Summary
As the size and scope of various businesses worldwide increase, new issues emerge that require a response. In large international companies, communication and oversight become problematic due to the distance, hierarchy, and sometimes language barriers. As a result, they can be uncoordinated, and issues would develop without an opportunity for upper management to notice or address them. To address these concerns, businesses worldwide have been developing frameworks that use the latest available communications technology. However, their increasing digitalization has created opportunities for malicious actors to find and exploit system vulnerabilities for illegal and damaging purposes. Data breaches and instances of hacking occur regularly, harming millions of customers as a result.
This project aims to investigate the concept of the command, control, and communications (C3) subsystem, which initially emerged in military applications. Armies have to deal with many of the same issues described above and need to maintain their flexibility and capacity for rapid response. Moreover, the constant innovation in military systems forces them to regularly adopt new technology and incorporate it into existing frameworks. As such, knowledge of the systems that they use for secure and quick communication and coordination may be beneficial to other types of organizations. To that end, this project will explore the technological requirements of C3, approaches that can be used to implement it, and its practices and strategies that can improve performance.
Throughout this study, the author expects to obtain an improved understanding of how organizations communicate, both on the same level and between different ones. They will learn about the measures that businesses currently take to address their communication-related concerns, particularly their strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, they will evaluate the advantages and challenges involved in implementing a C3 system, both technological and organizational. They will learn how the military deals with cybersecurity threats and whether the measures that it uses can be transferred to other contexts. Overall, this project will likely be beneficial to both the author and the various industries that are interested in efficient and secure communications.
Problem Statement
Organizations around the world have struggled with effective communications for a long time. As a result, they would adopt any significant improvements that emerged as soon as possible because of the potential benefits. Recently, the emergence of the Internet and the various efficiency improvements, through both faster information transfers and the opportunities for automation, have changed the landscape of organizational communication. However, as Ganapathi (2016) notes, while the new methods are convenient and have been adopted widely, they also have issues due to the lack of face-to-face contact, which can lead to misunderstandings. If the information that is being transferred to a manager or from them is misinterpreted, the overall performance of the organization can suffer as a result.
To combat this tendency, managers are trying to institute strict control measures that would enable them to receive accurate information and oversee the progress of the various initiatives that they introduce. However, as Mullakhmetov (2016) claims, management is highly complex, and an effective and robust framework is required to address every concern. As such, organizations are struggling to create a system that would accommodate the entirety of the managers’ needs. Attempts to achieve this goal tend to be isolated, and a universally successful standard has not been adopted worldwide. Additional research is required before organizations worldwide can adapt to the challenges posed by the new modes of communication.
The increased availability of long-distance access and communications have also increased the threat of an external attack. Cybersecurity is considerably more complicated than physical protection, and a malicious individual will often only need a computer and knowledge of a security issue to damage an organization. As a result, numerous hackers have emerged with motives ranging from financial gain to personal enjoyment (Sirohi, 2016). As a result of an attack, critical infrastructure can be compromised, critical data can be stolen, and a variety of other significant issues can occur. Depending on the organization in question, attacks can lead to losses of money, valuable resources, or possibly human lives. As such, both of the issues described warrant a robust response that can address them.
Significance of the Problem
It can be challenging to evaluate the direct effect of misunderstandings during communication because of the high subjectivity involved and the difficulty of obtaining accurate information. However, organizational performance is likely to improve once these issues are resolved due to the increased flexibility and ability to respond to developing situations. The increased transparency would likely make it easier to identify internal issues and address them. Additionally, managers would be able to oversee the implementation of various initiatives more directly and introduce corrections if necessary. Overall, communication improvements offer numerous opportunities for superior performance, though it may be challenging to quantify them.
The effects of cybersecurity failures are more significant and noteworthy because of the numerous past incidents associated with them. Gupta, Agrawal, and Wang (2019) discuss numerous attack incidents, which involved airports, government facilities, hospitals, and nuclear plants. Kumar and Kumar (2017) express a concern that smart power grids, which were developed to manage the supply and demand of energy, can be targeted and compromised. A successful attack on a critical infrastructure object could be devastating, potentially causing enormous damage. Moreover, attackers will often use vulnerabilities of which the organization is not aware, making attack detection challenging. As such, an attacker will frequently have the advantage and be able to achieve their goal, which makes attack prevention critical.
Another weakness of contemporary attack management methods is that the measures used in responses tend to reduce the effectiveness and convenience of the organization’s systems. This consideration applies in most scenarios that involve the possibility of an attack, regardless of the framework used. Couretas (2018) claims that any prevention or response measures disrupt the operations of a BMC3 system, where BM stands for battle management, and an understanding of the risks involved is necessary before any response. If an organization devotes excessive effort to reinforcing its security, its other activities will be compromised. As such, it is necessary to maintain a balance between performance and security.
