermusik Village Adventures session was playing at the background. The high-quality musical instruments such as rattles, shakers, and drums were also distributed accordingly depending on the programmed activity. The kids on the other hand, guided by their parents corresponded with the rhythm played from the CD through dancing, singing, and playing with the said musical instruments. Big plastic balls and tunnel were also introduced for the kids to play with. A multi-colored parachute-like with a diameter of around 12 to 15 feet, which is as large as the playing area were also introduced. The parents held the chute for awhile making gestures such as up and down and carousel-like movements as children played underneath. My daughter actually missed this activity when she got tired, hungry, and eventually fell asleep. Towards the end of the session, teacher Jeannie, held a hardcover book entitled Oh, What Busy Days! where she read and told the story. The take home materials include the said hardcover book, CD similar to the one they played in the session, musical shapes bell, and activities poster, for the parents to continue the activity with their kids at home.

Mother and daughter

Kindermusik which derived from a German phrase, Children’s Music was founded in the United States in 1978. Its framework is based from music and movement that uses high-quality digital recordings, instruments, and award-winning literature books along with traditional nursery rhymes, finger plays and songs to build a strong foundation not only in music education, but other areas of development, i.e. cognitive, emotional, social, physical, and language skills1.

When my wife and I played the CD at home, our daughter Maggie actually paused for awhile, eventually recalled the familiar music and perhaps remembered the activity that corresponds with the said music. From that very brief moment, we actually witnessed the effect in our daughter. We are looking forward for another Kindermusik session on Sunday which we think is worth investing in, that is beneficial for our daughter as well as for us parents.

For more information on Kindermusik classes and respective schedules near your area, you may check on Kindermusik Philippines and Kindermusik with Teacher Jeannie & Company.

Reference:
1 Kindermusic, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindermusik

One more thing...
To all the mothers and especially to my wife, Happy Mother's Day!

"The Miracle of Life nurtured by a woman who gave us love and sacrifice... MOTHER" 
- Joel Barquez

The Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera, A Game Changer?

I got hold of the fact sheet through email from our supplier last Monday, 07 May, regarding the Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera which was launched at The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) last April. I just wished that we could already try and test the unit ourselves, but the supplier told me that it would be available by July. That is the only time where we could make the actual tests for us to better decide if we will place it in our budget for next year’s purchase.

The Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera

What struck me with the said unit are the price at PhP149,899 (body only) and the shooting resolution of 2.5K RAW at 2432 x 1366 pixels. Realistically, it is within the price range of the general HDSLR shooter particularly in the broadcasting industry where price oftentimes is the deciding factor.

Also, part of the package is the da Vinci Resolve software for color grading. Blackmagic Design’s grand plan is now unfolding as I remember when they had bought da Vinci Systems, creator of high-end color grading technology last 2009. That time, it was unimaginable for a creator of an SDI I/O card to acquire a color grading company. Well, it happened, and by eliminating the high service contract fees, the price of the da Vinci Resolve disrupted the early owners of the technology mainly in the post production industry. From the PhP1.5 million price tag, it went down to a fraction of PhP50,000 for the software only both for Mac OS and Windows platforms. I even overheard, that the Philippines become the da Vinci Resolve capital of the world after the said price drop, yet I have not seen any hard data to support such claim. True or not, it become ubiquitous to the new players in the production as well as post production industry in the Philippines. It leveled the playing field, as the cliché goes. With the da Vinci Resolve grading software that comes with a USB dongle which is part of the BMD Cinema Camera bundle, this is a real bargain that would definitely entice early adopters of the technology.

The 2.5K RAW at 2432 x 1366 pixels is the other wow factor. Yes, alright, there is the 4K resolution as what Canon has announced that it is developing the EOS C500 and EOS-1D C with price estimates at PhP1.3 Million and PhP650,000 respectively, capable of shooting up to 4096 x 2160 pixels. But for television broadcast, the 2.5K is more than enough, particularly in the color grading, where you will be provided a much larger range of alteration in the color spectrum. Sometimes, it is very frustrating to see the output of the 1080 HDs because of little room for color tweaks. The best that we could do is to grade it photoshop style, with a play in the brightness and contrast, a little amber here and there, add vignette for the overall old-fashioned look then topped with a cherry lens flare. It is from the “surface only” work without actually going deeper into every details of the shot.

