In our quest to simulate future Duke Basketball scores, we have taken past historical data of individual games during the '09/'10 season and fitted probability distributions to that data. Two PDFs are generated; one for Duke's scores (offense) and one for their opponents' scores (defense). We have used both Crystal Ball and ModelRisk to perform this task. Is there something missing in our PDF formulations?
In order to effectively manage activities across organizations' it becomes critical to have certain processes in place to manage as well as measure performance and quality (Hammer, 2001; Champy, 2002; P-CMM v2.00, July 2001). According to Venkatraman (1994), organizations seeking to effectively integrate with business partners must first get their house in order through the use of BPR – Business Process Redesign/Re-engineering. Hammer (2001) says that for those who have re-engineered their internal business processes and extracted most of the value available internally, must now look at integrating and re-engineering externally to yield the next gains in value and profitability.
What is a virtual strategy? What does it cover within the company? Who is affected? Who benefits? Venkatraman & Henderson (1998) reflect these questions in a 3 vector and 3 stages model (presented in Figure 5) that is aligned in spirit with Chesbrough & Teece's view that no one formally defined structure will ensure the success of a virtual organization.
A variety of authors have generated lists of firm capabilities and resources that may enable firms to conceive of and implement value-creating strategies (Barney, 1991; Bharadwaj, 2000).
In order to better define Venkatraman & Henderson's virtual organization, we have broken it down into components that are inspired by Barneys' (1991) three generic resource types and Nitin Nohria's (2003) model of organizational competencies; competencies that have characterized firms who performed exceptionally and developed or maintained a leadership position over the last 10 years. Nohria also suggests that to achieve overall success you need to excel in all 4 primary competencies and at least 2 of the secondary (See Figure 3). However Nohria emphasizes execution as primary means of success and differentiation.
Traditional definitions of the Virtual Organization have mostly taken a commodity-based, view of the interactions among partners (Kanter, 1994; Chesborough & Teece, 1996). One of the most notable examples of this type of virtual strategy to produce and deliver a product is the IBM PC. The early success of this venture was based on the same principals as those presented by Chesbrough & Teece's (1996) definition of a virtual organization: