IT Governance, Critical IT Management Issues - Assignment Example

01 October 2009 A case involving IT governance and other critical IT management issues What was Pete Solviks approach to IT governance? Given the governance styles presented in our class discussions, what was the primary style in use at the network level? Peter Solvik has transformed overall structure of organization. These changes have primarily transformed the role of IT in the organization. The organizational finance group has been transformed into a customer advocacy group. The next main step was taken regarding the reallocation of the majority of the IT budget to the departmental level. In this way each department will have a direct control over the departmental money. In this new structure the concept of the cartelized management has minimized. The next main transformation he has made is regarding the separation of the central IT steering committee. He has established a new structure through which IT investment decisions on application projects will be taken by the line organizations. In this regard the main execution of these projects will still be done by the centralized IT organization (Mcafee, Mcfarlan and Wagonfeld). These main decisions are carried out to jointly transform the view that is IT as an “overhead (Mcafee, Mcfarlan and Wagonfeld).” The main governance styles we have discussed are given below: Business Monarchy is a governance style in which we have a group or team of business executives or individuals. This governess style encompasses committees of senior business executives. In this type of management we eliminate IT executives carrying out their jobs separately. The next main governess style is IT Monarchy is which we have individuals or groups of IT executives. Those are carrying out their tasks in a collective way. Federal governess style is next one that involves business unit leaders. In scenario we have key procedure owners or their delegates (Clark). In Federal governess style C-level business groups and executives are operational in business organizations. In Federal governess style we may as well incorporate IT executives as additional participants. This governess style is corresponding of the central as well as state governments operational jointly (Clark) and (Antolovic). IT Duopoly is the next governess style that involves IT executives as well as one other group business unit or process leaders. The governess style of Anarchy involves each individual user (Antolovic). According to my assessment the main and primary style in use at the network level was Federal. 2-What about the data level? How about the application level? According to case study (Mcafee, Mcfarlan and Wagonfeld), at Cisco, Boston discovered the need of centralized planning. In this regard he found that the central planning has created lot of problems. According to his point of view, it turned out to be extremely hard for an organization to upgrade its most important enterprise-wide systems. The customary planning and development was done through the interfaced system is enterprise software. In this period through the rapid development of different parts of the organization had interfaced by means of the ERP system to attain dissimilar kinds of data. A lot of groups as well built specialized application that utilized the raw data in diverse means. To effectively handle the organizational data Cisco needs to upgrade into a newer version of the ERP system. In this regard it was realized that having new ERP will manage the data in an enhanced way and offer the business more better solutions. Then after detailed analysis and requirements analysis it was found that Oracle ERP system will be best for the overall organizational processing and operational structure (Mcafee, Mcfarlan and Wagonfeld). 3-What problems did Cisco have with its internal IT by 2001? Why didnt the ERP system help more? After the comprehensive transformations made by the Peter Solvik the business has gained a lot much. However there are some problems after period of 2001 given below: (Mcafee, Mcfarlan and Wagonfeld) Business leaders found that latest technology implementation is taking lot of investment Cisco was throwing money and engineers at customized tools Desired output can be attained Different definitions for key terms Multiple databases and fuzzy definitions Current system does not meet all of the specialized needs of other functions such as sales, marketing, and human resources Lack of centralized planning More time spent in getting the information needed regarding projects Central planning has created lot of problems Data handling becomes difficult Needs to upgrade to a newer version of the ERP system pervious system was not offering planned services 4-What is BPOCs role? How much real authority does it have? Why did Boston select the three big projects that he did? BPOC was established in 2002 and its main role was to reinforce the significance of a higher degree of centralized IT planning. The main development of the BPOC was intended for a cross-functional decision making group. BPOC was aimed to drive and set corporate priorities intended for the business. The authority of the BPOC was focused on driving business wide productivity through making operational strategy decisions, implementing corporate business procedure structure, aligning comparable initiatives although the corporation and implementing decisions by means of consideration to accountability and execution. BPOC made suggestions that influence how Cisco applied its IT spending. Three enterprise projects were selected by the Boston regarding the upgrading of the Oracle ERP system. The main solutions were based on other huge software packages like that PeopleSoft for human resource management and Siebel for sales force, automation (Mcafee, Mcfarlan and Wagonfeld). 5-Assume you have to "sell" the 3 big projects to BPOC. On pages 85-88 of the text, theres a discussion of the types of value business systems can provide. Which type(s) of value would you argue that each proposed system would provide? On pages 97-103, we see a discussion of the types of arguments made in a business case for IT. Which case best fits each of the 3 proposed systems based on the information given in the case? The three projects regarding the potential enhancement of the old ERP system intended to enhance the overall organization operational performance and effective decision making. PeopleSoft is intended to enhance the performance through the enhanced human resource management. This project could offer better performance management of overall organizational process and working structure. The next main project is Siebel that is intended to enhance the sales or business and manage them in an effective way. All these system are mainly aimed to automate the overall organizational process and operational structure (Mcafee, Mcfarlan and Wagonfeld). 6-What are the issues related to "Shadow IT" at Cisco? The implementation of the “shadow IT” projects was done to IT headcount regarding the centralized and optimized. Shadow IT was intended using contractors to carry on building functional tools, however this turned out to be difficult because of number of the minute, “underground” IT projects were deserted or started being paid too big. Boston rose the maintaining of senior leaders although the corporation who standardized the significance of central governance (Mcafee, Mcfarlan and Wagonfeld). Work Cited Antolovic, Laurie G. "IT Governance Propelled IT Revolution." 10 September 2007. 24 10 2009 . Clark, Andrew J. "IT Governance: Establishing Who Decides ." 2004. 24 10 2009 . Mcafee, Andrew, F. Warren Mcfarlan and Alison Berkly Wagonfeld. "Enterprise IT at Cisco." Havard Business School (2004): 605-615. Read More