Web Technologies

Executive Summary
The term “New Age Technologies” is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. To be more specific it consists of the Web 2.0 applications. A Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with each other as contributors to the website's content, in contrast to websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them. Sites like Wikipedia, LinkedIn, and Facebook are common examples of emergence of Web 2.0.
Over the past decade several agencies like McKinsey, Vault, BTUC have tracked the rising adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in different aspects of business, as well as the ways organizations are using them. Their findings clearly indicate that companies are deriving measurable business benefits from their investments in the Web.
Companies that made greater use of the technologies and companies belonging to the IT domain reported even greater benefits. Listed below are some key statistics which highlight the importance of this project:
 McKinsey Global Survey o 1700 executives around the world. o 69% respondents indicated measurable benefits.
 The Vault.com survey o 1500 respondents o 87% employees feel non work related sites should be allowed. o 55% feels it ok to allow 15-30mins each day on these sites.
 TCS Generation 2.0 survey o 63% urban students spend over 1hr daily on internet. o 93% are aware of social networking sites.
 Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry o 4000 IT employees. o Loss in productivity of upto 12.5% daily based on unregulated usage.
The western world is more in a stage of analyzing the impact of using these technologies in their workplace and for business purpose whereas from the Indian context we are more in an adoptive stage which makes this study all the more significant.

1. Chapter 1

1.1. Introduction
The impact of these emerging technologies on IT organizations is analysed considering three major aspects:
1) Employee Access.
2) Recruitment.
3) Company Branding/Marketing.
A comparative study is made on the usage policies adopted in major IT organizations as well for the purpose of possible amendments and benchmarking.

1) Employee Access:
It focuses on the extent to which employees can be given access to different web applications from their workplace. The accessibility features are segmented into five different aspects:
 News sites (eg: Times of India, Telegraph)
 Search Engines (eg: Google, msn search etc)
 Personal Mailing (eg: Google, Yahoo mail)
 Social Networking (eg: Orkut, Facebook)
 Professional Networking (eg: Twitter, LinkedIn)
For each of these features the factors that have been considered are:
 Advantages:
Advantages are considered from the perspective of employees as well of the Organization.
 Disadvantages:
Disadvantages are also considered from the perspective of employees as well of the Organization.
 Company Policies:
Company policies take into account global trends as well as policies of usage followed by specific Indian IT companies.
 Recommendations:
Recommendations are provided considering global as well as Indian business scenario. Recommendations are backed with facts and statistical results derived from secondary as well as primary research.
2) Recruitment:
Recruitment through social and professional networking sites is an upcoming trend among Indian IT companies. In order to analyse the impact of these new age technologies on Organizational recruitment policies the benefits, repercussions, company initiatives are considered and recommendations are provided.
3) Company Branding:
The importance of maintaining a good online reputation is considered under this aspect and suggestions and probable steps to implement the same are discussed in details.

1.2. Objectives

The objectives of the project are as below:
 Analyzing the pros and cons of providing different internet accessibility features to employees at workplace.
 Analyzing how Organizations can use advanced web applications and social as well as professional media for recruitment in national and global level.
 Analyzing how Organizations can leverage the web 2.0 applications for company branding and marketing.

1.3. Literature Review

1) Can social networking co-exist with the workplace? By Eric J. Sinrod Partner Daune Morris
The article talks about the growth of social and professional networking sites in recent times and their assimilation into workplace. It dwells on both advantages as well as disadvantages of such technologies and also touches upon the need to monitor the employee usage of such technologies.
According to him the major disadvantage of these technologies is the potential damage from viruses or spyware. He cited the potential drain on employee productivity as a close second moreover bandwidth issues and potential liability exposure are also convincing reasons to restrict certain Internet access by employees.
However he also mentions the advantages of social-networking sites saying that they truly do provide robust features that provide a richer means of online communications. Accoeding to him rather than ban employees from using the medium, managers should think ahead how to turn it to their advantage. Careful thought should be given when considering the use of any networking features that could be detrimental to an enterprise. From there, policies can be crafted on a company-by-company basis to guide employees and gain their buy-in.
2) Web logging: A study of social computing and its impact on organizations by Rachael Kwai Fun IP and Christian Wagner
This article reviews weblogs and their role as a social networking device for young people and its probable evolution to the organizational computing medium. The motivation of young webloggers, based on an analysis of 33 interviews, and the evaluation of the fit between technology features and the needs of these webloggers are reported. Four user types with their unique profiles and technology needs, and a needs–technology fit model, are described. The findings support the notion that organizational computing will (or should) take advantage of employees' social computing expertise and acceptance and to further capture the attention of customers.

