3.3 Creating new types of value across business functions

This section so far has sought to highlight the need to create new types of organisational value. This can entail reorienting existing processes to achieve more expansive ‘social’ value propositions, or transforming how they realise traditional economic ones. However, as this course has stressed throughout, creating and sustaining organisational value is always multifaceted and runs across its different functions. The same is true for the creation of new organisational value. It is imperative, therefore, to explore in more depth how these new types of value can be manifested within organisational functions – particularly operations management, financial accounting, and business intelligence.

Operations management is a good place to start as it encompasses the entirety of an organisation’s processes and activities. Novel perspectives linked to ‘lean’ management dramatically transform how organisations design their activities and relate to external suppliers and customers. It also reveals the ways that environmental concerns have ushered in ideas of a ‘circular economy’, transforming organisations to maximise their sustainability and minimise their carbon footprint. Similarly, new technologies are poised to impact the very way organisations are operated and managed. Digital fabrication, for instance, in which products are made to design through 3D printing, could revolutionise production practices, leading to distributed manufacturing in which people can use agreed upon designs to make products locally, wherever they are in the world.

In terms of financial accounting, the ways in which organisations are financed and allocate their budgets could be rapidly shifting. The traditional model of seeking out a large private or public funding source is being transformed. Crowdfunding, for example, allows for a more democratic funding model that is not reliant on corporate shareholders or government stakeholders – ideas can become a reality more quickly, with less market or stakeholder pressure. Likewise, participatory budgeting within municipalities could be adopted within workplaces, providing a high-tech platform for empowering employees to contribute to organisational priorities and strategies.

Business intelligence can also play a vital role in this new value creation. At present, the data analysis and information systems are specifically oriented toward established value frameworks such as improving efficiency, productivity, and profits. This need not be the case. Rather, they could be channelled into creating analytics that track the value added by managers and corporate executives, thereby creating a fairer allocation of resources. Or they could assist people in finding a distributed manufacturing centre that best fits their geographical and user needs. What is crucial, in this respect, is that such ‘intelligence’ is directed toward the innovative creation of new value within and across different organisatonal functions.

Activity 6 Creating new types of value across organisational functions

Timing: Allow around 30 minutes for this activity

Watch the following video clip from the Open University documentary ‘The Future of Empowerment Today’, in which OU academic Dr. Cinzia Priola interviews members of the organisation ‘Disrupt Disability’. You may want to find out more about Disrupt Disability at the organisation's website [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .

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Transcript: Video 3 The future of empowerment today

SUBJECT

So we are currently in a maker space. And there are all sorts of digital fabrication tools and machines around us. We have 3D printers, laser cutters, cnc mills. So it's very, very user led. And our main focus is really on facilitating that so that people can have wheelchairs that are designed for them.

We were inspired, or Rachael Wallach, who's the founder of Disrupt Disability, was inspired by an organisation called Enable, who she came across when she was on a trip to, I think, Jordan.

RACHAEL WALLACH

They were using 3D printing to support refugees of the Syrian crisis. They showed me a 3D printed prosthetic hand that they'd made for a boy who lost his fingers in the conflict. They'd fully customised it to his body.

And they'd even made it look like Ben 10 hand. So it was customised to his preferences. But the total cost was only $39 to make.

SUBJECT

Rachael did some research and found out for the reason that they were able to do this was because they were working with a community, an online community of designers, who were voluntarily designing and contributing their designs for prosthetics and that each of those designs could then be 3D printed. We think the people who are best placed to understand what they want from a wheelchair and articulate that are the people who use wheelchairs themselves.

RACHAEL WALLACH

So imagine you're trying to climb a mountain, but you're wearing a pair of stilettos. And they're three sizes too small. It would be pretty difficult.

And that's exactly what it's like to use a wheelchair that hasn't been customised to your body, your lifestyle, and your environment. The problem is, with traditional manufacture, customization is really expensive. So currently, a customised wheelchair cost about 2,000 pounds.

SUBJECT

At the moment, the wheelchair market is very different, to say, the market for glasses. I wear glasses because I can't really see very well without them. I go to opticians, and I receive a prescription for my glasses.

But from that point onwards, the experience of buying a pair of glasses is very much like the experience of buying a pair of shoes. It's down to my tastes. It's down to what I want to look like.

