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Management
Challenges
MODULE IV
Business
Applications
Module
IV
Development
Processes
Information
Technologies
Foundation
Concepts
DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES
H
W
ow can business professionals
plan, develop, and implement strategies
I
and solutions that use information technologies to help meet the
L
challenges and opportunities
faced in today’s business environment?
Answering that question is S
the goal of the chapters of this module, which concentrate on the processes for planning, developing, and implementing IT-based
O
business strategies and applications.
N
• Chapter 11: Developing Business/IT Strategies emphasizes the importance
•
of the planning process in ,developing IT/business strategies and the implementation challenges that arise when introducing new IT-based business strategies and
applications into an organization.
Chapter 12: Developing J
Business/IT Solutions introduces the traditional,
prototyping, and end-user A
approaches to the development of information systems
and discusses the processes and managerial issues in the implementation of new
M
business applications of information technology.
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Management
Challenges
CHAPTER 11
Business
Applications
Module
IV
Development
Processes
Information
Technologies
Foundation
Concepts
DEVELOPING BUSINESS/IT STRATEGIES
Ch apt er Highligh t s
Section I
Planning Fundamentals
Introduction
Organizational Planning
The Scenario Approach
Real World Case: IT Leaders: IT/Business Alignment
Takes on a Whole New Meaning
Planning for Competitive Advantage
Business Models and Planning
Business/IT Architecture Planning
Identifying Business/IT Strategies
Business Application Planning
Section II
Implementation Challenges
Implementation
Implementing Information Technology
Real World Case: Centene, Flowserve, and Shaw Industries:
Relationships, Collaboration, and Project Success
End-User Resistance and Involvement
Change Management
Real World Case: Forrester, NMSU, Exante Financial
Services, and Others: Getting Real about Strategic Planning
Real World Case: Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and Others:
Understanding the Science behind Change
W
I
L L ea r n i n g O bj ect i v e s
S
After reading and studying this chapter, you should
O be able to:
N 1. Discuss the role of planning in the business use
of information technology, using the scenario
,
J
A
M
I
E
approach, and planning for competitive advantage
as examples.
2. Discuss the role of planning and business models
in the development of business/IT strategies,
architectures, and applications.
3. Identify several change management solutions for
end-user resistance to the implementation of new
IT-based business strategies and applications.
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Module IV / Development Processes
SECTION I
Introduction
Planning Fundamentals
Imagine taking a caravan of thousands of people on a journey with no map, no plan,
no one in charge, no logistical support, no way to keep everyone informed, no scouting
reports to assess and update progress, and no navigational instruments. It would
be sheer madness, yet that’s how most companies are handling the transition to
e-business.
Information technology has created a seismic shift in the way companies do business.
Just knowing the importance and structure of e-business is not enough. You need to create
and implement an action plan that allows you to make the transition from an old business
design to a new e-business design.
W some fundamental planning concepts, which is the
That is why you need to learn
goal of this section. We will first
I discuss several strategic planning concepts and then
talk more specifically about developing IT-based business strategies and other planL discuss the process of implementing IT-based busining issues. In Section II, we will
ness plans and the challengesSthat arise when introducing new IT strategies and
applications within a company.
Read the Real World Case O
on the next page. We can learn a lot about recent trends
in business/IT alignment and N
the new role of senior IT executives. See Figure 11.1.
Organizational
Planning
The Scenario
Approach
,
Figure 11.2 illustrates the components of an organizational planning process. This
fundamental planning process consists of (1) team building, modeling, and consensus;
(2) evaluating what an organization
J has accomplished and the resources they have acquired; (3) analyzing their business, economic, political, and societal environments;
A the impact of future developments; (5) building a
(4) anticipating and evaluating
shared vision and deciding on M
what goals they want to achieve; and (6) deciding which
actions to take to achieve their goals.
I what we call a plan, which formally articulates the acThe result of this process is
tions we feel are necessary to E
achieve our goals. Thus, a plan is an action statement.
Plans lead to actions, actions produce results, and part of planning is learning from
results. In this context, the planning process is followed by implementation, which is
monitored by control measures,
5 which provide feedback for planning.
Strategic planning deals with the development of an organization’s mission, goals,
0
strategies, and policies. Corporations may begin the process by developing a shared
vision using a variety of techniques,
5 including team building, scenario modeling, and
consensus-creating exercises. Team planning sessions frequently include answering
1
strategic visioning questions such as those shown in Figure 11.3. Tactical planning involves the setting of objectivesBand the development of procedures, rules, schedules,
and budgets. Operational planning
U is done on a short-term basis to implement and control day-to-day operations. Typical examples are project planning and production
scheduling.
Many organizational planning methodologies are used in business today. In this
section, let’s concentrate on two of the most popular methodologies: the scenario approach and planning for competitive advantage.
Planning and budgeting processes are notorious for their rigidity and irrelevance to management action. Strict adherence to a process of rapid or efficient completion may only
make the process less relevant to the true management agenda.
Managers and planners continually try different approaches to make planning easier, more accurate, and more relevant to the dynamic, real world of business.
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Chapter 11 / Developing Business/IT Strategies ●
REAL WORLD
CASE
C
1
IT Leaders: IT/Business Alignment
Takes on a Whole New Meaning
IOs thought they knew what business-IT alignment
was. But fighting the dark forces of recession has really taught the lesson—to some of them, anyway.
At a truly aligned company with all cylinders firing, every
executive, every manager, every employee works on one goal:
winning customers. In the past, CIOs saw their role as, say, installing business intelligence tools so that the marketing group
could analyze customer data, or upgrading enterprise resource
planning software for the supply chain guys to improve order
fulfillment. Vital work, of course, but inwardly focused and a
few steps removed from living, breathing, money-spending
customers. But now, as shown in the 2010 State of the CIO
survey by CIO Magazine, top technology executives increasingly see bringing home the bacon as their job, too.
Nearly one third—30 percent—of the IT leaders polled
say meeting or beating business goals is a personal leadership competency critically needed by their organizations, up
significantly from the 18 percent who said so one year ago.
Eighteen percent also named “external customer focus” as a
critical skill, double 2009’s 9 percent. Double.
Meanwhile, 22 percent cited “identifying and seizing on
commercial opportunities”—up more than triple from the
year before. Yes, triple.
It’s clear that the recession has deepened CIOs’ understanding of and commitment to business beyond IT. CIOs are
interacting with customers directly and working side by side
with product engineers to build IT into new goods and services.
“In so many of the products offered now, the differentiating component is the IT capability,” says Drew Martin, CIO
of Sony Electronics. Certain Sony televisions, for example,
F IGUR E 11.1
CIOs are increasingly turning their attention to
customers and new product opportunities.
Source: © Punchstock.
449
W
I
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S
O
N
,
J
A
M
I
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can stream movies wirelessly, one of several products and
features that Sony’s IT group itself helped make possible.
CIOs should get their IT departments involved in product
development—if IT can truly step up. “You have to have an
awareness of where your business is trying to go,” he says.
“Then you have to make sure you have the capability to support that.”
“At Konica Minolta USA, the IT group also influences
what the company sells,” says Nelson Lin, CIO of the U.S.
unit that is part of the $9.7 billion Konica Minolta Holdings
in Japan. For example, Konica Minolta printers, measurement
devices, and medical tools contain enough computer technology that when they break or get replaced, customers must dispose of them carefully to avoid environmental hazards.
Lin saw end-of-life equipment disposal as a service that
customers would pay for. Lin and other senior executives
view Konica Minolta as an advanced technology company
and through that prism, he says, the CIO’s input becomes
even more valuable. He stepped up to lead discussion of
equipment disposal as a money-maker. “I’m doing it for our
own e-waste already. It’s now a matter of doing this large
scale,” he says. “It’s the right thing to do, everyone knows.
But it could be revenue for us, too.”
Denise Coyne, CIO of Chevron’s corporate departments
and services companies, was previously CIO of the oil and
gas giant’s marketing group as well as manager of 200 Chevron gas stations.
She would go to conventions to talk up the company’s
point-of-sale system with gas station operators. “I found out
what they wanted,” she says. Her MBA and nine years in marketing have shaped how she approaches IT, she says, assessing
projects from finance and business perspectives, for example.
Patti Reilly White has been with Darden Restaurants for
20 years, 10 of them as CIO. IT has “always” been customerfocused at Darden, she insists, but the past two years have
been particularly intense. Projects in development include a
system to text customers when their tables are ready, doing
away with the flashing-light buzzers that restaurant greeters
now hand out to waiting diners.
“What our guests want is for us to value their time and
personalize the experience for them. We in IT try to find
ways to do that,” Reilly White says.
Some CIOs even run businesses themselves. In addition
to overseeing internal IT for the $3.6 billion Nasdaq OMX
Group, executive vice president and CIO Anna Ewing runs
Market Technology, a division that sells Nasdaq’s technology
to financial exchanges around the world. The unit brought
in $359 million in contracts in 2008, for everything from
advisory services (helping customers set up various kinds of
exchanges) to trading, clearing, and post-trade systems.
Before coming to Nasdaq in 2000, Ewing didn’t have
profit-and-loss responsibility in her previous positions at
CIBC World Markets or at Merrill Lynch. But at those
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Module IV / Development Processes
companies, she chose a commercial direction as much as she
could: At CIBC, she was a founding member of the financial
services company’s e-commerce site. Among several positions at Merrill, she led client technology. She was named
Nasdaq’s CIO in 2005.