Digital Video Resolutions

Comparing the BMD Cinema Camera at 2432 x 1366 pixels with the other digital video resolutions, obviously it has the edge over 2K which is only at 2048 x 1152 pixels, and other formats, i.e. the 1080 progressive at 1920 x 1080 pixels, the 720 progressive at 1280 x 720 pixels, the DVD NTSC at 720  x 480 pixels, and the VCD NTSC at 352 x 240 pixels.

According to Scott Anthony, author of The Innovator’s Guide to Growth, disruptive innovation is a particular type of innovation that occurs when an innovator brings to a market an innovation that is simple, convenient, accessible, and affordable. A game-changer. Sustaining innovations, in contrast, does not create new markets or value networks but only evolves the existing ones with better value, which is synonymous to incremental innovations.

I may say that, Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera would again disrupt the industry like what they did for the price of the color grading. Apply that to the same low cost pricing strategy for the Cinema Camera yet offering better resolution in contrast to the 1080 DSLRs, it would definitely be every producers dream of coming up high quality production in a shoestring budget.

Startup Weekend Manila 2012: An Insight

The result of the Startup Weekend Manila 2012 winners was already released from their blog: 

First prize: Kiddle

Second prize: RideFind

Third prize: TraqMe

Fourth prize: Sphere

Build-a-better-world prize: 1Share1Life

Best E-Commerce prize: SpinMeBuddy

Best Windows phone application: TraqMe

People’s Choice: MentorsDojo

I was not able to participate personally. My Startup Weekend was spent instead at St. Luke's Hospital due to nasal infection. Here I am, still in my room and due for an operation tomorrow morning. Even though I was not at the actual venue, I managed to watch the event from my laptop via livestream. I could feel the room filled with energy and passion, as well as fear among the presenters. By the way, this is not only happening in Manila but places like in Australia and Hawaii, having their Startup Weekend as well.

After watching, which ended up before midnight and seen the final results from their blog, here are my insights should you wish to participate in the next Startup Weekend.

   

Sensibility - You only have a weekend to create your app. Make sure that the team has the skill and the capacity to do the prototype and present it to the judges on the final day. This is more than lip service. Prototype would mean that it could be done without yet the investors' money at hand. An app that has no prototype because it needs gazillion pesos to make it work would only drive your investors away. Be realistic.

Simplicity - As the saying goes, less is more. The Draw Something app is a perfect example, but among the presenters from the Startup Weekend, my personal favorite is TraqMe. The concept is to track the location of your loved ones especially if you have kids, simply to be able to know where they are. 

   

Sociability - It should bring people together, not only through friendship but for a cause. The 1Share1Life app is a social media where people could help other people pertaining to medical needs. What a beautiful concept. An app that would involved a lot of people means marketability as well as bottom line for investors.

Congratulations to the winners as well as for those who had participated.

To the organizers, thank you and hope to see you for the next Startup Weekend this time.

"An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea." - Buddha

Pre-Startup Weekend Bootcamp

Organized by the Google Technology User Group (Manila GTUG) and Google Developers Group (GDG) held at the Meridian International Business, Arts & Technology College (MINT) in McKinley Hill, Taguig City last April 14, the Pre-Startup Weekend Bootcamp aims to prepare developers and technopreneurs with the needed skills before judgment day on April 27 to 29 Startup Weekend Manila.

The Bootcamp was participated by around 40+, mixed students and professional were mostly are app developers. I was surprised that there were few designers, only two actually, including myself who joined the bootcamp. I just wished that more would come on the actual Startup Weekend itself. There were various speakers, interesting topics like tips on giving a one-minute pitch, where the speaker presented helpful advices and provided a link in vimeo that serves as reference. For those who would wish to participate in the future, visit http://vimeo.com/164475203.

