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Monday, August 24, 2009

Out of the "Money Flow"

in the arena of virtual reality tools for serious business use, many(if not most) people are uncertain about how to implement VR as a business tool. Forward thinking business managers are beginning to recognize that it could be a valuable tool, but is it really necessary? think of daily operational life in any major corporation. I believe that the majority of employees perform corporate-neutral functions(i.e. the same function exists in every large company). The minority of employees perform corporate-identity functions(things that are specific to the company or specific industry). corporate-neutral workers perform "transactions" on all daily basis. a transaction may be part of Admin, finance, IT, marketing, etc. a business objective or complex task has a workflow lifecycle which consists of tasks. each task requires a tool. I will refer to the tools that are required to complete a task that is part of the business objective lifecycle as "Money Flow Tools"(MFT). Logically, any tool that is part of MFT suite will be considered a business requirement, and resources(time, money, people) will be assigned to the tool according to its MFT ranking. Tools that are "out of the money flow" are generally perceived as nice-to-have, or non-essential technology. As a tool provider, you will want your business tool to be part of the MFT suite. In the majority of corporations, Email and MS Office would be considered MFT. Webex or LiveOffice would be considered an MFT. The Telepohone and bberry are MFT. Then there is a body of software tools that may or may not be MFT: Visio, MS Project, Adobe Professional, etc. Apart from Adobe Pro, the other two products have easily accessible workarounds. I can make a flow-chart in powerpoint, I can create a project plan/gant chart in Excel. so are they MFT or not? maybe it varies by the individual user?
lets consider immersive technologies and the MFT concept: who cannot do their job without virtual reality tools? is there a task that cannot be performed with any other tool? is there a task that truly can be performed faster, better, cheaper using VR? if you cannot answer yes, you are not in the Money Flow. ok, so you are thinking now: a "business meeting" is a task that needs to be performed, the meeting needs a tool: telephone, conference room, webex, video conferencing. I suggest that the meeting is not a task. the meeting is a tool. the business objective of the meeting is the task. there is a big difference. task does not equal tool. this also makes it easier for us to talk about the criticality(or not) of VR as a tool. we must remember to target the business objective, not "tool replacement". to be continued.....

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