At Nasdaq, Ewing and her team recently launched a free
iPhone application for checking stock quotes as a way to experiment with hot new consumer technology and seed the
ground for some revenue-generating app in the future. The app
debuted on a Friday. By Tuesday, without advertising, the
stock-checker was the fifth most downloaded free financial
app at Apple’s site. “We wanted to see if the appetite was
there,” Ewing says. “It is.” A CIO’s ability to spot new business opportunities comes from thinking like a CEO, she says.
“Product development and technology go hand-in-hand.”
Still, most CIOs have no P&L duties. That’s a mistake,
says Bill Deam, CIO of Quintiles Transnational, a $2.7 billion medical research company. Starting in 2007, most of
Quintiles’ top executives, including the COO, the head of
corporate development and Deam himself, were assigned
one key customer account. Deam says he tries to cultivate
good relations with senior managers at his assignment, a
$15 billion biotech and pharmaceuticals firm.
Quintiles helps the biotech firm conduct clinical trials
for medicines in development. Deam reviews the account
with an executive at the customer company every Friday and
visits every six months. He hopes his efforts not only produce closer ties but also more business between the two
companies. But that takes time.
“They want to make sure that all the work we do for
them is performed excellently, without issues,” Deam says.
“Then we can go to the next phase of the relationship; this is
very much about the business side,” he says. For example,
Quintiles would like to sell customers on the idea of outsourcing their technology infrastructures, Deam says, and he
sees a pivotal role for himself in that strategic sales process.
“My job is to make sure senior executives feel comfortable
enough to talk to each other.”
Doing sales calls is a relatively simple way for a CIO to
learn about customers. The CIO’s presence also adds weight
to what the salesmen claim. Having a CIO on a sales call
CASE STUDY QUESTIONS
1. How does the job of the CIO change with the assumption of customer responsibilities? Do you agree with
this new development. Why or why not?
2. Why would there be internal resistance to CIOs becoming more externally customer-focused than they
were before? Does this present a threat to executives in
other areas of a company?
3. How do companies benefit from having their CIO meet
customers and generally become more involved with
product development? What can companies do now
that was not possible before? Provide a few examples.
isn’t uncommon, but it’s especially important now when so
many products and services rely on IT, says Hilton Sturisky,
senior vice president for information and communication
technology with the $14 billion BCD Travel.
BCD manages travel for big companies whose employees
use BCD’s web technologies to, for instance, book flights and
hotels. Special services, such as tools for analyzing your company’s travel data for ways to cut costs, are also available.
When Sturisky went out with BCD’s sales team recently, it
wasn’t so much to contribute but to listen, he says. BCD hasn’t
yet won the contract; sales cycles are 9 to 12 months in the
travel services industry, he says. But he thinks that being there
made a difference. “There was appreciation that we take a
collective approach to serving customers and that added
credibility to what the sales professionals were saying,” he
says. As a result of those conversations, Sturisky is considering
how to provide such new services as sending notifications of
W
canceled flights to travelers’ smart phones, along with alterI native itineraries.
CIOs who want to focus on external customers may have
Lto deal
with internal resistance. The way to overcome that,
says
Coyne
of Chevron, is to be visible.
S
When she is trying to change how people work, for examOple, she meets in person as much as possible with colleagues
Nabove and below her. At “Dining with Denise” lunches, she
talks with lower-level employees about corporate change. At
, meetings once or twice a year with Chevron’s senior-most executives, she explains the value of IT. In between there are
monthly meetings with departments and governance boards.
JAll the while, it’s her voice, her face out there. “Blogs, e-mail,
town halls, dining. The objective for me is to continuously
Aremind everyone of the bigger picture.”
M Reilly White, too, is aware of her visibility at Darden
and tries to use it as a tool. When restaurant operations
I crews see IT managers and staff in kitchens and dining
they know Reilly White takes their partnership seriErooms,
ously. If you’re not “out there” she says, you risk not understanding what your business needs.
5Source: Adapted from Kim S. Nash, “2010 State of the CIO: Today’s Focus
0for IT Departments—Business Opportunities,” CIO.com, December 17, 2009.
5
REAL WORLD ACTIVITIES
1
B1. The IT function is notorious for being dynamic, and its
U leaders are no exception. Go online to research recent
trends affecting the traditional roles of senior IT executives and how those roles are changing. Prepare a presentation to share your findings with the rest of the class.
2. “In the future, the prevalence of IT in product offerings
will blur the distinction between IT and other areas of the
company, to the extent that the IT function will cease to
exist as a separate entity.” Do you agree with this statement? Why? Break into small groups with your classmates to see if you can reach a consensus on the issue.
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Chapter 11 / Developing Business/IT Strategies ●
F IGUR E 11.2
451
The components of an organizational planning process.
Articulate the
Organization’s
Plan
Analyze the
Organization’s
Environment
Forecast Internal
and External
Developments
Team Building,
Modeling, and
Consensus
Evaluate
Accomplishments
and Resources
Establish
Vision
Mission
Goals
Objectives
Develop
Strategies
Policies
Tactics
Develop
W
Implementation
Methods and
I
Controls
L
Feedback
S
O
to planning has gained in popularity as a less formal, but
The scenario approachN
more realistic, strategic planning methodology for use by business professionals.
, teams of managers and other planners participate in what
In the scenario approach,
management author Peter Senge calls microworld, or virtual world, exercises. A microworld is a simulation exercise that is a microcosm of the real world. In a microworld
J create, experience, and evaluate a variety of scenarios of
exercise, managers can safely
what might be happening, or
Awhat might happen in the real world.
When a work team goes white-water
rafting or engages in some other outdoor team-building
M
exercise, the team members are creating a microworld to reflect on and improve the way they
I staff create a role-playing exercise to be used in a supervisory
work together. When personnel
training, they are creating E
a microworld. Many team retreats serve as microworlds.
Thus, in the scenario approach to strategic IS planning, teams of business and IS
managers create and evaluate a variety of business scenarios. For example, they make
5
assumptions about what a business will be like three to five years or more into the future,
0 technology can or will play in those future scenarios.
and the role that information
F IGUR E 11.3
5
1 in planning for e-business initiatives.
Examples of strategic visioning questions
B
Strategic Business Visioning
U
•
Understanding the
Customer
Who are our customers?
How are our customers’ priorities shifting? Who should be our target customers?
How will an e-business help reach our target customer segments?
•
Customer Value
How can we add value for the customer with e-business services?
How can we become the customer’s first choice?
•
Competition
Who are our real competitors? What is our toughest competitor’s business model?
What are they doing in e-business and e-commerce? Are our competitors potential
partners, suppliers, or customers in an e-business venture?
•
Value Chain
How would we design a value chain if we were just starting an e-business?
Who would be our supply chain partners? What roles should we play: e-commerce
Web site, B2C portal, B2B marketplace, or partner in an e-commerce alliance?
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Module IV / Development Processes
FIGURE 11.4
Converging business, political, and technological trends that are shaping strategic business/IT planning.
Technology
•
•
•
•
•
Deregulation
Electronic Commerce
Customer Information Technology
“Death of Distance”
Digital Everything, Technology Convergence
Information Content of Products
and Services Increasing Steadily
Competitive Imperatives
•
•
•
•
Converging
Trends
• Imperatives:
- Real Growth
- Globalization
- Customer Orientation
- Knowledge and Capability as Key Assets
- New Entrants
• Enablers:
- Alliances
- Outsourcing
Regulated Markets Opening Up
Fewer Regulatory Impediments in Business
Single Currency Zones
Regulators Outflanked by Changing Boundaries
and Unstoppable Forces (Internet and e-Business)
Customer Sophistication/
Expectations
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Demand for Better and More Convenient Solutions
Increased Emphasis on Service
Demand for Added Value
Less Tolerance for Poor Standards
Just-in-Time Delivery
Global Influences
Brand “Savvy”
W
I
L
S
Alternative scenarios are created by the teams or by business simulation software,
Odevelopments, trends, and environmental factors, inbased on combining a variety of
cluding political, social, business,
N and technological changes that might occur. For
example, Figure 11.4 outlines key business, political, and technological trends that
,
could help guide business/IT planning.
Risk Assessment
and Mitigation
J
CIOs are frequently asked, “What are our IT risks?” Unfortunately, this question is
too generic because there are A
multiple kinds of risk. Before starting any risk assessment, IT needs to understandM
both the concern prompting the request and which
risks need to be assessed. Moreover, everyone needs to understand that nearly all
I affect the entire business. Risks fall into four catrisks that affect an IT organization
egories that require different mitigation
tools:
E
Business operations risk. An assessment determines the risks involved in addressing or ignoring a particular competitive threat. Analyzing competitive threats
helps the company decide whether
5 to invest the resources necessary to combat the
threat. Determining appropriate responses to competitive threats from nontradi0
tional sources can be particularly difficult. The appropriate mitigation tool is a good
business case that evaluates all
5 associated risks. For new business opportunities,
a thorough risk assessment may be as important to success as accurate financial
1
projections.
B or existing programs, management concerns focus
Program risk. For approved
on whether the program or project
U will be delivered on time, within budget, and with
high quality. Effective project management and regular monitoring mitigate risk.
Business interruption risk. This type of risk affects the company’s ability to
continue operating under difficult circumstances. Scenarios run the gamut from a
failed server to a destroyed building. In most cases, a failed server causes minor problems for certain people. In contrast, a destroyed building can bring all company operations to a halt. A continuity-of-operations plan that describes how the business
will function in the event of various difficulties mitigates risk.
Market risk. This category is divided into geopolitical and industry-specific risks.
