VIRTUAL CONSULTING AND TRAINING
ENVIRONMENT
THROUGH THE INTERNET
ABSTRACT
This article presents the project "Consulting via Internet" under development in the Graduate Program in Production Engineering of the Federal University of Santa Catarina, UFSC, Brazil (PPGEP). The main goal is to provide remote information, knowledge, and consulting to small and medium firms (particularly the ones that cannot afford experts as regular personnel). The article describes the different services being implemented and relates them with the more general goal of PPGEP: to establish a center of excellence in Distance Education. We also discuss the current developments and the alternatives taken into consideration to elaborate similar applications. We conclude by addressing insights regarding further directions and the benefits that remote consulting and training can bring to business and academic organizations.
Keywords: virtual university, Internet, virtual consulting
INTRODUCTION
The emergence of new technologies has always opened new frontiers in several fields of Science. In the last few years the Internet has been the most exciting technological advance. It has grown in an astounding rate of a hundred per cent a year, since 1988 [EC095]. By the next year, the number of users is estimated in more than a hundred million. Internet popularity emerged in 1993 by a combination of user-friendly interfaces, new connectivity protocols and accessibility to hypermedia documents. Since 1995, business and commercial interests became the major Internet activities.
The strategic position of the Internet in sustainable growth has been recognized by several governments. In Brazil, the Internet has become an essential means for interaction in both academia and business [REZ95]. The actual growth rate of web pages has reached 30% a month [EXA96]. The Brazilian Government has recently announced its plan of integrating companies, non-governmental entities, universities, research centers and public institutions by means of the Internet.
There are several advantages that make the Internet so suitable for the purposes of communication and development in business. It offers:
These features combined with the developments in the fields of data indexing, information retrieval and intelligent agent programming made the Internet the major resource for virtual organizations. Organizations are using the web to interact in non-physical space and on a geographically independent basis, creating an environment for virtual cooperation [KOU96].
The rise of virtual organizations is among the most significant changes in the end of this century. Mainly, business and education are about to be transformed by means of virtual presence, supported by advanced techniques and models developed by several areas of science. The Graduate Program in Production Engineering of the Federal University of Santa Catarina (PPGEP) has realized such developments about ten years ago, when the Distance Education Program was established as a strategic goal. Its three main basis form the concept of virtual university, composed of the following activities:
(a) distance education;
(b) virtual academic activities; and
(c) virtual consulting.
In this article, we highlight PPGEP's main activities in distance education and virtual academic activities, and describe the third branch of the virtual university: the extension of academic activities to the community or, more specifically, to small firms. The "Consulting via Internet" project aims at developing an environment for supporting and helping firms to solve common problems in the area of production planning, inventory policies, product policy, cash flow scheduling, etc.
VISION
The vision of the PPGEP's Virtual University is to help Brazilian society to accomplish sustainable grow through education. Establishing itself as a center of excellence in Distance Learning has been the first step toward this end. Within the scope of a continent sized country such as Brazil, reaching country wide universities and organizations has become possible only due to the technological and educational leap we are witnessing.
Activities of Distance Learning provided by PPGEP are now well established. The media "video conference" has been the major technology for distance learning, since it makes possible the gradual transition from "face-to-face" to distance learning. Through this means, PPGEP has offered customized master courses to companies in other states of the country. Companies have taken the advantages of distance master courses, since they enable the employees to continue not only working but approximating their studies to the real needs of the company. Further, distance master courses reduce significantly the companies' costs in sending professionals to research institutes. PPGEP also uses "video conference" to teach regular graduate courses to other universities integrated by the State Network of Science and Technology.
PPGEP is also implementing a complete graduate discipline in Working Capital Management through the Internet. The course will be completely interactive, with the use of games to explicit topics and relationships between concepts and variables. This course must be available on the Internet by July, 1997.
The creation of these distance learning activities was only possible due to administrative changes in the Program. Among these changes, the virtual relationship between the distant students with the course is the most remarkable. Students can make use of a virtual office, a commuting program accessible via Internet where they can enroll in courses, ask for official statements, consult class notifications, send messages to professors, colleagues and staff (Figure 1).
The "Consulting via Internet" project is part of PPGEP's Virtual University strategic planning of making knowledge, training and technology accessible to small business. These organizations are fundamental to the development of the country. Small business activity is responsible for producing not less than 40% of the total Brazilian Gross National Product (Cher, 1990). Considering the importance of small and medium businesses to Brazilian economy, governmental agencies and universities should intensify their relationships with entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises. For instance, universities can be of great help in providing consulting and educational programs tuned to the needs of workers in the context of their companies. In the next section we present the "Consulting via Internet" project within the broader scope of analysis of virtual universities.
VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY AND VIRTUAL CONSULTING
The traditional border lines between work and training/education are becoming obsolete in the waning of bricks-and-mortar centers of excellence and learning [HUT97] . The flexibility, adaptability, and ability to capture and share expertise make the virtual university [PAL95] a mandatory model to the development of nations. The learning market had demanded that the where, when and how learning is to be accomplished must be determined by the specific needs of the working people.
The importance and advantages of virtual universities are better understood within the broader scope of analysis that comprises the theme of virtual organizations. A virtual organization is a kind of cooperation of independent enterprises and/or institutions to optimize an opportunity. The real companies and/or institutions combine and share their core competencies, resources, and knowledge to achieve a common goal. Opportunism, technology, excellence, trust, and lack of organizational boundaries are the key elements that characterize a virtual organization [DAV93] . Within this context, PPGEP, as a center of excellence, shares cooperatively its core competence--expertise--with small and medium firms to foster sustainable grow through consultation and training.
Figure 1: Virtual Academic Office. (http://eliza.stela.eps.ufsc.br) up
The information technology supporting a virtual organization may be varied. Within the context of the "Consulting Project", the virtual university shares its expertise with small and medium firms through the fullest use of the Internet.
Knowledge and expertise are combined in the "Consulting Project" to provide solutions to small and medium firm's daily problems. Financial expertise and knowledge become applicable to solve customized practical problems of any organization, without constrains of time and place. If the creation of vehicles of motion in the beginning of the 20th century enabled people to move themselves, their goods, and the fruits of their labor at will, anytime anywhere, the end of the this century has established a radically different kind of mobility- intellectual mobility [PET95] . The notion of intellectual or expertise mobility is at the core of the virtual university concept and is a step toward the democratization of knowledge.
The notion of expertise mobility is crucial to the development of small and medium sized firms. There are at least three major tasks an organization must face in today's environment: a) create new markets, b) offer new products, and c) assure flexibility in responding to new market requirements [ZIM97] . Although these are challenging tasks to any organization, small and medium sized enterprises are generally overwhelmed by them. Small and medium sized firms often do not have the required resources--mainly expertise--to deal with these challenges.
The "Consulting via Internet" project offers timelessness expert solutions to key financial issues of small and medium sized enterprises that are related to their major surviving and thriving tasks. In today's business environment, time is costly and expertise is the most valuable asset any organization can have. As small and medium sized firms generally cannot afford paying experts, the "Consulting via Internet" solve problems and cut costs by enabling the expertise of a center of excellence to be available to a countless number of users at the same time [HUT97] .
Lowering transaction costs, however, is not the only positive outcome small and medium firms acquire with the cooperative bound established with the "Consulting Project". In fact, enterprises that use expertise and knowledge of the Project in their daily financial tasks benefit from the major advantages of virtual organizations cited in the literature and avoid their potential disadvantages. For instance, small and medium sized firms' efficiency and productivity are potentially boosted. Further, while the user interacts with the modules of the "Consulting Project", he or she will shortly be able to follow the reasoning process the virtual expert used to solve the task. This will enable the user to be actually trained during the problem solving tasks, providing him or her an applicable in job continuing-education experience of the highest relevance. Within this context, consultation, continuous education, and training are joint efforts of the "Consulting Project" toward PPGEP's vision of supporting Brazilian sustainable grow through education.
Since small and medium sized enterprises may access and use the solving problem capabilities of the "Consulting Project" freely and without the need of any formal contract or payment in a loosely coupling collaborating effort, there are no risks of lost of flexibility. Further, as the expertise built in the "Consulting Project" is the result of a compilation of several leading experts of the field, there are also no risks of an one-sided advice.
In summation, the collaborative bound established between the "Consulting Project" of PPGEP's virtual university and small and medium firms has promoted the development of a "win-win-situation" between academic and business organizations. The very nature of this virtual collaborative effort has transformed the external boundary lines of enterprises into something difficult to establish in practice. In so keeping, such organizations have been coined as boundaryless [NOH94] . The limits of what pertains and comes from the inside of the organizational borders and what comes from the external environment becomes fuzzy in nature. Organizations with this dynamic may benefit from the adequate use of "the best of the two (now virtually one) worlds".
