Deakin University: MIS712 Digital Transformation Emerging Tech Report

This report, prepared for MIS712, analyzes the impact of emerging technologies on digital transformation. It examines how Walmart utilizes blockchain for food traceability, Telstra employs AI for hiring and network management, and Harley Davidson leverages IoT for operational efficiency and customer service. The report highlights the transformative potential of these technologies, including blockchain, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things, across various business functions. It discusses the benefits such as cost savings, improved customer experience, and enhanced operational transparency. The analysis includes case studies of the three companies and their implementation strategies, emphasizing how businesses can gain a competitive edge by embracing these technological trends. The report concludes by stressing the importance of proactive technology adoption for creating a seamless consumer experience and streamlining operations.

Running Head: IT 0
MANAGING DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................2
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
Reference....................................................................................................................................7

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Executive Summary
This report outlines about various emerging technologies used by different organisation to
improve their operational areas and customer experiences. There are three companies
identified and all are using different emerging technologies to transform their current
operations. The first company case is of Walmart who is using blockchain technology to
develop an effective food traceability system. The second case is of Telstra
(Telecommunication Company) using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to predict battery failures
and eliminate various roles in hiring processes. The third case is of Harley Davidson where
the company embracing over Internet-of-Things (IoT) to raise operational efficiencies in their
plant as well as improve the customer service directly for the riders.

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Introduction
This is an era of transformation where business are required to adapt continuously and
develop new competitive advantage in the industry of hyper-connected consumers. For
survive in the global markets, technology innovation has become the key to competitive
differentiation and it is increasing progressively while challenging to either adopt latest
technology and decision makers so that they will help in assessing potential business
opportunities of emerging technologies. The transformative potential of the emerging
technologies presents various promising benefits of breakthrough in artificial intelligence,
quantum computing, virtual machines and other technologies (Ozdemir and Hekim, 2018).
There come vast opportunities for embracing and implementing emerging technologies to
support or develop business pivot in the dynamic transformative age, however, when
implemented allow business to effectively manage innovation across its both internal and
external networks and further benefit in terms of costs savings, greater customer experience
and others.
In addition, business process operations also have entered a new phase of accelerated
transformation and there are some most common aspects of the organisational operations that
are impacted by various emerging technologies (Rayna and Striukova, 2016). For instance,
the implementation of these emerging technologies causes a big impact on HR division and
employees like employees are worrying about their future career aspects. According to
Delgado (2018), nearly half of employees (48%) believe technological advancement will
have the biggest impact on their future of work. Similarly, there will also be a significant
impact on research and development division as they have to put more efforts in
understanding market innovation and trend to gain a competitive edge and sustain the
business sustainability over the longer period of time.
Discussion
Technology impacts seem more widespread for functions with emerging patterns that also
bears on multiple strategic enterprise challenge. Companies that are transforming themselves
and enabling emerging and disruptive technologies are making to string right balance
between innovation and risk management (Ardito et al, 2015). The first case is of Walmart
who forays in blockchain technology so as to develop a food traceability system and the

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company already tested this system in collaboration with IBM in reference to two proof-of-
concepts projects. In relation to the first project, it deals effectively with locating the origins
of mangoes being sold across all its stores in the United States, while the second project helps
the company to locate and track the port meat being vended via the Walmart different outlets
in China. With using blockchain technology in this area allows Walmart to increase the
efficiency as the time required to trail the business attribution has reduced from seven days to
fair 2.2 seconds (Jagati, 2019).
Walmart Hyperledger Fabric powered blockchain system enables the business to trail the
origins of more than 25 products from five different suppliers and the company also embrace
on this new system to improve operational transparency and its inner accountability. For
implementing this technology firstly in the industry, it was also stated by Karl Bedwell
(senior director at Walmart) – “Blockchain will surely help in developing a traceability
system for the whole food supply ecosystem as of its transparency, immutability and trust”.
Using blockchain technology, Walmart also filed a patent in 2018 in association with the new
drone based system that stores and encodes the operational strictures of each of its aerial
devices (Jagati, 2019). Here, the information that can be transferred on to other drones –
which can decode, understand and transform itself as per the new distributed strictures. In
simple words, Walmart filed the patent so as to embrace over the basis for a multifaceted
vehicle-to-vehicle interaction system for drones that are unmanned. However, the company
also started implementing this technology back in 2017 when Walmart has filed a patent in
relation with the development of the blockchain system that required to enable unmanned
aerial distributions to take place within the country in a great systematic way.
The next case is of Telstra who is adopting artificial intelligence (AI) technology in several of
its operational areas. Telstra is one of the leading telecommunication service offering its
services in nearly 20 nations. The company implementation of AI firstly can be seen in their
HR roles and areas where Duckett (2020) stated that the company embracing over AI filter
across the 19000 applications in 2020 it received for its extra 1,000 temporary call centre
positions in Australia. With this AI-enhanced hiring process, Telstra takes the data presented
in the video interview and the cognitive skills game and sorts applicants depend on an
assessment score. Applicants those who belong to the top-tier have to be a direct interview to
the hiring managers without involving recruiter at any level. It not only helped Telstra to save
various cost but also make the system free of biases or subjectivity. In addition, it also allows
Telstra to better focus on customer experience area.