A talk on the one-minute pitch
by Jonathan Lansangan

Another speaker, Art Ilano on Anatomy of Sale, shared samples of various business models and success elements of the apps. In his presentation, he shared the case of the "Draw Something" mobile application, where in less than two months after its release, Zynga bought it for US$180 million. This is a very interesting case study actually, will do more extensive research on this and share it in this blog soon.

Speaker Art Ilano shared the "Draw Something" case
among the participants.

Alfred Gonzales on the other hand, showed his Pinoytuner app done in Google Chrome. The Pinoytuner app is a very simple concept yet has already captured broad Filipino audiences overseas, around 30,000 to date from its November 2011 launch. For those interested on how to build an app via Chrome, visit https://developers.google.com/chrome/web-store/docs/get_started_simple. 

Various tools that would help designers and developers build an app prototype in a short period of time were also presented, from paid applications i.e. UIStencils, Omnigraffle, Parse, Codiqa, Mockapp and Balsamiq as well as to open source ones like the Pencil Project, Bootstrap from Twitter, and Middleman.

Lunch time at the Apple Experience Center,
one of the rooms at MINT College.

Doing a head start 

Right after lunch, participants of the Startup Weekend Manila were called in front to give their one-minute pitch try. There were few brave souls who did try including myself and the organizers gave their feedbacks and advices to help improve our pitches. It was really a different experience then. 

According to Charo Nuguid, one of the organizers, the objective of the Startup Weekend is to show an already working prototype among the venture capitalists and angel investors.

Amazed with the Google Chrome, HTML5, Startup Labs,
Google Developers, and Android cupcakes.

Google Chrome cupcakes

My favorite one, the Android cupcake

So, here is what we would expect during the course of the weekend, an American Idol like one-minute pitch on Friday night, build the prototype on Saturday until Sunday and present it to the judges which perhaps, includes the business plan already on the last day. It is going to be fun, or hell, I do not know, it is a competition of ideas, subject to interrogation by would-be investors. It is going to be a Sunday Bloody Sunday for sure.

To all my fellow participants, wish you all the luck.

For more information about the event, visit Startup Weekend Manila. For those who would wish to join, you may still register with a 20% discount according to the organizers.

One more thing...
Here is a very useful primer on design for startups by Wells Riley, check out Startups, this is how design works.

Case Study: Commercial Printing Project Management using Google Docs

Below is a case study of the application of Knowledge Management in Small-Medium Enterprise Print Industry. The tool that was presented here is a project collaboration management open source software using Google Docs.  

Issues

Company Print (not real name) is a one-stop commercial offset and digital printing, offering its services in marketing, corporate, and institutional-based clients. The company is already on its 8th year. Throughout its operations, it has grown with a number of regular or steady clients as well as occasional ones locally and abroad. However, based from the result of the Knowledge Management’s Rapid Capacity Assessment and External Customer Survey conducted last December 2011, there are three (3) issues that the company needs to address in order to further improve its services, thus to serve its clients better:

• Failure to meet deadlines and inaccurate compliance with the specifications required in some of its projects.
• Lacks overall project coordination between the marketing and production department resulting in overlapping of projects.
• No formal project status report at the end of the day. Its common practice is through verbal communication from the production coordinator.

Methodology

The issues gathered based from the results of the survey, will be used as a reference, which will be applied for the Knowledge Management for Company Print. Most of the issues that needs to addressed are in the production department that can be facilitated by using project management software. However, through research of project management software specifically viable for Company Print’s work process, Heidelberg has a solution to offer called Prinect S but their software is specifically designed for fully automated machines. It also requires full network digital integration from pre-press to post press, which is an ideal setup for a full printing production house. Admittedly, due to Company Print’s lack of machines’ capability to be fully integrated into the said digital network system as well as its limited resources to acquire the ‘Heidelberg way’ setup, the said project management tool is not practical to be adapted into the company’s workflow process for now.