Alternative Actions
One option to improve the quality of communications is to develop an approach that is suitable for a variety of multi-department organizations. Levinthal and Workiewicz (2018) discuss the nearly decomposable approach, where different sections of the business interact internally with a high degree of detail and formulate aggregate communications between each other. While such a system would reduce the degree of direct managerial control, it would also enable them to focus on the strategic aspects of management. In massive multinational companies, leaders may not have enough time to oversee the individual performance of every department and prefer to focus on the details. However, this approach may not be suitable for every scenario and does not address security.
The second alternative approach is to continue developing communications and control frameworks in isolated organizational environments. Soriano (2016) describes the process as one of defining subsystems and establishing the interfaces between them. However, with this method, the success of the endeavor relies heavily on the competence of the experts who are implementing it and may be prone to human error. Moreover, the system’s designers will sometimes overlook security concerns, leaving opportunities for attackers to infiltrate the systems. Okcu (2016) discusses how, in the past, actors have been able to hijack unmanned military aircraft, record their data, and identify command centers. It is highly challenging to create an entirely secure system, and it will likely need continuous adjustments.
The last approach that was analyzed involves using recent technological advances and the high availability of cloud-based services. Bhanu, Babu, and Trimurthy (2016) propose the implementation of a Web-based, continuously evolving communications system that can be rapidly adjusted to match the current needs of the organization. Depending on the implementation, the system may be able to answer emerging communications needs rapidly and enable security adjustments. However, as it would be stored in a remote location, the danger of a remote attack that uses universal and resource-intensive methods, such as a denial-of-service approach, increases.
Recommendation
A preliminary investigation into the applicability of the C3 model in non-military organizations is warranted. An adjustment will likely be necessary because of their non-hierarchical nature and the relative independence of various departments in a business or other organization compared to most armies. However, it is unlikely to be significant enough to render the approach invalid or overly challenging to implement. There are likely beneficial aspects in C3 that can be transplanted to most organizations without incurring high costs or affecting their operations adversely. An investigation would be able to discover those tools and identify ways in which they can benefit communications in various contexts.
The second recommendation would be to analyze the communication experiences of various organizations and the measures that they have taken to improve their managerial control and security. In doing so, the researcher would be able to identify the current practical issues facing the organization. Additionally, the investigation would provide examples of the potential implementation of the C3 approach by identifying opportunities for improvement. The organizations in question can benefit from specific recommendations created as a result of the analysis. Overall, a practical case study would contribute significantly to the overall analysis of the potential benefits of the adoption of C3.
An analysis of the other paradigms aimed at the improvement of coordination and control in various organizations is also warranted. It would be beneficial for the comparison between the usefulness of C3 and that of the other methods that have been tried. While C3 may offer some advantages over the systems that are currently being used, its benefits may not necessarily be high enough to justify widespread implementation. The comparison can help determine the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, letting different organizations choose suitable ones. Moreover, a new method may emerge as a result of the comparison, one that combines aspects of both of those mentioned above.
References
Bhanu, J., Babu, A. V., & Trimurthy, P. (2016). Implementing dynamically evolvable communication with embedded systems through web services. International Journal of Electrical & Computer Engineering, 6(1), 381-398.
Couretas, J. M. (2018). An introduction to cyber modeling and simulation. New York, NY: Wiley.
Ganapathi, N. (2016). Internal communication in the international organisations – the influence of technology. International Journal of Advanced Research in Management and Social Sciences, 5(5), 52-58.
Gupta, B. B., Agrawal, D. P., & Wang, H. (eds.). (2019). Computer and cyber security: Principles, algorithm, applications, and perspectives. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Kumar, R., & Kumar, A. (2017). Novel risk assessment framework for smart grid. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science, 8(7). Web.
Levinthal, D. A., & Workiewicz, M. (2018). When two bosses are better than one: Nearly decomposable systems and organizational adaptation. Organization Science, 29(2), 207-224.
Mullakhmetov, K. (2016). Control in the system of managerial decisions procedures: A conceptual view. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 14(3), 64-76.
Okcu, H. (2016). Operational requirements of unmanned aircraft systems data link and communication systems. Journal of Advances in Computer Networks, 4(1), 28-32.
Sirohi, M. N. (2016). Understanding network centric warfare. New Delhi, India: Vij Books India Private Limited.
Soriano, J. L. (2016). Maximizing benefits from IT project management: From requirements to value delivery. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.