Analyzing ICT Business Case Study: Ethical Framework For Digital Innovation - Telstra Essay.

Case Study Analysis: Implications for advantages and disadvantages of digital innovation

To analyze an ICT business case study using a chosen ethical analysis framework(Case study given on the attachment i.e, Telstra ).

Currently, the digital platform businesses have been undergoing numerous unethical business consequences due to the inappropriate regulations and leadership attributes. Especially, during the digital innovations, it is essential to address the ethical codes of standards for managing the disputes and developing the high end technological solutions. According to Nottingham (2018), innovation is crucial to the business success in today’s business economy. In many of the cases, it is noticed that the IT companies usually depend on the cyber securities and the cyber security policies that may constitute a breach of data. While establishing the IT governance and IT standards, the companies often utilize the technologies to minimize the risks. However, the manual efforts and intangible resources are sometimes becoming essential to manage the risks much considerably (Bannister and Connolly 2014). Developing new values and achieving growth by establishing welfare for the stakeholders drive the organisation towards strengthened competitive position.

The study will explore the use of business ethics during the digital innovations in Telstra. Telstra has launched the 24/7 Telstra app and the crowd support platform that revolutionized the use of the digital technologies. In order to implement this digital innovation, it is essential to maintain the ethical business standards. The study will develop the IT governance and IT standards framework for developing the ethical business practices. The study will also demonstrate an awareness of the associated ethical implications of digital disruptions related to the business. Furthermore, the study will identify both the positive and the negative implications for using the digital support system. The evaluation of the framework based analysis will help in suggesting the appropriate digital ethics within the business.

The telecommunications and media companies have been facing the challenges due to the Digital Disruptions. Telstra has thus adopted the digital innovation for strengthening the position in a competitive landscape. In the year of 2010, Telstra realised that the origins are needed to be transformed from the traditional engineering culture to the advanced digitalized world (Karkoskova and Feuerlicht 2015). Considering such requirement, the Telstra Digital was established. The company sourced some of the specific digital talents that are quite renowned in the market. The critical mass associated with this digital innovation is now one of the best and biggest digital teams all across the country (Gardiner 2015). Currently, the digital solution established by Telstra has been serving more than 1.5 million regular users who can access the app in their Smartphone devices or tablets (Telstraglobal.com 2018). The Crowd Support community is another most preferable channel that helped Telstra in revolutionizing their customer services (Bannister and Connolly 2014). In many of the cases, it is noticed that the IT companies usually depend on the cyber securities. In fact, it is noticeable that directors often fail to implement the cyber security policies that may constitute a breach of data. While establishing the IT governance and IT standards, the companies often utilize the technologies to minimize the risks. However, the manual efforts and intangible resources are sometimes becoming essential to manage the risks in a significant way. The managers of Telstra formulated a systematic framework to develop the digital innovations by considering the IT governance and IT standards.

Framework for developing the digital innovation

Apparently, the digital innovation is much beneficial for this advanced world where the demands of the customers are continuously changing. Hatakka, Devinder and Sæbø (2016) mentioned that the technological devices become a crucial part of human lives in today’s date. The digital innovation has enhanced the communication among the people worldwide. Such advancements are even saving time and money by exchanging faster internet connection. The in-depth assessment of the digital innovation suggests some of the loopholes despite the advantages. Patroni, von Briel and Recker (2016) argued that people have become much dependent on the technologies due to the advancements took place in current environment. Eventually, technology has been replacing the human efforts. The decline of the human capital is increasing the unemployment rate. In fact, the invention of the digital innovations requires appropriate rule and regulations (Karkoskova and Feuerlicht 2015). In addition to this, the business companies need to maintain the appropriate code of ethics. The mismanagement of the appropriate ethical standards may hamper the entire innovations within the organisation (Govekar and Willis 2016). Therefore, it is important for the managers to develop the appropriate framework and maintain the continuous improvement to overcome these specific barriers.

In last few decades, it has been observed that the role of IT has been supporting not only the internal operations, but the all aspects of business. Sometimes, it is even difficult to the managers to keep the track of the digital technologies. Therefore, the establishment of the holistic framework would be much appropriate for the digital technological innovations. According to Hutchins, Meese and Podkalicka (2015), this holistic framework for digital innovation comprises of five major areas. These specific areas as follows:

Experience of the users

Telstra understands that the developed digital services or products are needed to be easier to use. It should even provide the better experiences to the users for involving them into the various digital activities.

Value Propositions

The managers always require assessing the value based approaches associated with technological innovations. The value based assessment is necessary for aligning the digital technologies with the customers (Bradlow and Jayachandra 2015). Moreover, it articulates the digital product or service among the customers to attract them in a larger amount. 