3) Workplace e-mail and Internet use: employees and employers beware by Charles J. Muhl attorney with the National Labor Relations Board, Chicago, Illinois.
The article gives meaningful insights into the way the use of internet has evolved from e-mails to modern social and professional networking. It refers to extensive surveys being carried out online across the globe on employees as well as employers in different organizations. It concentrates on the following areas:
1. Legal Rationales for Restricting Internet Access
2. Security Rationales for Restricting Internet Access
3. Productivity Rationales for Restricting Internet Access
4. Reasons for Personal Use of the Internet at Work

2. Chapter 2

2.1. Methodology Adopted and IT’S Usefulness

Methodology followed is mostly secondary research from information available in various scholarly articles on the topic. However it includes comparing policies followed by major IT companies in India and also primary research based on feedback obtained from the employees of these companies.
1) Secondary Research
At first a detailed research is carried out based on published external sources in order to collect relevant data. The sources include:
• Information published on the internet(eg: chrmglobal.com,strategichr.com etc, an exhaustive list is given in the reference section)
• Information from proprietary online sources(eg: scribd.com,ebsco database)
• Information published in the trade and general press throughout the year.(eg: businessweek.com, pcworld.com,cnet.com etc, an exhaustive list is given in the reference section)
2) Primary Research
Due to time constraints the primary research could be done on a very small sample size. Following are the particulars of the primary research.
• Sample size 25, across 5 major IT organizations.
• Age of participants 25-35(as this range was considered to be most relevant).
• Gender distribution. (13 male, 12 female).
• Questionnaire was prepared and mailed across to the participants and in some cases telephonic interview was taken as well.
The information collected from the above steps helped in checking the consistency of results and also helped in filtering the relevant data.
For analysis purpose the following steps are executed:-
• Analysis of the in-house data.
• Analysis of the quantitative data collected in stage-I.
• Analysis of the qualitative data collected in stage-I.
• Analyzing the result of the surveys found on the internet about previous years.
The analysis done in the above step is reviewed and recommendations are proposed based on them.
Usefulness
The methodology provided a qualitative as well a quantitative view of the results. Moreover it helped in understanding how the concept has evolved in the west and its implication in their business environment. It also encapsulates the Indian perspective and also helps in benchmarking the policies followed across the Indian IT organization regarding internet usage.
2.2. Logical flow of the Project, including adhering to the road-map

Proposed Flow of the project and Roadmap
Month → April
Days → 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 M T W TH F S SU M T W TH F S SU
Activities ↓
Understanding the Project and the Organization
Formulating Approach and Verifying it
Research work and Data gathering
Data Analysis
Presentation Preparation
Feedback
Presentation Submission

Adherence to Roadmap
Activity Proposed date Actual Date Adherence Status
Understanding the Project and the Organization 05/04/2010 05/04/10 On time
Formulating Approach and Verifying it 06/04/2010 06/04/10 On time
Research work and Data gathering 07/04/2010-09/04/2010 07/04/2010-08/04/2010 Before time
Data Analysis 12/04/2010-13/04/2010 12/04/2010-13/04/2010 On time
Presentation Preparation 14/04/2010 14/04/2010 On time
Feedback 15/04/2010 15/04/2010 On time
Presentation Submission 16/04/2010 16/04/2010 On time

2.3. Benefits to you as a student of management
This project helped me gain some hands on experience in one of the many HR activities that is carried out in an IT organization. Moreover it made me aware that from a management perspective it is truly important to continuously monitor changes and updations in your ecosystem in order to get the best out of them.
The project also made me aware of the various policies and guidelines followed in IT organization and the frameworks upon which they are designed and implemented. From the policy perspective it taught me how impacts on different avenues of the business are considered before making any changes or updations in company policies.
I hope the experience would definitely be useful for me in future.

2.4. Benefits to the organization and my contribution to the team
The project is a part of an ongoing project in L&T Infotech and my contribution has provided value addition in the fields of:
 Amendment of Organizational policies/guidelines regarding internet usage and social computing.
 Implementing a new dimension to recruitment which is cost effective and beyond specific geographical boundaries.
 Developing strategies for creating and maintaining organizational representation in publicly hosted sites on internet for branding/marketing.

