IT projects risks, success and failures - Essay Example

IT projects risks, success and failures A company that took a big risk and succeeded Cox Communications is an American company providing cable television services. It also provides both broadband and wireless communication networks to over 6 million customers within the domestic market. The company is known for its unique marketing and customer relations techniques that appeals to its clients. For instance, it has mascots that appear in most of its commercials which act as the mouth of the company.

They make physical movements which are integrated with sound to make it funny, to appeal to customer’s humorous side. This kind of creativity has made the company grow its capital base to record over $1 billion revenue in the last financial year (Lindquist, 2005). In 2001, the company embarked on a project whose aim was to produce a high speed database which gathers information from user’s modems. They needed a system that allows for timely collection and processing of client information, to improve efficiency in their operations for both customer and company benefit.

The company’s database expert, Mark Cotner was in charge of the project that required integration of MySQL to the internal system. This is to build database and give outputs depending on company requirements. The risk factor associated with such kind of venture is that the product is new, and therefore there are employees with no prior knowledge who can help the rest sharpen their skills. Employees tend to resist such kind of change because of adaptability issues.According to Lindquist (2005), to avoid this, Cox Communications did employee empowerment first.

They did this by training them on how the system is used to increase ease of adaptability. They also monitored the whole process by drafting an implementation chart which gave timelines on implementation schedule. This helped it have a successful software addition which improved its data handling capabilities. A company that took a big risk and failedFord Motor Company decided to replace their old purchasing and procurement systems with a new system. This was to manage their huge transactions; it was also set to provide financial analysis tools which could provide real time results.

It was christened the “Everest” project, and was to move supply systems to an internet based model, powered by Oracle as the service providers. This program later proven to be costly and involved redistribution of IT staff who were sent across the outlets to upgrade the systems. The company had not fully appreciated the software because the project team gave no clear directions on implementation schedules (Cameron, 2005). Luck has no place in determining success on projects initiated by companies or individuals.

What it takes is adoption of a working formula that ensures the various implementation steps are followed (Dettmer, 2007). The first activity done in such kind of a project is needs assessment which looks into the risk factors while at the same time assessing the pros and cons associated with the new system. The management then delegates duties to employees based on areas of competence. ReferencesLindquist, C. (2005, August 1). Companies Took IT Risks and Succeeded CIO.com. CIO.com. Retrieved April 12, 2012, from http://www.cio.com/article/9499/_Companies_Took_IT_Risks_and_Suceeded.

Cameron, I. T. (2005). Process systems risk management. San Diego, CA: Elsevier.Dettmer, H. W. (2007). The logical thinking process: a systems approach to complex problem solving. Milwaukee, Wis.: ASQ Quality Press.