Scanning the digital evolution

It is quite necessary for Telstra to scan the digital environment and gather the adequate information associated with the new digital devices and channels. It helps in identifying the individual behaviour to avail any opportunity or evolving the offerings (Suzor et al. 2018).

Assessment of the Ethical Consequences of moving to a digital firm

Skills

The establishment of the digital innovations needs to ensure the maximization of the return on investments. The firm requires acquiring internal and external innovative skills for creating new roles and receiving help from the consultants who will put these digital services on the right track (Alreemy et al. 2016).

Improvisation

The managers need to take the responsibility of promoting a creative environment by establishing the appropriate balance between the flexibility and structure (Thompson, Ravindran, and Nicosia 2015). The continuous improvement of the digital technologies will be necessary to retain the competitive position.

In order to use this framework, a sequential planning is needed to be followed by the company. The sequence based planning is described further:

1. a)At the initial stage, it is important to appoint a specific person for taking the initiative. The person needs to be involved at the intersection of technology and business. They generally have the enriched ideas about the functions happening on the both side. The consultant or anyone from the internal business environment can be associated with the process.
2. b) The framework can be utilized in a best way by arranging a workshop and developing a printed outlet for having the calculations done automatically. The facilitators can drive the conversation and gather information through developing this workshop.
3. c) After collecting the forms, the average scores will be calculated. It is important to focus on the lower score to identify the area of improvements and where the ROI of the future investments need to be ensured. The firms can discuss the results either during the workshop or afterwards in another session.
4. d) After gathering knowledge from this workshop, the firm needs to prepare a plan of actions at the end. Accordingly, these actions are needed to be executed for increasing the element score especially on those areas where the performance is low.
5. e)Finally, the company needs to establish the weekly or monthly follows ups for checking the progress and appropriate track to keep the priorities in order.

This framework would be justified enough in establishing the innovative business environment within the organization.

The digital innovation depends on the appropriate regulatory factors that ensure the long term sustainability. The IT department of Telstra needs to maintain the ACS codes of ethics prior to implement the digital innovation within the firm. ACS Code of Ethics is an integral part of the constitution of Australian Computer Society (Acs.org.au 2018). The members associated with ACS needs to advance and uphold the dignity, honor, and efficiency level of being a professional service provider. The following codes of ethics are needed to be maintained in such context:

Primacy of the Public interests

It is important place the interests of the public at the top list of priority. In fact, the public interests should be placed above the sectional and personal businesses

Enhancing the quality of life

It is necessary to enhance the quality of life that is affected by the job structure and schedule.

Honesty

The representation of the knowledge, skills, products or services should maintain the high integrity level.

Competence

The workers should perform diligently and competently for the associated stakeholders.

Professional Development

In order to provide the quality services and products, it is essential to enhance the professional development (Acs.org.au 2018). The job role of the associated staffs and colleagues are also needed to be developed professionally.

Professionalism

It is important enhance the integrity of the society and the members should be respected. The maintenance of the professionalism is much essential.

Maintaining these codes of ethics is quite important when implementing a digital innovation within a firm. The continuous approach towards these codes of conduct ensures the long term sustainability and determines the competitive advantage in a challenging landscape. However, Mayer et al. (2015) implied that the implementation of the ICT tools or digital innovation, it is quite necessary to maintain the IT governance and IT standards. Similarly, the IT department of Telstra needs to maintain the ACS codes of ethics prior to implement the digital innovation within the firm and develop the IT standards during the governance process (Acs.org.au 2018). According to Quezada-Sarmiento et al. 2017) IT governance is a structured framework, which is formulated for ensuring the IT infrastructure of an organisation that generally enables and supports the achievement of the organisational goals. At the professional level, the IT governance standard is ISO/IEC 38500:2015. This standard sets out the entire information and communication technology, which serves as the key resource for digital innovation. It suggests some of the specific technologies that help in achieving the competitive advantage in a significant manner. The three widely recognised, third-party, and vendor-neutral frameworks are associated with this IT governance framework. These frameworks are described further:

ITIL®

IT infrastructure Library or ITIL was developed by the Cabinet Office of UK. It is utilized as the library of the best-practices associated with IT service management. This technological tool is widely adopted. This technology is supported by ISO/ISE 20000:2011 and the independent certification can be achieved through this standardization (Ahuja and Chan 2015).

COBIT®

Another IT governance control framework is Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies or COBIT. This framework helps in meeting the challenges associated with the IT department in today’s world. This framework is specifically dealing with the challenges of regulatory compliances, alignments of IT strategy with the organisational goal, and risk management (Vunk, Mayer and Matulevi?ius 2017). The guidelines of COBIT’s management include the structured framework for measuring and controlling the capability providing tools for assessing the processes. This framework develops the appropriate and structured method of implementing digital innovations.

