Does Information Technology Training Really Matter - Example

Information Strategy Executive Summary The purpose of this Board report is to analyse the issue thatare facing by the ABC Company. The report will provide evidence-based recommendations to the issues that are affecting the Information Technology system of the company. The prominent issues that are impacting the performance of the information technology system and strategies are Information technology security gap, lack of change management system, and lack of training management system. In addition, IT cost reduction, communication gaps and conflicts in interest of the BODs are also generating gap in the information technology system and strategies to implement in the company. Therefore, for IT security gap it is suggested that the company should use the outside sources and providers to improve the security system with the help of new security and protection strategies. For lack of change management system, it is recommended that the company should establish a proper strategy to resist the change within the company. For training management, it is recommended that highly qualified foreign trained professional should be hired to train the employees. While considering IT cost reduction issues the suggested solution, is to increase the budget for IT infrastructure. When it comes to communication gaps, the IT department is recommended to develop IT strategy by involving the heads of other departments for decision-making. For making an influential IT strategy and ensuring its success, it is recommended to make decisions that favour the company’s internal systems such as IT along with sales and profits perspective. Moreover, it is recommended that the company need to invest more to improve the information technology system to increase the profitability of the company within the manufacturing industry. The defined budgets will be essential to solving the issues of the company that is affecting the IT strategies. Overall it can be said that the report has identified gaps and issues related to the information technology systems. Thus, by applying the suggested recommendations, the organization can ensure the successful development and execution of information system technology strategy in the company.   Introduction The role of information technology has been considerable in small as well as large-scale business organizations. The applications of information system are wide in a company and modern world the business operations and management systems are highly dependent upon the efficient information technology system of the organization. It has been found that the decision making by the leaders and management of a company related to the development and implementation of information technology strategies is very important. CIOs of different companies have clearly stated that the modifications in the information technology and processes should be implemented right away in the companies in order to analyse the true potential of their respective IT systems (Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, 2010). It is found that major gaps are found within the operation systems and management systems upon analysing the issues and gaps associated with the company. The paper is formatted to study different gaps and issues that are faced by the organization in properly developing and implementing the information technology strategy in the company. The paper will present the gaps with detailed analysis of the issues along with the proposed recommendations to fulfil each gap. The paper will also indicate the financial cost related to each recommendation made with respect to the highlighted gaps and issues in the organizational infrastructure. Meditec is a pharmaceutical company employs around 500 employees in its different departments. The company is a rapidly growing pharmaceutical organization that is orienting its practices, business strategies, and plans in order to beat the competition and increase the business growth and expansion. The company has recently faced problems in the development and execution of information strategies; therefore, this report presents a detailed analysis of the issues and gaps that are present in the operation and management system of the company leading to failure of information technology systems in the organization. The unsuccessful implementation of information technology systems leads to inefficient information technology strategy. Therefore, the organization has to assure that the IT systems should be efficiently implemented for a successful IT strategy. Meditec has its plants in different cities and is looking forward to expanding the business to other countries also. For the expansion of business, the company has to look deeply into its information technology strategies for their successful implementation and development. Information Technology strategy is a detailed plan prepared by the IT professionals for guiding the organization. It includes cost management, vendor management, data management, risk management, hardware and software management, and human capital management and change management. For the development and execution of IT, strategies strong IT leadership is required that work in collaboration with the users to develop and implement a successful information strategy (Shupe & Behling, 2006). Information Technology Strategy Development and Execution Information Technology Strategy significantly impacts the organizational infrastructure, work practices, and business growth. It is apparent that the organizational culture and business strategies govern the implementation of IT strategy in a company. However, the impact is found stronger the other way round. IT helps in creating strategic options and build new opportunities that are required by managers. In the current system of the company severe gaps, have been found in business strategies, organizational culture, management processes, workplace environment and nature work. The report will address these gaps in detail and then present suitable recommendations for solving the stated gaps and issues faced by the organization (Zoran & Lazar, 2010). Gaps and Issues 1. Communication Gap One of the issues in the system of the company is a communication gap between the managers and the staff that is hindering with the implementation of IT strategies in the organization. Most business organizations face issues in the development and implementation of IT strategies because of restricted decision-making up to executive level. The same gap is also analysed in this case (Shupe & Behling, 2006). For the acceptance of IT decisions, two-ways communication plan is essential. It is found that the Information Technology department of the organization does not involve the users’ representatives in planning the IT strategies that result in failure in implementation. Without involving the users and understanding the perspective of users IT professional cannot understand the routine issues that might be faced by the employees in executing the IT systems and the type of errors that they make in general (Shupe & Behling, 2006). Due to lack of proper communication the strategy developed had loopholes that become highlighted when the strategy entered the phase of implementation. The users and managers of other departments came up with problems while implementing the Information Technology strategy. Therefore, emphasis should be given on planning of strategy before developing and executing it and for planning, the input from users should be considered vital. The communication gap found was of two types: users are not communicating the issues and problems to the IT department, and IT department does not involve users in the decision-making process. 