Organisation and management in the network era
The following report contains a brief look into MAS holdings, the company’s history, how they have grown and developed and how they have succeeded in numerous ventures. The report then goes on to address the following questions:
1. Outline the key leadership issues confronting MAS Holdings.
2. In terms of this case, how can the CIO assist in gaining senior management support for IT initiatives?
3. In reviewing an organisation of your choice, discuss the role played by the CIO and CEO when leading an IT initiative within their respective company
An introduction to MAS Holdings
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The divisions are brought together under a common vision and corporate governance by MAS Corporate Solutions. A successful spin off from the apparel market was MAS Investments which include two IT consulting companies, the Corporate Branding and Retail unit and a diversified investment portfolio.
A brief history review shows that in 1990, Mast Industries entered into a joint venture, setting up shadow line. The next big leap for MAS Holdings came in 1992 when it entered into a joint-venture partnership with Triumph International and Mast Industries to set up Bodyline, which continues to be its single largest plant for manufacturing intimate in the area.
Slimline, a company which emerged in 1993 as a joint venture with Mast Industries and Courtaulds Clothing (UK), has been a key sourcing arm of M&S and went on to establish benchmarks for excellence in employee relations and put MAS Holdings firmly on the global map.The first overseas venture for MAS Holdings was Linea Clothing in the Maldives in 1996. Since then, the group has continued to make strategic investments overseas with operations spanning five countries. MAS Holdings initiated vertical integration within the Sri Lankan apparel industry with its joint venture with Mast Industries and Charnwood Elastics (UK) to establish Stretchline, the country’s premier supplier of elastics, in 1996. Stretchline is now a globally recognised brand for narrow performance
Over the last 129 years M&S has grown from a single market stall to become an international multi-channel retailer. They now operate in over 50 territories worldwide and employ almost 82,000 people. Remaining true to their founding values of Quality, Value, Service, Innovation and Trust, we work hard to ensure our
MAs understand that service to others is the highest calling one can have. They respond by doing work that is useful and helpful to others.
In the period up until the mid 1990's M&S had a market leading share of the clothing market. They used their resources and subsequent capabilities to exploit their differences from the competitors and create competitive advantage by:
Marks and Spencer is one of the most famous garment retail organizations based in UK. It started its journey in the year of 1894 with its first office in Cheetham Hill, Manchester. In the beginning the business was a family owned business and achieved a great success in all their stores located in various high and significant streets of UK (Campbell & Rahman, 2010). The business achieved a great popularity among the customers due to its good quality products in affordable prices. Though, after the change of the ownership of the business when the major shares of the business got occupied by its major share holders like big insurance companies and organizations the business structure and strategy were changed deeply (Davenport, 2009). Initially
IT Organizational Restructure is necessary for the current IT department to be developed into a CIO organization. Outlining a new framework and identifying roles and responsibilities will help to shape an effective organization to be in a better situation to support the company’s goals. It will also better align the current and future IT investments and
Similar to Cisco and Tektronix, the previous legacy CRM systems in Cigna were independent of each other and outdated. The CIO was keen to improve the efficiency of the business operation through IT and to consolidate the system plans through developing them internally. Cigna needed to move IT into the turnaround mode in order to meet customer and legal demands. As such, there was a need for an IT governance structure to ensure broad based, multi-level participation by all stakeholders in IT Governance (Rau, 2004), the selected roles and responsibilities within and external to IT & the relationship amongst these components. No such governance council was established in Cigna which would seem to have resulted in all IT related decisions falling onto the shoulders of the CIO without having additional support of other senior managers. In addition, without the IT council being in place, it did not seem to be asked as to whether or not the CIO had the experience to handle such a project. Based on the fact that she was an internal recruit, it is unlikely that she had previous experience as IT lead on such a project. There were unrealistic expectations placed on the IT department by senior management
The information systems project steering committee, chief information officer (CIO), and an independent consultant should be involved in the decision-making process. The steering committee is responsible for every information system acquisition project in the facility. The CIO is responsible for all information resource management function at the facility. The independent consultant who is familiar with the different system can provide useful feedback about selecting a system (Sayles & Trawick, 2014,
1. Propose an organizational structure for the IT department that you feel would support the transformation of AgCredit into a process-centric organization.
Copyright 2009 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America This chapter was originally published as chapter 1 of The Adventures of an IT Leader, copyright 2009 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the
IT and technological awareness will always be two of the prime strengths of a CIO, but many have had to change their philosophy to make up for a lack in managerial aspects. While jobs in the past were often black and white and strictly technical, current problems require more creative solutions. Problems today often involve people rather than equipment and require direct management. Sometimes all the information will not be there and the CIO will need to make a decision on what is available at that moment. CIOs are increasingly taking a larger role when it comes to creating a business strategy.
Marks and Spencer (M&S) p.l.c. is one of the largest retailers in the United Kingdom with a selling space of 12.5 million square feet, was established in 1884 as ‘Penny bazaar’. M&S sells clothing, food, footwear, gifts and home furnishings in its 760 stores around the world. The company’s wholly own and franchise stores operates in Europe, Hong Kong, Far East, Australia, Middle East, the Bahamas and Bermuda making a total of 34 countries.
Richter’s CIO is facing two major decisions – is the current IT structure appropriate to meet the growing demands of the overall organization and to what extent should IT at affiliates be centrally controlled.
Additionally, the information regarding CIOS changing with some measure of ordinariness exhibits that a feasible CIO has not been put set up, it has all the earmarks of being as they are all things considered exorbitantly particular and not able to see the timberland through the tress the degree that taking apart with the business. Though the structure themself is a limitation of IT, the way that persons who are both IT and commercial cunning have not remained put into executive positions is a decreasing level of the business adjacent of association. CITATION Luc13 \l 1033 (Lucasdebartolo, 2013)Recommended plan for Savvy Store program
The income of mas is mainly generated from logistics and secondary activities such as aircrafts maintenances as well as technology development by coordinating the two it can help Mas to have a lower cost structure hence increase the value of the outcome product it can also help Mas to compete better in the aviation industry by understanding the connection between the value chain activities. Another important aspect is the issue of proper coordination with their union in the aviation industry, the consumers as well as their suppliers can help to add up the bonding between the companies. The improvement of primary and secondary activities by mas can have a positive impact on Mas because it can help Mas because it can help Mas to have higher profit which can be gained in the