Information Management and a Business Environment - Research Paper Example

Running Head: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT Information Management [Caroline Morahan] [The of the Information Management Introduction Ciena Corporation was founded in 1992, listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange (symbol CIEN) in 1997, and included in the S&P 500 market index in 2001. The company is headquartered in Linthicum, State of Maryland, USA, with offices located all over the US and Canada as well as Europe and Asia, totaling approximately 1500 employees. Ciena's founding mission was to design, manufacture and sell optical transport and switching equipment. The company pioneered DWDM technology, and became a world leader in the space. Following four acquisitions since 2003 and several key technology partnerships, Ciena deliberately augmented its portfolio to address the network applications with the most business value to its customers. My role as Human Resources Generalist for EMEA incorporates recruitment for the region as well as providing a fully supportive Human Resource/personnel function. There is a great need for effective Information Management within a business environment. Human Resources of Information Systems For the next decade, the main management problems concerning telecommunications and computers will relate to people, not technology. Firms face three main challenges: 1. To build a new level of management awareness so that business executives lead, not delegate, the development of IT. 2. To mobilize the entire organization for an era of radical change in work, structure, and business practices created via IT. 3. To reposition the Information Services (IS) function to handle a far broader range of roles, responsibilities, relationships, and skills. These three challenges are interdependent, and in each area senior management vision, and policy and education are critical resources. They are especially critical once IT is recognized as a strategic resource. This paper focuses on the third issue: building the skill base needed in repositioning the IS organization (Parsons G. L. ,2003). It provides specific recommendations for action: 1. Bring together the generally disparate units handling systems development and voice and data communications. 2. Identify the critical roles IS must fill to meet its mission over the next 3-7 years. 3. Define the new career trajectories and provide needed lateral development and education--and re-education. 4. Re-evaluate recruiting options and recruiters Example of Ford's Business Environment The fundamental challenge facing Ford in Europe is to carve out a viable, profitable business in the changed conditions of the late eighties and nineties. This has been achieved with vehicles built in Japan and imported into The more immediate threat is from Nissan's manufacturing facilities at Washington, England, now coming on stream. This will give Nissan the status of a European manufacturer with a significant cost advantage over local manufacturers. 2. Quality of share, that is, improving margins by more cost-efficient products while maintaining market share. 3. Improved productivity, by reducing fixed costs in all areas of the business. 4. Investment in human resource management by encouraging increased employee involvement and instituting major retraining programmes as our numbers of personnel decrease and the skill requirements increase. 5. Joint Ventures, pursuing profitable business opportunities with other automobile manufacturers. All these strategies are focused on the cost side of the equation. They are all rooted in 1985 actual performance, a profitable year which gives us confidence in the strategic direction we are pursuing. Research Methodology The objectives of the fieldwork were to identify: 1. what if any competitive advantage had been achieved through the provision to Travel Agents of links into Tour Operator reservation systems, 2. who had achieved such competitive advantage, and 3. what factors had enabled any competitive advantage to be achieved. The prime focus of the fieldwork was therefore the Travel Agent outlet, using a methodology designed to learn through interviews with counter staff what role the use of view data links to Tour Operators played in the servicing of customers (Feeny D. F., and Brownlee C. G. (2001). Subsequent interviews took place with management representatives of leading Tour Operators to elicit the role they saw for systems links to travel agents, and how it related to their overall strategy for competing in the industry. HR Manager Interview Design HR representatives interviewed were presented with a standard customer set and asked to explain how they would respond to each customer type. Seven types made up the set, and their definitions can be summarized as follows: "'The Consumer"; dominant concern is that he/she must find a project which fits in with a specified duration date not more than 6-8 weeks hence. "'The Preliminary Searcher'"; does not expect to make a decision on this visit to the managers. "'Something New'"; the target oriented consumer who wants the stimulation of some significant new element in their yearly projects. "'Something like previous projects"; had a good previous experience, and wants to keep hold of its best features while adding in a bit of 'new' excitement. "'Budget-conscious'"; thinking dominated by the need to keep within a strict budget ceiling. "'Which Operator'"; knows exactly what he/she wants; the question is which Operator or Operators can meet the specification. "'Product Specific'"; already made his/her choice and can quote the Operator and reference number; the agent is expected to turn the choice into a project scheduling, or to find an acceptable alternative if the chosen product is not available (Clemons E. K., and McFarlan F. W. 2002). There are three aspects of the interview programme that from the outset place some limits on the acceptance of the information collected as fully representative of actual practice. 1. The information describes what HR staff say they would do in response to customer situations; it does not necessarily describe what they actually do. 2. The optical transport industry is subject to very pronounced peaks of activity, with intense activity in certain months of the year. There is no such thing as an average working pattern for the year as a whole. Most of our interviews took place per year which are traditionally months of low activity. This made access easier and allowed thoughtful agent response, but it may have led to an information base which describes how agents would like to handle customer situations rather than how they actually behave in more stressful months. Interviews with Tour Operator Management The prime purpose of these interviews was to determine whether or not the senior management regarded the provision of View data system links to HR Staff as part of their competitive strategy. Therefore companies were approached through a letter to the Chief Executive (in all cases except one, where only the name of the Marketing Director will involve. Senior Management Involvement It is clear that, once the CARS pilot showed promising results, Thomson's executive management became both committed and involved. The TOP project became a central feature of Thomson's approach to the market, aggressively promoted, properly funded and professionally implemented, with