2. Lack of Change Management System Another main gap in the company restricting the development and implementation of IT strategies is the lack of change management system. Although the company has a large investment setup in the IT sector the employees, are not willing to accept the changes and deviate from their standard work practices. The situation shows that the company lacks an influential and study change management system that gradually prepares the employees to accept the changes. Introduction of a new technology strategy is one step towards the path of success whereas letting people grab the need of the technology and adopt it for the betterment of the processes is another important step. It is found that the employees in the company mainly in the production department were not mentally prepared in switching from their old software practices to the new IT software. It was observed in the problems faced while implementing the last project of SAP in the company. The company invested 25 thousand dollars in introducing the SAP system in the company for data management. This software was intended to reshape the entire practices of the organization. The software was introduced in Jan 2014, but still today employees are unable to use it without major errors. Thus, investigation was conducted to find out the reasons of the inefficient performance of such remarkable software. On inquiring the root cause of the failure of the implementation of the software in the company it is found that the employees did not consider the new system to be useful or better than the previous Operational Data Management System (ODMS) operated in the company. In order to implement the new software the change management system of the company was not conducted properly that left the employees ignorant and unwilling to adopt the changes. It also emphasizes the role of communication in the company between the leaders and the subordinates or the staff. 3. Lack of Training Management Another major gap found in the company is related to Operation management system. The development of information technology software needs expert engineers and technicians. The company has a group of talented individuals that are involved in the development and outsourcing of information technology projects. No doubt the information technology department is equipped with all the necessary technical gadgets and equipment and is operated under the supervision of experienced IT professionals. The problem arose when it came to the implementation and execution of the newly developed systems in the company. Since the information technology systems have to be used by all other departments in the company it is very important that proper training of all the employees, which would be involved in operating the new information technology system, should be conducted. Previously it has been found that the employee efficiency could not the achieved to the targeted level because the employees were not given proper training to use the new system. The employees were given presentations about the new IT system and only three days training given that was not enough for the individuals to get used to with the system. The reason for inadequate training was reported to be a lack of time and excessive workload on the employees so they could not be spared for long day trainings. It was also found that the no of errors made by the employees while operating new systems were extremely high than the anticipated error margin. Again, here the lack of training was found to be the culprit. The increased errors have badly affected the performance of the employees, resulting in delayed activities and keeping the IT staff engaged in correcting the reported errors by the employees of the other departments. Thus, the gaps in the system have made the efficient implementation of IT strategy difficult and unsuccessful. 4. Information technology security gap It has been noticing that even after having an investment for information technology there is no security for the confidential information of the company. It is the reason due to which the confidential information of the company is no safe. Internal employee may leak confidential information, procedures, and policies. It involves threats to the potential dangers of information and system. Moreover, system weakness in the company can exploit the associated vulnerabilities. The existing control over the information system is not appropriate to reduce the possible risk, threats and vulnerability (Whitman & Mattord, 2010). It is important to make sure that the security of the information technology because a sophisticated online hacker attack on existing system can cause damage and loss to the company. It has also been noticed that there is unfair use of office email that is also becoming a reason for leakage in information technology. To understand the importance of IT security, the recent case of information leakage about the new strategy and idea for marketing company product should be enough. Herein, it should be noted that other competitor company adopted the strategy. Thus, the company should realize that it could only be possible when an employee leaks the information, or any hacker attacked the information system of the company due to the lack of security on the system. As soon as that information leaked the company took more time to develop another method to promote the product it caused delays in sales and profits for the product. 5. Information Technology Cost Reduction Although the company also has a typically large information technology infrastructure investment, the management is applying the cost reduction strategy from information technology infrastructure. It is affecting the information technology strategies that are designed by the IT department. It is a big issue that the board of directors and other management presume that to increase the profitability of the company it is necessary that the company should invest in the marketing and manufacturing areas of the products. According to them, the IT system is not much important to increase the profitability and sales. Moreover, they assume that the IT system can only deal with small internal tasks, management and issues. In other words, it can be said that they don’t think about technology in a strategic way (Gibbert & Durand, 2009). Thus, the board of directors and management do not support the IT strategies. It is the reason due to which the continuous IT cost reduction is taking place, and it is becoming an issue to manage the IT strategies. Herein, it should be noted that the IT cost reduction is generating a gap for IT strategies. It is directly or indirectly impacting the performance of the other departments. The most crucial impact is on the overall business productivity of the company. Moreover, the IT strategies are also performing its role in marketing and production departments. 