UDC CIO Organization Memo
Introduction
UMUC Distribution Company (UDC) growth has remained stagnant due to the slow economy. In order to achieve UDC’s goals to increase growth at 5% per year and cut expenses by 5% to help fund new initiatives, various improvements must be developed to enhance the Information Technology (IT) organization’s ability to provide efficient IT solutions to support UDC overall business goals. This Memo will outline the various areas which require improvement (i.e. Internal IT strategies, IT department structure, roles and responsibilities, and key services,) and how we as a team will accomplish these improvements (i.e. our philosophy, new Chief Information Officer (CIO) organization structure, and key millstones).
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• IT Governance is an internal IT strategy used to analyze and prioritize current and future IT projects through the IT governance process. It involves assessing current projects, defining future vision, and ensuring project road maps are structured properly. “Good governance enables you to make and implement better decisions faster, and provides the foundation for weaving together business and IT strategies (Broadbent, Kitzis, 2005).
• Risk Management is an internal IT strategy used to align the IT risk management plans with the business strategic initiatives to reduce the IT threats. Incorporating this process will ensure IT risks are managed, and the impacts are identified and monitored effectively.
• IT Organizational Restructure is necessary for the current IT department to be developed into a CIO organization. Outlining a new framework and identifying roles and responsibilities will help to shape an effective organization to be in a better situation to support the company’s goals. It will also better align the current and future IT investments and
Over the past few years growth, of WW has not increased and it has remained stagnant due to the slow growth of the economy. In order to improve the growth of the organization, a few IT organizational changes are required that will help streamline the internal processes for WW to improve the
Architecture must be developed in order to oversee IT strategy to benefit the whole organizational enterprise. Centralizing IT strategy at the start of the new business strategies will be important to make sure IT and business are working together with common goals that deliver the most value. The following steps are to be completed within each department:
IZL hired Jack Carlisle to restructure and reorganize its Information Technology (IT) department for its growing financial services organization. Our company is overwhelmed with internal turmoil which has seen the abrupt resignation of the company's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Chuck Hansen. The newly appointed CEO, Jim Giles, the former newly hired Chief Operating Officer (COO), seems to playing office politics and is trying to develop his own inner circle. Jack Carlisle, who is a straight shooter must assess the changes needed, both strategic and tactical, in an environment
With a specific end goal to consolidate a wide range of IT activities and advantage from them, the whole organizations IT strategy must be reengineered to cooperate. Instead of looking at IT as a unit itself, intergrading it into the business as a whole and making it work towards a common goal will make worth in the organization. The consequent strides should be refined in each segment of ModMeters to achieve their requests.
Like many of its most profitable competitors, Alcan has grown quickly through insightful series of mergers, acquisitions and rapid product development and launch strategies throughout the major markets it sells into. The company has settled on a highly decentralized divisional business model that has to the point of the case study served them well. Their IT systems are showing signs of massive overduplication of expense, with a $500M level of spending on enterprise applications with SAP being the majority. There are further signs of massive waste in their highly diversified organizational structure. There are 400 systems in the company all dedicated to pricing, a massive duplication of costs, time and effort on the part of IT across the five divisions. There are also over 1,000 concurrent enterprise-class IT systems being used throughout the company at any point in time. Conservatively speaking the company is spending 20% of their total enterprise software spend on maintenance costs alone. This is forcing the CIO, Robert Ouelette, to re-evaluate both the organizational structure and IT systems supporting it. The goals of this analysis are to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the existing application or IT management structure. An analysis of the proposal by Robert Ouelette is also provided along with an assessment of it potential effectiveness in solving the challenges is facing today.
In order to leverage IT for the benefit of the whole organization enterprise architecture must be developed to oversee IT strategy. Centralizing IT strategy at the start of the new business strategies will be important to make sure IT and business are working together with common goals that deliver the most value. The following steps are to be completed within each department:
Until now IT has become the significant role of execution within organization. Due to the efficiency of IT governance, it is apply to organization area more extensive. In addition, The IT Governance Institute cites 5 specific areas that need to be considered by those with the responsibility of managing IT, the five areas are: adding value, managing risk, matching IT to strategy, measuring performance and managing resources.
Strategy- Decide on an IT strategy that will be followed but allows some flexibility as technology and needs change. Set up goals and define objectives for the IT department that align with overall company objectives. Review these objectives
The firmed lacked an IT governance structure, so a team was created around the issue (ITMC). The purpose of the team was to create a fresh started, but it took some getting used and changing the way things we're getting done. The committee members were not used to having to come to agreements with that setting and to address issues directed to them. The purpose of the ITMC should be to facilitate and share experience and ideas to improve the effectiveness of the IT functions around the firm. Encourage cooperation to ensure the most effective and responsible way to use technology. There is an extended ITMC about 45 people, that meet once a month and share a bit more information and advice on all matters relating to information technology. They can identify emerging technologies, significant trends in information technology and communicate them to the group. According the Faulkner, hardware, software and people are leading the technology at the firm and are a critical component of
As changes start to take place, InsuraCorp has started to run into problems, each of the departments that will be downsized, or shut down have their own IT team lead and employees they are in charge of. Management has to figure out how and where they are going to place these individuals and what should they do when there is more IT personnel than positions available. As the centralization process starts to take shape, the InsuraCorp Executive Committee will start putting all IT projects in their order of significance. Assigning individuals to the IT department where their skills are required could hurt the company because some do not like change, the transition to the IT departments should be done with no breaks in the services and support
Definition: A Risk is an unwanted situation which might arise in an organization which might lead to negative impact on the desired result. Risk management plans involves the analyzing, managing and evaluating the projects risk and threats. It involves layout of the entire project i.e from the beginning during and after results of the project.
InsuraCorp agree on use centralized approach to IT, having each unit with an IT staff and one IT lead. Managers want it to create a new synergistic environment meaning, “the creation of a whole that is greater than the simple sum of its parts”. This new approach will require connections between departments, exchange of data from customers and products. By definition, centralized approach structures rely on one individual to make decisions and provided direction for the company. InsuraCorp believe on this approach to modify the IT department, to support the new synergistic environment. Lastly, one of the advantages of using centralized organizations is that is provides efficient business
Risk Management—Contributing to frameworks and practices for identifying, measuring, managing and reporting risks to the achievement of the objectives of the organization.
Risk management is the term applied to a logical and systematic method of establishing the context, identifying, analyzing, evaluating, treating, monitoring and communicating risks associated with any activity, function or process in a way that will enable organizations to minimize losses and maximize opportunities. (Lecture notes)Risk Management is also described as 'all the things you need to do to make the future sufficiently certain'. (The NZ Society for Risk Management, 2001)
Frenzel (2004) claimed that to be successful, a firm’s IT management team must take action on the following critical areas: business management issues; strategic and competitive issues; planning and implementation concerns; and operational items. If for any reason, the organisation experiences difficulties in the above areas, the manager will need to set goals and objectives to overcome and prevent these issues.