ISO 27002

ISO 27002 is one of the best practices that create the high-end standards for the IT services associated with the information security management within an organisation (Mahy, Ouzzif and Bouragba, 2016). Establishing this IT standard is quite helpful for developing the competitive edge of the firm in a significant manner.

It has been observed that the major challenges faced in the development of the digital solutions in the establishment of the integrated and coordinated framework that meet these three specific IT standards (Venkatraman 2017). Apart from these standards, some of the sub-domains are also included in such cases. The following sub-domains are needed to be aligned:

• Regulatory compliance
• Business continuity and the disaster recovery
• Knowledge management that includes the intellectual capital
• Project Governance
• Risk management

The implementation of the IT governance is not even a smoother process. The firms often face the considerable challenges during the implementation of the digital innovations (Almeida, Pintoand Mira da Silva 2016). The following section of the study will discuss the major issues emerge during the development of the IT governance standards.

One of the major challenges faced during the implementation of the IT governance standards is data breaches. The IT companies like Telstra often face the issues with the data breaches. It is important to maintain the privacy factors of the information associated with the digital innovation process. In order to deal with such challenges, the Privacy Amendment Bill was passed in the year of 2013. It introduced the mandatory data-breach notifications with the possible penalties of $1.7 million (Lebedeva et al. 2016). The Privacy Act 1988 is mandatory in any occurrence of data breach and it should be notified to Australian Information Commissioner as well as the affected individuals (Karkoskova and Feuerlicht 2015). Another issue might occur during the implementation of the digital innovation. In many of the cases, it is noticed that the IT companies usually depend on the cyber securities. In fact, it is noticeable that directors often fail to implement the cyber security policies that may constitute a breach of data (Margaria 2015). The inadequate cyber policies may create considerable risk for the project. The Crowd Support community is another most preferable channel that helped Telstra in revolutionizing their customer services. In many of the cases, it is noticed that the IT companies usually depend on the cyber securities. The development of tea cyber security policies will be helpful enough in eliminating all risks and create the safeguard for the necessary information.

On the other hand, it is already stated that the decline of the human capital is increasing the unemployment rate. In fact, the invention of the digital innovations requires appropriate rule and regulations. While establishing the IT governance and IT standards, the companies often utilize the technologies to minimize the risks (Karkoskova and Feuerlicht 2015). However, the manual efforts and intangible resources are sometimes becoming essential to manage the risks in a significant way. When the technology is replacing the human capital, it becomes much difficult to deal with the emerging challenges. Hence, it can be much problematic in terms of developing the IT governance and IT standards. Considering such situation, the following implications are provided.

The obtained idea from the entire research study develops the understanding about the challenges faced during the implementation of the digital innovation. In order to mitigate the challenges and developed the greater customer experiences, Telstra needs to Concentrate on beta focuses. It is essential for Telstra to develop dedication and collaboration for keeping the focus towards customer experiences. It suggests that Telstra needs to switch the mindset and evaluate the improvement of the human capital in a precise way.  Establishing personalization is one of the strategic visions that Telstra can adopt for remaining competitive. The personalization will be helpful enough to set the focus on the relationship of a person with a business or a brand. Telstra needs to be much adaptive to the change. It is true that the technological innovation is quite helpful in advancing at and exciting pace. It is also replacing the traditional media. The technological changes may create the high-end value. The use of the new technologies required the involvement of more staffs. The management of Telstra needs to ensure the staff training process to develop the hired solution by using this new technicalities and technological tools. It will automatically lead towards external partnerships that would create more benefits in future. It can also be recommended that the management requires improving the security by applying it governance practices and Standards. Establishment of the deeper audience profiling will also be helpful enough to mitigate the challenges and make the company much competitive at the Global landscape.

Conclusion

The study develops the understanding of the IT governance and the IT standards that are needed to be maintained by Telstra during the development of the Digital innovation. It is noticed that the company sourced some of the specific digital talents that are quite renowned in the market. The critical mass associated with this digital innovation is now one of the best and biggest digital teams all across the country. Currently, the digital solution established by Telstra has been serving more than 1.5 million regular users who can access the app in their Smartphone devices or tablets. The critical mass associated with this digital innovation is now one of the best and biggest digital teams all across the country. The digital innovation has enhanced the communication among the people worldwide. Such advancements are even saving time and money by exchanging faster internet connection. The analysis of the case study is presenting the framework for implementing the digital innovation and strengthening the competitive position. The managers need to take the responsibility of promoting a creative environment by establishing the appropriate balance between the flexibility and structure. Maintaining the ACS codes of ethics is quite important when implementing a digital innovation within a firm. The implementation of the ICT tools or digital innovation, it is quite necessary to maintain the IT governance and IT standards. The personalization will be helpful enough to set the focus on the relationship of a person with a business or a brand. Telstra needs to be much adaptive to the change. The management of Telstra needs to ensure the staff training process to develop the hired solution by using this new technicalities and technological tools

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