ModMeters Synopsis When the CEO launches two new strategic initiatives requiring integration across all business units, the organization – whose IT decisions have been largely delegated to its business units in proportion to their revenue generating capacity – now faces the dilemma of how to prioritize its IT projects in order to support the new strategic “enterprise” vision.
Organization Chart Identify the Key Issues1. CIO and CEO don’t agree on direction of company2. IT funding within the organization is tightly controlled and hard to get.3.No resources to invest in reengineering their existing systems (outdated)4.
The current architecture is multiple technologies, layered on each other, that don’t work well together5. The budget is so small now that they don’t have room to develop new strategies6. IT budget will be gone within 5 years if it isn’t reworked7. A small time frame (a month) to basically rework an entire organization’s operations Analysis 1. Please elaborate on the following steps to Develop an IT planning process for ModMeters to accomplish the demands.
Q: The first step in this process is to clarify the demands on IT and the resources that will be needed to accomplish them.A: This means that that demands need to be clear up front so that MM knows what they can and cannot provide from the beginning. They can’t afford to have “roadblocks” in the middle of a project and fork out more money.Q: The second step is to align business and IT work with the company priorities.A: This means that MM needs to get IT to help with their business priorities (which is why IT is valuable in the first place).If IT isn’t being used for the correct processes, then all they’re doing is wasting time and money.
2. Q: Identify the success metrics for each program. A: Manufacturing is responsible for ROI and the most profits. Outside of that, the rest don’t sound very successful.
IT is a mess, R&D needs new workers to project the new objective, and so on.3. Q: It is important to recognize that the enterprise strategy cannot be accomplished without some internal IT and infrastructure work being done. Please describe what kind of projects, how are they prioritized, and how will they be budgeted? A: Well, the projects at ModMeters would be to rework the entire IT budget without sacrificing manufacturing’s money (department that brings in most money), they also need to prepare to expand globally with new equipment and expanding architecture, along with getting new programs that talk better with each other and a new website.
They need to be prioritized by which makes the most money in the quickest amount of time. Businesses cannot afford to waste time because it is directly connected to their finances.And again, they need to be budgeted by what benefits the company most. If it’s the manufacturing department that is their huge moneymaker, than they need to continue to feed manufacturing with cash. The budget has to be built around what ModMeters successful.
4. Q: What sort of plan does IT need to outline? A: I’d say it going to be used for strategic, enterprise top line growth. 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. Things such as a SWOT analysis and surveying employees to figure out ways to have IT benefit EACH apartment to help the company grow and excel as a whole.5.
Q: What are some of the challenges involved in aligning IT and business strategy? A: First and foremost, many don’t fully understand the company itself. Without having a full grasp on the company and their needs/goals, how can you align IT and business strategy? Also, like ModMeters, some companies can’t afford to due to their poor budgeting or lack of budgeting. But, some also allocate resources to departments that can’t properly use those resources. I’d say the biggest issue is the simply costs that come with an IT department.
Software and hardware are not cheap and to align IT with business strategy the technology that will benefit the most tends to be quite expensive. There are many challenges, but these are just some.