THE "CONSULTING VIA INTERNET" PROJECT
Other Small Business Sites On the Web
The starting point of the "Consulting via Internet" project was the analysis of several WWW sites of small business enterprises. In particular, we considered American Web small business related sites: The Small Business Administration (SBA), Tennessee Small Business Development Center, the National Technology Transfer Center, and others(1). These sites provide a variety of information regarding several business activities. From the analysis, the following relevant features have influenced the "Consulting" project goals [DOU96]:
Besides the analysis of existing sites, the technical strategies in the project were also based on our own experience of working with small businesses. The analysis shown some room for improvements and different approaches. SBA, for instance, provides shareware software applications through FTP protocol. This requires the downloading of applications to the user's machine. We avoid such approach due to the need for dynamic training and direct contact to small business personnel. This contact is more difficult if the user is no longer connected to us during the operations.
Objectives
The "Consulting via Internet"(2) Project was created in 1996 by the Graduate Program of Production Engineering and Systems of the Federal University of Santa Catarina. The main goal of this project is to develop a Virtual Laboratory of Technical Training and Support to the Brazilian small and medium firms through the Internet, establishing a synergy between the University and the private sector (see Figure 2 and Figure 3).
We have set different stages of development in the project. In this paper we describe the first stage, including the consulting and training applications already implemented(3).
The objectives of the first stage are the following:
1. To reduce financial costs of a firm with working capital management by offering a variety of software applications, financial information and training courses through the Internet.
2. To develop an intelligent consultant concerning purchases decisions. The expected outcome of this module is the improvement of the effectiveness and competitiveness of Brazilian small firms.
3. To develop software applications through the Internet to perform cost analysis and product pricing.
4. To improve the competitiveness of Brazilian small firms by facilitating their access to information.
Figure 2: Interaction between the University and the private sector through the Internet. up
The system is divided in two modules: consulting and information. In the consulting module, the user has access to the different on-line software applications. The information module is concerned with several business related activities such as financing, patents, markets and opportunities.
Figure 3: Consulting via Internet. up
Further developments yet to be implemented include:
Development Strategies
In many cases, a firm's capacity of using different services depends on the degree of organization and standardization of the information, and on a basic training of small business' personnel. The development of the project was established considering these strategic aspects. It included the following guiding issues:
All these aspects were considered when we decided what software applications were going to be implemented at the first stage. Analogous aspects could be considered regarding the information module.
The Information Module: Financial Options, Market Opportunities, Technological Improvements
This module provides information about financing options, market opportunities and so on. In this module, two business' phases are recognized: the initial and expansion phase. For each different phase, several links are provided. The "initial phase" web page is presented in Figure 4. The links of this page are market opportunities, capital, industrial property, franchising, legal issues, and business foundations and institutions.
Figure 4: Initiating a firm (information module) up
The "expansion phase" page provides information about institutions support technological improvements and innovations, and market opportunities. The latter topic is particularly focused on the "Mercosul"(4) market, which is growing very fast in terms of business' opportunities and negotiations.
The Consulting Module
Several applications of the consulting module are already being tested by the users [PAC96] (Figure 5). These applications were developed in JavaTM computer language. The decision of implementing the applications with the referred computer language was based on several reasons. Among them are the following:
Figure 5: The Consulting Module: initial page up
CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS
Making knowledge and technological resources available to small and medium businesses is a must for sustainable growth. The latest technological developments made this goal possible and imperative. Virtual organizations play a central role in the search for better times for small and medium businesses. In Brazil, the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) is a pioneer in the establishment of partnerships with small business development centers by means of virtual cooperation.
The different applications already implemented are lsited on Table 1.
Table 1: On-line software applications
| Reference | Description |
| Consulting ISO 9000 | Provides a dynamic search regarding different aspects of the ISO 9000 norm. |
| Product Pricing: Industry Sector | Calculate product pricing and expected earnings |
| Product Pricing: Retail Sector (Figure 6) | Calculate product pricing and expected earnings per product from a business receipt |
| Product Pricing: Service Sector | Calculate the price of a service in terms of the basic service activity (e.g. $/hour) |
| Financial Analysis of Purchases (Figure 7) | Evaluates the most economic purchase from a financial point of view |
| Cash Flow Analysis | It performs cash flow management |
| Financial Mathematics (Figure 8) | Provides business calculations of interest rates, loan amortization, and financial discounts |
Figure 6: Product Pricing: Retail Sector up
Figure 7: Financial Analysis of Purchases up
Figure 8: Financial Mathematics up
The "Consulting via Internet" project of the Graduate Program in Production Engineering of UFSC (PPGEP) is an example of how universities may use commuting systems to share their core competencies with small and medium businesses, regardless of geographical distances. This project is one of the main activities of UFSC Virtual University.
