INFORMATION AS ORGANIZATIONAL ASSETS

Now days, technology are growing fast and everyday new ideas are coming from the
technology industries. This situation is same going to smartphone. Can we imagine how
smartphone are manipulating our life? How many of people in this era doesn’t have smartphone?
And the important thing is how many knowledge are transfers every second? Using smartphone,
I myself can shared many thing and get knowledge including tacit or explicit knowledge. Everyday
millions of people with their own smartphone for taking picture, talking, texting, browsing, and so
on. Ask almost anyone to forego their smartphone for a week and chances are that they’ll think
you are insane. From chatting on Facebook to checking work email and receiving directions to
ordering food, smartphones are used every day for a huge variety of tasks, even more so than a
Personal Computer/ laptop at times. But how did it all get started? So, here is smartphone history,
starting from the very early stages to Android and iOS. In 1992, IBM revealed a revolutionary
device that had more capabilities than its preceding cell phones. This prototype smartphone was
known as the Simon Personal Communicator, but it wouldn’t see its way to consumers until 1994.
The device had many of the modern elements they attribute to current smartphones and mobile
devices. Highlights included touch screen, emailing, fax, notes, calendar, Apps and other widgets
that would become widespread decades later. The Simon was advanced for its time, but has
nothing on the smartphones of today. It only had a small monochrome LCD screen and a one-
hour battery life. One thing that was cool, it did let user make landline calls instead of being at the
mercy of expensive carrier rates. Unfortunately, at $1,100 retail, it only sold 50,000 units in 6
months. Clearly, though, the Simon created a great launching pad for others to innovate. This is
about smartphone, and after this I will explain more in how smart phone can be an information as
an organizational asset and how its related to my daily job.

Almost every person in this era are living with smartphone but in this essay I will focused
on the linkage of smartphone while working and the benefit to company. I’m working at Telekom
Malaysia Berhad (TM) as a Technical Assistance (TA) and for common term normally public
known it as technician. My job scope is focusing on Unifi technical part for example maintenance
the system, repairing equipment, cabling work and the important thing is to make sure the Unifi
line is working properly. Unifi is a new product that introduced by TM at 24 March 2010 with
offering Internet access, Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Internet Protocol Television
(IPTV) to residential and business customers in Malaysia through an optical fiber network via
Fiber to the Home (FTTH) for individual housing units and Very high speed digital subscriber line
(VDSL2) for high-rise buildings. Formerly called the VIP (Voice, Internet, Phone) plan, the
residential package was renamed as Advance plan, Pro plan, and Lite plan, which provides video
or IP Television, Internet Access, and phone service. While I’m working in technology sector, so
I have to use all the new technology including smartphone and I need to know how its work
because it related to my job like I said before this that internet and smartphone have a strong
connection and needing each other to working. Smartphone without internet connection are
useless to user, most of the application in smartphone are using internet for running. So, when I
talk about smartphone it's also related to internet connection. Like I said before, one of the function
in smartphone is talking and talking is a part of communication. In company, communication is
important to make sure every information and work instructions delivered to staff immediately.
Can you imagine, if the instruction is giving using email or memo only, how many time its take for
staff to receive the info? If the information is important? Staff need to using laptop or computer to
received and read it, but with smartphone everything is on the tip of your finger so the
communication between staff are more effective. Before this when I started working around 9
years ago I still can remember that one day my General Manager asking me to do a verifier new
system at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) before the system running I need to approved
the project and after that TM can release the available ports for new Unifi subscriber. On that
time, smartphone doesn’t have many function like nowadays, everything is using email as an
official communication medium. Because of that, I missed the date line and I need to apply for
resubmission the document to my Manager. Can we imagine how many time wasting to do the
same thing because of miss communication?

