The Term of Seven Seas Technologies - Essay Example

Presented by (Your school) 20.4 Table of content Executive summary………………………………………………………………. 3 Introduction……………………………………………………………………….. 4 Background information…………………………………………………………... 4 Definition and identification stakeholders……………………………………….... 5 ITIL Service Transition Processes………………………………………………… 7 Conclusion and recommendations………………………………………………… 10 References…………………………………………………………………………. 11 Executive summary The report is a case study of Seven Seas technologies, a world wide company dealing with ICT. The report looks at the steps taken by Seven seas in its quest to become an international technology company which involved rebranding, networking its branches as well as an introduction of a payroll service system. The report looks at how Seven seas were able to identify its stakeholders and the influence they had on the whole process. The report will also show how the company was able to engage its different stakeholders in several ways. The report also looks at ITIL Service Transition Processes and how it can be of help to the company that wants to introduce a change in its operations. Finally, the report gives how the report can be of help to other companies. (Han 2003) Introduction Change is inevitable in any organization. How an organization treats its stake holders, will define its success or failure in implementing any change. An organization needs to define who a stakeholder is and influence the stakeholder has in order to handle them and to have their support in the implementation process. It is worth to note that no stakeholder should be ignored. This is a case study of Seven Seas Technology (Drucker 1974). Background information Seven Seas Technology is an international company dealing with ICT. The company operates globally with most interest in Africa market as the market for technology is high. The company deals with technology solutions for large companies and government agencies. In the recent past, the company has won in tenders with multinationals and governments in Africa. Currently the company is in a contract with the Zambian government to install a sea cable in the country. The company was also in a multi billion contract with the Nigerian government where it was involved in networking government ministries and other government agencies. The company also secured a contract with Vodafone where it developed a system to provide computing services to its customers in the entire world. So what is the real secret behind this accomplishment story? Seven Seas were previously referred to as Dataset Technology where it had a narrow scope of business. The company only focused on East African market. The company wanted to have a wider scope to tap the adaptation of technology in the whole of Africa. The company’s top management then thought it was good to rebrand the company and increase their capital in order for the company to operate in whole of Africa. Seven seas had to identify its stakeholders and develop new ways to make sure they supported the project. The company also intended to automate its operations whereby it was to network all its branches across the world. This meant introduction of a new payroll system for the company. The intent of this study is to assist other companies on how to identify their stakeholders and come up with ways to manage an intended change. Definition and identification stakeholders A stakeholder is an individual who is indirectly or directly affected by a company’s strategy or policy. A stakeholder can be internal or external. A stake holder may have the power to influence or impact a company’s company (Han 2003). Stakeholders are an important part in the success or failure of a company’s plan. If you neglect them, there is a likelihood that they will work against you. Management of stakeholders will lead to them supporting and promoting the strategy hence positive results. Seven seas first identified their stakeholders before implementing the strategy. How did they do it? The way to identifying your potential stakeholders is by categorizing them into four groups; users/beneficiaries, governance/steering board, influencers-trade union and providers (Handzic 2005). Users and beneficiaries include the employees and customers. In this case, the customers’ are the government agencies and private companies. Governance includes the board, regulatory body and the audit. Influencers include trade union, lobby groups and the media. Providers include the shareholders, partners and suppliers (Macintosh 1998). Identification of stakeholders may lead to having a bloated list of people and groups. Analysis of the list should be done to note the ones with similar interests. The shareholders needs should be mapped into a matrix in order to identify those with similar interests. This helps the company to have a communication arrangement aimed at meeting each stakeholder`s needs and concerns. Mapping helps you to prioritize stakeholders in order of importance to your strategy. Mapping the power of the stakeholders to influence to the implementation of the strategy is a very crucial thing. A simple diagram shown below will help to know the influence of the stakeholders and ways to meet their concerns (Mentzas 2003). Meet their needs Engage them and consult widely on their needs, increase their level of interest. Key players Direct most of your efforts to this group, involve them in decision making and consult regularly with them. Least important Keep them informed through adverts and other general channels of communication. Show concern These are potential supporters. Keep them informed through general communication channels. Consult with them. Mapping helps you to direct most of your efforts to the key players and other groups with lots of influence, while providing the less influential with sufficient information to keep them pleased. Key players are extremely prominent important in the success of a strategy. They have the resources required for the implementation of the strategy. They also have political powers which can either accelerate the implementation process or be a stumbling block to the implementation (Pinkster 2004). Seven seas was able to recognize their potential