Information Technology as a tool for sustainable development of cooperative sector

Dr.M.Karthikeyan, Assistant Professor, Department of Cooperatives, Faculty of

Social Sciences, Ambo University College, Ambo.

Scenario

This millennium heralds the emergence of new paradigms that will keep pace
with a world rapidly changing under the impact of development in info-tech. IT’s
millennium bunch comprises the entrepreneurs, the innovators and the visionaries
on the side of the both industry and government. The entrepreneurial environment
has changed rapidly as we are entered the millennium. What does this change means
for cooperative entrepreneur? What strategies would enable them to cope with
emerging challenges? How can cooperative entrepreneurs recreate and remodel
themselves to benefit from new opportunities and retain relevance of cooperatives.
Cooperative Sector and IT
Cooperative sector continues to occupy an important place in India’s
economy. In the fast growing and changing economic scenario in the context of
economic reforms, liberalization and globalization, the cooperative sector can no
longer afford to be indifferent to the cost effectiveness and commercial
orientation in recent days. Against the aforesaid backdrop, if the cooperative
sector is to equip itself to operate energetically in the face of the competitive
pressure of an open market, it will have to rise to the occasion to convert the
challenges on the fronts of IT into opportunities to its advantage. Application of
IT in business in developed countries is rapid and dynamic, but in developing
countries like India is relatively slow due to number of inter-related socio-
economic and cultural factors.
IT is now a buzzword in business organization. It has significant
contribution towards profitability and providing value added services to
customers. Rapid technological developments both in terms of computer hardware and
software have made their use simple, user-friendly and cost-effective. That is why
the negative attitude of not using computers (resistance) in the work places is
being absorbed into business organisation more and more gradually.
IT for sustainable development of cooperatives
Cooperative movement is one of the important segments of economic growth. In
cooperatives, entrepreneur is one who has the initiative, skill for innovation and
who looks for high achievements. Cooperative entrepreneur should always search for
change, respond to it, and exploit it as opportunities. The challenges facing
cooperative entrepreneur is to increase the effectiveness of IT in order to
achieve superior business performance. As successful organizations have taken a
process-oriented view of their business, they will have to re-evaluate the role of
IT in terms of alignment with corporate goals.
Cooperative entrepreneurs must come to term to with shorter product
technology life cycles. Rapid changes to product and process pose a huge
challenge. Can the cooperatives afford to the high cost of development and keep
pace with technology? How should cooperative entrepreneurs respond? Finally as
customers / members expectations and life cycles change, quality (or reliance) as
a measure of product quality will become a given. The ability to innovate and
product designs and to create and satisfy emerging needs will distinguish the
winners from the losers. While all these factors represent challenges to
cooperative entrepreneurs, they also represent opportunities that will arise. In
such a competitive environment, IT helps the cooperatives to meet the challenges
and exploit the opportunities. For which, the cooperatives should modernize their
operations adopting modern IT techniques. If cooperatives adopt new technologies
of IT they can face the challenges and make them opportunities to exploit. The
following strategies can be made through IT adoption by the cooperatives:
· Customers / members focus and mass customization
· Differential supply, core competencies and shared services
· Measurement of member service quality through new standards
· Improvement and quality and productivity
· Generation of data for control and MIS
· Proper planning, monitoring and control of business
· Reduction in operating cost in long run, etc.

To conclude, IT can be used as a tool for sustainable development of cooperative

business and provide them with more information to generate new opportunities to
exploit. Executive and innovative use of IT to create the right kind of
information from its knowledge base that is associated with technology can create
value that can provide the competitive edge. Advance It releases a potent set of
possibilities for cooperative business improvement with implications for the
psychological experience of work, the nature of skills, social integration and the
strategic framework for commercial and managerial policies. Cooperatives should go
for new models that allow cooperative business to do things quite differently.
Mass customization is a technique that allows customers / members to visit a
manufacturer’s website and specify the exact requirements. Dealers / distributors
(branches) of goods and services can use the Internet to interact with officials
whom they do business. In this line, IT as a tool can play for the sustainable
development of cooperatives.

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