3. Chapter 3
3.1. Data Analysis
Based on the qualitative as well as quantitative data obtained through primary as well as secondary research a detailed impact analysis is done in the following areas:
1) Employee Access.
2) Recruitment.
3) Company Branding/Marketing.
For each aspect the factors that have been considered are:
 Advantages
 Disadvantages
1) Employee Access:
It focuses on the extent to which employees can be given access to different web applications from their workplace and its effect on employee productivity. The accessibility features are segmented into five different aspects:
 News sites
 Search Engines
 Personal Mailing
 Social Networking
 Professional Networking
1.1) News Sites
News sites basically consist of sites with general news like Time of India, telegraph and also business specific or economical news specific sites.
Advantages
 News sites help employees to be in touch with the happenings around the world and is also a refreshing break from their work.
 Most IT employees have long working hours and are rarely in touch with the social ,political or even business world related issues within the country or around the globe.
 It can help them to be updated with the recent updates and companies can also leverage from their knowledge.
Disadvantages
 Overspending of time in news sites can be an issue.
 Some news sites have live news feeds which cause high network traffic and bring down the network speed.

1.2) Search Engines
Search engines like Google and yahoo help employees to help employees in their daily work and if companies have membership in data repositories like Ebsco then they can also act as search engines.
Advantages
 Information about any subject encountered in a daily job task can be retrieved in seconds from the Internet through multiple search engines.
 Very often clients cant directly be contacted to clear business doubts and search engines can be very beneficial to the employees in this regard.
 Employees can also get online technical help as the company intranet provides limited help on a certain set of technologies compared to the information available over the net.
Disadvantages
 Employees might be prone to search things not related to work and wasting time over it.
1.3) Personal mailing
Personal mailing sites help employees to be in touch with non work related mails. Among personal mailing sites Gmail and yahoo are most common.
Advantages
 Mailing sites might help employees to transfer any work they have done in their home to office.
 They can also help the employees to access and respond to important mails as long working hours prevent them from checking their personal mails outside office to a large extent.
 Employees can stay in touch with their friends and family regarding social events.
Disadvantages
 Allowing employees to have access to Web mail in any corporation with a lot of intellectual property is a risk.
 Web mail poses an additional risk because it arrives at a user's desk without being subjected to security measures imposed on e-mail traveling through a company's internal system.
 Webmail contains encryptions that can make the network venerable to virus attacks.
 Mailing sites often have chat and file transfer features which can lead to confidentiality risks.

1.4) Social Networking
Social networking sites like Orkut and Facebook are gaining popularity among the young workforce and help in interactive information sharing.
Advantages
 It gives employees to have a social life outside work which in turn can increase their productivity and reduce boredom.
 Social networking sites are likely to become a norm among younger workers so they might view it as a necessity in their workplace in time to come.
 It can help solve work problems/answer questions by reaching out to large networks.
 It can be great marketing for the company.
Disadvantages
 They might result in significant loss of productivity as a survey carried out by Associated chamber of commerce and industry on Indian IT companies revealed that employers have lost close to 12.5% of Human resource productivity cause of employees accessing social networking sites in workplace.
 Another major concern is employee abuse as forums in social networking sites are unregulated.
 Infiltration into corporate networks and loss of confidentiality regarding business sensitive information is also one thing worrying companies regarding the use of social networking sites.
1.5) Professional Networking
Professional networking sites like Twitter and LinkedIn are even attracting organizational representations and are considered to be important for business networking.
Advantages
 Professional networking sites liked LinkedIn provides features like 1) Job Listing 2) Premium Subscription and 3) Advertising.
 They help in creating private web forum of all the employees in the organization where they can talk to one another, share ideas and ask company related questions.
 Professional networking sites help in building effective contacts in the business world which can be mutually beneficial for the employer as well as employee.
 LinkedIn in itself has more than 28 million users most of whom are business professionals.

