Assignment
Of
Management Information system & E-Business
Strategic Management of Information
System
Submitted to : Mr. Tomal Tarek
Prepared By:
MD. AMIRUL ISLAM 2005110002004
17th December 2006
Mr. Toaml Tarek
Course instructor
South East University
Dear Sir,
Here is the report, which was conducted as partial course requirement for
‘Management Information system & E-Business’ course on “Strategic Management of
Information System”. In this context I have chosen my company “IC Company’s A/S”
to fulfill the requirement of the course. I am glad to have the opportunity to prepare
the assignment.
We feel happy if you clarify any point that you may feel insufficient.
Thank you,
The students of MBA (Executive)
Md. Amirul Islam
ID #2005110002004
Acknowledgement
With the sincerity I wish to express my deep gratitude and indebtedness to
the respectable Course instructor Mr. Tomal Tarek
for this inviolable, continuous supervision, gaudiness and helpful suggestions
in selecting and caring out this assignment. Without his cordial assistance,
this work would be difficult to for us.
I would also like to express my heartiest thanks to my company “IC
Companys A/S” IT department to provide necessary information’s regarding
this report. Lastly our thanks go to the Almighty Allah for helping us mentally
to complete this difficult task.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction.
2. IC Companys in a brief.
3.
4.
5.
Executive Summary
The research department at IC Companys A/S relies on the services
provided by Information Technology department (IT) which
comprised of three departments: Major Projects Group (MPG),
Strategic Planning and Architecture (SPA) and Information
Technology Services (ITS) to achieve its goals to develop its
reputation as an institution where pure and applied research and
research training are conducted at internally or externally as per
organizational recognized standards.
IC Companys A/S research department requires access to very high
performance network and computing capabilities, superior quality
databases and other on-line information resources and effective
online collaborative technologies.
Following interviews with the IT manager, one IT staff member,
two managers of business units at the Research Office (RO) and a
Program Area Manager at MPG, the following report identifies key
relationship issues with IC Companys A/S and its customers and
business units such as the RO.
The key finding of these interviews included the following relationship
features:
← The perception of ITP/RO relationship
← Understanding the relationship of ITP/RO
← Understanding the role of ITP department
Overall the relationship of ITP/RO is seen to be at a good level
governed via the Service Level Agreement (SLA) with ITS and through
project management of the new application implementation with
MPG. The role of SPA was not clear and there was no direct
interaction of SPA staff and the RO. Few improvements could be made
to ensure the success of the ITP/RO relationship, which include:
← Improvement of the measurement of customer satisfaction
← Improve the process of ITP service delivery to its customers
← Improve end-user involvement with new project implementation
and expand on communication with them
← Improve the strategic ITP involvement with RO
← Improve communication among the ITP divisions
IC COMPANYS IN BRIEF
IC Companys A/S is a Danish public limited company created through the merger of
Carli Gry International A/S and InWear Group A/S on 30 April 2001.
The company designs and sells a strong product portfolio of clothing targeting quality-
conscious women and men all over the world under the brands of Peak Performance,
InWear, Jackpot, Tiger of Sweden, Cottonfield, Matinique, Part Two, Saint Tropez, By
Malene Birger, Soaked in Luxury and Designers Remix Collection.
IC Companys A/S is one of the largest clothing companies in northern Europe with 18
subsidiaries located throughout most of Europe, in Canada and in Hong Kong.
IC Companys creates a portfolio of 11 strong brands supported by a number of corporate
functions such as sourcing, distribution, sales logistics, HR, IT, marketing, finance and
administration.
IC Companys has 10,500 wholesale distribution points in more than 40 countries.
Furthermore the company has 259 company-owned shops in 13 countries and 22 factory
outlets.
Approximately 2,200 employees work at IC Companys.
IC Companys had a turnover of DKK 3,022 million in the financial year ended 30 June
2006, of which DKK 2,098 million was wholesale turnover and DKK 924 million was
retail turnover.
Background Information
How is Information Technology Service provided
IC Companys A/S IT department has been formed to assist the
organization’s CIO, in the effective provision of IT services across the
organization and its out sourcing office via three departments:
Information Technology Services (ITS), Major Projects Group (MPG)
and Strategic Planning and Architecture (SPA).
Research Office
The Research Office Information Systems Profile
IC Companys research office was established in 2002 on the basis of
formula driven block grants. Each of the relevant formulae has
research performance as a key component. The RO currently
maintains 5 separate systems. The data integrity from current
organizational systems used to determine research performance is
poor as the systems are obsolete (~10 years old in some cases,
lacking Y2K compliance in one instance and not compatible with
current operating systems) and are not integrated within the office
nor with other remote office systems. Similarly, current systems are
not sufficiently sophisticated to ensure full compliance with European
reporting requirements.
Since all RO processes involve a level of reporting – whether
internally to management/committees, funding various SBU’s &
overseas office, existing systems have no comprehensive reporting
functionality to meet such demand requiring significant manual re-
work to provide essential reports.
A new application implementation is underway and will provide vastly
increased data integrity and enable compliance by replacing multiple
existing systems and integrating with other relevant standard
organisation thus removing a significant amount of duplication, and
risk of error, and ensuring all necessary information required to be
reported is captured. This will also lead to greater efficiencies within
Research Office processes allowing resources to be allocated to
increasing total research income and publications reported by the
organisation.
In the process of collecting the above IS background about the RO
from the IT Manager at the RO, I have also interviewed the IT
Manager; an IT staff member directly reporting to the IT manager; the
Research Grants Administration Manager and the Ethics Manager to
investigate and learn more about the perceptions of ITP service
provision. To analyze ITP’s relationship with the RO, I have asked the
following generic questions:
← 1. What do they expect/need from ITP – what services, products,
systems etc?
2. How does the ITP helps IC Companys business unit to do their jobs?
← 3. In terms of function and service delivery – what does ITP do
well?
← 4. What are the areas where the ITP could add more value?
1. What is the expectation/need from the
ITP - what services, products, systems etc?
The three managers and the IT member staff share a common view of
their need of ITP services, including:
← Professional, responsive desktop support for Windows and
Macintosh platforms;
← Professional, responsive server support (web hosting, file
sharing, backups, database hosting);
← Advice and assistance with software procurement and licensing;
← Advice and assistance with hardware specifications and
procurement/leasing;
← Advice and assistance with planning and implementation of
standard operating environment for business units;
← Advice, assistance and training on best practice for
management and maintenance of business unit IT infrastructure;
← Maintenance of network infrastructure;
← Maintenance of PABX and telephony infrastructure;
← Maintenance and support of enterprise systems;
← Project management expertise for large-scale system
implementations.
2. How does the ITP helps IC Companys
business unit to do their jobs?
According to the IT manager, ITP helps the RO do their job via
← Service level agreements (SLA) for and the provision of desktop
and server support;
← Provision of files shares and associated backups;
← Provision of web and database hosting;
← Maintenance of network and telephone infrastructure;
← Maintenance and support of existing enterprise systems
← Project management expertise via MPG (application
implementation project).
3. In terms of function and service delivery -
what does ITP do well?
According to the IT manager, events and initiatives organized by the
IT Providers are a boon, from both knowledge and networking
perspectives. Furthermore, ITS’s desktop support and server support
are generally done well. Problems raised are usually resolved within
acceptable timeframes. Project management services provided by
MPG for the implementation of the new application project have been
outstanding. This finding is in alignment to a report published as
advice for the CIO that “IT departments score best at solving IT
problems (a 70.4 percent approval rating) and delivering projects on
budget (65.6 percent)”.
4. What are the areas where the IT Portfolio
could add more value in terms of
relationship to business?
According to the IT staff member, there is an opportunity to add
value via the creation, maintenance and communication of a set of
recommended hardware specifications and list of preferred hardware
vendors. Furthermore, the IT manager explained that there is an
opportunity to assist business units in organizing cost-effective
leasing arrangements for hardware.
Furthermore, the IT manager insisted that there is room to provide
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of detailed statistics relating to
service calls to the Help Desk as it would add immense value for
the RO by allowing them to:
← Assist in the identification of common, recurring or ongoing
problems that might point to hardware or software issues, or to the
need for additional training;
← Track response times against commitments made in service
level agreements managed by ITS (where SLA commitments are not
met some form of support credit should be given to the business unit,
otherwise there is no incentive for ITS to meet the SLA);
← Engage in expectation management among our user groups by
providing
documentary evidence of positive outcomes.
Furthermore, according to the business managers at the RO, their
staff often reported frustration in dealing with the Help Desk. While
it is appreciated that Help Desk staff at ITS are doing a difficult job
with limited resources, but on some occasions business unit staff
have received incomplete or incorrect advice from the Help Desk. On
other occasions communication between the Help Desk, desktop
support and/or server support teams has not been effective, with
issues appearing to fall through the cracks when referred between
teams.
The IT manager explained that communication from the desktop and
server support teams at ITS is lacking at times, which leads to a
general lack of confidence in the responsiveness and efficacy of
desktop and server support. ITS could add significant value for
business units by improving their communication relating to the
resolution of service calls. In many cases the causes and solutions of
issues are not effectively communicated to business unit staff. In
cases where issues could not be quickly resolved, ITS often does not
effectively communicate the reasons for any delay. In the worst
instances, ITS projects to the business unit the appearance of not
working towards a resolution of the outstanding issue.
Moreover, the business managers noted that MPG could immensely
add business value if they involve them and their staff in scheduling
for project activities. MPG was very demanding on end-user schedule
to meet project activities and deadlines during peak workload cycles
indicating poor MPG-RO business unit relationship.
Analysis of the Business and IT Relationship
The issue of relationship is significant success factor for the
implementation of the project. It is no longer sufficient to coordinate
with the IT department, but it requires getting the buy in from line
executives. Once a relationship is formed it is important that this
relationship is managed.
For example, according to the manager of the business units neither
MPG nor the IT manager at the RO discussed with them the strategic
role for IT to play, or that a degree of business development over the
next few years is dependant on an IT enabler. In contrast, while the IT
manager at the RO receives support from his Director on IT/business
strategic alignment, the IT manager believes that his department is
perceived by RO units more as a technical Help Desk service
department rather than an ally to find out what IT can do in terms of
the business.