Geopolitical risks include war, terrorism, and epidemics, as well as nationalization and
import restrictions. These risks vary depending on the country, the complexity of
the corporate supply chain, and the importance of the industry to political leadership.
Industry-specific risks also vary. Scenario planning mitigates risk by developing responses
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Chapter 11 / Developing Business/IT Strategies ●
453
to various unlikely events. Most important, it attempts to discover previously unknown
risks because the most dangerous risk is often the one you don’t identify.
Before embarking on any risk assessment, clarify which types of risk are of concern to your executive management; then select the appropriate mitigation tools to
address potential difficulties. Depending on the financial consequences, risk insurance may be warranted. Thorough risk assessments leverage creative thinking into
constructive preparations for addressing potential threats, and they’re essential to
success. As the old adage goes, “Forewarned is forearmed.”
Source: Adapted from Bart Perkins, “Know Which Risks Matter,” Computerworld, December 17, 2007.
Planning for
Competitive
Advantage
Betting on new IT innovations can mean betting the future of the company. Leadingedge firms are sometimes said to be on the “bleeding edge.” Almost any business executive
is aware of disastrous projects
W that had to be written off, often after large cost overruns,
because the promised new system just did not work.
I
L information technology environment. So, strategic
tive business arena and complex
business/IT planning involves
S an evaluation of the potential benefits and risks a
company faces when using IT-based strategies and technologies for competitive advanO a model of competitive forces (competitors, customers,
tage. In Chapter 2, we introduced
suppliers, new entrants, andNsubstitutes) and competitive strategies (cost leadership, differentiation, growth, innovation, and alliances), as well as a value chain model of basic
,
business activities. These models can be used in a strategic planning process to help
Planning for competitive advantage is especially important in today’s competi-
generate ideas for the strategic use of information technologies to support new
e-business initiatives.
J
Also popular in strategic business/IT planning is the use of a strategic opportunities
A potential of proposed business/IT opportunities, as
matrix to evaluate the strategic
measured by their risk/payoff
M probabilities. See Figure 11.5.
SWOT Analysis
SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats) is used to evaluate
I
the impact that each possible strategic opportunity can have on a company and its use
EA company’s strengths are its core competencies and
of information technology.
resources in which it is one of the market or industry leaders. Weaknesses are areas of
substandard business performance compared to others in the industry or market
5
segments. Opportunities are the potential for new business markets or innovative
0 expand present markets. Threats are the potential for
breakthroughs that might greatly
F IGUR E 11.5
A strategic opportunities
matrix helps to evaluate the
strategic risk/payoff
potential of proposed
business/IT opportunities.
High
5
1
B
High Risk
U High
Payoff
Opportunities
High Success
High Payoff
Opportunities
High Risk
Low Payoff
Opportunities
Safe but
Low Payoff
Opportunities
Strategic
Business
Potential
Low
Low
High
Firm’s Ability to Deliver with IT
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TABLE 11.1
Example of a SWOT Analysis by a Human Resources Consulting Firm
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Market reputation
Shortage of trained consultants at the operating level
Well-established market niche
Large consultancies
operating at a minor
market level
Partner-level
expertise in HRM
Lack of ability to manage
multidisciplinary assignments
New market opportunities
for consulting in areas other
than HRM
Many small consultancies
looking to invade the
marketplace
business and market losses posed by the actions of competitors and other competitive
forces, changes in government policies, disruptive new technologies, and so on.
An example of SWOT analysis might come from a marketing problem. In competitor analysis, marketers build detailed profiles of each competitor in the market,
W competitive strengths and weaknesses. Marketing
focusing especially on their relative
managers may examine each competitor’s
cost structure; sources of profits, resources,
I
and competencies; competitive positioning and product differentiation; degree of verL
tical integration; historical responses
to industry developments; and other factors.
Marketing management often
finds
it necessary to invest in research to collect the
S
data required to perform accurate marketing analysis. As such, they often conduct
O
market research to obtain this information; although marketers use a variety of techN methods include:
niques, some of the more common
•
•
•
•
•
, such as focus groups.
Qualitative marketing research,
Quantitative marketing research, such as statistical surveys.
Experimental techniques, such
J as test markets.
Observational techniques, such as ethnographic (on-site) observation.
A
Marketing managers may also design and oversee various environmental scanning
Mprocesses to help identify trends and inform the
and competitive intelligence
company’s marketing analysis.
I
Table 11.1 shows the contentEof a typical SWOT analysis. Now let’s look at a real-world
example of how a company used technology to support SWOT analyses, and much more.
Bristow Helicopters:
TechnologySupported SWOT,
and Much More
5
When Bristow Helicopters Ltd. started losing market share in the 1990s, executives
0
moved to improve business processes
across the Redhill, England-based company.
“We needed to change facilities
and
maintenance
processes, improve the efficiencies
5
of the staff, improve the interface between sales and clients,” says John Cloggie,
1
technical director at the European business unit of Houston-based Bristow Group
Inc., which provides helicopterBservices to the oil and gas industry.
A key goal of this reengineering
U effort was to cut several million dollars from the
operating budget of Bristow Helicopters. The company managed the project using
MindGenius, “mind-mapping” software from East Kilbride, Scotland-based Gael
Ltd. The product enabled it to conduct a SWOT analysis (an assessment of its
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), carve out various process reengineering tasks, and delegate them to appropriate groups. Each team then took the
high-level version of the map and created its own subcategories, tasks, and deadlines
for its designated work segment. Since beginning the project in 2004, says Cloggie,
the company has managed to cut $6 million from its operating budget.
“Mind mapping, of course, didn’t directly create our $6 million savings, but it did
allow us to control the project while it was being delivered,” he says. “The speed
with which you can map processes and capture knowledge is a huge return.”
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Mind mapping has been around for centuries, but it didn’t garner much attention
until psychologist Tony Buzan began to promote information visualization techniques in the 1970s. A mind map is a diagram that radially arranges words and images around a central theme. It’s based on the cognitive theory that many people
learn and recall information more easily through graphical representations. Mind
mapping—increasingly called business mapping as it makes inroads into corporate
settings—is used for a range of problem-solving and brainstorming activities, including managing projects, mapping business processes, creating workflows, planning
events, and programming software.
At Bristow Helicopters, mind mapping is used for “virtually all business strategy
projects,” says Cloggie. Bristow has also used MindGenius for managing employeeretention efforts, and the company always uses it when introducing new aircraft types.
“We have a [mind map] template that’s 90 percent usable for any aircraft type. It’s not
just a checklist; it’s a tool to help the engineer understand the processes by which he’ll
bring the aircraft in,” says W
Cloggie. “Through it, he understands the interface with
manufacturing, among different departments within the company, and with the Civil
I
Aviation Authority.”
As key business strategies
L are developed around mind maps, the technology will
need to move beyond its status as a desktop product to better facilitate collaboration,
S recently invited, along with other mind-map software
say users. In fact, Cloggie was
users from various industries,
O to speak on this need before the Scottish Parliament.
“We talked about the need to take mind maps from being a personal tool to a
cross-departmental businessNtool; you can’t extract their true, cross business abilities
if you can’t work on maps simultaneously,”
says Cloggie. “With real-time collabora,
tion, you can have experts develop templates and facilitators work with different
teams to create maps, with the business as a whole sharing them.”
J
A
M
“Business model” was one of the great buzzwords of the Internet boom, routinely invoked,
I
as the writer Michael Lewis put it, “to invoke all manner of half-baked plans.” A good
E
business model, however, remains
essential to every successful organization, whether it’s a
Source: Adapted from Kym Gilhooly, “Business on the Map,” Computerworld, July 3, 2006.
Business
Models and
Planning
new venture or an established player.
A business model is a conceptual
framework that expresses the underlying eco5
nomic logic and system that prove how a business can deliver value to customers at an
0
appropriate cost and make money.
A business model answers vital questions about the
fundamental components of5a business, such as: Who are our customers? What do our
customers value? How much will it cost to deliver that value to our customers? How
1
do we make money in this business?
A business model specifies
B what value to offer customers, which customers should
receive this value, which products and services will be supplied, and what the price will
be. It also specifies how the U
business will organize and operate to have the capability to
provide this value and sustain any advantage from providing this value to its customers.
Figure 11.6 outlines more specific questions about the components of a business that
all business models must answer. Figure 11.7 lists questions that illustrate the essential
components of e-business models.
A business model is a valuable planning tool because it focuses attention on how all
the essential components of a business fit into a complete system. Done properly, it
forces entrepreneurs and managers to think rigorously and systemically about the
value and viability of the business initiatives they are planning. Then the strategic
planning process can be used to develop unique business strategies that capitalize on a
firm’s business model to help it gain competitive advantages in its industry and the
markets it wants to dominate.
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Module IV / Development Processes
F IGU RE 11.6
Questions that illustrate the
components of all business
models. A good business
model effectively answers
these questions.
Component of
Business Model
Questions for
All Business Models
Customer value
Is the firm offering its customers something distinctive or at a
lower cost than its competitors?
Scope
To which customers (demographic and geographic) is the firm
offering this value? What is the range of products/services
offered that embody this value?
Pricing
How does the firm price the value?
Revenue source
Where do the dollars come from? Who pays for what value
and when? What are the margins in each market and what drives
them? What drives value in eachsource?
Connected activities
What set of activities does the firm have to perform to offer this
value and when? How connected (in cross section and time) are
these activities?
Implementation
Capabilities
Sustainability
F IGU RE 11.7
Questions that illustrate the
components of e-business
models that can be
developed as part of the
strategic business/IT
planning process.