6. Conflicts in interest One of the major challenges for the organization to take a decision that is for the betterment of the organization. The different departments of the organizations are inclined take decision according to their interest. The CEO of the company is inclined to take decisions through financial perspectives, whereas the IT department would stress on the up gradation of the system or to introduce new IT system to improve the productivity of the organization. On the other hand, the CEO of the company is more inclined to make a decision that would benefit the company in terms of the financial aspect. The different perspectives prevailing in the organization is one of the major concerns that had to be adequately addressed. The organization should make effective use of information and technology resources and should develop strong ground to understand which information is more important to the organization. Too much intrusion and integration of the Executives and CEO make it difficult to identify internal issues that will be faced within the organization. On the other hand, the IT department of the organization is aware of the issues faced by the organization and ensures that the decisions made would yield greater benefits to the organization. It is because the CEO of the organization would see the problem prevailing in the organization through financial perspectives; whereas, the IT department of the organization would highlight internal issues within the organization. The difference between the company asset information and the responsibilities of the operational units of the organization should be identified in order to ensure that the decisions are made for the betterment of the organization. Recommendations 1. Recommendation for the communication gap It is recommended that an effective model for organization-wide communication should be developed that ensure two-way communication while developing information technology strategies and executing them. The implementation and execution of IT strategies involve users that are non-IT professionals. Therefore, their concerns should be made a part f the decision-making process for information technology strategies. The success and failure of an IT strategy are highly dependent upon the critical inputs from different members of organizations on how the implementation of a specific strategy may impact the current processes. It is recommended that all the issues related to IT should be reported instantly, and they must be monitored consistently by the IT department (Shupe & Behling, 2006). The final decision making about the implementation and development of IT strategy is only allowed to the management however to decrease the communication barriers the IT professionals can obtain input directly from users to obtain a well-planned IT strategy. Therefore, it is recommended that the information system department should develop software that allows the users to report the issues related to IT and the IT professionals will continuously monitor and resolve the issues to minimize the chances of failure. It will help in anticipating the issues that may appear during the implementation and allow the IT professionals to plan the strategy well to reduce the risks and save time. On the other hand, during decision making the IT executives should also involve the other managers to discuss their concerns while developing the information technology strategies. The financial cost involved in software development and maintenance would be $ 2,000- $3000. 2. Recommendation for change management gap It is recommended that the company should focus on developing a proper change management system in order to ensure the successful implementation of the IT strategy and other changes in the organizational setup. Change Management lie in IT service management. The goal is to make sure those standard strategies and methods are adopted for efficient implementation of changes and reduced errors and mistakes while operating the new systems (Zoran & Lazar, 2010). Not only in this organization but also researchers show those other organizations also face IT strategies failure in development and implementation to a huge ratio. Being an inevitable factor in business operations the impact of change is significant. As changes are a part of a growing company, it is recommended to identify them priory and develop a system to make the changes well accepted within the organizational infrastructure as well as by the users. Presently change management system was ignored in the company. Thus, it is recommended to develop a proper change management system for ensuring successful development and implementation of IT projects (Zoran & Lazar, 2010). For the development of change management system, it is advised to establish a separate change management department in the company. The activity would entail hiring of suitable candidates, conduction of trainings and procurement of required equipment like computers and laptops. An estimated budget of $20,000 annually will be needed to establish a separate department consisting of 5-6 individuals with the hierarchy of Change Management Manager and Asst. Manager change management and the rest change management coordinators. The management can follow the FCA recommended guidelines for the development of Change management system in the organization (FCA, 2007). 3. Recommendation for training management It is recommended that the management should focus on training the individuals for efficient implementation of the information technology strategies. The IT strategies result in time and cost saving for long term in the company and help in making the company operations smoother, organized and flawless. The managers of different departments in the company including production, engineering, quality assurance, quality control, Human Resource, Administration and Finance should understand the importance of training their direct users of the new IT systems in order to obtain long-term benefits from the systems (Eighteen, 1999). It is recommended that the company should arrange internal training sessions and as well as external trainings for the employees if required. For keeping the budget of the company in control selected, individuals from each department should be given complete training of the new IT systems. The assessments of trainings should be conducted for each employee prior certifying him/her as trained. If the individual passes the criteria then he/she should be assigned the duty to train the rest of the team in the respective department (Galivan et al., 2005). In terms of the financial burden, the company would have to bear two types of the cost burden for the implementation of this recommendation. First the cost involved in external training of the employees and the time that will be used in training sessions leading to increasing routine workload. To overcome the routine workload the company has to pay overtime to the employees so that they would be trained on the new systems and also perform the routine chores efficiently. For external training, the budget would be between $ 10,000 and $15,000, and the overtime cost would be between $ 8,000 and $ 15,000 depending upon the tenure of training and number of employees involved. 