Another key factor in ensuring that the relationship of business and IT
is maintained is to manage negativity by providing services based on
support and trust. Leaders must demonstrate concern for people and
practice integrity to build trust. Another impediment is that IT staff
are typically perceived as technologist first and business focused
second. Whilst an IT staff is often judged by his/her technical skills
and the ability to deliver the required IT goods and services, recent
trends require IT staff to be closer to the strategic objectives of the
organization and demonstrate leadership in par with other business
managers. Hence, IT management becomes about people, not
technology. The paradox is that IT staff such as ITS work in the
technical path and do not identify and develop people and relationship
skills early enough in their careers.
When asked about ITP enterprise leadership, the RO IT manager
explained in words similar to Pastore (1999) that ITP functions “within
a miasma of maybes, as politics and personalities work to obscure the
best course of action”. The perception is that Directors of the three
ITP divisions have political issues that they “don’t assemble all
resources they need. They try to deliver what they can with what
they’ve got, but it’s never going to be enough to satisfy
expectations.” . Furthermore, none of the interviewees at the RO
knew what SPA’s role was and have never interacted with its staff.
They were also unaware about existing strategic planning
methodologies committed at SPA.
These findings are also in alignment to a survey conducted of IT
managers by Enterprise-works Web site, where it has been identified
that limited resources, length of time, poor IT-Business relationship
and poor strategic planning methodologies are the top barriers in
implementing IT in an organization.
ITP acknowledge its weaknesses. According to a Program Area
Manager at MPG supervising the project implementation at the RO,
an initiative is required in response to the concerns with the current
method of ITP service delivery. As also explained, ITP suffers from
service delivery issues that include:
← Diffused and disorganized service delivery to deploy the
appropriate expertise at the right place and right time;
← Lack of formalized management of a consultative service (i.e.
policies,
procedures, documentation);
← The service is not responsive to the changing needs of our
customers;
← Inappropriate service quality levels;
← Potential loss of credibility through poor or inconsistent
delivery;
← Poor communication of existing services, communication
structures, processes and buy in;
← Inappropriate use of resources;
← An environment that encourages ‘feral’ system and
methodologies;
← Lack of transparency – users don’t know how ITP works;
← Lack of user involvement in projects;
← Lack of ‘clean’ handovers from MPG to ITS;
← Relying on individual relationships rather than process: ITP can
impact all of the above causes;
← Role ambiguity – relationships between roles and lack of
ownership;
← Lack of publicised definition of services; and
← ITP tension/turf issues/relationships
Conclusion & Recommendation’s:
Required Areas of Improvement
ITP strategy should be based on consolidating and redefining a range
of services by leveraging existing people, knowledge and solutions
and enables development of new services using a structured
methodology. From the interviews conducted, identified areas of
deficiencies that requires further improvements to ensure that the
current ITP/RO relationship develop and grow include: 1-Account /
Relationship Management – As discussed earlier, not only ITP has a
fragmented approached to service delivery, which can cause a
duplicate in effort [vendor, ITS, MPG], it also lacks ‘end to end’
problem resolution and accountability. There is also the end-user
confusion about ‘who to talk to’. This puts impediments to
development of good relationships with end-user and does not meet
end-user expectations of the service and reduces confidence in ITS
capability. The recommended strategy is to introduce an account
manager role [MPG, ITS] and integrate it with Help Desk – problem
management; escalation; reporting and involve client in development
of strategy. The strategy entails developing a profile of ITP clients
including all services provided to them. The objective is to:
← Improve customer satisfaction by implementation of account
management services for ‘key customers’ or services;
← Improved customer satisfaction and confidence in ITP;
← More unified ITP;
← Improve communication;
← Revisit the SLA and project charters to better manage user
expectation; and
← More efficiency: reduce duplication of effort; less time; reduce
costs
2-The perception of IT and Advice Service – It is becoming
essential to develop a standardised process for Service Delivery
within ITP and to change the current process. As IT departments
“strive to develop and deliver valuable services to the customers, the
required IT processes must be highly flexible and integrated,
implement a robust process measurements, define needs customer
linkages and provide required reporting mechanisms.” (Drake, 2000).
In order to do so, ITP has to restructure its teams to perform in a
process that crosses functional or organisational boundaries (Drake,
2000). It also requires developing internal portfolio wide processes to
support the role and to communicate more efficiently to client at a
senior executive and end-user levels.
Figure 2 Proposed ITP Service Delivery
Wider University community e.g. RO
3-Communication – While communication is to a good level for
senior managers at the RO, this could be improved upon to other
business units and end-users at the RO. Furthermore, the objective is
to:
← Improve the presentation of the Web sites of ITP to cater for the
end-user
← Measure output
Accountability through KPIs such as:
o All expenditure on projects is founded on business case
o Role defined, approved, filled and delivering
o All SLAs to include clear statements around end-to-end service
management
o Service quality (as rated by customers) is benchmarked
o Enhanced service delivery