ICT has become a major tool for rendering or providing competitive advantages for companies most especially banking industries, in terms of the number of computers in use and the level of telecommunications infrastructure.
ICT is progressively reducing the significance of other factors of production. Through ICT it is now possible for countries to trade without border restriction. Therefore, as a result of anchoring their operations on ICT based delivery system, the banks with IT services have become more profitable.
Though the advantages and opportunities that ICT offers are very great, but this is not without some challenges. Fraud can likely occur more seriously in financial industry (banking) since large amount may be easier to perpetrate electronically than the manual operation. Fraudster can beat various security codes. Though fraud can be greatly minimized, but there could still be some element of dishonest act.
Moreover, another area in which the adoption of information technology has negatively affected the banking sector is the threat it poses for the employees in the sector. According to Jaffer (1968), he ascertained that “unemployment is cyclical phenomenon; technological progress may make for short-run problems of unemployment, which require time for adjustment because of immobility of capital and labour”. According to an official of National Union of Banks, Insurance Financial Institution Employees (NUBIFIE) , one of the greatest achievements of the group before the adoption of Information Technology in banks was the security and guarantee of employment for it members. In the words of Ibrahim (1998), he stated that ICT was adopted in bank without any notice, without any plan for the future existence of the displaced employees, without adequate rehabilitation plan and benefits.
As firms embrace ICT some employees in companies tend to be understandably nervous about the implications. They assume that if that if their company chooses to restructure itself around web technologies, their jobs may disappear. Gates strongly disagrees with this opinion he said “not so unless “restructuring” is just a fancy term to mask layoffs”. He goes on to add, “When a company downsizes, jobs are lost, when a company out sources, job move”. He opines that by and large the changes in organization structure will empower good employees.
Michael Dell characterizes the direct business today as “different combination of face-to-face, ear-to-ear and keyboard –to-keyboard. Each has its place. Internet doesn’t replace people. It makes them more efficient. By moving router interaction to the web and enabling customers to do mere things for themselves, we freed up our sales people to do more meaningful things with customers” .
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
EFFECTS OF ICT ON EMPLOYEES IN GENERAL
Personal Computers are meant for productivity applications, network and electronics mail (E-mail) for communication based business application. They are used for business analysis, allowing knowledge workers to be shifted into high-level thinking work about products, service and profitability.
Groups of people are using electronic tools to act together almost as fast as a single person could act, but with the insights of the entire team. ICT allow you have faster access to information about sales, our partners, and customers. We are able to react faster to problems and opportunities. It allows for accuracy, immediacy and richness of the information it brings to knowledge workers the insight and collaboration made, possible by the information. It helps to stimulate a concerted response by employees to develop and implement a business strategy.
ICT enhances knowledge sharing and helps to build on each other’s ideas in real time. You need a fast flow of good information to streamline processes, raise quality and improve business execution. ICT helps you achieve this. ICT give you access to data that leads to insight into your business.
ICT allows you to automate routine processes and allow employees do thinking work, not manual work. ICT helps to cut research from hours to minutes.
ICT also enhance work style flexibility. For instance, a web work style also makes it easier for people who have good skill sets but who can’t or choose not to work full-time. With the use of Internet such people can find work and opportunities and yet work from remote locations. Many knowledge workers will live where they want to live and structure the work the way they want it and still make major contribution to the business they work for or with.
ICT enables an organization to empower its employees. It makes workers to pursue life-learning skills, which will ultimately boost their productivity. This could be through training or even getting higher degrees online, we can develop our most valuable asset there is our brains and increase our intelligences. ICT according to Gates extend the capabilities of our mind.
Groups of people are using electronic tools to act together almost as fast as a single person could act, but with the insights of the entire team. ICT allow you have faster access to information about sales, our partners, and customers. We are able to react faster to problems and opportunities. It allows for accuracy, immediacy and richness of the information it brings to knowledge workers the insight and collaboration made, possible by the information. It helps to stimulate a concerted response by employees to develop and implement a business strategy.
ICT enhances knowledge sharing and helps to build on each other’s ideas in real time. You need a fast flow of good information to streamline processes, raise quality and improve business execution. ICT helps you achieve this. ICT give you access to data that leads to insight into your business.
