Alcan IT: Implementation Case Study

This article makes up Chapter 1 of the free, open access book titled, Information Systems: A Manager's Guide to Harnessing Technology, by John Gallaugher. Please ensure that you read the entire Chapter 1 of the book consisting of 3 parts (Part 1 Introduction; Part 2 Don’t Guess, Gather Data; and Part 3 Moving Forward).

Seven veteran employees remain in the IT department, each specializing in a subsystem of the infrastructure. Informational silos exist, two additional employees were added to expand the operation. A team was charged to fully evaluate and understand the inner workings of the current infrastructure, particularly undocumented business logic implemented

In This case we see the typical problem which affect big Companies : the conflict between old style and new school of thought. We analyze Zara’s information Technology strategies and the diatribe between Salgado, The Head of the Department and Sanchez , his assistant,s concern upgrading the operating system and the implementation of a new IT system to fulfill the needs of a fast growing retail chain. Despite the fact that Zara is over performing in their core business and that they are not showing big problems inside their structure, this shouldn’t be seen as a pretense to dodge updating the Software. Here we

Like many of its most profitable competitors, Alcan has grown quickly through insightful series of mergers, acquisitions and rapid product development and launch strategies throughout the major markets it sells into. The company has settled on a highly decentralized divisional business model that has to the point of the case study served them well. Their IT systems are showing signs of massive overduplication of expense, with a $500M level of spending on enterprise applications with SAP being the majority. There are further signs of massive waste in their highly diversified organizational structure. There are 400 systems in the company all dedicated to pricing, a massive duplication of costs, time and effort on the part of IT across the five divisions. There are also over 1,000 concurrent enterprise-class IT systems being used throughout the company at any point in time. Conservatively speaking the company is spending 20% of their total enterprise software spend on maintenance costs alone. This is forcing the CIO, Robert Ouelette, to re-evaluate both the organizational structure and IT systems supporting it. The goals of this analysis are to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the existing application or IT management structure. An analysis of the proposal by Robert Ouelette is also provided along with an assessment of it potential effectiveness in solving the challenges is facing today.

The major goal is to integrate Information Systems/Information Technology with the corporate strategy to use information for better governance and management. This has improved with the connectivity and networking and also the shrinking cost- performance ratios in technology. IT governance thus is a result of the complete merger of computer and communications technologies, like data processing and high advancement in networks, and integrated systems. (Bloomfield; et al, 2000) To this extent the software of the stand alone systems have to be converted to a single functional system for all requirements and the system involves the creation of a network with the following functionality:

This paper analyzes Rock Solid Industrial Parts, Inc. using the McKenzie 7-S Model to clarify some of the key issues facing the company today and also identify the key to success for the company in the next few years. The analysis concerns the elements of strategy, structure, systems, staff, skills, style, and shared values that are important to the organizational performance. Based on the analysis, some changes need to be made to align with company 's needs to achieve its business objectives. The analysis provides recommendations for the implementation of new modern IT solutions to accelerate the growth of the business. Rock Solid Industrial Parts, Inc. will move forward in the industry with IT solutions for their business needs.

The pros and cons of the current Alcan technology infrastructure seemed to be heavier on the con side than the pro side. While the intent was to better the organization with the functions that were required on the IT side, however the result was something much different than what they anticipated. “Should you spend most of your technology budget on infrastructure, hosted applications, custom line-of-business applications, or what? It depends on the industry that the business is in. Generally, most businesses spend around half of their technology budget on infrastructure—computers, networking equipment, and Internet Service Providers” (I.T. in Business, n.d.). Mistakes were made in decisions concerning the technology infrastructure of

The major elements are cost efficiency, eliminating wastes, and researching future IT investments. In the IT Doesn’t Matter article, three main points were outlined, and they were spend less, follow, don’t lead, and focus on vulnerabilities, not opportunities. Overspending has always been a major issue in regards to applying new technology, and it is important to execute an IT budget for any organization. Office Depot adopted new technology to improve all of their operations, especially in the supply chain. They were able to increase efficiency, while modernizing their budget. Information technology can benefit any organization if they are researched thoroughly and will improve the business needs of the organization. If it will not improve the business needs, there is no need to invest in expensive technology. The most important phase in the system development life cycle is the systems analysis phase. The goal of this phase is to identify what problems need to be fixed and breaking down how the system will benefit all users. Therefore, the business needs need to be identified and outlined before new technology is adopted into an organization’s business model. Once new technology is applied, organizations must continue to research information technology. If organizations follow these elements of

Soon this calling grow to a level that demanded more resources than the small startup could not easily sustain. Information Technology needed to be improved to situation to enable the staff to leverage its promise for increased work flow. With the increased efficiency from an increase IT presence came the need for more from the knowledge on how to manage this resource. This

The objective of this study was to compare WestJet’s IT cost, resources, and budget to the industry standards. The observation was: WestJet’s IT was right on target regarding the total number of employees, but there were problems regarding the IT employees, firstly there were many IT employees who started their careers with WestJet and they only knew “The WestJet IT way”. Also, there was a mismatch in the number of employees within the skill sets as compared to other similar sized companies. System operations and procedure were somewhat matching to the industry standard but were not up to the mark. IT budget was the main concern, every month meetings were scheduled among the VPs of business unit and VP of IT regarding the negotiation of the priorities and resources, but business unit VPs were not able to prioritize the things which resulted in pressure on IT unit that eventually caused longer time in the execution of projects. The IT organization at WestJet was Structured as per the IT’s group’s conventional internal function of planning, Building, operating, maintaining and

The two key entities that were critical for the new software’s success were not supportive to Lassiter’s idea. Hedges and Kovecki considered the new system as Lassiter’s system rather than the organization’s system. The key members and the staff were not consulted and their feedback was not given importance during the entire process. As a result, it was not a team-work but rather a single man’s work which ultimately lost its track. The animosity and jealousy among the key business managers resulted in information systems politics where no one was ready to work together as a team. They had their differences and individual interests which of course led towards failure of new software implementation at Thibodaux chamber of commerce (Bhindi & Duignan,

The role played by the IT in the company to the rest of the organization is reactive to business conditions rather than a proactive approach. IT has been busy establishing several IT processes, policies, and projects in order to catch up with current demand from customers, and has been relying on the “diving catch” approach of finishing things at the very last minute.

Information Technology (IT): The hardware and software technologies a firm needs to achieve its business objectives (Kenneth C Laudon and Jane P Laudon., 2010).

All these factors are creating new challenges and new opportunities for businesses of all kinds and for the public sector. Adapting to the volatility and change is crucially dependent on, and in many cases driven by, IT. But to successfully meet these challenges and grasp these opportunities, you must focus on what you do best, not on becoming systems experts. Yet at the same time you must be 100 per cent certain that your IT support is efficient, cost effective and totally tuned to your needs.

There is a long term vision concerning the information strategy of the IT systems utilized by integrated manufacturing at Stryker Instruments. A thorough understanding of the organization, management, personnel, and the technologies that comprise the system was required to develop the information strategy of the company. The IT system employed by