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Reality pull implemented by demand-driven business processes affects all aspects of an organization. For instance it requires an other organization of the IT, another attitude of the employee, a control adjusted to that and possibilities for external communication via, for instance, an interactive website.

Working in accordance with the principles of demand-driven processes and reality pull is so far-reaching that it can only function if the policy of the organization bears it.

The management should see the value of it and dare to drop non-fitting control and planning and scheduling structures. It is essential that also the professional has the right attitude towards it. He will direct his own work and he will enable control afterwards.

Of course these issues are also related to the culture and structure of the organization, the set-up of planning and control and the way individual accountability is taken care of.

IT must enable this other way of dealing with planning, scheduling and taking care of individual responsibility.

Speed of market development is another factor that puts high demands on an organization.

Different ideal models of organizations have been reviewed in the course of time with their own control mechanisms. From the small agricultural company with direct control to the strongly functionally differentiated industrial organization that is controlled and monitored top-down (“one-way”). Because this hierarchic model is well able to function in stable complex environments, but is hardly compatible with the flexibility of many markets, the matrix organization was seen as an ideal model for many years. One of the problems with the matrix organization form is the control: because persons in various hierarchic units work with conflicting priorities, this model was not really a success82.

82 Applegate, M. et.al. (2004), Corporate Information Strategy and Management, McGraw-Hill, 2004 (sixth edition)

Applegate shows how organization models grow towards smaller independent units that have the benefits of being small-scale, but also can make use of the benefits of a large organization. Benefits like direct contact with the market, knowledge of one’s own primary processes and the ability to operate flexibly go together with the benefits of the large organization such as a good data/knowledge/infrastructure and volume advantages.

Applegate calls this the network organization. In this book this model is referred to as

“all – ways”. The responsibility and the necessary information go to a lower position in the organization so that a direct and flexible reaction to the customer demand is possible.

In this way, demand control becomes also possible in a large organization.

Essential with demand-driven operations are not the tools, the resources, but the attitude of the one who demands: the customer or employee and the attitude of the one who reacts to the demands. That is what we call reality pull. In that, you might distinguish several stages:

1 the statement that the vision on demand-driven processes is shared

2 deliberately wanting to shape concrete processes in accordance with this principle 3 a completely internalized attitude regarding demand-drive with the corresponding

behavioural pattern.

Characteristic for a demand-driven company is a pro-active attitude, taking the initiative and bottom-up thinking. The Internet enhances that bottom-up attitude of thought. Students start a company of their own on the Internet, patients unite in a patients platform and professionals find each other in communities. In the schedule below Frans van der Reep visualizes this trend of bottom-up thinking and acting.

Figure 1

All three stages of implementing reality pull and demand-driven processes can be distinguished at both the management levels and the level of the employee and the customer. As partners in demand-controlled processes do not function in stage 3, demand driven processes will proceed very poorly on both sides of the process (supplier-customer). In other words: demand driven processes needs to be learnt.

As an illustration of demand driven processes, two very different examples from practice are worked out below: one from the field of education and one from the field of health care.

In the first example from practice you will find the elaboration of a pilot in which students shape their own education within the knowledge field of e-business. The second practice description regards a pilot in the care sector in which the professionals (employees) take care of their own work planning.

Case 1 Demand driven Higher Professional Education

Introduction

In the Higher Professional Education, demand driven processes in policy-making plays a major role. The education is going to aim more at the desires and needs of the customer, the student.

See for instance, Backbone INHOLLAND83. And a publication of the Digital University: From Trend to Transformation84. There, the customer will have to manage his education through a Personal Development Profile in a Digital Portfolio. Minors are being developed from which the student, inside and outside the institution, also worldwide, can pick and choose.

Another form of demand driven processes is to offer students more possibilities inside a module that are aimed at their specific study wishes. This form is further elaborated here in this case study. Students from the 4th year MER (Management, Economics and Law) of INHOLLAND University Rotterdam were enabled, within the e-business module, to shape their own educational learning process in accordance with a pre-agreed upon plan.

This pilot was carried out by the e-business centre of excellence of INHOLLAND University Rotterdam. The e-learning centre of excellence, also from INHOLLAND University participated in this to determine how you can coach with digital tools.

83 INHOLLAND University (2004) Backbone, Good practice, about process and result of educational innovation.

Internal publication INHOLLAND University

84 Veen, M. van der en M. van der Wende (2005). Van trend naar transformatie, ICT-innovaties in het Hoger Onderwijs. (From trend to transformation, ICT innovations in higher education), Wolters Noordhoff

In this pilot the goal was:

1. to learn how student driven processes work in education 2. to learn in which way IT can be used to realize this.

We choose the participating form of research, in which the communication is recorded in logs and analysed afterwards, the communication is analysed via the websites and the experiences with the students and tutors was discussed afterwards. The result is not representative but does give an experience from which one can learn.