Disadvantages
 Professional networking sites often allows people to easily access the employer's client base.
 Other threats might include disclosure of key business knowledge, breach of security as well as providing too much information to the competitors.
2) Recruitment:
Recruitment through social and professional networking sites is an upcoming trend among Indian IT companies. The concept of e-recruitment is catching up fast cause of cost effectiveness and timesaving.
Advantages
 These sites provide the organizations to appeal to a workforce beyond any specific geographical boundary in a cost effective way.
 According to a survey carried out by a Manchester based law firm a significant number of employers have admitted using social-professional networking sites to vet potential candidates.
 22% of the companies who participated in the survey said that they encourage their employees, particularly those in business development and sales roles, to join up and exploit any opportunities to extend their contact network.
Disadvantages
 There are always chances of candidates putting up false CVs and also people posting false job requirements.
 Companies might have to employ sufficient mechanism to prevent fraud management as far as recruitment is concerned which will result in extra cost.
3) Company Branding:
The emerging technologies have proven to be powerful tool for branding as well marketing for the companies.
Advantages
 A number of organizations are seriously considering monitoring their online reputation as the internet provides a easy way of getting information about companies and performing a competitative analysis.
 A consistent improvement in the online reputation of the company can help the company to attract quality talent.
Disadvantages
 Can lead to brand dilution if the online marketing and branding strategies are not in place and proper guidelines are not followed.
4. Chapter 4
4.1. Findings and Conclusion
The data analysis done was compared with the set of company policies that are followed in the leading Indian It organizations namely 1) TCS, 2) IBM, 3) Cognizant 4) Wipro and 5) Infosys and a benchmarking strategy could be observed:
General Trend
 News sites and search engines are allowed but personal mailing, social and professional networking sites are mostly blocked.
 Client or company information sharing is strictly prohibited.
 Prohibition of viewing adult content or participating in online games.
 Most companies have central libraries from where employees can access non work related sites. Monitor employee’s internet usage.
Wipro
 Has organizational representation in sites like facebook and second life.
 Recruitment team has an account in facebook called Wipro Careers.
 Innovation team of 6-10 individuals working on this front.
Infosys
 Have particular time slots during which employees can access internet.
 Downloading anything through client network or Infosys domain needs permission.
TCS
 Follows a very conservative policy regarding internet usage.
 Have strict guidelines for internet usage even through client facilities.
IBM
 Follows complete open door policy.
 Encourages employees to be in touch with their social life.
 Encourages employees to make meaningful contribution online and be good net citizens.
 Advises employees to give disclaimers at the end of all online publications that it is their personal view.
Cognizant
 Discourages employees to access sites which use high bandwidth Joining non work related mailing lists and sending chain mails through office id is not allowed.
Based on the findings a recommendation summary was proposed as below:
 Employees can be given access to social or professional networking sites for 15-30mins each day.
 Encourage your staff to identify themselves as an employee of L&T Infotech and make meaningful contributions in these public web forums in field of business, technology ,music, etc.
 Employees should be advised to give disclaimers when they are discussing organizational matters.
 Companies can have organizational representations on web but proper team should be in place to monitor that.
 Senior people in the organization should be thoughtful about what they write or comment in different web forums as their opinions can often be considered as an organizational perspective.
 Tell employees to abide by the rules ,copyrights and laws of usage associated with these sites as it helps them to be good net citizens and the organization’s brand is best represented by its people.
 Respecting co-workers in the online world should be made a part of the guideline, cause public web forums and social media are very prone to employee abuse.
 Non work related sites should not be blocked completely.
 If personal mailing sites are allowed download or upload through them should be blocked.
 Proper formal guideline should be in place regarding accessibility.

Bibliography
Data source
1) Ebscohost.
2) L&T Internal data resources.
Articles:
1) Arora, A., Arunachalam, V. S., Asundi, J. and Fernandez, R. : The Indian SoftwareServices Industry.
2) Nirvikar Singh: INDIA’S INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SECTOR: WHAT CONTRIBUTION TO BROADER ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT?
3) Charles J. Muhl Workplace e-mail and Internet use: employees and employers beware
4) Rachael Kwai Fun IP and Christian Wagner: Weblogging: A study of social computing and its impact on organizations
Websites:
1) http://news.cnet.com/Can-social-networking-co-exist-with-the-workplace (Accessed 7.04.10)
2) http://www.pcworld.com/article/ internet_at_work_employee_perk_or_business_necessity.(Accessed 7.04.10)
3) http://www.strategichr.com/shrsweb2/internet_harrass_policy.shtml. (Accessed 7.04.10)
4) http://www.chrmglobal.com/Articles/356/1/Abuse-of-Internet-Access-at-Work-Place.html (Accessed 7.04.10)
5) www.mckinseyglobal.com
6) www.scribd.com
7) www.bbc.co.uk
8) www.tcs.com
9) www.ibm.com
10) www.cognizant.com
11) www.infosys.com
12) www.wipro.com
13) www.linkedin.com
14) www.facebook.com
15) www.nasscom.com