The next best logical solution is a web-based project management collaboration tool using Google Docs. Since Company Print has an existing network that can be fully utilized aside from email and research purposes, its personnel are also familiar with other Google Docs such as the Calendar. Their sales and administrative departments for their daily tasks and meetings utilize the said calendar extensively. For the production department where most of the issues arise, another Google Docs will be introduced into its work process, which is the spreadsheet. Aside from its zero investment, it is also becoming a tool used confidently by several businesses nowadays.

The first task that will be undertaken is to interview the production coordinator of the company for further verification of the production process. It is also important to know if the said tool would really be helpful for his job and can be easily understood by the other stakeholders. The information gathered will be then placed in the spreadsheet that will be divided into three (3) main categories namely: the Pre-press, Press, and the Post-press. These categories are standard in all printing companies. It would then have its sub-categories assigned to these main categories that represent the workflow of the production process unique to Company Print.

Pre-press

• Color Separation / Filming
• Check Negative
• Check Plate
• Stripping
• Platemaking

Press

• Check Paper
• Cut Paper
• Digital Printing
• Offset Printing (Heidelberg Kord 64)
• Offset Printing (Heidelberg Sormz)
• Other Printing
• Drying

Post Press

• Lamination
• Finishing / Binding
• Die Cut
• Numbering
• Perforation
• Embossing
• Hot Stamping
• Final Trimming
• Quality Assurance
• Delivery

The main categories and identified sub-categories in the production process will be placed under the Task field or column. Aside from the task field, it would also have the Start and End Date as a reference schedule for a specific project task. Another field to place is the Task Lead; essentially to refer to the specific person involved or the one who handled the particular task. This would also minimize pointing of fingers in case that an incident happened in a project that resulted in a delay. Lastly, is the Remarks section, where the production coordinator or any stakeholders in the project may input their comments, material specifications, number of copies, etc., for every step of the production process. This section would also serve as guide for the production personnel as well as for the other stakeholders particularly marketing regarding special specification required for a particular project.

Since Google Docs serves as a collaborative tool for editing in real-time, users of the proposed process will be seeing a spreadsheet in a Gantt chart format where it will moved in real-time every time there will be changes in the production schedule. Editing and viewing of the chart will be limited to the “decision-maker stakeholders” such as the head of marketing and production coordinator. The other departments such as the administration and production personnel are only limited for viewing of the chart but cannot do any editing. The said chart would also have correlation with the current date.

The proposed tool would take into consideration these following challenges:

Usability. Could be easily updated by the stakeholders or decision-makers

Simplicity. Could be understood easily by the production personnel and other departments.

Accessibility. Could be accessed anywhere, i.e. PCs, tablet, mobile, etc. with integration to the other Google Docs.

The most challenging part is the integration of the spreadsheet into the other Google Docs. Since the marketing department uses the Google Calendar more often, the spreadsheet in Gantt chart format should be integrated into the calendar. This would served as an overview regarding the ongoing projects as well as a helpful tool for the marketing personnel, i.e. making decisions faster should they want to take in the project or not, since everything is already embedded into their calendar.

So far, there are a number of free Google spreadsheet templates and scripts as well as online tutorials that are helpful for the users depending on the process needs of the business. The Google Docs Template Gallery has a number of templates provided by the developers from Google and independent contributors.

Once the project is fully implemented into the production process, there would be a series of test and feedbacks through interviews from the main users of the tool. It would also check its helpfulness in the process of the business where issues that needs to be addressed were minimized, else, totally eradicated. The person that will hold accountable for the Google spreadsheet is the project coordinator. He/She should ensure that the spreadsheet is updated at all times which ideally towards the end of the day. In the absence of the production coordinator, any of the decision-makers or stakeholders may update the said spreadsheet provided that the coordinator would then be properly informed regarding the updates.

The spreadsheet would reflect only one (1) project at a time and will be divided into folders, named Company Print Schedule 2012-001, 002, 003, etc. The 2012 stands for the year when the project is made and the 001 stands for the sequence number of the folder. Each folder will contain a maximum of twelve (12) spreadsheets with ready-to-use template exclusive for Company Print. A catalog containing the name of the projects may also be developed that would provide information and link to the specific project folder. This would be a helpful reference for project reorders.