Component of
Business Model
Customer value
WhatW
organizational structure, systems, people, and environment does the firm need to carry out these activities? What is
I
the fit between them?
WhatLare the firm’s capabilities and capabilities gaps that need
to beS
filled? How does a firm fill these capabilities gaps? Is there
something distinctive about these capabilities that allows the firm
to offer
O the value better than other firms and that makes them
difficult to imitate? What are the sources of these capabilities?
N
What is it about the firm that makes it difficult for other firms
to imitate
, it? How does the firm keep making money? How does
the firm sustain its competitive advantage?
J
A Specific to
Questions
e-Business Models
M
What is it about Internet technologies that allows your firm to
offer Iits customers something distinctive? Can Internet technologiesE
allow you to solve a new set of problems for customers?
Scope
What is the scope of customers that Internet technologies
enable your firm to reach? Does the Internet alter the product
or service
5 mix that embodies the firm’s products?
Pricing
How0
does the Internet make pricing different?
Revenue source
Are revenue sources different with the Internet? What is new?
Connected activities
How many new activities must be performed as a result of the
1 How much better can Internet technologies help you
Internet?
to perform existing activities?
Implementation
How do Internet technologies affect the strategy, structure,
U people, and environment of your firm?
systems,
Capabilities
What new capabilities do you need? What is the impact of
Internet technologies on existing capabilities?
Sustainability
Do Internet technologies make sustainability easier or more
difficult? How can your firm take advantage of it?
5
B
Iridium Satellite:
Finding the Right
Business Model
Left for dead by many observers in the IT and telecommunications worlds just a few
years ago, the reborn Iridium Satellite LLC, which provides satellite-based communications services, is showing new signs of life. Nowhere near the revenue and customer numbers posted by huge wireless telecommunications companies such as
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Verizon Wireless and AT&T, it’s definite progress for a company that was brought
out of bankruptcy in 2000 and remodeled with a new focus and direction.
The first Iridium marketed itself as a consumer satellite telephone service, but its
original phone was too bulky and its service too expensive for general adoption.
There were also some service quirks consumers wouldn’t accept, such as the need for
line-of-sight connection to a satellite, which precluded using the phones indoors.
After the buyout, the company recreated itself as a telecommunications provider that
could offer reliable service in remote areas where cellular phones and landlines won’t
work, such as barren deserts, the Earth’s poles, deep wilderness, disaster areas, and
other isolated and harsh environments.
“Originally Iridium was focused on the wrong business, on the mass-market consumer business selling directly to customers,” says Matt Desch, the company’s CEO
and chairman. Since its rebirth in 2001, the company has worked with more than
150 partner companies to find new business uses and niches for Iridium service in
industries from mining to W
manufacturing to oil and gas exploration to forestry to
emergency response needs. “We’ve developed an ecosystem around ourselves,”
I
Desch said. “That’s a big difference.”
Not all of Iridium’s service
L is provided using handsets. An increasing part of its
business is in machine-to-machine communications, using a sensor device about the
S that is attached to a ship, truck, container, or similar
size of a deck of playing cards
item. The device can send and
O receive short bursts of communications data to a satellite wherever it is on Earth. Some of these sensors are even located on buoys in the
N can monitor wave heights, winds, and other storm
ocean, where weather agencies
data in real time to provide,warnings for onrushing storms. “That’s the real fast part
of our growth,” Desch said of the short-burst data communications segment.
Max Engel, an analyst with Frost & Sullivan in Palo Alto, California, said that
although Iridium’s original J
idea to be a satellite phone service for the masses “was an
obvious example of stupid failure,” the change in business plan raises the service’s
A
prospects. “What the new management did when they bought it was it took the asM but were now freed of those expectations,” Engel
sets that originally cost billions,
said. “They then asked, ‘what
I can we do with this’ and enlisted many partners” to
create a more workable business model. “Yes, they’re very nichy, but as long as you’ve
got bunches of niches, who E
cares?” says Engel. “They’ve redesigned their business to
suit their assets instead of creating an asset to do business.”
“We’re obviously hitting our stride,” says Desch. “We’re a lifeline where no other
5
device can be used.”
0
5
1
B
Figure 11.8 illustrates the business/IT
planning process, which focuses on discovering
innovative approaches to satisfying
a
company’s customer value and business value
U
Source: Adapted from Todd Weiss, “Defying Naysayers, Iridium Satellite Finds a Business Model,” Computerworld,
July 27, 2007.
Business/IT
Architecture
Planning
goals. This planning process leads to development of strategies and business models
for new e-business and e-commerce platforms, processes, products, and services. Then
a company can develop IT strategies and an IT architecture that supports building
and implementing its newly planned business applications.
Both the CEO and the chief information officer (CIO) of a company must manage
the development of complementary business and IT strategies to meet its customer
value and business value vision. This coadaptation process is necessary because, as we
have seen so often in this text, information technologies are a fast-changing but vital
component in many strategic business initiatives. The business/IT planning process
has three major components:
• Strategic Development. Developing business strategies that support a company’s
business vision, for example, using information technology to create innovative
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Module IV / Development Processes
F IGU RE 11.8
The business/IT planning process emphasizes a customer and business value focus for developing
business strategies and models, and an IT architecture for business applications.
Key Insights
Customer
and Business
Value
Visioning
Key Objectives
Business
Strategies
and Models
Priorities
Business/IT
Strategies and
Architecture
Business
Application
Development and
Deployment
W
I
More Questions
Feedback
Feedback
L
S
e-business systems that focus on customer and business value. We will discuss this
O
process in more detail shortly.
strategic plans for managing or outsourcN
• Resource Management. Developing
ing a company’s IT resources, including IS personnel, hardware, software, data,
,
and network resources.
• Technology Architecture. Making strategic IT choices that reflect an information technology architecture
J designed to support a company’s e-business and
other business/IT initiatives.
A
Information
Technology
Architecture
The information technology architecture that is created by the strategic business/IT
M
planning process is a conceptual design, or blueprint, that includes the following
I
major components:
E Internet, intranets, extranets, and other networks,
• Technology Platform. The
•
•
•
Balanced Scorecard
computer systems, system software, and integrated enterprise application software provide a computing and communications infrastructure, or platform, that
5 information technology for e-business, e-commerce,
supports the strategic use of
and other business/IT applications.
0
Data Resources. Many types of operational and specialized databases, including
5
data warehouses and Internet/intranet databases (as reviewed in Chapter 5) store
1
and provide data and information
for business processes and decision support.
Applications Architecture
B. Business applications of information technology are
designed as an integrated architecture of enterprise systems that support strategic
U
business initiatives, as well as cross-functional business processes. For example, an
applications architecture should include support for developing and maintaining interenterprise supply chain applications, as well as integrated enterprise resource planning
and customer relationship management applications as we discussed in Chapter 8.
IT Organization. The organizational structure of the IS function within a company and the distribution of IS specialists are designed to meet the changing
strategies of a business. The form of the IT organization depends on the managerial philosophy and business/IT strategies formulated during the strategic planning process. We will discuss the IT organization in Chapter 14.
In 1992, Robert S. Kaplan and David Norton introduced the balanced scorecard (BSC),
a method for measuring a company’s activities in terms of its vision and strategies.
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Chapter 11 / Developing Business/IT Strategies ●
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It gives managers a comprehensive view of the performance of a business and has
become a popular business and IT planning tool.
BSC is a strategic management system that forces managers to focus on the important performance metrics that drive success. It balances a financial perspective with
customer, internal process, and learning and growth perspectives. The system consists
of four processes: (1) translating the vision into operational goals; (2) communicating
the vision and linking it to individual performance; (3) business planning; (4) feedback
and learning, and then adjusting the strategy accordingly.
The scorecard seeks to measure a business from the following perspectives:
• Financial Perspective. This measures reflecting financial performance; for example, number of debtors, cash flow, or return on investment. The financial performance of an organization is fundamental to its success. Even nonprofit organizations
must make the books balance. Financial figures suffer from two major drawbacks:
º They tell us what has happened to the organization historically, but they may not
tell us what is currently
Whappening or be a good indicator of future performance.
º It is common for theI current market value of an organization to exceed the
market value of its assets. Tobin’s q measures the ratio of the value of a comL value. The excess value can be thought of as intanpany’s assets to its market
gible assets. These figures
S are not measured by normal financial reporting.
. This measures having a direct impact on customers; for
• Customer PerspectiveO
•
•
example, time taken to process a phone call, results of customer surveys, number
N rankings.
of complaints, or competitive
Business Process Perspective
. This measures reflecting the performance of key
,
business processes; for example, time spent prospecting, number of units that required rework, or process cost.
Learning and GrowthJPerspective. This measures describing the company’s
learning curve; for example,
A number of employee suggestions or total hours spent
on staff training.
M
The balanced scorecard approach is not without its detractors, however. A major critI
icism of the balanced scorecard
is that the scores are not based on any proven economic or financial theory and
have
no basis in the decision sciences. The process is
E
entirely subjective and makes no provision to assess quantities like risk and economic
value in a way that is actuarially or economically well-founded. The BSC does not
provide a bottom-line score5or a unified view with clear recommendations; rather, it is
only a list of metrics. Positive responses from users of BSC may merely be a type of
0
placebo effect, as there are no empirical studies linking the use of balanced scorecard
to better decision making or
5improved financial performance of companies.
Despite these criticisms, BSC can be found in many organizations and is a common
1
strategic planning tool. Figure 11.9 shows an example of a balanced scorecard analysis.
