chapter 17 introduction final considerations. overview organizational response to business drivers...
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OverviewOverview
Organizational Response to Business Organizational Response to Business DriversDrivers
Business Success FactorsBusiness Success Factors Reasons Companies Fail When Trying to Reasons Companies Fail When Trying to
Use Information Systems to CompeteUse Information Systems to Compete Information System GoalsInformation System Goals
• New Markets, Opportunities and Competitors • Time, Flexibility and Responsiveness as Competitive Factors
• Product Customization
• Process Reengineering, Redefining and TQM
• Employee Empowerment and Cross-functional Teams
• Organization Downsizing, Outsourcing Business Partnering and Alliances
Organizational Response to Business DriversIS Significance
High Medium Low
Figure 17-1
• Business Leadership• Fitting Pieces into the Big Picture• Organizational Responsiveness and Resilience• Realizing that Solving Customer Problems Requires a Team Approach• A Strong Company Culture• Ability and Willingness to Innovate, Change and Take Risks• Accomplishing All of These Factors While Maintaining Necessary Balance• Good Communication Throughout the the Entire Organization
Business Success Factors I/S RoleImportant Necessary Marginal
Figure 17-2
Why Aren’t All Companies Why Aren’t All Companies Successful in Using IS to CompeteSuccessful in Using IS to Compete??
1. Business Reasons1. Business Reasons
2. Information Technology Reasons2. Information Technology Reasons
Business RelatedBusiness Related
Lack of Senior management sponsorship or support
Poor employee acceptance or use General resistance to change within the
organization Poor alignment of IS with the business strategy Impatience for results Vision and direction of the business is not clear Poor business strategy Poor timing
IT ReasonsIT Reasons Inadequate staffing and/or funding. Project size was extremely large. Poor project structure. Organization lacked experience with IT
(user and/or IS organization) Poor systems performance.
Information Systems GoalInformation Systems Goal
• To help achieve organizational goals and
objectives.
• By providing necessary information.
• By providing a communication network.
• By accommodating change within the
organization.
• By approaching this with a general manager’s
perspective.
ConclusionsConclusions
Understanding the business is no longer a single dimension.
Reasons for using information system must parallel with business needs.
I regard information technology as a precocious teenager: full of energy, irreverent, unpredictable, a source of both joy and heartache--and frequently in need of close supervision.
Kent "Oz" Nelson
Chairman and CEO United Parcel Service
Three Definite ConclusionsThree Definite Conclusions
1. The way to gain acceptance of information systems by senior management is to focus on using it to gain a competitive advantage.
2. The way to capitalize on this opportunity 2. The way to capitalize on this opportunity is thorough a marketing approach.is thorough a marketing approach.
3. The way to sell anything over time is by 3. The way to sell anything over time is by emphasizing value.emphasizing value.
There Has Never Been a Better There Has Never Been a Better TimeTime
1. For candor relative to key business and IT issues.
2. For real world success stories versus theory.
3. For business and IS leadership versus techniques
and methodologies.
Company MentalityCompany Mentality
Most people buy the premise that managing information and information systems is a key, fundamental aspect of running the business.
An issue can be selling the best specific approach.
The Sell CycleThe Sell Cycle
• Identify Prospects
• Gain Interest
• Develop Need
• Quantify the Need
• Build the Sale
• Market the Solution
• Gain Commitment
Marketing/Sales ProcessMarketing/Sales Process
Research / Planning / Enabling
Campaigns
Program Programs Programs
Delivery Vehicles
Products and Services
Create/ Capture Demand
Define/ Agree on Solution
Gain Commitment
ImplementMaintain Customer
Targeted Opportunities
Customer Satisfaction and Revenue
An IS Marketing Therefore ListAn IS Marketing Therefore List
Determine the 3 - 5 things that your customers spend 75% of their time doing.
Do an analysis of the major focus and priorities of the CEO.
Read the annual report and look for the presence or absence of information systems endorsements.
Take a hard look at the marketing job being done by the IS organization.
Build a personal network for competitive information sources.
IS Competitive MarketingIS Competitive Marketing
Ten Commandments
1. Solving customer problems has always been a logical
and successful marketing strategy.
2. During adverse times, your customers really need you.
3. Eighty percent of winning is showing up!
4. Go to your customers with questions, not answers.
5. Remember that quality products and services are the
foundation of competitive success that also includes
leadership of skilled employees using advanced methods.