ICT allows you to automate routine processes and allow employees do thinking work, not manual work. ICT helps to cut research from hours to minutes.
ICT also enhance work style flexibility. For instance, a web work style also makes it easier for people who have good skill sets but who can’t or choose not to work full-time. With the use of Internet such people can find work and opportunities and yet work from remote locations. Many knowledge workers will live where they want to live and structure the work the way they want it and still make major contribution to the business they work for or with.
ICT enables an organization to empower its employees. It makes workers to pursue life-learning skills, which will ultimately boost their productivity. This could be through training or even getting higher degrees online, we can develop our most valuable asset there is our brains and increase our intelligences. ICT according to Gates extend the capabilities of our mind.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Intellectual capital, Africa's path to poverty alleviation, says Emeagwali
DR Philip Emeagwali, U.S.-based Nigerian computer Scientist, says intellectual capital was needed to produce products and services that will lead Africa to the path of poverty alleviation.
Emeagwali made the observation in a lecture Entitled: "Ideas, not Money, Alleviate Poverty", which he delivered at the University of Alberta, U.S., recently.
The computer scientist said that intellectual capital, which comprised the collective knowledge of people, was what increases productivity.
"Productivity by driving economic growth alleviates poverty, always and everywhere, even in Africa. Productivity is the engine that drives global economic growth.
"The power of intellectual capital is the ability to breed ideas that ignite value,'' he stressed.
Emeagwali added that the quote was a clarion call to African leaders to shift purposefully and deliberately from a focus on things to a focus on information.
"From exporting natural resources to exporting knowledge and ideas and from being a consumer of technology to becoming a producer of technology,'' he said.
He said that poverty in Africa would be reduced when intellectual capital was increased and leveraged to export knowledge and ideas.
He pointed out that Africa's primary strategy for poverty alleviation was to gain debt relief assistance and investment from western nations.
"On the contrary our strategy for poverty alleviation should mean looking beyond 100 per cent literacy and aiming for 100 per cent numeracy, the pre-requisite for increasing our technological intellectual capital,'' he explained.
Emeagwali said it was sad that in this age when poverty alleviation should result in producing valuable products for global market and competing with Asia, the U.S and Europe, "shamefully, diamonds found in Africa are polished in Europe and re-sold to Africa''.
Emeagwali made the observation in a lecture Entitled: "Ideas, not Money, Alleviate Poverty", which he delivered at the University of Alberta, U.S., recently.
The computer scientist said that intellectual capital, which comprised the collective knowledge of people, was what increases productivity.
"Productivity by driving economic growth alleviates poverty, always and everywhere, even in Africa. Productivity is the engine that drives global economic growth.
"The power of intellectual capital is the ability to breed ideas that ignite value,'' he stressed.
Emeagwali added that the quote was a clarion call to African leaders to shift purposefully and deliberately from a focus on things to a focus on information.
"From exporting natural resources to exporting knowledge and ideas and from being a consumer of technology to becoming a producer of technology,'' he said.
He said that poverty in Africa would be reduced when intellectual capital was increased and leveraged to export knowledge and ideas.
He pointed out that Africa's primary strategy for poverty alleviation was to gain debt relief assistance and investment from western nations.
"On the contrary our strategy for poverty alleviation should mean looking beyond 100 per cent literacy and aiming for 100 per cent numeracy, the pre-requisite for increasing our technological intellectual capital,'' he explained.
Emeagwali said it was sad that in this age when poverty alleviation should result in producing valuable products for global market and competing with Asia, the U.S and Europe, "shamefully, diamonds found in Africa are polished in Europe and re-sold to Africa''.
ICT EFFECT ON HUMAN RESOURCES
Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, explained in Washington in 1993 that a new synergy of hardware and software may finally be showing through a significant increase in labour productivity’ .
The banks and Insurance companies will become more ruthless or realistic in hiring employees, “there has been a tremendous reversal of complacency”, said Stephen Roach, an economist at Morgan Stanley who had frequently criticised computer spending. John skeritt, managing partner of Andersen Consulting in the US, reckoned that “Technologies like image processing, voice recognition, telephone banking, expert system for doing loan evaluations, will continue to cause massive layoffs”.
