IT Strategic Plan

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Southern New Hampshire University *

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550

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Management

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Jan 9, 2024

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docx

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13

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1 IT Strategic Plan Molly Richard Professor Ahmed Munu Management of Info Technology November 18, 2023
2 Structure and Organization The current IT organization for Vermont Teddy Bears is comprised of “Bob and his seven person IT organization” (Peak experiences and strategic IT alignment at Vermont Teddy Bear). The IT organization seems to use a Flat organizational structure with Bob Stetzel at the top. Bob Stetzel, the Vice President of Information Technology for Vermont Teddy Bears, oversees the IT organization while the other employees are at the same level as each other. Some of the employees has narrower expertise than the rest of the group, but they all work together at the same level in the organizational structure. Bob would be the person to make the final decisions when it comes to the IT organization. Vermont Teddy Bears communicates with the customers “via telephone, mail-order, and the Web” (Peak experiences and strategic IT alignment at Vermont Teddy Bear). The customers place an order using one of the three communication methods and the information is stored in the company’s Information Systems. The System is made out of “comprising a mix of homegrown and packaged applications from a variety of vendors, and knit together with middleware” (Peak experiences and strategic IT alignment at Vermont Teddy Bear). Customer Profile The customers who buy from Vermont Teddy Bears, 65% are men looking to buy gifts for their wife/girlfriend/mother around the important holidays such as Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day and 35% are women. The company started expanding into more products for females to bring in more of the female clientele. This is a large customer community since the company has both men and women as customers. The primary customers for the organization will have to be the men that the employees refer to as “‘Late Jack,’ an internal moniker describing men who
3 ordered bears at the last minute instead of buying flowers or chocolates for girlfriends, wives, or mothers” (Peak experiences and strategic IT alignment at Vermont Teddy Bear). Those customers though only buy during the holidays, which is not cost effective for the company. The high increased volume of customers only during those times can cause the information system to slow down/freeze, which is an IT-related issue. The demographic profile of the customers tends to be middle-aged (ages 20-64) men who are married/dating. IT Values The IT organization does not have anything in place to handle intellectual property rights. If an employee were to leave, “they would walk away with important knowledge about the company’s IT applications or infrastructure, which had not yet been captured or codified” (Peak experiences and strategic IT alignment at Vermont Teddy Bear). The IT organization is focused on giving the employees/customers the enhancements to any processes they needed / wanted. This shows that the IT organization values its customers and the customers’ opinions. The customer’s data gathered through the company’s system goes through many different applications which are connected to each other using middleware. The company uses applications (such as Circle Commerce) to be able to handle the whole system process (including Order Management and Order Fulfillment). There currently don’t seem to be any policies that are in place for the IT organization. Internal Standards Right now, the IT organization is doing what is requested of them, but not the proper way. The baseline for appropriate practice is set low since there are no formal processes implemented in the company. The employees would stop working on high priority projects to work on little
4 enhancements instead of having them wait until the larger project is completed as well as not fully filling out the proper paperwork. This has caused application development and implementation of updates to not have enough time to happen. Bob realized this and is trying to put a procedure into effect. Bob Stetzel created a “a complete, current catalog of all computing hardware and shared applications in use” as well as a putting in a process where the IT organization will have to properly fill out an IT Architect Document and stopping all new projects until the system is working properly. IT Vision The IT organization is very important to Vermont Teddy Bears. Vermont Teddy Bears uses a bunch of different technologies to run the company. The IT organization is needed to make sure that all the technology used functions as efficiently as possible throughout Vermont Teddy Bears ordering process. The customers can place their orders via technology like telephones and the Web and then the customer/order information is gathered and stored in different technological applications. The IT organization should be both in the support role, supporting the processes that are already created, and in the directive role, creating new processes to take over the older ones to help them run faster and more efficiently. The easier to use and smoother the processes are, the more customers the business will be able to keep/gain. IT Mission Our organization’s mission is to: provide the best technological solutions to efficiently help the business’ processes run as smoothly as possible to help gain/keep consumers.
5 SWOT Analysis: Strengths The new Chief Information Officer (CIO), Bob Stetzel, has many different years of experience in different fields of technology. o Bob Stelzel has worked “ for 12 years as a database analyst and administrator at the Holstein Association in Vermont, 2 years in a similar role at Fleet Bank, and 10 years as Vice President of Business Information Services at Yankee Candle Company” (Peak experiences and strategic IT alignment at Vermont Teddy Bear). The IT department employees have a general expertise within the company’s current technological systems in place. The core transaction-processing infrastructure is strong and forward-thinking, which causes good practices. o Vermont Teddy Bear has “ good practices in password management and recovery mechanisms” (Peak experiences and strategic IT alignment at Vermont Teddy Bear). SWOT Analysis: Weaknesses Troubleshooting is taking priority over other projects. o The IT department “spent too much time troubleshooting, leaving little time to develop new applications or implement new versions of packaged software” (Peak experiences and strategic IT alignment at Vermont Teddy Bear). The company uses multiple different types of middleware based off the employees’ personal preferences.
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