The working template named Company Print Schedule 2012-001 shows how the layout is divided into seven (7) columns, namely: Done, Task, Start Date, End Date, Resource, Remarks, and Days till End Date. The remaining columns are the Gantt Chart where the current dates are also reflected (see screen shot of the Company Print Template).

Screen shot of the Company Print Template

which I made it publicly available (see reference 5 below for the link).

Make sure to sign-in to your google account to make a copy for yourself.

One of the challenges is the integration of the Google calendar. The schedule provided in the spreadsheet should also reflect into the calendar. This would give the marketing team of Company Print an overview of the current projects. This was solved by searching for the right script that may be embedded into the Script editor under the Tools menu of the Google spreadsheet. Below is the sample script:

function calupdate() {

var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();

var startRow = 15;  // First row of data to process

var numRows = 1 var dataRange = sheet;  // Number of rows to process

var dataRange = sheet.getRange(startRow, 1, numRows, 5);

var data = dataRange.getValues();

var cal = CalendarApp.getDefaultCalendar();

for (i in data) {

var row = data[i];

var title = row[1];  // First column

var tstart = row[2];

var tstop = row[3];

var loc = row[4];

//cal.createEvent(title,  new Date("March 3, 2010 08:00:00"), new Date("March 3, 2010 09:00:00"),

{location:loc});

cal.createEvent(title, new Date(tsart), new Date(tstop), {location:loc});

}

}

On the other hand, to create the Calendar menu into the spreadsheet, below is the sample script that may also be embedded in the Script Editor. Run the script so that the Calendar would appear on the Spreadsheet menu. The user must click the calupdate under the Calendar menu so that the schedule from the spreadsheet would reflect into the Google Calendar.

function onOpen() {

var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();

var menuEntries = [ {name: "Update", functionName: "calupdate"} ];

ss.addMenu("Calendar", menuEntries);

}

Results

Based from the feedback that I gathered last 06 March 2012. Below are the results from Company Print’s Marketing, Purchasing, and Production departments.

Marketing

• Provides ready information regarding project schedules via Google calendar.

• Efficiently tracks the status of the current projects that would help the marketing team decide if they could still accommodate incoming projects.

• Eliminates overlapping of projects as well as delivers projects on time.

Purchasing

• Accurate compliance on the purchased materials specified on the Production Schedule.

• Efficiently monitors availability of production materials.

• Eliminates over-stocking of production materials such as paper and ink.

Production

• Having a formal written project status report at the end of the day.

• Organized production schedule, i.e. eliminates overlapping.

• Gives continuous online project status report, that would be helpful for the management make sound decisions anytime and anywhere.

Conclusion

Using an open source software such as the Google Docs saves Company Print from purchasing expensive project management software available in the market. Likewise, it also addressed the company’s internal and external issues in the production department. It made the company more organized and productive, thus able to deliver their best services to their clients and other stakeholders.

Google Docs is a viable tool for businesses especially for the Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that are searching for an alternative low-cost project management software, yet robust and secured in its features. It is highly recommended.

References:

1 Heidelberg Philippines, www.heidelberg.com/www/html/en/content/products/prinect/prepress/ prepress_prinect_s,overview

2 Wikipedia, “Google Docs”, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Docs

3 Google Docs Template Gallery, docs.google.com/templates category=2&type=spreadsheets&sort=hottest&view=public&author=Google

4 McKinsey Quarterly, “The Rise of the Networked Enterprise: Web 2.0 Find its Payday” by Jacques Bughin and Michael Chui, December 2010

5 Company Print Schedule 2012-001 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsR1mReWF6M_dFZQZkFKdEc2SVJZeEJrNDgtWkdTSHc

One more thing...

Thank you to Dr. Serafin Talisayon, founder of the Center for Conscious Living Foundation Inc. (CCLFI), for the lessons and assistance, in order for me to understand Knowledge Management (KM) better.