Information Technology and Non-Profit Organizations - Coursework Example

Introduction Non Profit Organizations are often smaller in size and require not so great amount of managerial skills and technological equipments to run the affairs smoothly. It is because of this reason that most of them tend to be simple and most flexible in their working style and management. However, changing requirements of the time have now necessitated that those organizations also must have strong information technology support to further streamline their procedures and processes in order to gain more efficiencies and effectiveness. Our organization is a small non-profit counseling center for at-risk youth. The center is open Monday through Saturday, noon-11 p.m. The center has three full-time employees: the Executive Director and two counselors. There are eight part-time counselors who are on-call and four part-time administrative assistants who cover all shifts. There are no computers. All patient, employee, and financial records are kept manually and filed in cabinets in the business office. The center has one fax machine, two typewriters, and a multi-line phone system with a phone in each room. The building has six rooms, a reception office area, and a waiting room. The rooms are used for the Executive Director’s office, three counseling rooms, a business office, and a conference room. Being center of such importance and magnitude, we have received a gift of $500,000/- from one of our client’s great uncle for the upgradation of information technology at the center. This proposal will look into the technology requirements of the center while recommending the information technology set up required by the center, how change can be managed at the center and finally recommending a budget for the overall requirements of the center. Information Technology and Non-Profit Organizations As discussed above that the modern nonprofit organizations require the extensive use of information technology in order to streamline their procedures and processes so that resources spent on potential unproductive assets are utilized somewhere else to gain efficiencies and effectiveness. However, one also must keep in mind the fact that that Non-Profit Organization such as ours may not require highly sophisticated technology as the procedures and processes performed in those organizations are relatively simple and non-complicated in nature. Therefore while assessing the requirements for information technology of non-profit organizations, one important factor which must be taken into consideration is the fact about the nature of the work performed by that organization. Similarly, the level of complications of the procedures is another issue. More complicated and sophisticated work is also being performed by organizations which are engaged in research therefore their IT requirements markedly differ from the IT requirements of a Non Profit Organization such as ours. However, making evaluating and justifying investment into information technology can be problematic in nature as the costs and benefits of such kind of investment are difficult to assess, quantify and illustrate effectively in order to judge the effectiveness of the investment made. (Powell, 1992). Secondly, a question often arise is whether the investment made into the information technology especially by the Non-Profit organizations can be used as the strategic asset for the organization? Based on the above discussion, we recommend follow information technology requirements for the said organization: Hardware & Software Requirements In total there are 15 employees at the center with varying degree of their job nature. Based on number of employees and their work, we recommend following Hardware requirements for the center: For Executive Director For executive director, we recommend to have a laptop. Since this job is strategic in nature and executive director often represent the center at the various occasions and can be labeled as the liaison person for the center therefore we believe that a Laptop should be allocated to the executive director. The exact specification of the laptop would include a latest Windows operating system with 1GB memory. The system further should have a hard disk with capacity of around 100 GB. Further, the decision to obtain Laptop should be made based on the work requirements of the executive director. Further, we believe that MS Office suite must also be installed on the Laptop especially its Word Processing and Spreadsheet packages should be installed on it. This will help the Executive director to manage various budgets, organize several of his communications besides maintaining details about any reports prepared by the center. Further, any email client should also be configured at the PC. Counselors We recommend that since most of the work performed by the counselors is office based therefore we suggest that two desktop computers must be allocated to the counselors with attached printers. Further, the use of scanners can be beneficial for the counselors as patient records which are prepared manually can be digitized in order to secure them as well as maintaining them for the future use. We also believe that counselors further require word processing packages in order to further streamline the processes at the center. Further any software packages which can be of specific use of the counselors and are unique in nature must also be configured and installed on the systems. Further, as the work of counselors is delicate in nature therefore we believe that a small database systems should also be configured and installed on their systems in order to provide them ready access to the records of the patients who frequent more to the centers. This will greatly help them to retrieve the patient records effectively and efficiently however, training may be required in order to help counselors to operate these database systems. Administrative Assistants The work of administrative assistants will be mostly administrative in nature therefore we suggest to have Personal computers at their desks with printers attached to them. The systems should also have pre-installed word processing packages on them also besides having Spreadsheet packages. Further, we also recommend that the administrative assistants should also have email clients on their systems so that meetings between patients and the counselors can be scheduled in advance through the emails. This will greatly reduce the requirements for phone use to make appointments and subsequent follow ups with the patients. General IT Requirements Further to the specific requirements of the center in terms of its information technology requirements, we also suggest some general IT requirements of the company. These would include the establishment of a small network which can attach all the PCs with each other so that resources