As personal computers became more integrated into office organisation they lost much of their idealistic appeal of the previous decade, as the liberators of young people from bureaucracies and officialdom. They were still thrilling instruments for loners including writers, dealers and designers. But inside companies they were becoming part of the power-structures, associated with central whom rather than liberation, they were linked up to central networks and databanks which could provide abodes with mechanical all-seeing eyes, showing them how to make ants, enabling them to check on salesmen’s performances, to bypass middle-managers and replace them. Decisions taken through computers as Norbert Wiener had warned forty years earlier were overtaking human decisions. Know-how was prevailing over know-what and the spread of computers was speeding up the most ruthless purge of company men since the depression of the thirties.
Human Resource productivity is a result of so many factors such as health are, nutrition, motivation, remuneration, education and training, division of labour, effective administration and the quality of tools at the employees disposal including ICT tools. In recent years ICT has been playing a non dominant role in determining the productivity of the employees. It is argued that even the relatively rich economies seeking to capture some of the key industries of the next century, will need to create the conditions and environment necessary for creativity and innovation essential for moving into and being competitive in the knowledge-based industries which will provide the highest value-added for economies
The banks and Insurance companies will become more ruthless or realistic in hiring employees, “there has been a tremendous reversal of complacency”, said Stephen Roach, an economist at Morgan Stanley who had frequently criticised computer spending. John skeritt, managing partner of Andersen Consulting in the US, reckoned that “Technologies like image processing, voice recognition, telephone banking, expert system for doing loan evaluations, will continue to cause massive layoffs”.
As personal computers became more integrated into office organisation they lost much of their idealistic appeal of the previous decade, as the liberators of young people from bureaucracies and officialdom. They were still thrilling instruments for loners including writers, dealers and designers. But inside companies they were becoming part of the power-structures, associated with central whom rather than liberation, they were linked up to central networks and databanks which could provide abodes with mechanical all-seeing eyes, showing them how to make ants, enabling them to check on salesmen’s performances, to bypass middle-managers and replace them. Decisions taken through computers as Norbert Wiener had warned forty years earlier were overtaking human decisions. Know-how was prevailing over know-what and the spread of computers was speeding up the most ruthless purge of company men since the depression of the thirties.
Human Resource productivity is a result of so many factors such as health are, nutrition, motivation, remuneration, education and training, division of labour, effective administration and the quality of tools at the employees disposal including ICT tools. In recent years ICT has been playing a non dominant role in determining the productivity of the employees. It is argued that even the relatively rich economies seeking to capture some of the key industries of the next century, will need to create the conditions and environment necessary for creativity and innovation essential for moving into and being competitive in the knowledge-based industries which will provide the highest value-added for economies
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Human Resources Development
Fredric Harbison (1973,pg 3) defined human resources as the energies, skills and knowledge of people which are, or which potentially can or should be applied to the production of goods and services. Tobias (1969) defined manpower as people, humanity, and society with all its aspirations, needs and capacities.
From an enterprise, organization, or institutional point of view, human resource development (HRD) could be described as the integrated use of personnel training and development, organization development and career development to improve individual group, and enterprises organizational Institutional effectiveness to fulfill the vision of the institution. The basic purpose of HRD in the institution will be to develop a good fit between the institution, its job practices, activities and environment. It focuses on an organized effort to improve the current and future performance of the personnel in the institutional setting. The HRD program is expected to be a vehicle for developing personnel competencies, skills, and understandings to enable the organization to achieve its mission and goals. This can be achieved through three major ways:
• HRD is concerned with clearing strategies that continuously improve the performance of the organization of human resources both individually and in groups.
• HRD is concerned with the needs of people to be productive contributors to the organizations’ vision and society’s mandates.
• HRD involves learning about affective approaches to the following areas and the return on investment to the organization from such activities:
i) Strategic human resource planning
ii) Alternative methods for improving performance (training, education, career and organization development).
iii) Technology transfer of leaving
iv) Performance evaluation (Basket Carnes, Groff, and Sample, 1994).
