Communications Is A Service Provider With Multiple Business Segments

In the “Mini Case Study: IT Planning at ModMeters”, it is clear that the communication skills between the business managers and the IT managers were in need of improvement. IT planning is a method used to form clear objectives for IT organizations that connect directly back to the enterprise’s strategic business goals (“IT planning”, 2014). IT strategic planning assists in directing the business strategy, based on IT capabilities and opportunities and determines IT’s role in delivering the business strategy. There is a clear lack of communication and individual opinions on taking ModMeters global. Although CEO John Johnson and other high leveled corporate employees believed the idea was promising and seemed to look good on paper, Brian Smith, CIO of ModMeters had different thoughts on the expansion. Brian Smith knew that although the new initiatives were theoretically doable; however with such tight resources including people, time, and money, he knew that finding the means to support two new strategic initiatives was nearly impossible (McKeen, J.D., & Smith, H.A., 2012, p. 69). There seemed to be a major lack of communication when planning the new initiatives and the miscalculation of funds to do it successfully.

In order to leverage IT for the benefit of the whole organization enterprise architecture must be developed to oversee IT strategy. Centralizing IT strategy at the start of the new business strategies will be important to make sure IT and business are working together with common goals that deliver the most value. The following steps are to be completed within each department:

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:

National Computer Operations (NCO) was an internal, monopolizing computer support entity that was faced with a challenge which was presented by the new banks chainman. The change, which was to take effect in 2 years, was that NCO could now market externally and all the internal departments could buy computer services from outside firms (Spector, 2013, p. 73). How was the company leader, Gar Finnvold, going to overcome these changes? The following essay will discuss a step by step diagnosis for the organization, as well as, who and what tools will be utilized. Additionally, the essay will describe who and what tools will be utilized.

Currently their information system (IS) is not fully centralized and this is causing a lot of problem in their expansion and cross-company

When the CEO launches two new strategic initiatives requiring integration across all business units, the organization – whose IT decisions have been largely delegated to its business units in proportion to their revenue generating capacity – now faces the dilemma of how to prioritize its IT projects in order to support the new strategic “enterprise” vision.

Reflect on your reading for the week, specifically Analytical Exercise 8. Is another form of structural configuration better suited to multiproduct, multiservice companies? If not, is there a form of departmentalization for multiproduct, multiservice companies which would match somewhat the divisional structure configuration?"

After reading the case, one continues to come up with new problems and issues along the way that are related to information technologies. The three main problems we encountered in this case are lack of IT knowledge, inappropriate planning, and ineffective and inefficient Resource Management. Each of these issues requires specific attention to fix the next problem and so forth. The solution to attack each individual problem or issue will be explained as follows.

Before the nineties the Coca-Cola company was having a centralize system of control, but after sometime they realized that if they had to meet the demands of the customers they should adopt a decentralized system in which the authority of decision making is distributed between different managers so that every sector can be managed effectively. This system was implemented in the nineties by the company’s board of directors. Now the organization is having two groups who are responsible for operating:

2.Align the organizational structures of the company by establishing profit centers. Focus the ERP system on worldwide CRM. Adjust the compensation system to reward brand thinking and brand management.

How effective is the collaboration between business and IT at Hefty Hardware? Determine the deficiency of both business and IT.

The partnership at Hefty Hardware between IT and the business is not effective. One of the core problems faced by Hefty Hardware was the lack of a productive, working relationship between the company’s IT and business divisions. The four building blocks needed for a foundation on which a solid relationship could be constructed; competence, credibility, interpersonal interactions, and trust, were not present between the two divisions (McKeen & Smith, 2012). The business division felt IT lacked competence when dealing with business needs, demonstrated by the IT department not having knowledge of Hefty Hardware’s basic business concerns, goals or processes.

A company will face a constant struggle to avoid the extremes of under-organizing and over-organizing. All service providers have a built-in tendency to get out of balance organizationally on one side or the other. In the under-organized company, its leaders struggle largely with efficiency: how to get things done. Due to inadequate

Fiona Balloch requested the report to be generated to provide information on the structure of Joy of Chocolate and CG Chocolates. The purpose of the