can be maximized and better and effective use of the resources can be achieved. Further, a central database should also be developed with off-site access to the database so that executive director may have an offline access to the data in order to make effective presentations for securing more funds for the center. Further, PDAs can be of effective use especially for the use of Executive Director regarding matters which are external in nature. This means that executive director must have access to the schedules and meetings which he might undertake out of the office. Further, telecommunication set up may be needed as discussed above however; it should be limited in scope, within budgets and according to the specific requirements of the center. Since center does not indulge itself into more sophisticated activities therefore we believe that center may not require more sophisticated hardware and software to run its day to day affairs. Change Management Issues in the Organization Organizations whether non-profit or for profit in nature always tap their internal resources to create critical mass of resources which help them to evolve through innovation and creativity. This innovation and creativity resultantly lead improvement in performance through the effective use of systems. To integrate knowledge transfer into everyday activities, the support structure needs an organizational component, a process component, and a technology component. The organizational component includes the implementation of adjustments to management philosophy, group member interaction, and individual responsibilities. The process component includes changes to problem solving processes, decision making processes, and communication processes. The technology component requires the implementation of the technology that will become the knowledge base repository as well as any other required support technology. This technology component as well as the process component allows firms to evolve the systems over the period of time. The use of effective systems like Balanced Score cards, Use of sophisticated inventory management systems with the help of information technology allow firms to be more reflective in its performance. The combination of the knowledge based resources and the technology allow firms to be more productive, align the processes and systems to make their use more effective. Groups within the organization will be rewarded with more effective decision making, being confident the right problems are being addressed, and a rich source of knowledge that can be applied to their work. Having discussed the combination of creativity and innovation and effectiveness being linked with the marriage of IT and the firms, a question often arise as to whether the technological innovations and improvements brought into the organization will face resistance to this change. Thus resistance to the change is often considered as a normal and natural phenomenon in organizations of all nature where a change is being brought up in order to further streamline the resources. In order to effectively manage the change, center need to communicate its plans for implementing the new information technology set up into the organization. Since most of the work is performed manually into the organization therefore the top management of the center has enough reasons to communicate to the line staff regarding the proposed changes to be made and the benefits which it will carry for the employees and the overall organization. Thus communicating the change is the first and most important step in the management of change at the center. Further, empowerment and involvement of the line staff is another very important step which organization must take into account as it will not help to streamline the procedures further but also serve as a motivating factor behind bring in the change as the employees whether part time or full time will feel part of the organization and may contribute positively to the overall goal of the center for the implementation of new information technology set up into the organization. Another very important dimension to this overall management of the change is the fact that center should also make an stakeholder analysis where it must assess and include the opinions of various of its stakeholders i.e. patients, donors, volunteers, into account also as this will greatly reduce the resistance towards change by the stakeholders and will provide enough moral ground for the center to initiate and start the implementation of information technology so that the overall service standards of the center are improved and all the stakeholders are served to the best of the abilities of the center and its staff. This will therefore only be achieved when all the stakeholders are taken into consideration. Major Timeline will include following step A) Defining the IT requirements of the center - One week B) Defining and evaluating the technical specs Two Weeks C) Defining of the actual hardware and software required three weeks D) Obtainment of quotations from the vendors - One Week E) Short listing of vendors – 3 days F) Placing of order – 2 days G) Procurement of the required hardware and software One week H) Manufacturing of Furniture and other accessories required to operate machines Two Weeks I) Installation of the hardware – Two Weeks J) Installation of Software – One Week K) Configuration of Network including cabling etc – One week L) Soft launch – Two Weeks M) Overall time line = 17 Weeks Budget In absence of the real prices for the requirements of the hardware and software for the center, we may not be able to put forward the real budget. However, a rough estimate would include following expenditures: 1) 14 Branded PCs = $ 25000 - $ 35000 2) One Laptop = $ 1000- $ 1500 3) Procurement of Software = $ 100,000/- 4) Procurement of Printers and Scanners = $ 5000 5) Furniture = $ 5000 6) Installation Charges = $ 5000 Conclusion Information technology requirements of the non-profit organizations vary according to the nature of their work however there are some general and some specific IT requirements of those organizations which necessitate them to obtain customized hardware and software. Center, being simplistic in its function does not require complicated IT set up however a simple database, network, few PCs, printers as well as scanners can suffice. However while implementing the changes in terms of IT, the management of change is one important issue which can be managed through increased participation and down-ward communication. Bibliography Harris, D. (1996, September 15). Creating a Knowledge Centric Information Technology Environment. Retrieved June 04, 2008, from HTCS: http://www.dbharris.com/ckc.htm Powell, P. (1992). Information Technology Evaluation: Is It Different? The Journal of the Operational Research Society , 43 (1), pp. 29-42. Read More