Cirque du soleil

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Cirque du Soleil

MBA CASE STUDY

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1. What characteristics of Cirque du Soleil made Danielle Savoie’s job particularly

challenging?

Cirque du Soleil presented many challenges to Ms. Savoie as the first CIO of the organization.

She stepped into a culture that considered IT as a necessary evil instead of a viable part of the

overall business strategy (pg. 1). The organization itself was spread out across multiple countries.

And a travelling show within the organization would set-up for short periods of time but would

require full IT support. Logistically alone Ms. Savoie had her hands full and it would take time

to visit all the different locations to just learn what currently existed.

Upon her journey to see what was in place, Ms. Savoie inherited a wide variety of platforms

without any uniformity. Cirque had no standards or governance in place. IT was decentralized

(Pearlson et al., 2020) and managed by the unique businesses without any coordination (pg. 6).

How a workstation was set up differed from location to location breeding inefficiencies and

leading to a damaged reputation of the IT department.

IT at Cirque was relegated to a support group and was not aligned with the overall business

operations. Ms.Savoie was challenged with a Level 1 IT organization (Pearlson et al., 2020) and

needed to raise the maturity level to become a business partner to Cirque and not just a reactive

support group. Changing from a reactive IT organization to a proactive organization would not

happen overnight. The process would be long and likely expensive.

Creating a strategic plan and applying the proper governance while simultaneously repairing the

damaged reputation of the existing IT department was the first step that was needed to take

place. Ms. Savoie needed to learn the business of Cirque to make the transformations necessary

to take the IT department to new heights. (Toor, 2017). The overall strategy would need to be

bought in by all managers within the organization to be successful. She would need to lead the

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1 Cirque du Soleil MBA CASE STUDY 2 1. What characteristics of Cirque du Soleil made Danielle Savoie’s job particularly challenging? Cirque du Soleil presented many challenges to Ms. Savoie as the first CIO of the organization. She stepped into a culture that considered IT as a necessary evil instead of a viable part of the overall business strategy (pg. 1). The organization itself was spread out across multiple countries. And a travelling show within the organization would set-up for short periods of time but would require full IT support. Logistically alone Ms. Savoie had her hands full and it would take time to visit all the different locations to just learn what currently existed. Upon her journey to see what was in place, Ms. Savoie inherited a wide variety of platforms without any uniformity. Cirque had no standards or governance in place. IT was decentralized (Pearlson et al., 2020) and managed by the unique businesses without any coordination (pg. 6). How a workstation was set up differed from location to location breeding inefficiencies and leading to a damaged reputation of the IT department. IT at Cirque was relegated to a support group and was not aligned with the overall business operations. Ms.Savoie was challenged with a Level 1 IT organization (Pearlson et al., 2020) and needed to raise the maturity level to become a business partner to Cirque and not just a reactive support group. Changing from a reactive IT organization to a proactive organization woul ...
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