How Effective Is The Partnership Between It And The Business At Hefty Hardware?

The purpose of this article is to illuminate the need for any organization to have its IT strategy and business strategy properly aligned. While many organizations view IT and business alignment as an event – it is actually an on-going process, or continuous journey. Therefore, the main problem is that many organizations of today still hold these two principles (business mission & IT strategy) as two separate entities. However, in the Information Age – collaboration is key to capturing and retaining market penetration. To not have alignment with the IT and business strategy together is not a matter of want it is a matter of survival. This report will expand upon the need for business and IT strategic alignment as well as examine what happens in lack of a comprehensive plan. This will be done by examining the Vermont Teddy Bear company prior to and after the arrival of Bob Stetzel, the Vice President of Information Technology. This document will view it findings and make recommendations on the immediate and future operations of the company.

Communicating in Teams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Lack of communication (mutual interaction) and dearth of reciprocal influence becomes evident as we go through the case. Also, Team members shared limited information which

Hefty Hardware Case Study has two main issues they were the communication gap between the business and IT departments. Due to this misunderstandings business department complained on IT department on taking long time on the project. After the analysis, there were two solutions provided to unwind the two problems. They are to inculcate unity in the teams in both departments by conducting training sessions which would help them to work together towards the goals of the organization. Other solution was to conduct effective communication sessions which would help the two departments in keeping pace with the current and past issues and helps them to understand what’s happening in the organization. In this way even the IT department can improve their

Group member cohesiveness was absent from the group meeting for several reasons, but the primary reasons were due to the fact that the group members did not have a common description of value or structure to the discussion. Each member viewed their own area of involvement within the organization as being more valuable than any other area, and it was this exclusion of other valuable traits that lead the group to begin to clash in such a

To fabricate an establishment so the IT and business divisions can grow a strong relationship, I would prescribe Hefty Hardware put resources into a continuous group building preparing program. Group building projects would enable the two groups to interface and bond together, fully. The advantage of a group-building program is that it would permit the current IT and business division faculty to construct a confiding in, useful, and agreeable condition utilizing group building works out (Baum, 2011).

In the market today, business is showing growing interest to partner with IT to make sure they get the value for investing huge in technology. But, still there is a gap between the two departments and the IT folks think that they do not have enough support from the business to ensure the value is realized for the organization. A good example of deep integration of IT and business is the recent firing of the Apple maps chief. The ill-fated Apple maps was the failure of both the IT folks who couldn’t develop an efficient app for maps and also the business who couldn’t gather all the requirements and couldn’t manage the project to achieve the desired output. As a result, the Apple exec Richard Williamson was blamed and fired for the disastrous project and humiliation for the organization.

iPremier’s IT was in the offensive quadrant /strategic mode of the IT strategic grid and to detriment remained at stage one of the evolution of IT governance (Nolan and McFarlan, 2003, Rau, 2004). All of their business was conducted online with highly affluent clientele, therefore any service loss/failure could have detrimental effects on the business in a very competitive industry sector. I have identified business continuity, governance and performance measurement issues as the three key factors that led to the iPremier crisis.

|Willumsen |Case study |Interpersonal and |Situation changes over time; |Different professions and |Coordinating team meetings |

When doing so the other group members were active listener, by using their whole body verbally and nonverbal. Like facing the speaker and giving eye contact and try to avoided interruption. The group also acknowledges the thoughts of the speaker by giving constructive feed back. Due to the effectiveness of the group communication, we were able to build trust, respect and understand the issues and make decision for effective change. We illustrate this by coming together as a group one again to accomplish the goal we initially wanted to accomplish. Since the first organization that we had chosen was incorrect, so we had to make the necessary changes to accomplish our goals. The other effective feature is the purpose of the group. Kozier et al (2010) stated that the effective group purpose is when “goal, task, and outcomes are clarified. Understanding and modified so that members of the group can commit themselves to purposes through cooperation” (p.401). For instance, each individual was assign a task and knew what was to be accomplished. As group we all decided to meet at suitable day and time which was beneficial to all team members, because we could commit to the group and focus on what needed to be achieved.

Hefty Hardware’s perspective is to exhibit a business procedure known as savvy store confronting tests. This has shown crashing viewpoints between IT specialists and organization of Hefty Hardware’s business functioning. Eventually undertaking the task has been an immense test. This is what the research attempt involves. This paper shows a peek view of the relationship between IT and Hefty Hardware’s business.

Conflict - this can cause problems in a team meeting or group if some members disagree on every aspect of what is being said.

Poor business alignment- Organizations were finding it more and more difficult to keep IT systems aligned with business needs

Levin (2005) suggests that the idea of a team is to share the same objectives. This may not always be the case if team members have never met before and are not fully clear of the task set. This can lead to confusion between members and may mean that some team members are unwilling to be told by their peers what to do. This is an example on ineffective team work.

* All the implementation was done in a short span of time hence company was not able to form a good skilled