Information Systems A Business Approach

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Information SystemsA Business Approach

• Strategic IS Management

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Strategy and Information Systems

• Strategy works at different levels in the
  organisation
• There should be a corporate strategy
• There should be an information systems strategy
• The IS strategy should be aligned with the
  corporate strategy
• Much of this section may seem to focus on general
  strategy but these techniques can be used for IS
  strategy formulation

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Strategy

• A strategy is a plan for achieving medium and
  long term goals
• A strategic plan includes the goals, means
  (strategies) and metrics (measurements e.g.
  critical success factors) and addresses the
  mission and vision statement of the organisation
• The more mature an organisation the better
  defined its plans are
• Strategic plans can date very quickly in a
  changing environment
• many businesses opt for a loose fitting general
  framework rather than a detailed plan as a result

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Advantages Of A Strategic Plan

• Provides the organisation with a focus - this
  should be communicated to staff, suppliers and
  customers.
• People are more effective when they know what
  they are supposed to be doing - their activities
  are more focussed also decision making should
  improve.
• The production of a strategic plan involves SWOT
  analysis
• finding out where strengths and weaknesses lie
  and developing/maintaining a competitive
  advantage.
• NB. Planning is like cutting the grass, you can
  do a great job today but it will need doing again
  fairly soon and on a regular basis.

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Components Of Corporate Strategy
Markets
Competition
Organisational Culture and Environment
Environment
Alliances
MISSION
Economy
Politics
Resources
Strategic Analysis
SWOT Analysis
Porter's Competitive Forces
Skills
Capital
Information Architecture
Value Chain Analysis
Outsourcing
Growth
Defensive
Stability
Levels of Strategy
Corporate
Business
Functional
Strategy Implementation
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Level of organisational strategy
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Strategic Analysis

• SWOT Analysis
• A form of competitive analysis
• Strengths of the organisation
• Weaknesses of the organisation
• Opportunities in the environment
• Threats in the environment

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Example SWOT Analysis
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Porters Competitive Forces

• Porters competitive forces
• another form of competitive analysis
• never intended for IS use but often applicable in
  a general sense
• Porters 5 competitive forces are
• New entrants
• Increased bargaining power of buyers
• Increased bargaining power of suppliers
• Threat of other industries offering substitutes
• Rivalry between competing sellers

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Value Chain Analysis

• Value chain analysis
• a lower form of analysis than SWOT in which the
  organisation is viewed as an input output system
• resources (inputs) are brought into the
  organisation, processed and then sold (outputs)
• Improvements can be made in the each of the
  primary secondary activities in the value chain
  
• Primary activities - Inbound logistics,
  Operations, Outbound logistics, Marketing,
  Service
• Secondary activities administration, research
  and development, human resource management and
  information systems development

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Example Value Chain

• Primary activities are key tasks that return most
  value, secondary activities are support tasks
  (e.g. admin) here Web applications add value to
  both.

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Aligning IS With Business Goals

• The IS strategic plan must be conformant with the
  business plan (top down). For some organisations,
  the IS is the business plan.
• Care must be taken to avoid developing systems
  which
• Take too much time and money to develop because
  they do not have the full backing of senior
  people.
• Do not provide a significant return to the
  organisation because they are peripheral to the
  core business needs.
• Displace other, perhaps more worthwhile, projects
  from being developed as they consume
  organisational resources.
• Are not maintained effectively and eventually
  become a problem for the business. The
  information systems may be poorly perceived by
  the customers and/or employees.

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Traditional vs. Dynamic Companies
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Knowledge Management

• KM consists of creating, storing, managing,
  accessing and sharing tacit knowledge (personal
  knowledge) and explicit knowledge (documented in
  books, intranets, etc.)
• A wide range of companies are effectively
  developing knowledge management programmes for
• cost reduction
• process improvement
• improving productivity
• improving time to market
• and increasing innovation
• The types of application include Frequently
  Asked Questions (FAQs), reuse, best practices,
  problem solving software, decision support
  systems, resource management systems, and asset
  management systems

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Types Of Knowledge

• Know-why - explanatory knowledge, scientific
  knowledge of principles (laws of nature)
• Know-how - skills, the ability to organise
  resources to achieve desired outcomes
• Know-who - social knowledge, refers to specific
  social relations - e.g. who controls the
  resources needed in a particular situation.
• Know-when/Know-where - economically useful
  knowledge about markets
• Know-what - catalogue knowledge

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The Learning Organisation

• Peter Senge (1990) coined the term to describe
  companies whose ability to learn will provide
  them with a competitive advantage
• A company which creates new knowledge may not
  manage it effectively
• The learning organisation and knowledge
  management should go hand in hand.
• How many companies can you think of which have a
  feedback mechanism in the systems and processes
  for learning?

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The Real Challenge

• The reward structures in most companies often
  conspire against good knowledge management
• Pay and conditions are related to status which in
  turn relates to knowledge and skills
• Why would employee A help employee B to become a
  rival in the promotion and pay stakes?
• Information systems can play a key role in
  helping people share knowledge, store knowledge,
  and find knowledge

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Summary

• A strategy is a medium to long term plan
  outlining the goals of the organisation
• The information systems plan should be aligned
  with the organisation's strategic plan
• IS managers can employ one or a number of
  strategic planning methods, such as Porter's
  Competitive Model and SWOT Analysis
• There are occasions when the information
  technology can act as a strategic driver in its
  own right
• The Information Architecture is a plan for the
  organisation's information and technology
  infrastructure
• Creating an effective knowledge based
  organisational environment is a strategic
  direction facilitated by information systems