But wheelchairs, that process is quite medicalized. Somebody is immediately treated in the process of choosing their wheelchair as a disabled person. Whereas in my experience of buying glasses, I have never once been treated as a disabled person. And partly that's because there is not much customization in terms of wheelchairs. Wheelchair design has been quite static.

RACHAEL WALLACH

Previously, the only people involved in wheelchair design were medical professionals, engineers, designers, and perhaps, a wheelchair user at some point in that process. But the range of people we've been able to inform is much broader. So we've got artists. We had a locksmith. We've had people from an incredibly broad range of different disciplines.

And I think this kind of creativity is something that we'll start to see more of. Because distributed manufacture and digital fabrication really enable these kinds of collaboration.

INTERVIEWER

Can you tell us a bit more? What is digital fabrication? And what is distributed manufacturing?

SUBJECT

Sure. So digital fabrication is kind of what it says on the tin. It's using digital means, using something like CAD, computer aided design, to design and then manufacture. And distributed manufacturing means that you can manufacture anywhere.

You don't have to manufacture in a central location. So as opposed to where traditionally you might have a workshop where you're making all your wheelchairs, and then you ship those wheelchairs to the customer, we're looking at actually how can we take that manufacturing process much closer to the customer. So how could somebody go to their local maker space or their local manufacturer and have something made for them?

INTERVIEWER

Where is Disrupt Disability now?

SUBJECT

The point we've come to is we've started to look at creating a modular wheelchair system. We realised it's quite difficult for somebody who's never made a wheelchair before to make a whole wheelchair. And also that, for the user, they might have an element of their chair-- for example, the caster fork, the front wheels-- that they might say they need to change it.

So for their day-to-day life, when they're working in an office in London, they want something quite small and neat and discreet. But at the weekends, they like going for long walks in the Lake District. And therefore, they need something that can handle the rougher terrain.

INTERVIEWER

As you would do with a bike

SUBJECT

Yeah, as you would do with a bike. So having something that's able to be interchanged, we see as something that could really benefit both the user and the designer and the maker.

INTERVIEWER

Could you see this organisational model working for other organisations in the present and in the future?

SUBJECT

Yeah. I think, actually, it's a really good way to start a business. If you start with your users, your customers, the problem that you're trying to solve, and really make that very human, and then try and build your solutions out of that.

End transcript: Video 3 The future of empowerment today

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Video 3 The future of empowerment today

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Once you have watched the video, fill out the table below. It asks you to match organisational activities and functions to the new types of value. Each activity connects to one new type of value, but may be linked to more than one organisational function.

Organisational Activity

1. Allows each user to design their wheelchair based on their specific lifestyle and needs.
2. Uses digital fabrication technology as part of maker space to easily and inexpensively design and print prototypes.
3. Exploits distributed manufacturing methods to cheaply produce wheelchairs for users while reducing their carbon footprint.
4. Involves a community of designers that go beyond medical professionals including artists, craftsmen, and wheelchair users themselves.
5. Designs are digitally and freely shared so they can be drawn upon and expanded by other members of the designer community.
6. People are part of a community of users and makers ranging from global design network to globally connected collection of distributed manufacturers, allowing individuals to have access to both the use and production of these wheelchairs.

Organisational Function

1. Operations Management
2. Financial Accounting
3. Business Intelligence

Table 6 Value and organisational activity

New Type of Value	Organisational Activity	Organisational Function
Environmental Sustainability	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.
Social Inclusiveness	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.
Personalisation	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.
Collaboration	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.
Community/User-led	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.
Openness	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.	To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.

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Answer

Table 6 Value and organisational activity

New Type of Value	Organisational Activity	Organisational Function
Sustainability	Exploits distributed manufacturing methods to cheaply produce wheelchairs for users while reducing their carbon footprint.	Operations Management Financial Accounting
Inclusiveness	Involves a community of designers that go beyond medical professionals including artists, craftsmen, and wheelchair users themselves.	Business Intelligence
Personalisation	Allows each user to design their wheelchair based on their specific lifestyle and needs.	Operations Management
Collaboration	Uses digital fabrication technology as part of maker space to easily and inexpensively design and print prototypes.	Financial Accounting Business Intelligence
Community/User-led	People are part of a community of users and makers ranging from global design network to globally connected collection of distributed manufacturers, allowing individuals to have access to both the use and production of these wheelchairs.	Operations Management Business Intelligence
Openness	Designs are digitally and freely shared so they can be drawn upon and expanded by other members of the designer community.	Operations Management Business Intelligence Financial Accounting