Identifying
Business/IT
Strategies
B
Companies need a strategicUframework that can bridge the gap between simply connecting
to the Internet and harnessing its power for competitive advantage. The most valuable
Internet applications allow companies to transcend communication barriers and establish
connections that will enhance productivity, stimulate innovative development, and improve customer relations.
Internet technologies and e-business and e-commerce applications can be used
strategically for competitive advantage, as this text repeatedly demonstrates. However,
in order to optimize this strategic impact, a company must continually assess the strategic value of such applications. Figure 11.10 is a strategic positioning matrix that can
help a company identify where to concentrate its strategic use of Internet technologies
to gain a competitive advantage. Let’s take a look at the strategies that each quadrant
of this matrix represents.
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Module IV / Development Processes
F IGU RE 11.9
An example of a balanced
scorecard analysis.
W
I
L
S
O
N
Source: Courtesy of Steelwedge Software, Inc.
,
• Cost and Efficiency Improvements. This quadrant represents a low amount of
internal company, customer, and competitor connectivity and use of IT via the
J
Internet and other networks. One recommended strategy would be to focus on
improving efficiency and lowering
costs by using the Internet and the World
A
Wide Web as a fast, low-cost way to communicate and interact with customers,
M
suppliers, and business partners. The use of e-mail, chat systems, discussion
I site are typical examples.
groups, and a company Web
E
F IGU RE 11.10
External Drivers
A strategic positioning
matrix helps a company
optimize the strategic
impact of Internet
technologies for e-business
and e-commerce
applications.
Customer connectivity/competition/technology
HIGH
LOW
5
0
Global Market
5
Penetration
1
B
U
Cost and
Efficiency
Improvements
Product and Service
Transformation
Performance Improvement in
Business Effectiveness
e-business processes/collaboration/cost containment
Internal Drivers
HIGH
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Chapter 11 / Developing Business/IT Strategies ●
461
• Performance Improvement in Business Effectiveness. Here a company has a
•
•
e-Business Strategy
Examples
high degree of internal connectivity and pressures to improve its business processes
substantially, but external connectivity by customers and competitors is still low. A
strategy of making major improvements in business effectiveness is recommended.
For example, widespread internal use of Internet-based technologies like intranets
and extranets can substantially improve information sharing and collaboration
within the business and with its trading partners.
Global Market Penetration. A company that enters this quadrant of the matrix
must capitalize on a high degree of customer and competitor connectivity and use
of IT. Developing e-business and e-commerce applications to optimize interaction
with customers and build market share is recommended. For example, e-commerce
Web sites with value-added information services and extensive online customer
support would be one way to implement such a strategy.
Product and Service Transformation. Here a company and its customers, suppliers, and competitors are extensively networked. Internet-based technologies,
W
including e-commerce Web sites and e-business intranets and extranets, must
I
now be implemented throughout
the company’s operations and business relationships. This enables a company
to
develop
and deploy new Internet-based prodL
ucts and services that strategically reposition it in the marketplace. Using the
Stransaction processing with customers at company Web
Internet for e-commerce
sites and e-commerce auctions
and exchanges for suppliers are typical examples
O
of such strategic e-business applications. Let’s look at more specific examples.
N
,
Use the Internet to define a new market by identifying a unique
Market creator.
customer need. This model requires you to be among the first to market and to remain ahead of competition J
by continuously innovating. Examples: Amazon.com and
E*TRADE.
A . Use the Internet as a new channel to access customers,
Channel reconfiguration
make sales, and fulfill orders
Mdirectly. This model supplements, rather than replaces,
physical distribution and marketing channels. Example: Cisco and Dell.
I . Use the Internet to process purchases. This transacTransaction intermediary
tional model includes the end-to-end
process of searching, comparing, selecting, and
E
paying online. Examples: Microsoft Expedia and eBay.
Infomediary. Use the Internet to reduce the search cost. Offer the customer a
unified process for collecting
5 information necessary to make a large purchase. Examples: HomeAdvisor and Auto-By-Tel.
0
Self-service innovator. Use the Internet to provide a comprehensive suite of
services that the customer’s 5
employees can use directly. Self-service affords employees
a direct, personalized relationship. Examples: Employease and Healtheon.
1
Supply chain innovator. Use the Internet to streamline the interactions among
B to improve operating efficiency. Examples: McKesson
all parties in the supply chain
and Ingram Micro.
U
Channel mastery. Use the Internet as a sales and service channel. This model
supplements, rather than replaces, the existing physical business offices and call centers.
Example: Charles Schwab.
Source: Adapted from Joan Magretta, “Why Business Models Matter,” Harvard Business Review, May 2002.
Business
Application
Planning
The business application planning process begins after the strategic phase of business/
IT planning has occurred. Figure 11.11 shows that the application planning process
includes the evaluation of proposals made by the IT management of a company for
using information technology to accomplish the strategic business priorities developed earlier in the planning process, as was illustrated in Figure 11.8. Then, company
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Module IV / Development Processes
F IGU RE 11.11
Key Objectives
A business application
planning process includes
consideration of IT
proposals for addressing the
strategic business priorities
of a company and planning
for application development
and implementation.
IT Proposals
for Addressing
Strategic
Business
Priorities
Action Plan
Business Case for
Investing in
e-Business
Projects
Planning for
Application
Development and
Implementation
Feedback
Avnet Marshall:
e-Business
Planning
Feedback
W
I
executives and business unit managers
evaluate the business case for investing in proposed e-business development projects
based on the strategic business priorities that they
L
decide are most desirable or necessary at that point in time. Finally, business application
S implementing business applications of IT, as well as
planning involves developing and
managing their development projects.
We will cover the application development and
O
implementation process in Chapter 12. Now, let’s examine a real world example.
N
,
Figure 11.12 outlines Avnet Marshall’s planning process for e-business initiatives and
compares it to conventional IT planning approaches. Avnet Marshall weaves both
e-business and IT strategic planning
J together coadaptively under the guidance of the CEO
and the CIO, instead of developing IT strategy by just tracking and supporting business
strategies. Avnet Marshall also A
locates IT application development projects within the
business units that are involved M
in an e-business initiative to form centers of business/IT
expertise throughout the company. Finally, Avnet Marshall uses an application developI
ment process with rapid deployment
of e-business applications, instead of a traditional
systems development approach.E
This application development strategy trades the risk of
implementing incomplete applications with the benefits of gaining competitive advantages from early deployment of e-business services to employees, customers, and other
5 in the fine-tuning phase of application development.
stakeholders. It also involves them
0
5
1
Conventional IT Planning B
• Strategic alignment: IT U
•
Strategic improvisation: IT strategy and enterprise business strategy coadaptively unfold based
on the clear guidance of a focus on customer value
•
CEO endorses IT vision
shaped through CIO
•
CEO proactively shapes IT vision jointly with
CIO as part of e-business strategy
•
IT application development
projects functionally organized
as technological solutions to
business issues
•
IT application development projects co-located
with e-business initiatives to form centers of
IT-intensive business expertise
•
Phased application development based on learning from
pilot projects
•
Perpetual application development based on
continuous learning from rapid deployment with
incomplete functionality and end-user
involvement
Source: Adapted from Omar El Sawy, Arvind Malhotra, Sanjay Gosain and Kerry Young, “IT-Intensive Value
Innovation in the Electronic Economy: Insights from Marshall Industries,” MIS Quarterly, December 1997.
F IGU RE 11.12
Comparing conventional
and e-business strategic and
application planning
approaches.
strategy tracks specified enterprise strategy
Avnet Marshall’s e-Business Planning
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F IGUR E 11.13
E-business architecture planning integrates business strategy development and business process
engineering to produce e-business and e-commerce applications using the resources of the IT architecture, component
development technologies, and a repository of business models and application components.
e-Business Strategies
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
GOALS, REQUIREMENTS, CONSTRAINTS
e-Business Processes
Repository
Business Models
Internal and Interenterprise
ORGANIZATIONAL, PROCESS, and DATA MODELS
W
Application
Components
e-Business
Application Architecture
I
e-Business, e-Commerce
L
COMPONENT-BASED APPLICATIONS
S
O
N Technology Infrastructure
IT Architecture
,
COMPONENT DEVELOPMENT METHOD
Source: Adapted from Peter Fingar, Harsha Kumar, and Tarun Sharma, Enterprise E-Commerce: The Software Component Breakthrough for
Business to Business Commerce (Tampa, FL: Meghan-Kiffer Press, 2000), p. 68.
Business/IT
Architecture
Planning
J
A
M
Another way to look at the business/IT planning process, which is growing in acceptance and use in industry,I is shown in Figure 11.13. E-business architecture planning
combines contemporary strategic
planning methods (for example, SWOT analysis
E
and alternative planning scenarios) with more recent business modeling and application development methodologies (for example, component-based development).
As illustrated in Figure 11.13
5, strategic e-business initiatives, including strategic goals,
constraints, and requirements, are developed based on SWOT analysis and other
0 developers then use business process engineering
planning methods. Application
methods to define how strategic
5 business requirements are to be implemented; they
use organizational, process, and data models to create new internal and inter1 among a company’s customers, suppliers, and other
enterprise e-business processes
business partners.
B
Component-based e-business and e-commerce applications are then developed to
U
implement the new business processes using application software and data components
stored in a repository of reusable business models and application components. Of
course, the business process engineering and component-based application development activities are supported by a company’s technology infrastructure; this includes
all the resources of its IT architecture, as well as the necessary component development technologies. So, e-business architecture planning links strategy development to
business modeling and component development methodologies in order to produce
the strategic e-business applications needed by a company.
