2. Virtual Valué Chain
In December 1995, an article by two assistant professors
at Harvard
Business School, Jeffrey F Rayport and John J Sviokla,
appeared in
the Harvard Business Review, which argued that the
physical value
chain was only one side of the equation; in every
business where there
is a physical value chain, there is also a ‘virtual value
chain’:
3. Virtual Valué Chain
Every business today competes in two worlds: a physical
world of
resources that managers can see and touch and a virtual
world made of information… Senior managers must
evalutate their business – its strengths and weaknesses,
its opportunities and risks – along with the
value chain of both worlds, virtual and physical. Today
events in either can make or break a business.1
5. Virtual Value Chain
•Estudio de caso : Colegio
Aschool, for example, has just as much of a physical
value chain
as a parcel distribution company, although it is dealing
with children
rather than packages. Its essential inputs are children (to
be educated),
trained teaching staff, teaching materials, ,etc.
6. Funciones de un Colegio
•Funciones de un Colegio
The most important of these is clearly the task of using
the teaching staff and materials to pass know- ledge on
to the schoolchildren, but there are also a series of
supporting tasks – ensuring that children attend regularly;
scheduling lessons, staff and classrooms; managing
budgets. If we think about the value chain of a typical
school, we would almost certainly see it in its physical
terms –people, books and material – which is ironic given
that one of its most significant inputs and outputs is very
‘unphysical’ knowledge. If we were to think about the
virtual value chain of the same school, we would see
things very differently.
7. Funciones de un Colegio
•Transito hacia el mundo virtual
To start with, we would probably want to translate the
physical world with which we are familiar into information
terms: not just numbers of pupils and staff, but the
educational levels of each child and their particular
strengths and weaknesses, and the skills and experience
of individual teachers. Rather than think of a class as
being about, for example, history, we would want to know
what the levels of knowledge of history the children had
before the class started
8. Eliminación de Barreras de Entrada
•Transito hacia el mundo virtual
The next step in moving from a physical to a virtual value
chain is to go beyond simply monitoring the physical
processes, changing the way in which operations are
managed by looking for areas where information can
replace a process rather than just record it. In the
example of our school, this might range from the
comparatively familiar ideas of giving pupils computer-
aided lessons .
9. The Virtual Value Chain
•Oportunidades de negocio
The school could sell information to their manufacturers
on how effective particular teaching aids are, which the
latter could then use to price their goods based on value
added rather than conventional cost-plus
10. Investigación y Desarrollo Virtual
•Modelo genérico
we propose to use a generic model of the R&D
process, which we can use to illustrate some of the basic
concepts of the virtual organization within R&D function
Where else in a business can more money be saved (or
made) than
by shortening the time it takes to get a product to
market?
Caso Zantec - Glaxo
12. Investigación y Desarrollo Virtual
Discovery
How do new ideas come into existence? They do not
generally appear
out of thin air. They tend to arrive through a synthesis
and examination
of our own and others’ experience. We may, for example,
take an
existing approach and modify it for a new situation;
New discovery = Experience × Insight
.Internet acelera la investigación y desarrollo.
13. Investigación y Desarrollo Virtual
Investigation
If the discovery of ideas can be improved so much by
keeping information in the virtual domain, it seems
reasonable to ask whether we have to use the physical
domain at all. If we can generate our ideas via the
computer, wouldn’t it also be useful to be manipulate and
experiment these ideas on the computer as well? A
number of companies have asked themselves this
question and concluded that this must be the most
effective way to go.
Caso Industria Farmaceutica
It is not surprising that, on average, around 30 per cent of
a pharmaceutical company’s revenues go into new
research and that a new drug costs approximately
$350m to develop and takes 15 years to go from the
laboratory to the patient
.
14. Investigación y Desarrollo Virtual
Consumer testing
At the end of the day, once all this research, design and
development has been completed, how can we be sure
that the consumer is going to like our new product
enough to buy it? This last part of the process
can be the most difficult of all. However good the science
and engineering that has gone before it, if the consumer
does not like the product it will not sell, or at least it will
not sell well enough to recoup the R&D costs that have
been incurred..
15. Investigación y Desarrollo Virtual
Caso Boeing
Famously, the developers of the Boeing 777 did just that.
Rather than start with a blank sheet of paper, they invited
airlines in to make suggestions about what they would
like. Not only that, but they involved advisors from four of
the airlines buying the 777 (United,Cathy Pacific, Japan
Airlines and All Nippon Airlines) throughout the design
process. These advisors made over 1,000 suggestions
ranging from overhead baggage lockers to toilet seats.