4. Recommendation to overcome the IT security gap In order to overcome the IT security gap it is essential to analyse the need for the new IT security system. It is recommended that a general information security policy will provide the authority and guidance to develop an effective contingency plan. It is necessary that the contingency planning policy should be designed in which contingency objectives should be defined. The contingency plan will design framework and responsibilities for the organization to mitigate the risks. By hiring professional IT security provider, it can be possible that after the risk assessment the company can safeguard the information technology system and security (Vacca, 2012). The IT security provider will assure and introduce the new strategies and plans in which password construction and protection guidelines and policies will be essential to protect the confidential information. In addition, some specific software for the protection of IT will need some more investment because the foreign trained professionals will be required for this purpose. On the contrary, if the company does not outsource their IT security responsibility then the purchase of entire IT security system is also possible. For that the company will need to invest around half million dollars. While for outsourcing the security system, the budget can be designed as: the initial cost for the hardware and software will require more than fifty thousand dollars. The reason is that it is the major area and the first step for the improvement of the system. In order to maintain the systems and licenses for proprietary software the budget should be around twenty thousand dollars. After that, the continuous up gradation will also be a part for the IT security system. Thus for that, the budget must be around thirty thousand dollars. 5. Recommendations for IT cost reduction It can be said that the company needs to increase the IT investment infrastructure to deal with the IT cost reduction issue. Although the company has already a large budget for IT infrastructure that is around 1 million dollars, the company is reducing 30 percent from the budget for other activities. Thus, it is recommended that the company should not reduce the cost from IT infrastructure. In addition, the company should focus to increase the IT investment budget for the continuous up gradation in the It system. The reason, to suggest an increase in investment budget, is that the current budget is not sufficient for the updates in IT system. The company needs to increase the budget to support the existing information strategies. As there is information strategies deal with each department of the company, therefore, the company should reduce this gap. 6. Centralizing Decision-Making The organization should develop distinction among the departments by providing them weight age to their concerns. Setia et al. (2010) in the study highlights that the CEO of the company are not aware of the internal issues of the organization. Thus, there should be clarity in the responsibilities and benchmarking of the issues should be done efficiently. The decision should be made for the interest and improvement of the organization on a whole. Rather than bringing change to a department (Setia et al., 2010).’ It can be identified from the statement that the different departments of the organization should broaden their perspectives to view the issue. Hence, the sharing of the information within the organization is essential, and departments should be aware of the other financial and non-financial aspects of the organization. The departments of the organization should ensure that the each decision of the organization is made to bring improvement within the organization rather than focusing on the issue that are faced within particular departments. It can be attained through sharing of the ideas and developing stronger communication within the organization (Setia et al., 2010). Conclusion The report presented the importance and use of information technology strategy for the success and progress of the organization. It also correlated different IT systems and departments with the effective implementation of the IT strategy in the company. Studying through different issues in the organization it is found that the major gaps are found in the operations and management setup of the company that is hindering with the development and execution of information technology strategy in the organization. The major gaps identified include lack of change management system, lack of training management, inadequate IT security system, conflicts in interests of the board of directors and executives, IT cost reduction and communication gap between the information officers and the users. The report also highlights the recommendations for each gap focusing on the development of proper change management system in the company for ensuring successful implementation of the IT strategy. Similarly, proper training management of the users, development of IT security system that sufficiently fulfils the security requirements of the company, creation of balanced budget that would not impact the development of IT strategy, establishment of centralized decision making system and reduction of communication gap between IT officials and employees from other departments. Thus, it is concluded that the report has highlighted the major gaps in the IT system of the company and suggests that by applying the recommendations the gaps can be reduced, and the IT strategy can be successfully developed and executed. List of References Bovey, W.H. & Hede, A., 2001. Resistance to Organizational change: the role of defence mechanism. Journal of managerial psychology, 16(7), pp.534-48. Cheney, G., 2004. Organizational Communication in an Age of Globalization: Issues, Reflections, Practices. Waveland Press. Coplan, A.M., Hikino, T. & Lincoln, J.R., 2010. 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Zoran, C. & Lazar, R., 2010. Change Management in Information System Development and Implementation Projects. Management Information Systems, 5(2), pp.23-28. Read More