decisions being taken by business managers Cash J. I., and Konsynski B. R. (2005). By contrast, when we analyse the first three years of competitive response to TOP, we have the impression that most management teams said to the Information Systems function of their company 'We want a system too; here's the budget'. In that sense, they were committed but not involved. Information Systems Departments typically focused on producing a 'good' system in a technical sense; even when they succeeded on their own criteria (not all did), they found that this was not what users wanted. Research Findings As described above, manufacture outlets were presented with a standard customer set and asked how they would respond to each customer type. Apart from their own travel industry knowledge, the agents have a set of tools available to use in their response, with the objective of arriving at a choice of holiday which is available and acceptable to the customer. A HR Staff is one such tool; the overall list we identified from the interviews was: 1. Brochures, issued by HR Staff, describing the Manufacturing services they have designed with price and departure data information. 2. Telephone contact with the HR Staff. 3. General information systems, increasingly implemented on Viewdata, which give background information on equipment, transport good, etc. 4. Guides aimed at specific needs, such as the Products Guide which allows the customer to look up a particular equipment or product and find out which HR Manager provide services there. 5. Scheduling of manufactured items, hard copy issued by HR staff approximately weekly which gives information on which of their products are still available for consumers in the near future. 6. Loss and Other Compensations which set out to provide the same type of information as above, but via view data systems. Data is obtained from the major staff on a regular basis to update the system. There are now a number of competing offerings, some from independent sources. Of the eight Multiples represented in our sample, four had such a system of their own available. 7. HR Staff At the time of our fieldwork, five of the six largest HR Staff Operators had such systems available and a number of other Operators. The interview data was analysed to determine, for each customer type, what was the sequence in which the HR staff use these various tools and therefore which tool or tools play a part in determining choice between products. This allowed us to examine the role of manufactured item in terms. In customer/ companies categories other than 'Seekers', equipments and products did not feature significantly as a tool for determining customer choice. In the 'Which Operator' category where the customer had already chosen a destination, more than 90% of HR manager would turn first to the Product Guide publication which provided exactly the required information. Recommendation for Action Repositioning the IS organization for its new, broad, business-focused mission is essential--now. The ability of firms to exploit IT depends increasingly on people, not money, hardware, software, or tools. The key steps to take are: 1. Bring together telecommunications and information systems--if that has not already been done--into an overall Information Services organization. 2. Carry out a baseline analysis of the roles implicit in the firm's business plan and explicit in the IS mission and its capital project portfolio. 3. Use the role definitions to establish the equal importance and prestige of maintenance and operations and to give clear signals to IS staff about the new skills they must build--with support from management through lateral development and education--and the new expectations about service, performance, and career development the roles imply. 4. Encourage IS professionals to think through very clearly their own skill base, education needs, and career trajectory. Set up a process for lateral development and movement into and out of IS. 5. Set up a process for internal recruitment. 6. Re-evaluate entry-level recruiting (and recruiters) in relation to role needs. 7. Establish an ongoing education plan, with responsibility for it clearly defined; this is not a part-time or ad hoc assignment 8. Recognize that, if your firm is typical, the middle-level IS managers and project leaders are likely to be a major blockage to change. They have moved through an obsolescent technocentric career path, lack management education, are often unconvinced or even ignorant of the need to shift from a focus on traditional systems development to service and partnership with 'users', and are also lacking in knowledge about emerging technologies, end user tools and user-centred or user-managed project development methods. Getting them to buy in to the principles and recommendations made here is a priority and may not be easy. A prerequisite is to make sure they get education in the basics of management and of the business. Strategic Plan For Management An overall strategic plan is needed to manage the implementation aspects. This is extremely important because it requires substantial changes to the way in which people work. This is without the added complication of introducing new technology. Indeed one of the primary rules of BPR is that the processes are reviewed and revised before they are embedded in new IT systems, as it is far more difficult (and costly) to alter them afterwards. The technology itself if indeed any is required, need not be "leading edge". There may be a requirement for a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN) to be in place to provide a highway for data to travel around the organization and software to facilitate this (Benjamin R. I., et al, (2004). Hardworking and Target Orientation through Cash Awards Additional people should be motivated while adopting the new strategies of cash awards for enhancement of productivity and performance of employees. it will be good for the long term interest of company which based on enhancements to improve the operation further. Conclusion This denouement began with six contemporary questions. It concludes with six matching aphorisms, each of which has implicit maxims for practice and directions for research. 1. IT alone cannot create competitive advantage; it needs non-IT as well. 2. If IT is to support corporations, it needs corporate support. 3. If information systems strategic planning is to work, it too must be planned. 4. If innovation from IT is required, so are innovative management practices. 5. If IT is to serve organizations we need to know more about organizing IT. 6. If education is the challenge, re-education is the key. References Benjamin R. I., et al, (2004), "'Information Technology: A Strategic Opportunity'" Sloan Management Review 25, 3. Cash J. I., and Konsynski B. R. (2005), "'IS Redraws Competitive Boundaries'" Harvard Business Review March-April. Clemons E. K., and McFarlan F. W. (2002), "'Telecom: hook up or lose out'" Harvard Business Review July-August. Feeny D. F., and Brownlee C. G. (2001), Competition in the era of Interactive Network Services, Oxford Institute of Information Management research paperRPG 86/17, Templeton College, Oxford. Parsons G. L. (2003), "'Information Technology: Competitive Weapon'" Sloan Management Review 25,12. Porter M. E., and Millar V. E. (2004), "'How Information Gives you Competitive Advantage'" Harvard Business Review July-August. Read More