6. A winning approach should provide long term advantages,
include benefits for the organization as a whole and not distort
the logical balance among major business functions.
7. Successful systems are built on harmony in the work place,
discipline in the work place and automation that is consistent
with the first two factors.
8. Redefine your business, products or services and business
processes based on how this redefines value to customer.
9. The company reward system should endorse and
reinforce the major factors cited above.
10. Watch the arrogance and stay current.
• New Markets, Opportunities and Competitors • Time, Flexibility and Responsiveness as Competitive Factors
• Product Customization
• Process Reengineering, Redefining and TQM
• Employee Empowerment and Cross-functional Teams
• Organization Downsizing, Outsourcing Business Partnering and Alliances
Organizational Response to Business DriversIS Significance
High Medium Low
Figure 17-1
• Business Leadership• Fitting Pieces into the Big Picture• Organizational Responsiveness and Resilience• Realizing that Solving Customer Problems Requires a Team Approach• A Strong Company Culture• Ability and Willingness to Innovate, Change and Take Risks• Accomplishing All of These Factors While Maintaining Necessary Balance• Good Communication Throughout the the Entire Organization
Business Success Factors I/S RoleImportant Necessary Marginal
Figure 17-2
Why Aren’t All Companies Why Aren’t All Companies Successful in Using IS to Successful in Using IS to
Compete?Compete?
1. Business Reasons1. Business Reasons
2. Information Technology Reasons2. Information Technology Reasons
Business ReasonsBusiness Reasons A lack of senior management sponsorship.
Poor employee acceptance or use.
General resistance to change within the organization.
Poor alignment of Information Systems with business strategies.
• Impatient for results--management and employees.
• Vision and direction of the business was not clear.
• Poor business strategies.
• Good vision, strategy and implementation
but bad timing results in no value to the
customer.
Business ReasonsBusiness Reasons
IT ReasonsIT Reasons
Inadequate staffing and/or funding.
Project size was extremely large.
Poor project structure.
Organization lacked experience with IT
(user and/or IS organization)
Poor systems performance.
2002 Best Practices Study2002 Best Practices Study
The effectiveness (quality and value) and efficiency
(cost and productivity) of the information technology
function across five performance dimensions:
1. Strategic alignment with the business.
2. Ability to partner with internal and external customers.
3. Use of technology.
4. Organization.
5. Processes.
Study Done ByStudy Done By
Hackett Benchmarking (www.answerthink.com/hackett) is
considered the world's foremost best practices benchmarking
firm.
With offices in Atlanta, Georgia; Hudson, Ohio; and
Frankfurt, Germany, Hackett maintains ongoing benchmark
studies in finance, human resources, information technology,
procurement, customer contact centers and related areas.
Study ConclusionsStudy Conclusions
1. Given that technology now permeates every aspect of
business operations, management of the corporate IT
infrastructure has evolved into a CEO-level issue.
2. While it is understandable that in today's economy
companies want to cut or at least slow the rise of IT costs, it
is alarming that most companies persist in viewing IT as a
subsidiary support function, rather than a key competitive
lever.
Study ConclusionsStudy Conclusions
3. Principal improvement strategies utilized by the best-
managed companies include simplifying and automating
processes from end-to-end and leveraging the maximum
business value from technology investments and Web
infrastructures.
Significant FindingsSignificant Findings
1. An 85% increase since 1998 in the number of CIOs who
report directly to the CEO indicates that the linkage between
technology and business is growing tighter.
2. With a tight link between the overall business strategy and
the company-wide IT strategy, world-class IT organizations
actually spend 17% less per end-user than their average
counterparts ($12,236 versus $10,111) while delivering
projects to business specification 23% more often.
3. While outsourcing has been embraced by companies as a
way to keep IT costs in check, for most it has proved to be a
break-even proposition, at best.
4. In highly standardized companies, process costs are
virtually the same, regardless of whether functions are
largely outsourced or completely in-house.
5. For companies with a very low level of standardization,
outsourcing sharply increases process costs.
6. Application development costs at companies with low
standardization levels rise by 300% when outsourced.
Significant FindingsSignificant Findings
7. Outsourcing adds value only when part of an
overall IT strategy aimed at leveraging maximum efficiency
and effectiveness from people, processes and technology.
8. Greater centralized control of IT operations delivers
significant savings in operational support without necessarily
sacrificing performance.
9. World-class companies with centralized IT organizations
have 24% lower operations costs while enjoying 21% fewer
help-desk calls than their decentralized counterparts.