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Module IV / Development Processes
SECTION II
Implementation
Implementation Challenges
Many companies plan really well, yet few translate strategy into action, even though senior management consistently identifies e-business as an area of great opportunity and one
in which the company needs stronger capabilities.
Implementation is an important managerial responsibility. Implementation is doing what you planned to do. You can view implementation as a process that carries out
the plans for changes in business/IT strategies and applications that were developed in
the planning process we covered in Section I.
Read the Real World Case on the next page. We can learn a lot from this case
about some of the ways companies can bring everybody involved in a project onto the
same page. See Figure 11.14. W
Implementing
Information
Technology
I
Moving to an e-business environment
involves a major organizational change. For many
large, global companies, becoming
an
e-business
is the fourth or fifth major organizational
L
change they have undergone since the early 1980s. Many companies have gone through one
S reengineering (BPR); installation and major upgrades of
or more rounds of business process
an ERP system; upgrading legacy
O systems to be Y2K compliant; creating shared service centers; implementing just-in-time ( JIT) manufacturing; automating the sales force; contract
manufacturing; and the majorNchallenges related to the introduction of euro currency.
,
Implementation of new e-business
strategies and applications is only the latest catalyst
for major organizational changes enabled by information technology. Figure 11.15 illustrates the impact and the levels and scope of business changes that applications of informaJ
tion technology introduce into an organization. For example, implementing an application
such as online transaction processing
A brings efficiency to single-function or core business
processes. Yet, implementing e-business applications such as enterprise resource manageM
ment or customer relationship management requires a reengineering of core business
I chain partners, thus forcing a company to model and
processes internally and with supply
implement business practices byEleading firms in their industry. Of course, any major new
business initiatives can enable a company to redefine its core lines of business and precipitate dramatic changes within the entire interenterprise value chain of a business.
As we will see in this section,
5 implementing new business/IT strategies requires
managing the effects of major changes in key organizational dimensions such as business processes, organizational0structures, managerial roles, employee work assignments, and stakeholder relationships
that arise from the deployment of new business
5
information systems. For example, Figure 11.16 emphasizes the variety and extent of
1 companies that developed and implemented new enthe challenges reported by 100
terprise information portals and
B ERP systems.
End-User
Resistance and
Involvement
Any new way of doing things U
generates some resistance from the people affected. For
example, the implementation of new work support technologies can generate employees’
fear and resistance to change. Let’s look at a real-world example that demonstrates the
challenges of implementing major business/IT strategies and applications, the change
management challenges that confront management. Customer relationship management
(CRM) is a prime example of a key e-business application for many companies today. It is
designed to implement a business strategy of using IT to support a total customer care
focus for all areas of a company. Yet CRM projects have a history of a high rate of failure
in meeting their objectives. For example, according to a report from Meta Group, a staggering 55 percent to 75 percent of CRM projects fail to meet their objectives, often as a
result of sales-force automation problems and “unaddressed cultural issues”—sales staffs
that are often resistant to, or even fearful of, using CRM systems.
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REAL WORLD
CASE
M
2
Centene, Flowserve, and
Shaw Industries: Relationships,
Collaboration, and Project Success
anaged care provider Centene has just finished
deploying a new financial system. CIO Don
Imholz says the project, which involved multiple
PeopleSoft modules as well as financial planning and reporting software from Hyperion, was completed “very quickly”—
in 12 months—and on budget.
Imholz believes the project was successful for a number
of reasons, including that the company implemented proven
technology and hired a systems integrator to help who was
experienced with PeopleSoft. Most importantly, Imholz says
the project was successful because of “good teaming between
the IT organization, the finance organization and the systems integration resources.”
In other words, much of the project’s success came down
to people skills.
The constructive relationship between IT and finance—
and in particular, between Imholz and Centene’s CFO, William
Scheffel—ultimately kept the project on track when the going
got tough.
And it did get tough.
For example, at one point, the project team was having
trouble setting up the technical environment needed to deploy a Hyperion module that a third-party was going to
host. The difficulties that IT encountered put the project’s
schedule at risk, says Imholz.
Had the relationship between IT and finance been acrimonious, the organizations would have pointed fingers at each
other—a counterproductive move that would have further delayed the project. Instead, says Imholz, they worked together to
recover the lost time and keep the implementation on schedule.
“We could have blamed each other and told each other
we can’t help,” says the CIO. “But there’s no value in doing
that. It delays getting to the solution. If IT or finance tried
F IGUR E 11.14
Fostering relationships between IT and business
partners has a major impact on project success.
Source: © Manchan/Getty Images.
465
W
I
L
S
O
N
,
J
A
M
I
E
5
0
5
1
B
U
to recover the schedule alone it wouldn’t have happened. We
had to do it together.”
Good relationships—between IT and business partners,
project managers and IT staff, and project managers and
stakeholders—keep IT projects on track, say IT leaders and
project management experts.
Bad relationships, however, are a leading cause of project
failure.
Faced with mounting operational and regulatory pressures, Linda Jojo, Flowserve’s CIO, knew it was time to simplify the company’s entire IT infrastructure—an endeavor
that would bring about sweeping changes across an enterprise spanning more than 56 countries.
At Flowserve, a world leader in the supplying of pumps,
valves, seals, automation, and services to the power, oil, gas,
chemical, and other industries, Jojo’s assignment was heavy on
IT change as the company sought to update processes and systems: establishing a common IT infrastructure, introducing
global help desk capabilities, and cutting dozens of disparate
ERP systems. But that didn’t stop her from taking a decidedly
business approach to simplifying Flowserve’s IT footprint.
“The first step was making sure that this wasn’t viewed
as an IT project,” says Jojo. “From our CEO, our leadership
team and our board of directors on down, we’ve made sure
that this project is something we talk about in terms of its
business impact.”
It’s a tactic that helped set the scope for a project that
could have otherwise become unwieldy. For starters, Jojo
helped assemble 35 divisional representatives from across
the globe at the company’s world headquarters. Here, holed
up in a conference room for 17 weeks, these divisional representatives pored over disparate systems and processes, deciding
what was—and wasn’t—worthy of improvement.
Throughout this period, Flowserve also called on internal subject-matter experts, from engineers to sales representatives, to offer their in-the-trenches take on the company’s
shortcomings.
The result: a blueprint for business standards, the design
of a common financial chart of accounts, and the creation of a
set of data standards for customers and suppliers. In addition
to creating project perimeters, Jojo says that by involving
business leaders in the critical design phase, she was able to
garner widespread support for a companywide strategic business initiative costing more than $60 million over four years.
“I’ve seen projects that should have been successful fail
purely because of relationship issues,” says Greg Livingston,
director of IS planning and system development at Shaw
Industries, a flooring manufacturer.
On the other hand, when mutual trust exists between IT
project managers and stakeholders, “IT project managers are
more likely to discuss problems that could threaten the project as they arise,” says Imholz. If bad blood exists between
the two groups, project managers may not be inclined to
point out those issues, or they may try to cover them up.
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“If you look at projects that fail, invariably someone on
those projects knew things were going bad,” says Imholz. “If
you don’t have relationships and trust, those things don’t
surface. And when you don’t do something about problems
in a timely manner, those problems invariably get bigger. In
many cases, minor problems become more serious because
they’re not addressed in a timely manner. A culture of openness is absolutely essential to good project performance.”
Furthermore, when something does go wrong with a project, business partners are less likely to place the sole blame
for them on IT if they respect IT, says Shaw Industries’s
Livingston. In fact, they’re more likely to give IT some
leeway with the project schedule, he says.
“It doesn’t matter what technology you’re using, how
talented your technology staff is and how knowledgeable
the business partners are on process and business improvement: Every system initiative will have issues,” says Livingston. “If you don’t have a relationship, you resort to
pointing fingers as opposed to being transparent and admitting ‘we messed up’ or ‘we didn’t test that as well.’ If
you have a good relationship, you’ll sit down and find a way
to make it work.”
Decisions affecting the project also get made more
promptly when everyone involved gets along. “Fast and
good decisions are crucial to keeping projects on track,” says
Imholz. “The failure of senior people to make decisions
means decisions are made at lower levels of the organization.
If you have a software developer who’s waiting for a decision
on a business requirement, there’s three things that can happen: He can guess what to do and guess right. He can wait
for a decision and while he’s waiting he’s not as productive.
Third, he can guess and guess wrong. If those are equal possibilities, two-thirds of the time it will be detrimental to the
project. And if you stack enough of those decisions on top of
each other, it will negatively impact the project.”
Despite the positive impact good relationships have on
project management, IT project managers rely more heavily
on software and methodologies than on building relations
when they need to improve their delivery. It’s no wonder:
Compared with the time it takes to build relationships, software seems like a quick fix. IT project managers are also
most comfortable with tools.
CASE STUDY QUESTIONS
1. Why do you think the practices described in the case
led to success for these companies?
2. How do they change the structure of projects so that
the likelihood of a positive outcome increases?
3. In the case of Shaw Industries, how did Scrum help?
4. Provide three specific examples from the case, and explain where and how those activities helped the company move their projects along.
5. Using examples from the case and your own understanding
of how those worked, can you distill a set of recommendations that companies should follow when managing
technology-based projects? Would these be universal, or
would you add any limitations to their applicability?
Shaw Industries’s Livingston is using Scrum, an agile
software development practice, to improve relationships between IT and business partners and ensure project success.
With Scrum, says Livingston, business partners meet with
IT during a four- to eight-hour planning meeting to look at
all the projects in the backlog and to jointly determine which
one will bring the greatest value to Shaw Industries. IT then
divides the project into sprints—30-day increments of work.
