IT Management Capability Essay

IM/IT governance helps the organization make business decisions more accurately and in a timelier manner (Glandon, Smaltz, Slovensky, 2008). In order to complete this, five general guidelines were created. They are as follows: Develop a consistent IT strategy, Align IT Planning with Organizational Planning, Develop IT Infrastructure, Architecture and Policies, Set IT Project

Foundation of IT in a place is very crucial for most business. Organizations can use IT resource to create innovative and strategic process that helps business to reach beyond the status quo. Organization without new technologies resources can lose momentum and fall behind in competition. On the other hand, organizations with effective and updated technologies remain competent and superior; get competitive advantage thus acquire and maintain their big market share.

The mini-case starts with “IT is a pain in the neck,” which is a wrong notion that most of the business managers have in an organization. The history of IT-business relationships in most of the organizations shows that there is a huge gap between both sides which is getting better over a period of time. Today, managers know the fact that it is the people, technology and information that realizes the value of a company and everytime IT cannot be blamed for everything. The days have gone when IT was looked at as the sole responsibility for a company’s growth or downfall. IT processes along with the

I.T governance can be implemented by using a mixture of strategies which involve structure, process and relationship mechanisms. When implementing I.T governance it is very important to understand that every organisation is different and have different internal and external factors which may be conflicting. There for there needs to be a mix of the right of mechanisms. This can often be a very complex and challenging task. One mix of strategies may not work for another company and may need different structures, relationship and process mechanisms. To help show the relationship between each mechanism the Peterson model can be used. The structures section of the framework entails the functions IT executives and IT communities are responsible for. Processes involve monitoring and making of strategic decisions. Relationship mechanisms control participation between I.T and business sectors, shared learning and also communication.

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.

The new process that was instituted to prioritize IT projects at Volkswagen of America is very well organized. It takes an IT project and looks at it from multiple aspects, from business to IT. It also allows for several departmental entities to play a more active role in tying in business objectives with stated benefits of the IT project. As stated in Applegate, “IT governance is the effort to devise an overarching and integrated approach, addressing broad themes such as operating performance, strategic control, risk management, and values alignment.” (Applegate, 403) In

It deals with planning for, development, management, and use of information technology tools to help people perform all tasks related to information processing and management.

In 2003 when Nicholas Carr wrote the article “IT Doesn’t Matter” companies were just beginning to utilize information technology as a competitive advantage. Mr. Carr contends that technology is not a permanent advantage because in time the competition will acquire the same resources and Information Technology (IT) just becomes another commodity. For the majority of companies throughout the world IT resources have become easily accessible and affordable. If Mr. Carr’s opinion is correct then the equality of IT access has just become a cost of doing

To begin with, heterogeneity of capabilities and resources of firms, which is explained as “enduring and systematic performance differences among relatively close rivals”, provides a foundation of the resource-based view (Song, et al.,2006). The implication of this assumption is that core competence conveys the valuable and unique feature of products to customers. The RBV disagrees with the opinion that the resources are homogeneous; if homogeneity is assumed to be essential to develop a proper strategy, the strategy can be easily copied by competitors, which will ultimately result in the dissipation of above-normal rents. Conversely, the unique and fixed resources on hand will lead to outstanding performance and ultimately turn to be a competitive advantage, under the circumstances that sustainable competitive advantage is achieved in an environment where competition does not exist.

In this paper, using both the position- based and resource- based views, we develop a framework for analyzing the contribution of IT in the logistics sector. We conclude that IT will contribute to competitive advantage in limited cases and that most often the “strategic necessity” hypothesis will apply. We suggest a dual approach to information technology strategic management: on one hand, the firm should develop the capability to implement efficiently some “standard” solutions on an opportunity-based approach; on the other hand, it should embed its IT system in the organization with a strong top management commitment and a clear strategic alignment.

Competitive advantage is explained by Mahoney and Pandian (1992) as the function of industry analysis, organizational governance and the firm’s effects in the form of resource advantages and strategies. In order for a firm to be competitive it must adapt to the volatile business environment and through strategic management decisions establish a competitive advantage that will ultimately produce superior performance relative to its competitors (Akimova 2000).

Information Technology (IT) budgeting has become a constant struggle for companies, both big and small. The speed at which technology becomes obsolete, management’s expectations for quick deployment of new technology, and a supplier’s change of their operating model to focus on “as-a-service” (Feldman, 2015) recurring revenue, greatly affect how IT departments approach their budget these days. Other factors such as; lack of company vision or one’s inability to see how their IT department fits into the corporation’s goals and expectations are all huge pitfalls for the IT manager. The inability for IT and finance divisions to

generally portrayed as a technical issue, and seen as being primarily concerned with communication network and technological infrastructures. Consequently, in practice responsibility is usually delegated by senior business managers to technically competent staff in the information technology (IT) organization. The irony is that decisions about IT are essentially business decisions. Further, there is confusion with regard to the use of the phrase ‘international technology management’ as it is generally conveyed as being concerned with research and development (R&D), innovation and technology (defined in terms of knowledge) transfer. The objective of this paper is to contribute to our understanding of IS/IT management in the global enterprise and consequently the development of this subfield of research. By drawing on a diverse

The researcher focused on managing IT assets only because past and existing manual systems had too many loopholes which resulted in the organization losing valuable IT assets due to theft and or abuse by employees. Unlike other tangible assets of the organization IT assets have a shorter life span and often switch many hands within a short period of time hence difficult in most cases to trace their whereabouts.

Therefore, IT managers need effective management systems and processes to help them deal with the issues and challenges inherent in their responsibilities. Feeny and Willcocks (1998) suggested that core IS competencies are needed to assist the development of IT, measurable in terms of IT activities supported, and resulting business performance. Figure 1 shows the 9 core IS competencies. The research carried out indicated that in order to have a successful IT function there are four major tasks which need to be accomplished. These include: co-ordination and leadership; ensuring technical capability; managing the external supply; and meeting the business’s requirements.