Critique about information system - Article Example

Continuous IT innovation Shapes the Future of Financial Services Firm s Article Critic Continuous IT innovation Shapes the Future of Financial Services FirmLPL Financial in its quest for success and expansion has adopted few strategies that have seen it experience a dramatic growth over a small period of time. Though these strategies may have worked in the short run, the institution is treading on the very dangerous grounds and the future is uncertain. It is very clear that the institution is relying on three factors: financial advisers, institutional clients and employees’ creativity.

In reality these three factors are assets and not liabilities, but since the business is entirely relying on them, then they become more of a liability than an asset. For a business entity to be successful, there are many elements that come into play. They range from political, economic, social and technological factors. LPL Financial is mostly concentrating on the latter while it has entirely neglected the other equally important elements that are classified as the macro environment. This is the wrong approach that it adopted.

First of all, the company has too many advisers. 13500 advisers is a huge number for one business no matter how big it may be. The argument that may be brought forth is that the more advisers for a company the more it is likely to achieve its goals, because with many experts nothing can go wrong. However, what this business does not know is that a huge chunk of their revenue is used in servicing the salaries of these professionals. Expert advice does not come cheap and for a company that is in the process of expansion, this is a very bad move.

Secondly, the company is also relying on 700 institutions’ opinions before it can make a decision. This is a clear contradiction because the business claims to be a leader in discovering new trends. Successful businesses do not rely on others, others rely on them. The business should concentrate on coming up with new inventions and the 700 institutions that it relies on will start relying on it. Being a slave for other institutions will result to bullying. Take for instance, several institutions decide to change from one line of product to another.

LPL Financial will respond by restructuring its business to suit these institutions, but this is an expensive venture and may take a long time to recover the finances used.Lastly, the business has designated too much power to the employees. Allowing workers to come up with different inventions and thrive is not a bad thing, is it? The problem is the management does not come into the picture. What is their role in all these? Do they even have work? Allowing different people to concentrate on many designs is slow and will result in to many useless inventions.

To save time and resources, the management should come up with an invention that they believe will be a consumer magnet, divide the workforce into groups and designate duties depending on their capabilities. Through this method, the company specializes in one invention and perfects it. This method has the advantage of reducing the number of advisers, since the employees who are designing the patent are the best people to consult.