When IT completes a sprint, business partners assess IT’s
progress and suggest any necessary changes.
“The agile development methodology, just by design,
promotes better relationships,” says Livingston. “Scrum and
Agile force interaction on a more frequent basis. By doing
so, IT delivers solutions on an incremental basis to the business, as opposed to the waterfall method, where it’s a year
and a half before the business sees the fruits of an initiative.”
Livingston says it’s not necessary for IT and other busiW
ness functions to get along swimmingly for Agile to work
I effectively. Agile can work even if there’s initial tension bethe groups, he says. “We’ve had groups with troubled
Ltween
relationships, and certainly initial meetings are not always
Seffective out of the gate,” he says. “But at least we can agree
that we’re going to focus on 15 key items in the next 30 days,
Oand at the end of the 30 days, we’ll get back to you.”
N The process forces IT and business partners to prioritize
projects together and agree on the 15 items IT will complete
, in 30 days. Scrum also then drives IT’s behavior. At the end
of that 30 days, IT has to show something for its work.
Scrum makes IT accountable to the business.
J When business partners see IT making tangible progress
every 30 days, their confidence in IT grows. Says Livingston,
A“If the business partner sees results more frequently than they
Mused to, relationships can get better. Agile promotes better
relationships just by forcing a process, forcing interaction.”
I Between the structure that Scrum imposes and the relationthat grow out of it, project delivery improves. Livingston
Eships
says Shaw Industries is seeing this happen: “Better collaboration results in better value for the business,” he says.
5Source: Adapted from Meridith Levinson, “Project Management: How IT
and Business Relationships Shape Success,” CIO.com, September 16, 2009;
0and Cindy Waxer, “Using IT to Transform the Business: Three Keys to
Success,” CIO.com, August 6, 2007.
5
1
REAL WORLD ACTIVITIES
B
U1. The Scrum approach to project management has become quite popular in recent years. Go online and
research other companies that are using it to organize
their projects. Have those experiences been positive as
well? What can you tell about how the approach works
from your research? Prepare a report to summarize
your findings.
2. Would the issues discussed in the case be solved by
making a business executive the head of any projects involving IT? Why or why not? Break into small groups
with your classmates and develop a justification for both
alternatives.
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Chapter 11 / Developing Business/IT Strategies ●
F IGUR E 11.15
467
The impact and the levels and scope of business change introduced by implementations of
information technology.
Levels of Change
Redefine Core Business
New Business
Initiatives
Best Practices
Process
Reengineering
Model Best Practices
Improve
Efficiency
Efficiency
Single Function
Core Processes
Supply Chain
Extended
Value Chain
W
I of Business Change
Scope
Source: Adapted from Craig Fellenstein and Ron Wood, Exploring E-Commerce, Global E-Business and E-Societies (Upper Saddle River,
L
NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000), p. 97.
S
O
F IGUR E 11.16
Intranet Enterprise
Enterprise Resource
N
The 10 greatest challenges
Portal Challenges
Planning Challenges
of developing and
• Security, security, security,
• Getting end-user buy-in
implementing intranet
enterprise portals and
enterprise resource
planning systems reported
by 100 companies.
Société de
Transport de
Montréal: Smooth
Ride after a
Bumpy Start
•
Defining the scope and purpose of
the portal
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Finding the time and the money
J
A
Ensuring consistent data quality
Getting employees to useM
it
I
Organizing the data
Finding technical expertise
E
Integrating the pieces
Making it easy to use
•
•
•
•
Scheduling/planning
•
•
•
•
•
Changing culture/mind-sets
Integrating legacy systems/data
Getting management buy-in
Dealing with multiple/international
sites and partners
IT training
Getting, keeping IT staff
Moving to a new platform
5
Providing all users with access
Performance/system upgrades
0
5
1
Suburban sprawl might make a great business case for a transit agency, but when it
B
came to servers, Canada’s Société
de Transport de Montréal (STM) drew the line.
Mike Stefanakis, senior systems
engineer
at STM, says that the main reason he
U
started looking at virtualization technology was to prevent server sprawl. He wanted
consolidation, particularly for development servers at the agency, which provides
more than 360 million bus and metro rides each year.
“We crunched the numbers and realized that our growth was going to cause a
few problems in the near future,” he says. If things kept going as they had, the agency
would need an additional 20 to 30 servers each year, on top of its existing base of 180
primarily Wintel machines. “Too many servers were going to be needed to feed the
needs of our users and clients,” Stefanakis says.
But even though staffers were convinced of virtualization’s benefits pretty early on,
the agency’s end users didn’t necessarily feel the same way. Several factors contributed
to the initial resistance. For starters, there was a fear of the unknown. There were
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questions like “How stable is this new technology?” and “What do you mean I will
be sharing my resources with other servers?” Potential users thought the new technology might slow them down.
To help users get over their fears, Stefanakis focused on giving people the information they needed, while explaining the advantages of the new technology. Among
them: great response time for business applications and baked-in disaster recovery. If
anything does fail, restoration is just a quickly restored image away.
Stefanakis and his staff kept “talking up” the technology and its benefits. “Virtualization came up in every budget, strategy and development meeting we had,” he
recalls. “We made sure the information was conveyed to the proper people so that
everyone in our department knew that virtualization was coming.”
STM has been staging production servers in its virtual environment since December 2005. The first virtual machine was staged in STM’s testing center as a
means of quickly recovering a downed production server. Once the first few applications were implemented, userW
resistance quickly became history. “After people see
the advantages, stability and performance available to them on a virtual platform,
I they previously may have had. The psychological
they tend to lose any inhibitions
barrier for virtualization has been
L broken,” Stefanakis says, “and now users will ask
for a new server as if they are ordering a coffee and danish.”
S
O
N
,
Source: Adapted from Mary Ryan Garcia, “After Bumpy Start, Transit Agency Finds Virtualization a Smooth Ride,”
Computerworld, March 8, 2007.
One of the keys to solving problems of end-user resistance to new information
technologies is proper education and training. Even more important is end-user
involvement in organizationalJchanges and in the development of new information
systems. Organizations have a variety of strategies to help manage business change,
and one basic requirement is A
the involvement and commitment of top management
and all business stakeholders affected
by the planning processes that we described in
M
Section I.
I
Direct end-user participation in business planning, as well as application developE is implemented, is especially important in reducing
ment projects before a new system
the potential for end-user resistance. That’s why end users frequently are members of
systems development teams or do their own development work. Such involvement
5 ownership of a system and that its design meets
helps ensure that end users assume
their needs. Systems that tend0to inconvenience or frustrate users cannot be effective
systems, no matter how technically elegant they are and how efficiently they process
5 illustrates some of the major obstacles to knowledge
data. For example, Figure 11.17
management systems in business.
1 Notice that end-user resistance to sharing knowledge
is the biggest obstacle to the implementation of knowledge management applications.
B that spotlights end-user resistance and what one
Let’s look at a real-world example
company did about it.
U
F IGU RE 11.17
Obstacles to knowledge
management systems. Note
that end-user resistance to
knowledge sharing is the
biggest obstacle.
3%
9%
15%
User resistance to sharing knowledge
Immaturity of technology
Immaturity of knowledge
management industry
53%
20%
Cost
Lack of need
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Chapter 11 / Developing Business/IT Strategies ●
United
Maintenance:
Solving User
Resistance with
Understanding
469
Roberto Amores had just about had enough. It was a blistering hot day, and the
struggling air-conditioning system had just blown the fuses in the Atlanta office
building where Amores was working as a heating ventilation and air-conditioning
technician for United Maintenance. But the biggest problem for Amores wasn’t the
heat or the fuses, it was the new handheld that his company had given him to replace
the paper and clipboard that he had used to keep track of his work. No matter what
Amores tried, he couldn’t seem to pick up a signal and make the new computer work.
He climbed down from the roof, where he was working, and got in his truck.
Nothing. He tried driving around the block. Nothing.
On his first day using wireless, it took Amores three hours to pick up a signal, get
his service call, and fill out the report. One problem was that the pop-up window
kept asking him if he wanted to do things that he didn’t want to do. He tried to remember what he had been told in the training class, and he just became more confused. Amores was hardly alone.
Most of the 30 technicians
W whom United Maintenance had outfitted with handhelds were struggling with questions like exactly what to enter when the real reason
they wanted to put a job onIhold was not among those listed on the scrolling screen.
Ralph Hawkins, the serviceL
manager at United Maintenance, heard the grumbling of
his technicians and got to work on a solution.
S employees objected to an automatic time-stamping of
In one case, for example,
all messages because it made
O them feel like their computers were constantly monitoring them. United Maintenance changed the function so that it allowed the technicians to enter the time thatN
a message was received or an action taken.
“You can go to all the training
classes you want, but what really works is just get,
ting used to it,” Amores says “Once you figure out what it does, it gets a lot easier.”
Today, the technicians at United Maintenance use the handhelds to record everyJ calls are dispatched through the handhelds, service
thing they do in the field. Service
is recorded, and technicians make sure that the customers sign the machine at the
A
completion of the call. As soon as the signature is captured, the call is taken off the
dispatch screen and a bill isM
automatically printed.
The new wireless system
I has reduced the billing cycle at United Maintenance
from two to three weeks to two to three days. It also ensures the company that the
technicians have filled out E
their paperwork and saves the technicians the time they
used to spend bringing their records into the office.
“Our guys were hesitant at first,” says Hawkins. “It was harder for the older guys;
they balked at it but finally 5
got the hang of it—that part was tough.”