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In addition, the company also found to use AI to predict battery failures and equipment
failures on its network as the application of AI in Telstra next gen operations support system
(OSS), where it is used to “analyse network data to present actionable intelligence and insight
into the present health of their network”. Simply, using AI helps Telstra in predicting battery
failure in telecommunication equipment’s before it happens and therefore, allows company to
proactively replace them prior to their failure and impact on the consumer service. At the end,
using AI technology helps the company to ensure minimum disruption to consumers at the
time of a network at risk event (Crozier, 2019).
The third case is about Harley Davidson Company who leveraged IoT (Internet of Things)
capabilities in several areas so as to improve operational efficiencies and value creation.
According to Stergiou et al (2018), IoT is defined as assortment of various devices, software
and sensors that are not intended to straightly with consumer’s comparable smartphones and
computer systems. Considering the case of Harley Davison, the company have a complex
manufacturing operation and therefore, embracing over IoT technology can present the
company significant tangible benefits. For instance, the company have a manufacturing plant
in New York and the company implemented IoT at every step of production where they track,
note and instil real time performance management system. Implementing IoT in this area the
company have installed sensors and software’s that assess, note and manage the different
machineries performance.
Taking example of paint booth at the plant of Harley Davidson, it will be monitored for
humidity and heat where the software by automation regulates the fan speed when there is a
deviation of measurement from standard arrays (forbes.com, 2017). Harley Davison started
using IoT from 2013 when the company have developed a mobile application enabling
communication with the motorbike using Bluetooth; effectively using IoT to connect owner;
motorbike and service facility (nwhog.com, 2019). This application developed by the
company enables the rider to configure their motorbike in various ways such as greater
energy efficient ride and higher performance ride while only using the application. In
addition, the app also helps the owner to make him present the information about battery
capacity and projections of how far the rider can travel on charge. Hence, in these ways, IoT
can be used in connected devices and interconnected communication while reaping out
significant benefits from other emerging technologies.

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Conclusion
In the limelight of above discussion, emerging technologies such as IoT, AI, cloud computing
and blockchain technology have a great potential to transform the business arena and make
them competitive in the dynamic business environment. However, as technology perpetually
evolves, it is vital of all businesses leaders to stay forward of emerging trends so as to create
a seamless consumer experience while streamlining all business operations. This report
outlined the cases of the three different organisation (Walmart, Telstra and Harley Davidson)
and three different emerging technologies (Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence and Internet of
Things). Undoubtedly, technology is transforming the industries and a wise investment in
these technologies will help the business enterprises to facilitate improved productivity,
innovation and most significantly i.e. revenue. It can also be said that embracing these
technological trends in a proactive way will help the business organisations and firms to gain
competitive edge in the marketplace.

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Reference
Ardito, L., Messeni Petruzzelli, A. and Albino, V. (2015) From technological inventions to
new products: A systematic review and research agenda of the main enabling
factors. European Management Review, 12(3), pp.113-147.
Crozier, R. (2019) Telstra uses AI to predict battery failures [ONLINE] Available from:
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/telstra-uses-ai-to-predict-battery-failures-533664 [Accessed
12/04/2020].
Delgado, M. (2018) How Future Technology Impacts Employees [ONLINE] Available from:
https://clutch.co/hr/resources/how-future-technology-impacts-employees [Accessed
12/04/2020].
Duckett, C. (2020) Telstra uses AI as first hurdle for prospective hires to clear [ONLINE]
Available from: https://www.zdnet.com/article/telstra-injecting-ai-as-first-hurdle-for-
prospective-hires-to-clear/ [Accessed 12/04/2020].
forbes.com. (2017) 5 Areas Where The IoT Is Having The Most Business Impact [ONLINE]
Available from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/insights-hitachi/2017/12/18/5-areas-where-the-
iot-is-having-the-most-business-impact/#3a09a0b4396c [Accessed 12/04/2020].
Jagati, S. (2019) Walmart Forrays into Blockchain [ONLINE] Available from:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/walmarts-foray-into-blockchain-how-is-the-technology-used
[Accessed 12/04/2020].
nwhog.com. (2019) The Internet of Things And Harley-Davidson [ONLINE] Available from:
https://nwhog.com/2019/08/23/the-internet-of-things-and-harley-davidson/533664 [Accessed
12/04/2020].
Özdemir, V. and Hekim, N. (2018) Birth of industry 5.0: Making sense of big data with
artificial intelligence,“the internet of things” and next-generation technology policy. Omics:
a journal of integrative biology, 22(1), pp.65-76.
Rayna, T. and Striukova, L. (2016) From rapid prototyping to home fabrication: How 3D
printing is changing business model innovation. Technological Forecasting and Social
Change, 102(1), pp.214-224.

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Stergiou, C., Psannis, K.E., Kim, B.G. and Gupta, B. (2018) Secure integration of IoT and
cloud computing. Future Generation Computer Systems, 78(1), pp.964-975.