Extended Neubauer

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT?????? Session
06

• Extended Neubauer Solomon Environmental Analysis

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Three Levels Of Concerns
Potential Tools
External
Environmental Impacts
NS Analysis
Internal
SWOT/5-Force
Strategy/ Policy

• Business Strategy Policy

Business plan (HP 10-step)
Hoshin Plan
Program/ Project
Discrete Program/Project Identification
Program/Project Plan
Program/Project Execution
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(No Transcript)
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• Where to look for External Impacts

• Consider from 6 categories of environments
• Natural Environment
• Social/cultural Env.
• Technological Env.
• Economic Env.
• Political Env.
• Infra-Structural Env.

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Strategic Postures

• Strategic postures include
• Missions
• What needs to satisfy ?
• ????????????? (providing what products/services)
• Whose needs to satisfy ?
• Who are your target customers?/clients? ??????
  Be specific.
• What value provided (by your product/service) ?
• Eg.
• Product car gt Value transportation
  (bicycle could also for trans.)
• Product PCs gt Value computing (Notebook, PDA
  may substitute PC)
• Strategies
• Policies
• For simplicity, we will do missions strategies
  only.
• recomm. to include policies in the formal
  exercise for your firm
• Overview of what NS analysis can help us? (Fig.
  1)

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• Objectives of Extended NS Analysis

• (Figure 2)
• Provide a structured way of environmental
  analysis
• Identification and analysis of relevant trends,
  constituent expectations
• Provide a forum for discussions on shared
  missions/ strategies.
• Provide a framework for assessing the external
  impacts on the firm thus extending to the impacts
  on the missions/strategies. Providing clues for
  the needs to change firm's strategy - even
  missions.
• Help firm to identify potential threats and
  opportunities systematically.
• Help firm to assess firms readiness to respond to
  change and identify strategic actions needed.
• Systematic way leading to identification of IT
  Opportunities for org. competitive adv.
• The above objectives are best achieved thru
  teamwork and apporpriate participants for
  correctness/completeness.

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Environmental IT Opportunity Analysis
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• E. Neubauer Solomon Analysis (1)

• ltFigure 3gt
• Step 0 Briefly review Co. profile and industry
  status.
• Step 1 Deduct Apparent Missions
• Whose needs satisfied ?
• What needs satisfied ?
• What value does the company provide?
• Step 2 Identify Perceived Strategies
• long-term impact
• crucial to survival development
• broad in scope
• difficult to reverse
• involve significant commitments
• maybe different from stated strategies.
• If there are differences between
  perceived/apparent strategic postures and
  proclaimed ones, explain them in footnotes and
  comment on what should be done.

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• E. Neubauer Solomon Analysis (2)

• Step 3 Trend Analysis
• Industry-related trends (4)
• General trends (4)
• Both considered from all 6 categories of
  environments
• Step 4 Constituent Analysis
• Look for constituent's expectations
• ref only 3 demands from 3 major stakeholders.
• Step 5 Establish Scoring Criteria (0-5)
• Consider impacts on
• company financial / survival
• customer population / satisfaction market share
• organizational change
• co. public image etc

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• E. Neubauer Solomon Analysis (3)

• Step 6 Determine impacts of trends/expectations
  on strategies and missions. (-5_0_5) lt fig. 6gt
• X / -Y / Z (0 lt X, Y, Z lt 5)
• X (Opportunity) The extent of positive impact
  the org could gain if certain change is made to
  the subject mission/strategy
• -Y (Threat) The extent of negative impact the
  org could suffer if the subject mission/strategy
  is not changed.
• Z (Confirming) The extent of positive impact
  the current mission/strategy could bring about if
  it is implemented as intended. Z represents the
  goodness of the current mission/strategy w.r.t.
  the trends or expectations.

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E. Neubauer Solomon Analysis (3a)

• Keep BOTH - numbers.
• Explain all high-impacting items ( gt 3).
• Adding numbers separately in vertical hoz.
  directions.
• identify highly impacted strategies missions
• suggesting these strategic postures may deserve
  closer review.
• identify high impacting factors.
• Suggesting company may need to allocate more
  resource to gather data to enhance understanding
  of the factors.
• Normally, most points will be 0.

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• Neubauer Solomon Analysis (3b)

• Ref guidelines for negative impacts (-Y)
  ltexamples of - impactsgt
• On missions
• reduce/eliminate/change our population of
  stakeholders in undesirable way.
• reduce/eliminate the needs we are trying to
  satisfy
• reduce/eliminate the value of our product/service
  (in a grand scale)
• prevent us from satisfying our stakeholders.
• reduce/eliminate our ability to satisfy
  stakeholder's needs.
• On Strategies
• prevent us from implementing strategy
• increase risk associated w/ implementing strategy
• increase resources required to implement strategy
• suggest that some strategies no longer
  appropriate.

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• Neubauer Solomon Analysis (3c)

• Ref guidelines for positive impacts (X)
  ltexamples of impactsgt
• On missions
• suggest opportunity if our population of
  stakeholders is modified.
• suggest opportunity if the set of needs we are
  satisfying is modified.
• suggest opportunity if the set of values we are
  providing is modified.
• (must be consistent w/ firm's long-tem
  capability/competency)
• On strategies
• suggest a new opportunity if one or more
  strategies were changed w/i
• the framework of existing mission.
• Examples of confirming mission/strategy
• strongly support/reinforce our existing
  strategies w/ no need for change of strategies.
• increase the likelihood of our being able to
  implement strategy as planned.
• increase the confidence in the chosen strategy.