Now, the most important communication application on smartphone are known as

‘Whatsapp’. I believe most of people know what is it and the using nowadays. Some of company
declare Whatsapp as an official medium for communication beside email. For example, each
department have their own group on whatsapp. In that group they have their manager, supervisor,
general worker and so on. Using this medium, boss is easily communicating with everyone if need
to give instructions or need to have knowledge sharing session and staff also can reply and
communicate with their boss directly so, the information is more effective. I still can remember
that my manager has knowledge sharing session about how to configure the new device by
sharing the notes for us to read and after that my manager open to any staff to video call using
whatsapp if need more explanation on site. On that time, I find some problem that needs expert
to help, so I’m using video call and perform online troubleshooting at site with the experts at their
office, the experts teaching me until I can solve my problem immediately. Because of that I can
get new knowledge in how to solve the problem if I’m facing the same issue in future. This medium
also changes our working style to more productive and innovative because in the whatsapp we
can sharing picture, note, video and any document. Besides viewing, we also can edit or draw
back the picture or note for make other worker understand what we try to explain and what to do.
It’s really helping when I’m working and can improve my knowledge indirectly because technology
is changing every day, if today I learn the new setting, the new device but in any time the new
technology with the latest function will growing.

For my job, I am from technical department and I’m doing the technical work. I got my task
from official application that supply by my company and TM also supply one (1) smartphone to
their staff. The smartphone is specially for TM used only, I can make call, messaging but cannot
install any application beside the application that supply by the IT department. They have many
applications that can helping staff while working and also have some note that related to technical
team. It’s also have some video part to showing customer and giving knowledge to customer how
to do basic troubleshooting if have the same problem after this. The main application is called as
SWIFT and it have sub application inside SWIFT to helping me because every technical staff
must have their own SWIFT system with the smartphone. This is how the technology work and
we apply it for working beside communication. Daily task is assigning by our coordinators using
a website that link to the SWIFT system on smartphone. The task is including report number,
customer phone number, their full name, address, system locator, their user identification number,
any remark from customer/user, and so on because they are full of knowledge for helping me
while working. They using the technology very well in smartphone because my Manager also can
detect the actual location using Global Positioning System (GPS) that provided in every
smartphone by using the website that link with SWIFT system. As a staff its really disturbing my
daily work because cannot hidden and cheating in working time but for company it’s really have
many benefit because they can supervise their staff in actual time and also can improve the
productivity of the company. They can assign my job base on my nearest location that they
detected using GPS. As I do a technical job, from using the smartphone I also can do a basic
configuration just using the smartphone. They provide a tools that can using for connecting a
Local Area Network (LAN) cable to smartphone that call it as phone LAN adapter and its
connected to a port at smartphone. If before this, I need to bring laptop everyday but with
smartphone everything I can do easily and can save my time. In several situations I also can using
the wireless functions to setup and configure customer router besides using LAN cable.

Then, for manager position and above they also can access the same application like
technician but in using world wide web base that also called as SWIFT webpage. This is the
important part because from the webpage they can calculate how many job that I can do per hour,
per days and also per month. They can count the job productivity of me and my team and from
that number of data, management also can do their research to improve the work flow and study
the work behavior. All of this is called as data when unprocessed facts and figure without any
added interpretation or analysis from the SWIFT webpage are collect. Then from the data it will
process to be an information when the data are used and have meaning to my manager to
enhance the managing experience and also can helping for make a decision making. Then my
manager explains to me and my colleague the outcome he gets to enhance our working
experience. It is called as knowledge sharing between management and ground staff because
information has no real value on its own and can become valuable when we as a staff used it,
then what happen when I didn’t used it? Unused information is really a liability, because no value
is extracted from it, and the organization incurs future costs of storage and maintenance. When
doesn’t used it, it will become waste for company. That why in this organization they using a
smartphone as a medium, everything can update very fast and more smooth for example if any
customer has new contact number, new address, I as a technician can update directly the new
information immediately because The value of information tends to depreciate over time. The
speed at which it loses value depends on the type of information.