Significant FindingsSignificant Findings
Additional FindingsAdditional Findings
1. A comparison of staff at average and world-class IT
organizations indicates that 163% more professionals and
108% more managers in the latter group have advanced
business degrees.
2. Companies are increasingly relying on IT for advice on
improving the business with technology, which requires that
IT staff add an understanding of business issues to its
traditional core competencies.
Additional FindingsAdditional Findings
3. The consistent use of IT standards enables top-performing
companies to not only trim IT development costs by 41%
(from $661 to $391 annually per end-user), but also reduces
end-user support and training operations costs by 17% (from
$968 to $801 annually per end-user).
4. As companies adopt new technologies, integrate
acquisitions and operate in a more real-time global
environment, the case for standardization becomes even
stronger.
Additional FindingsAdditional Findings
5. While 100% of organizations with world-class IT process
performance have disaster-recovery plans in place, only 77%
of average companies maintain such a plan, suggesting the
presence of a penny-wise, pound-foolish approach to risk
management in the latter group.
Some Appropriate QuestionsSome Appropriate Questions
1. Do you really believe that information
systems can make your organization more
competitive?
2. Is this a technical or an internal marketing
challenge?
3. What is the current credibility of the IS
organization?
4. What are the basic prerequisites for an organization to use IS to compete?
5. How do you align information systems with the goals and objectives of the business?
6. What is the scope of competitively focused systems?
7. How important is determining the value of IS within an organization?
8. What are the organizational and personnel implications of using IS to compete?
9. Does the use of IS to compete ever get easy?
More Questions!More Questions!
Manufacturing System GuidelinesManufacturing System Guidelines
1. Never implement a new system without first simplifying the process.
2. Stay around to help the user articulate your
solution to their problem.
3. Automate where appropriate but only if you
have senior management commitment.
4. Implement through user ownership of the
system.
In a period of unprecedented opportunity driven by business and technological change made difficult by:
• Competition
• Complexity
• The Pace of the Change
So where are we?
Getting A JobGetting A Job
Student Services and Job Fairs (Westech)
Specific Company Web Pages
Personal Networking With People You Know
Job Search Web Pages
What are your financial What are your financial expectations!expectations!
Don’t give a specific number.
Always give a range.
“I just want to be sure that I am being treated fairly.”
Why him/her and not me!Why him/her and not me!
You can go crazy trying to second guess the entire interview and hiring process.
Don’t even try but do try to be philosophical about the entire process.
If it is meant to be, it will happen. If not, there are other good opportunities.
If philosophical about a jobIf philosophical about a job
• You will do better in the interview process.
•You will appear more in control of your efforts to
make sure you find the best fit for yourself.
• You will be more inclined to ask tough questions.
Company AssessmentCompany Assessment
1. Longer term potential of the company.
2. Your opinion of the people you interviewed with.
3. The initial job assignment.
4. The offer.
Valued experience for the next two years and the marketability of that experience.
Tough QuestionsTough Questions
• What role does information systems play within the company?
• How important is the role of information systems?
• How successful have you been in retaining quality information systems personnel in the recent job market?
• Has job burn-out been a problem within the IS organization?
• What factors play a key role in getting promoted or rewarded within the information systems organization?
• Has anyone from Information Systems ever moved into higher level management within the company?
Why do they call it Commencement?Why do they call it Commencement?
• 90 day sponge strategy.
• Pick two areas of expertise.
• Continue to develop your big picture mentality.
• Improve oral communications skills like
Ollie Wight did.
• Everyone should have a pitch.
Commencement!?Commencement!?
• Develop a personal network.
• Develop a reading material profile.
• Really understand the desired mode of
operation versus the specific tasks of a job.
What about an MBA?What about an MBA?
If you are not happy with your current job and more importantly your career path, then a full time MBA program is an excellent fork in the road.
It allows you to repot yourself and build a whole new set of personal networking contacts.
If you are happy with what and how you are doing, then wait for two years and consider an evening MBA program like 80% of those in those doing this.
Realize that Stanford, UC Berkeley and UCLA are three of the five toughest MBA programs in the world to gain acceptance.
Why not a full-time MBA?Why not a full-time MBA?
Tuition
Other Student Costs
Living Costs
Lost Opportunity Costs
Information Systems GoalInformation Systems Goal
• To help achieve organizational goals and
objectives.
• By providing necessary information.
• By providing a communication network.
• By accommodating change within the
organization.
• By approaching this with a general manager’s
perspective.