stakeholders and were able to engage them fully in their strategy. The company was able to engage their shareholders by encouraging them to buy shares to finance the project. They also involved the government by ensuring that they complied with the required regulations as well as encouraging them to finance the project through grants and government loans. The company updated the public through massive advertisement using the website, local dailies and other forms of advertisement. Seven seas also encouraged the public to air their feedback and concerns about the ongoing rebranding and growth exercise either formally or informally through their facebook and twitter accounts. This helped in making sure the concerns of the public and customers were considered (Rakos 2005)/ Adoption of ITIL service process will help a company to effectively introduce the change and be able to contain any problems that might arise from the system (Dinsmore 2011). ITIL Service Transition Processes ITIL is a shorthand name which stands for Information Technology Infrastructure Library. It is a lay down of procedures and measures that help in aligning the service with the overall business mission and objectives. ITIL have the following policies which might help a business in implementing a strategy or a system change (Addy 2007). 1. Have a formal policy. Engage all the stakeholders in crafting a policy to be used in the implementation of the intended change. Communication is vital at this stage, make sure that all stakeholders have the information they require. 2. Implement the agreed change. The changes to the service, payroll, should be implemented by the change management that is directly by the ITIL process. 3. Have a framework and set standards. This helps in avoidance of confusion in the organization and any difficulties that may arise in the transition process. Develop a common framework and other ITSM standards which can be easily used by all stakeholders. 4. Make maximum use of the recognized process and system. The aim of the transition is to have a system and process that is more helpful or can be used in more than one service or purpose. The developer of the system should have the operations of the business in mind; the system should aim at increasing the overall efficiency of the company. Adopt systems known to have higher efficiency. 5. Align the plans for transition with the business goals. The aim of the transition is to meet the needs of both the internal and external clientele of the organization. It is therefore vital to align the goals of the system with the overall customer goals as well as the organization goals (Klosterboer 2008). 6. Create and maintain a close relationship with all the stakeholders. Connection with the stakeholders helps to create a friendly relationship conducive for the implementation of the intended change. Be in touch with employees, customers, shareholders and the public at large to get their take on the impact the system will have on them and the overall company. 7. Have control and discipline for the transition. To have a smooth and effective transition of the system, one need to have control and discipline measures to guide the whole transition. 8. Have a system for knowledge transfer and decision support. The system design aims to reduce the workload in the company as well as to make the company run efficiently with minimal errors. There should be a complete documentation and record keeping allowing the system run better and efficiently. 9. Have alternatives. Come up with many techniques to guide in the system change. You should come up with different alternatives in order to choose the most cost effective and the most effectual method for the transition. 10. Anticipate and have techniques to contain any correction. Train a team that can anticipate a change in the whole process and make the changes with minimal or no divergence from the original framework or goals of the process (Bajada 2004). 11. Play an active role in managing resources across the system transition. The aim of the transition service is fixing problems that might disrupt the running of the company. Therefore the provision of the required resources and skills is vital to avoid disruptions. Conclusion and recommendations The success of any change in any company depends on the involvement of the concerned stakeholders. A company should therefore never implement any change without prior engagement and consultation with the necessary stakeholders. Implementation of any system or change should never be left to the top management of a company. No stakeholder should be ignored. As seen in the study Seven Seas did not ignore any of her stakeholders, the reason why the company is a success story. The discussed case can be adopted by any company with an intention to change or to introduce a new system or technology (Malone 2010). References Addy, R.. 2007. Effective IT service management to ITIL and beyond, Berlin: Springer. Bajada, S. 2004 ITIL foundations. London: GTSLearning. Dinsmore, P., C., & Jeannette, B. 2011. The AMA handbook of project management. 3rd ed. New York: American Management Association. Drucker, P., F., 1974. Management: tasks, responsibilities, practices. 1st ed. New York: Harper. Han, I. 2003. Knowledge management and organizations process, system and strategy. Bradford, England: Emerald Group Pub. Handzic, M., & Albert, Z., Z. 2005. Knowledge management: an integrative approach. Oxford: Chandos Pub. Klosterboer, L., 2008. Implementing ITIL configuration management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: IBM Press/Pearson. Macintosh, A., & Ian F. 1998. Knowledge asset road maps. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute. Malone, T. 2010 Itil v3 foundation complete certification kit, Emereo Pty Ltd. Mentzas, G., 2003. Knowledge asset management: beyond the process-centered and product-centered approaches. London: Springer. Pinkster, I. 2004. Successful Test Management: An Integral Approach.. Berlin: Springer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg GmbH & Co. KG. Rakos, J. J., & Dhanraj, K. 2005. The practical guide to project management documentation. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley. Read More