Meeting is an important part when someone working in industries because from meeting
everyone can update their daily work and also sharing the new knowledge. I still can remember
that one time my General Manager joining us in meeting by using skype call for video conference.
Skype is one of a popular application that using in the world for video conferring session. In that
session, many knowledge that sharing with my department including the business situation in this
company on how they want to focusing about performance with reduce the daily technical report
to cover the return of investment (ROI) for company. It is because they need to cover the fuel
consumption on every time technician travelling to site and it’s also costing the other related thing.
Other than that, last month our company ask their staff to watching live streaming for one session
at Head Quarters (HQ) with the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to explain about company
performance and bonus announcement. I still can remember on that time all my college with their
smartphone and watching the live streaming for get some knowledge about company
performance. All of this are important for company because it’s can save the costing for travelling
claim and using that method can target more audience without need to be at the specific place
and in the same time can saving the time. Time management are also important in an organization
when each minute that worker wasted can reduce the production and also can impact the
productivity of the company to meet the target. I still can remember that one time my friend got a
working offer from western company located at Australia and for the interview session he just
using skype at the computer and start the online interview session with the director of the
company. That was my first time having this situation and for me it is really helping my friend
because he no need to be there for the interview and can save more money for flight ticket,
accommodation, travelling, and other costing when he there. So, from that situation, I can have
said that if applying the same method at any company they will get the same benefit and of course
its relevant to use in this digital era.

Besides the advantage that I share before, using smartphone as an information asset also
have some limitation that I need to be consider. It is including the nature of the smartphone itself
such as the quality of the smartphone, the battery usage, the consistency of the application,
internet speed issue, and so on. All of that are on the smartphone issue but what happen to the
knowledge and information if I want to relate on the limitation issue. I want to focused about the
consistency of the application because the application need to connect to Telekom Malaysia
server for the security data issue and some time the server having time out or intermittent
disconnection issue because of that, it’s also effected the application. I still remember that one
time I need to done my job using the application at smartphone but currently having the
disconnection issue and the job are delay around two (2) hour before I can have done the job, but
after that when the line is connected the job are done duplicate at the system. The information is
not accurate to the system with need to do the filteration of the information to save the server
storage. Then, the lack of the security and the confidentiality of the information also can have
effected when the smartphone has issue. Can we imagine if I lost the smartphone and anyone
can access to the smartphone, what happened to all the data and the information inside the
smartphone? So to counter the issue the application need to be upgrade for the security purpose,
besides the security password I suggested to activate the online remote system. If you are an
iPhone user, you will know about find my phone application that can get from apple store. The
function is similar like if you are losing your phone, you can remote you phone using another
phone to erase the data, to shut down your phone, to located and detected the location of the lost
phone and so on. So, I thing we can used the same function for secured the application and to
improve the security of the data inside the smartphone. Many information inside the smartphone
that can make anyone misuse if found it because the information is including another person
contact number, address, full name, identification detail, customer security password and so on,
if the information is leak, anyone can have used for irresponsible action.
 Then, we will have looked on server data storage issue that also can affect the smoothing
of the application. What I know that before this, the IT team already update their server speed
and also the storage after having the slow transfer data issue and timeliness of the data are not
accurate with the system time. So the data are not accurate for the real time versus server time,
it’s important for user and also the management because from using the application they can
counting the duration of the complaint report from call center open the report case until the
technician solve the problem. From part to part are importance for timeliness to counting the
duration by system for management can study about how many time they can promise to
customer for solving each issue, all data are storage in the server storage and the data can have
collected by management to make an accurate decision making for improve the service in future.
Each day new data and information are collected from the application at smartphone and saving
to the server storage, because of that for make the storage maintain and the server running
smoothly they need to start doing a clean up the data by frequently and backup the important data
to another storage with separating with the running storage. Another solution that I think, we can
come out with using cloud storage for backup because it can be saving for the server
maintenances fee and also the main power for maintain the servers. It is because cloud storage
state a specific amount for the capacity by third party company and everything for maintenances
are under their responsibilities. But before proceed to the idea, they need to study about pro and
cons in using the cloud storage before make a decision to make sure everything is considering.

In conclusion, technology is changing day per day but if doesn’t used the benefits for
improve the life it is really waste the technology. So, as a Telekom Malaysia technician that
working related to internet and technology in this era, I need to used and study about new
technology that related to my work and then I have to explain to my customer. By using the
smartphone as an information asset, I as a staff fells very supported and energized by the quality
of the information that come by the great decision making that made by my company management
team after their analyzed the information and data form the application on my smartphone. All the
outcome can help me a lot in my daily working and by using the smartphone can be saving the
time by making my job easy for communication and troubleshooting.
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