From the above it implies that from an economy-wide point of view human resources development is the process of increasing the knowledge, the skills, and the capacities of all the people in a society. In economic terms, it could be described as the accumulation of human capital and its effective investment in the development of an economy. In political terms, human resources development prepares people for adult participation in political process, particularly as citizens in a democracy. From the social and cultural points of view, the development of human resources helps people to lead fitter and richer lives, less bound by tradition (de Silva 1997 ). In short, the processes of human resources development could be described as unlocking the door to modernization. According to De Silva (1997), the importance of HRD is obvious when one considers that in any economic activity it is the human element that commands, directs, organizes, controls, maximizes the factors of production. This implies that the quality of people appropriate to the particular level and complexities of the activity determines how well or poorly, these tasks are accomplished. The implication is that a poorly accomplished task implies poor and weak economic performance (low or negative growth rate) and a well-accomplished task implies strong economic performance (high growth rate).
From an enterprise, organization, or institutional point of view, human resource development (HRD) could be described as the integrated use of personnel training and development, organization development and career development to improve individual group, and enterprises organizational Institutional effectiveness to fulfill the vision of the institution. The basic purpose of HRD in the institution will be to develop a good fit between the institution, its job practices, activities and environment. It focuses on an organized effort to improve the current and future performance of the personnel in the institutional setting. The HRD program is expected to be a vehicle for developing personnel competencies, skills, and understandings to enable the organization to achieve its mission and goals. This can be achieved through three major ways:
• HRD is concerned with clearing strategies that continuously improve the performance of the organization of human resources both individually and in groups.
• HRD is concerned with the needs of people to be productive contributors to the organizations’ vision and society’s mandates.
• HRD involves learning about affective approaches to the following areas and the return on investment to the organization from such activities:
i) Strategic human resource planning
ii) Alternative methods for improving performance (training, education, career and organization development).
iii) Technology transfer of leaving
iv) Performance evaluation (Basket Carnes, Groff, and Sample, 1994).
From the above it implies that from an economy-wide point of view human resources development is the process of increasing the knowledge, the skills, and the capacities of all the people in a society. In economic terms, it could be described as the accumulation of human capital and its effective investment in the development of an economy. In political terms, human resources development prepares people for adult participation in political process, particularly as citizens in a democracy. From the social and cultural points of view, the development of human resources helps people to lead fitter and richer lives, less bound by tradition (de Silva 1997 ). In short, the processes of human resources development could be described as unlocking the door to modernization. According to De Silva (1997), the importance of HRD is obvious when one considers that in any economic activity it is the human element that commands, directs, organizes, controls, maximizes the factors of production. This implies that the quality of people appropriate to the particular level and complexities of the activity determines how well or poorly, these tasks are accomplished. The implication is that a poorly accomplished task implies poor and weak economic performance (low or negative growth rate) and a well-accomplished task implies strong economic performance (high growth rate).
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Human Resource productivity...& ...ICT
Human Resource productivity is a result of so many factors such as health are, nutrition, motivation, remuneration, education and training, division of labour, effective administration and the quality of tools at the employees disposal including ICT tools. In recent years ICT has been playing a non dominant role in determining the productivity of the employees. It is argued that even the relatively rich economies seeking to capture some of the key industries of the next century, will need to create the conditions and environment necessary for creativity and innovation essential for moving into and being competitive in the knowledge-based industries which will provide the highest value-added for economies. Perhaps, this was what led Drucker (1992:25) to emphasis that “we now know that the source of wealth is something specifically human knowledge. If we apply knowledge to tasks we already know how to do, we call it “productivity”. If we apply knowledge to task that are new and different, we call it” innovation. Only knowledge allows us to achieve these two goals.
It is argued that the emergence of knowledge and application is the main determinants of competitiveness and the major driver of this is ICT. High productivity depends on the quality of human capital (and on how human resources are used) a lesson to be learnt from the developed countries. As contended by Drucker (1992), productivity is arguably the most important social event in the development of countries in the past hundred years. Education, management and training shorten the time-span within which a country with low wage costs can achieve higher productivity. Although with high productivity wages are expected to rise there has been a steady decline in the importance of other research input such as natural resources in creating national wealth. Information and advances in other technology have increased the demand for intelligent workers who can extract the most out of technology, as well as for people at higher levels to create and adopt technology to new uses.