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• E. Neubauer Solomon Analysis (4)

• Step 7 Describe nature of key threats and
  opportunities.
• Understand/describe what makes this force a
  threat or opportunity?
• Step 8 Review highly impacted missions
  strategies.
• Recommendations for possible changes ltR1gt
• Identify desirable (changed) strategies
  missions, if any.
• Identify potential new strategies missions.
• What might/should our missions be?
• Whose needs, what needs, what value.
• When missions are in trouble, company may be in a
  wrong business.
• What might/should our strategies be?
• Factor in company's competitive edge and core
  competency.

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E. Neubauer Solomon Analysis (5)

• Step 9 Evaluate organizational readiness to
  change
• What responses are needed/desired? (company
  viewpoints)
• What are key factors/pre-conditions needed to
  enable effective responses? (functional
  viewpoints)
• What additional resources/efforts are needed?
  magnitude?
• How ready are the resources? (What's our current
  status?)
• "snowflake diagram" - magnitude of additional
  efforts/resources. (Example of Figure 7.)
• How do we address those additional needs?
• gt ltMore recommendations emerge - driven by
  external factorsgt ltR2gt

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• E. Neubauer Solomon Analysis (6)

• Step 10 Revise strategies and/or missions if
  needed.
• Revise existing strategies per previous
  analysis.
• Add new strategies if needed.
• Revise mission if there is a series problem with
  existing mission.
• Step 11 Test appropriateness of new strategies
  and/or missions if needed.
• Test modified strategies against revised
  missions. Check potential cascading changes onto
  strategies.
• If needed, repeat steps 6, 8, 9. (gt more
  higher Zs, less -Ys)
• ltrecommendations emerge - driven by internal
  reviewsgt ltR3gt
• Step 12 Summarize recommendations linking from
  Steps 8, 9, 10 11. (gt R4)
• Including strategic and possibly operational
  level.
• (Next stage would be a business plan on how to
  implement recommendations toward revised
  strategic postures missions/strategies/policies)

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• E. Neubauer Solomon Analysis (7)

• Step 13 Identify opportunity of using IT to
  more effectively achieve
• The integrated recommendations in STEP 12 (R4),
  incl
• strategic changes (mission/stratgies/organization
  al changes)
• Operational changes.
• Step 14 Write down the detail system
  requirements of the Information system
  identified.
• Extent You can give the doc to outsource the
  ITS impl.
• What functional requirements (user view) are to
  be achieved?
• What are the system external/interface
  constraints?
• H/W configuration / S/W configuration /
• Database (high level) plan / Telecommunication /
  Internet architecture / Budget / deadline
• Normally leave out the design specs.
• Review examples in class packet.

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• Implementation Notes (1)

• Law of "Garbage in garbage out" holds.
• Do faithful and serious discussions for
  evaluations.
• Recommend using Delphi brainstorm for
  assessments.
• All 5 categories of ext. env. are to be
  examined.
• Other aspects could impact tech. strategy.
• tech. strategy should support business gt good to
  have a broader perspective.
• Results from multiple persons' discussions.
• Avoid only single person's opinion gt whole
  team's discussions.
• Involve stakeholders in the discussion/ review
  helpful. (Ask company people's opinions if
  possible.)
• Model to resolve conflicting viewpoints
• Consensus / voting (averaging) / compromise

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• Implementation Notes (2)

• Get industry/company reviews whenever possible
• ID of strategic postures / trends / constituents'
  expectations.
• assessment of impact matrix
• determining of organizational responsiveness.
• Use abbreviated sentences for strategic postures
  trends/expectations (see Impact Matrix Example)
• instead of M1, S1, T1, E1, etc.
• Items explained sufficiently and in proper order
  in the report. (ref. MOT example)
• Summary of N S analysis Figure 3 7.
• Impact matrix example

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• Some techniques for consideration

• On giving points (Delphi approach)
• 1) Each one grades individually.
• 2) Every one presents grade to the group and the
  ones with extreme points explains the reason for
  the grade.
• 3) Allow everyone to re-grade after listening to
  other's opinions.
• 4) Average out the grade as final score.
• (Alternative could repeat 2)-4) until the spread
  of the grades is acceptable.)
• On getting recommendations
• Nominal group technique
• Leader explain problem/issue ask for ideas
• Allow some quiet time for members to think and
  write down ideas.
• One by one, members report their ideas to the
  group. List ideas in front of the group.
• Members continue to add ideas possibly stimulated
  by the reported ideas.
• It is OK to skip a turn if no idea to report.
• Continue to report and list ideas in rounds until
  all ideas are reported.
• Go to next stage of evaluating/discussing the
  ideas. Eventually identify some feasible
  solutions.

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HW Common Pitfalls

• Homework 2 (up to step 8)
• Do an extended NS analysis.
• Due in 3 weeks. (combine groups into super
  group 5 persons)
• 20 min. oral report of your HW.
  Mission/Strategy/Key impacts.
• Final report complete all steps of ENS.
• Common Pitfalls for NS Reports
• Missing Co. profile
• Unclear missions.
• Must be specific to define who your customers
  are what product/service What value, etc.
• Confuse mission w/ strategy
• Did not explain the missions/strategies
• Did not explain the impacted cells (score -
  3-5).
• Unclear linkage
• High impact items gt recomm. Changes gt Org.
  responsiveness gt IT opportunity