"Consulting" already includes commuting systems in strategic information, product pricing, financial analysis of purchase, cash flow analysis, and financial Mathematics. Further developments include: accounting systems integrated to the other financial applications; the extension of applications to other firm's activities (e.g., human resources, quality control, marketing, scheduling, etc.); and the adoption of Artificial Intelligence techniques in the applications (e.g., cash flow management). We are also working in the development of integrated databases, unifying the data required and the ground analysis of the modules.
Besides consulting, the virtual university includes the creation of virtual training to small and medium enterprises. The first course, scheduled for next July, is a Working Capital Management training to small entrepreneurs. PPGEP is taking advantage of the expertise and the current courses offered by teleconference to establish a series of virtual courses (e.g., Environmental Management, Quality Control, Production Planing, and others).
REFERENCES
[DAV93] Davidow, William H.; Malone, Michael S. The Virtual Corporation. Structuring and Revitalizing the Corporation for the 21st Century. Harpercollins, 1993.
[DOU96] Dou, J-M; French Small Business Information Through the Internet: A Comparison with US Organizations, International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 289-298, 1996.
[ECO95] The Accidental Superhighway; A Survey of the Internet, The Economist, July 1st, 1 995.
[EXA96] O Imperio da Rede. Revista Exame. Ed. Abril, pp. 24-30, 17 de Janeiro de 1996.
[HUT97] Hutchison, Chris. The 'ICP OnLine': Jeux sans frontieres on the CyberCampus. http://207.201.161.120/voll/issuel/hutchison/CHRISR.html (04/94).
[KOU96] Kouzes, R. T.; Myers, J. D.; and Wulf, W. A. Collaboratories: Doing Science on the Internet, Computer, vol. 29, n. 8, August, 1996.
[NOH94] Nohria, Nitin; Berkley, James. The Virtual Organization. In Charles Heckscher and Anne Donnellon (eds.). The Post-Bureaucratic Organization. New Perspectives on Organizational Change. Sage, Thousand Oaks. 1994.
[PAC96] Pacheco, R., Martins, A., Barcia, R. M., Sant' Anna, V., Gomes, R., Consulting and Support with On-line Fuzzy Systems, Third Congress of the International Association for Fuzzy-Set Management and Economics, November 11-13, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1996.
[PAL95] Palmer, Jonathan W. Supporting the Virtual Organization Through Information Technology in a New Venture: The RETEX Experience. http://www.uoknor.edu/business/mis/cases.htm (10/95)
[PET95] Petrillo, John. The Dawn of the Age of Intellectual Mobility. Harvard Business School Colloquium http://www.hbs.edu/mis/multimedia/link/s_petrillo.html
[REZ95] Rezende, S. M. Internet Brasileira. Encruzilhada no Espa~o e no Tempo, Folha de Sao Paulo, se~ao "Opiniao Econamica", 16 de Abril de 1995.
[ZIM97] Zimmermann Frank. Structural and Managerial Aspects of Virtual Enterprises. http://www.teco.uni-karlsruhe.de/IT-VISIO/vu-e-teco.htm (03/97)
APPENDIX: SMALL BUSINESS SITES ON THE WEB
SEBRAE: Brazilian Small Business Development Institution (in Portuguese) http://www.sebrae.org.br/
The National Small Business Development Center Research Network http://www.smallbiz.sunycentral.edu, lindsajm@ca.sunycentral.edu
The National Technological Transfer Center
http://iridium.nttc.edu/nttc.html, webmaster@nttc.edu
The Small Business Administration http://www.sbaonline.org
The Small Business Advancement National Center http://161.31.2.174
The Tennessee Small Business Development Center http://www.tsbdc.memphis.edu, http://www.tsbdc.memphis.edu/feedback.htm
Notes:
1. See the Appendix for the WWW address of each of these sites.
2. WWW site: http://www/posgrad/consulte/index.html
3. Further developments of the "Consulting via Internet" project are discussed in the last section.
4. Mercosul is a 1 US$ trillion regional market between Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uraguay. Further incorporation of Latin American countries is expected, as well as general agreement on tariffs between the Mercosul and Nafta regional markets.
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