It is argued that HRD has played a significant role in the quick and rapid industrialization and general development of such countries as Singapore, Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, China, and earlier in Japan (World Bank, 1993a) . The World Bank studies of East Asian development has identified investment in human capital as one important factor contributing to the rapid development of the East Asian countries enabling it to periodically upgrade labour skills and the economy (Birdsall and Sabot 1993) . The Asian experience gives a direct account of how HRD could easily lead to higher economic growth.
For example, by 1990, raw materials after adjusting for inflation, were approximately 40% less than they were in 1970 (International monetary fund privy commodities: market development and outlook, July 1990:26).
PRODUCTIVITY
Perhaps it is fair to state that the biggest problem faced by any person who is put in charge of the management of any resources is the problem of how to raise productivity. The utilization of resources often raises the problem of economic use. For a venture or an activity to be regarded as productive the ratio between input and output must be positive.
It is argued that the emergence of knowledge and application is the main determinants of competitiveness and the major driver of this is ICT. High productivity depends on the quality of human capital (and on how human resources are used) a lesson to be learnt from the developed countries. As contended by Drucker (1992), productivity is arguably the most important social event in the development of countries in the past hundred years. Education, management and training shorten the time-span within which a country with low wage costs can achieve higher productivity. Although with high productivity wages are expected to rise there has been a steady decline in the importance of other research input such as natural resources in creating national wealth. Information and advances in other technology have increased the demand for intelligent workers who can extract the most out of technology, as well as for people at higher levels to create and adopt technology to new uses.
It is argued that HRD has played a significant role in the quick and rapid industrialization and general development of such countries as Singapore, Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, China, and earlier in Japan (World Bank, 1993a) . The World Bank studies of East Asian development has identified investment in human capital as one important factor contributing to the rapid development of the East Asian countries enabling it to periodically upgrade labour skills and the economy (Birdsall and Sabot 1993) . The Asian experience gives a direct account of how HRD could easily lead to higher economic growth.
For example, by 1990, raw materials after adjusting for inflation, were approximately 40% less than they were in 1970 (International monetary fund privy commodities: market development and outlook, July 1990:26).
PRODUCTIVITY
Perhaps it is fair to state that the biggest problem faced by any person who is put in charge of the management of any resources is the problem of how to raise productivity. The utilization of resources often raises the problem of economic use. For a venture or an activity to be regarded as productive the ratio between input and output must be positive.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
ICT AND HUMAN RESOURCE PRODUCTIVITY
The last twenty years has seen a dramatic growth in information and communication technology in Nigeria. Sprouting ICT service private companies, growing import of computers, introduction to the Internet, recognition of government of the fundamental roles of information and communications technology there by proposing a national information and communication development plan and the national information policy, the ongoing phased liberalization of telecommunications and the energy sector, establishment of computer science unit and information science school are some of the promising activities. Despite these developments, the impact of information and communication technologies on the productivity of the human resources in Nigerians remains minimum. The technology has not yet diffused to the social fiber of the society [According to an excellent account by Manuel Castells, the impact of information and communication technology and development in information society cannot be achieved by rotheric statements. It is important to create enabling environment for the information and communication technologies to diffuse into the social fiber of the society. The "industrial society, by educating citizens and by gradually organizing the economy around knowledge and information, prepared the ground for the empowering of the human mind when new information technology become available." Woefully, developing nations continued to grapple with low productivity, poverty, population explosion, etc. The irony is that least developing nations such as Nigeria are those that acutely need the organization of their people around knowledge and information to break away from debt, destabilization, drought, desertification, demographic problems and dependency]. A number of obstacles are still on the road in making information technology useful to the society. I BELIEVE that the information and communication sector could be fostered to achieve economic gains especially in the area of human resource productivity. Emphasizing the growth of information and communication technology would not only lead to a new robust industry of its own but also is a basis for improving productivity and output of the average Nigerian..
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