Now the final result of the study is provided to Wensink & Partners it is
important to mention what the final result is capable of. First of all it is important to mention that the new mapping is only suitable for the Livedrive. This mapping is based on analysis and experiences of employees using the Livedrive. Therefore this new mapping will only be suitable for the Livedrive. In a work meeting an employee stated that it could be beneficial to apply the new mapping also for the CRM system (BaseNet) of Wensink & Partners. The creation and the design of the new mapping is only based on analysis of the Livedrive and therefore the
mapping is only suitable for the Livedrive. From this study cannot be excluded that the new mapping will not be beneficial for the CRM system, but another study needs to be performed in order to draw conclusions. This might be a topic for future research, the applicability of this mapping to other systems of Wensink & Partners.
Secondly it is important to mention that system will be suitable for expansion in data or users. If Wensink & Partners will grow in the future, which would meet the expectations, this system will not suffer from that expansion. The new mapping for the Livedrive is not depended on the amount of data that is stored or the amount of employees that is able to store data on the Livedrive. If the mapping is used correct and with precision, the system will not suffer from expansions. So this new mapping will be strong and usable in the future when Wensink & Partners grows if the rules and guidelines are kept.
11.1 Major risks of standardization
It is important to mention that standardization also has threats and risks. The first and biggest risk, also mentioned above, is the fact that this new mapping is only beneficial if all employees strictly follow the rules and guidelines. If
employees of Wensink & Partners do not follow all the rules and guidelines strictly the new mapping the Livedrive will not be uniform and standardized and therefore less or even no benefits can be achieved. According to all employees the biggest risk for the new mapping of the Livedrive is the manager of Wensink & Partners. All employees stated during discussions and conversations that this new mapping will be used strictly in the beginning, but after a while the manager would not care anymore and no standardization would be achieved on the long term. This really endangers the success of the new mapping for the Livedrive. Therefore this risk has to be excluded, but how? First of all it is important to mention that this risk is present by all employees of Wensink & Partners and not only the manager. This risk can only be declined if all employees, including the manager, follow the guidelines strictly. Based on the intentions of the manager, the fact that the manager is the initiator of this research, the fact that allot of valuable time of the manager is included, the fact that he sees the benefits already, I dare to conclude that this system will be used with precision and care by the manager whereby this risk is reduced. Of course this risk cannot be excluded completely, but is has to diminish as much as possible in order to benefit from the standardization effort.
The second major risk of standardization is the fact that new employees of Wensink & Partners do not know the mapping. A growth in the number of employees is no problem for the new mapping of the Livedrive. But those new employees do need to learn the mapping in order to be successful. Therefore I would advice the manager of Wensink & Partners to learn this mapping to all the employees of Wensink & Partners and especially to the new employees. Let those employees read the guidelines (provided in appendix O) and make sure that all new employees store the data uniform and standardized. By obligating new employees to learn the new mapping and get familiar with this standardization this problem will be excluded. By following these steps all employees will be able to get familiar with the new mapping, and thereby be able to benefit from the standardization. So in short, a new employee of Wensink & Partners has to familiarize with the mapping in the Livedrive before they start working in this company.
The third and final risk of standardization is underestimation. The fact the standardization process only just starts and is not finished at all is a great risk. Some employees of Wensink & Partners think that the benefits of
standardization are achieved already, but this is not the case. A standard does not achieve benefits, only when real efforts are made benefits can be achieved. This is also stated by Davenport (2005, p. 5); of course a process standard by itself doesn’t achieve anything. Firms must still make difficult changes in how they do their work. This implies that the standardization process only just began. In order to benefit from standardization this process has to be followed strictly. Every employee has to populate the data in the Livedrive in order to benefit from the standardization. Alstyne et al. (1995, p. 274) mentions that all the employees have to own the data they use, this will encourage them to populate their
database with more accurate and timely data. In the Livedrive this is achieved through the fact that every employee is able to populate it’s own database because every employee has access to the Livedrive and is responsible for the storing of the data.