0
5
1
Figure 11.18 illustrates some
B of the key dimensions of change management and the
level of difficulty and business impact involved. Notice some of the people, process,
U in the implementation of business/IT strategies and
and technology factors involved
Source: Adapted from Danielle Dunne, “Problem: User Resistance to Change—Solution: Patience and Compromise,”
CIO.com, February 15, 2002.
Change
Management
applications, or other changes caused by introducing new information technologies
into a company. Some of the technical factors listed, such as systems integrators and
outsourcing, will be discussed in more detail in the next few chapters. For example,
systems integrators are consulting firms or other outside contractors who may be paid
to assume the responsibility for developing and implementing a new e-business application, including designing and leading its change management activities. In addition, notice that people factors have the highest level of difficulty and longest time to
resolve of any dimension of change management.
Thus, people are a major focus of organizational change management. This includes
activities such as developing innovative ways to measure, motivate, and reward performance. It is important to design programs to recruit and train employees in the core
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F IGU RE 11.18
Some of the key dimensions of change management. Examples of the people, process, and technology
factors involved in managing the implementation of IT-based changes to an organization.
Strategic
Operational
Impact on Business
High
Technology
•
•
•
•
Enterprise Architecture
Supplier Partnership
Systems Integrators
Outsourcing
• Technology Selection
• Technology Support
• Installation
Requirements
Process
•
•
•
•
Ownership
Design
Enterprisewide Processes
Interenterprise Processes
• Change Control
W
• Implementation
Management
I
• Support Processes
People
• Change Leaders
• Loose/Tight Controls
• Executive Sponsorship
and Support
• Aligning on Conditions
of Satisfaction
•
•
•
•
Recruitment
Retention
Training
Knowledge Transfer
Low
L
S
O
High
Low
Level of Difficulty/Time to Resolve
N
Source: Adapted from Grant Norris, James Hurley, Kenneth Hartley, John, Dunleavy, and John Balls, E-Business and ERP: Transforming the
Enterprise, p. 120. Copyright © 2000 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reprinted by permission.
J workplace. Change management also involves anacompetencies required in a changing
lyzing and defining all changes A
facing the organization, as well as developing programs to
reduce the risks and costs and to maximize the benefits of change. For example, impleM such as customer relationship management might
menting a new e-business application
involve developing a change action
I plan, assigning selected managers as change sponsors,
developing employee change teams, and encouraging open communications and feedback
E key tactics that change experts recommend include:
about organizational changes. Some
• Involve as many people as possible in e-business planning and application
•
•
•
•
development.
5
Make constant change an expected
part of the culture.
0
Tell everyone as much as possible about everything as often as possible, preferably
5
in person.
1 incentives and recognition.
Make liberal use of financial
Work within the companyB
culture, not around it.
U
DHL Express: The
Challenges of
Global Change
Depending on the business pressure du jour, large IT shops tend to swing back and
forth from one organizational model to another. Need to save money and promote
technology standards across the organization? Centralize. Need to respond more
quickly to local market demands and better align with the business? Decentralize.
“It’s a constant tension between the two extremes of the pendulum,” says Ron Kifer,
senior vice president and CIO for the United States and Canada at DHL Express.
The global transportation and logistics services giant began to centralize and
consolidate IT infrastructure and services six years ago, building a massive computing
supercenter in Kuala Lumpur to manage IT for most of its operations in the AsiaPacific and emerging markets, Kifer says. Two years ago, DHL opened a supercenter
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Chapter 11 / Developing Business/IT Strategies ●
471
in Scottsdale, Arizona, to consolidate IT for the United States, Canada, and parts of
Central and South America; and this year, the company set up a supercenter in
Prague to condense IT for most of Europe and the Mediterranean.
Although centralization drove down costs, it did make it harder for business units
to ensure that IT spending was in sync with business strategy. “It was difficult to get
the right people from the business together with the right people from IT to define
project requirements in a manner that was suitable for design and specification,”
Kifer says. Multiple iterations of project requirement specs were continually shifting
between the business and IT (because of their remoteness to each other), adding cost
and time to project life cycles, he says.
DHL has now embarked on an IT transformation that aims to give it the best of
both worlds. The arrangement separates the supply side of DHL’s IT organization
from the demand side, and it puts IT demand management under the business’s control. “Demand CIOs” report to regional CEOs and manage the region’s IT budget,
Kifer says, to align IT spending
W more closely with business strategy. The demand
management function—Express Business IT (EbIT)—is staffed by IT employees who
I
were previously focused on demand
management aspects of IT. Under the new model,
Kifer says, DHL will be ableL
to reap the cost savings of its centralized computing supercenters, as well as the alignment benefits of having IT closely tied to regional operaSadopting this organizational model. Regional teams are in
tions. All regions of DHL are
charge of implementing the O
EbIT functions within their regions, Kifer says, but a “thin
global group” under a single CIO is coordinating to ensure a consistent approach,
N
standards, processes, and tools from region to region. DHL also has a global corporate
transformation office supporting
, this initiative.
For many employees, the reorganization means a dramatic change in roles, reporting relationships, and processes, Kifer says. DHL’s change management plan
emphasizes education and Jtraining to help employees understand the benefits of
these changes to the company
A as a whole—and to them personally.
M
I
E
An eight-level process of change management for organizations is illustrated in
Source: Adapted from “Case Study: DHL’s Global Change Management Plan,” CIO Magazine, November 1, 2005.
A Change
Management Process
Figure 11.19. This change management model is only one of many that could be
applied to manage organizational
changes caused by new business/IT strategies and
5
applications and other changes in business processes. For example, this model suggests
0 in the strategic planning phase should be communithat the business vision created
cated in a compelling change
5 story to the people in the organization. Evaluating the
readiness for changes within an organization and then developing change strategies
and choosing and training 1change leaders and champions based on that assessment
could be the next steps in the
B process.
These change leaders are the change agents that would then be able to lead change
U business stakeholders in building a business case for
teams of employees and other
changes in technology, business processes, job content, and organizational structures.
They could also communicate the benefits of these changes and lead training programs on the details of new business applications. Of course, many change management models include methods for performance measurement and rewards to provide
financial incentives for employees and stakeholders to cooperate with changes that
may be required. In addition, fostering a new e-business culture within an organization by establishing communities of interest for employees and other business stakeholders via Internet, intranet, and extranet discussion groups could also be a valuable
change management strategy. Such groups would encourage stakeholder involvement
and buy-in for the changes brought about by implementing new e-business applications of information technology.
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F IGU R E 11.19
A process of change management. Examples of the activities involved in successfully managing
organizational change caused by the implementation of new business processes.
Set Up
Create
Change Vision
Define
Change Strategy
Develop
Leadership
Analysis
• Understand
Strategic Vision
Definition
• Create Compelling Change Story
• Make Vision Comprehensive and Operational
• Assess Readiness for Change
• Select Best Change Configuration
• Establish Change Governance
• Create Leadership
Resolve
• Lead Change Program
• Develop Leadership Capability
• Build Teams
• Manage Stakeholders
• Communicate
• Manage Resistance
• Transfer Knowledge and Skills
Manage People
Performance
• Establish Needs
•
•
Deliver Business
Benefits
• Build Business Case
•
Build
Commitment
Transition
W
I
L
S
Implement
Performance Management
O
Implement People Practices
N
,
Quantify Benefits
• Sustain Benefits
J
• Implement
A
Cultural Change
M
Design
• Understand
• Design Target
• Implement
I
Current Organization
Organization
Organizational Change
Organization
E
Source: Adapted from Martin Diese, Conrad Nowikow, Patric King, and Amy Wright, Executive’s Guide to E-Business: From Tactics to Strategy,
Develop Culture
• Understand
Current Culture
• Design Target Culture
p. 190. Copyright © 2000 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reprinted by permission.
Avnet Marshall:
Organizational
Transformation
5
0
Figure 11.20 illustrates how a company like Avnet Marshall can transform itself
via information technology. 5
Notice how Avnet Marshall moved through several
stages of organizational transformation as it implemented various e-business and
1
e-commerce applications.
B
First, Avnet Marshall implemented
an automated shipping and receiving system (AS/RS) and a quality order
booking,
resell application (Qobra) as it focused
U
on achieving customer value through cost savings generated by the efficiencies of
automating these core business processes. Then it focused on achieving interconnectivity internally and building a platform for enterprise collaboration and knowledge management by implementing its AvNet intranet and a data warehouse. The
second step was building an Avnet Marshall Web site on the Internet to offer customers 24/7 online e-commerce transactions and customer support services. In
addition, the company built a customized Web site for customers of its European
partner SEI.
Next, Avnet Marshall connected with its suppliers by building a PartnerNet
extranet and the Distribution Resource Planner (DRP) system, a supply chain
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Chapter 11 / Developing Business/IT Strategies ●
473
FIGURE 11.20
Avnet Marshall moved through several stages of organizational transformation
as it implemented various e-business and e-commerce applications, driven by the customer value focus
of its Free.Perfect.Now business model.
Free.
Perfect.
Now.
Value
Innovation
ENEN
Netseminar
MAP2S
Customization
DRP
Data
Marshall
Warehouse on the Internet
and
SEI
Time
Quality
Qobra
Cost/
Efficiency
AS/RS
Localized
Implementation
Internal
Integration
PartnerNet
W
I
L
S
O
N
,
MarshallNet
Business
Process
Redesign
Electronic
Design
Center
Business
Network
Redesign
Phases of
Organizational
Transformation
Business
Scope
Redefinition
J
A
M
I enables the c...
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