Analysis Term PapersAnalysis Term Papers

The papers were very mixed in quality—some very good , some not as good.

The best way to communicate what could have been better is to refer you to the check list that I distributed in class.

Communication skills are extremely important for most if not all ISM jobs. That includes both oral and writing skills.

Paper ObjectivePaper Objective

The objective of this paper is to provide an analysis of how a combination of business strategies and the use of information systems have enabled ( ) to gain a competitive advantage in the ( ) industry.

To accomplish this the paper is divided into four sections. Section I focuses on the ( ) industry. Section II provides a profile of ( ), the company being evaluated. Section III uses a structured approach to understand the role and significance of the use of information systems. Section IV concludes with a summary of the significance of ( ) accomplishments to date and whether it is prepared to face a number of difficult challenges in its future.

Section II – Industry AnalysisSection II – Industry Analysis

Poorly defined industry.

Poorly done or no business strategy models or models with little to almost no narrative.

Standard mistakes with the Porter Competitive Model

Section II – Company AnalysisSection II – Company Analysis

1. Logic of starting with history of the company?

2. Successful companies are because of people.

3. This is a paper about the significance of the use of information systems so doesn’t it make sense to introduce the IS executive in the company?

Boiler plate business people information cut and pasted from web page biographies.

The PlanThe Plan

Correct and/or improve Section I and II of paper that will be 1/3 of the Section III grade.

Complete Section III and IV.

Submit complete, final paper in hard copy form with the original copy of Section I and II and a diskette with the final complete paper on it.

After today, there are eight more classes to the end of the quarter.

I will pick who will present their papers to the class.

Chapter 8 and 9 SummaryChapter 8 and 9 Summary

TARGET

CUSTOMER COMPETITORSUPPLIER

THRUST

DIFFERENTIATION COST INNOVATION GROWTH ALLIANCE

MODE

DIRECTION

OFFENSIVE DEFENSIVE

USE PROVIDE

EXECUTION

STRATEGICADVANTAGE

STRATEGIC OPTION GENERATOR

Figure 8-1

Things to Remember about S.O.G Things to Remember about S.O.G Relating to the PaperRelating to the Paper

For ‘Target’, think about who is the strategic target of the business.

For ‘Thrust’ think about which of these strategies does your business focus on and pick one of the primary strategies and any of the three supporting strategies that are important.

For ‘Mode’ think about your company’s position in the industry—is it a leader or a follower?

Finally, ‘Direction’ think about who IS are intended for: people within the company or beyond the company boundaries.

Chapter 9: Roles, Roles and Chapter 9: Roles, Roles and RelationshipsRelationships

1. The Role of Information Systems is to focused on competitive priorities.

2. The Role of Senior Management is to play a major role in positioning and prioritizing the competitive role of information systems.

3. The Relationship of those that run the business and those responsible for information systems must be on an on-going basis.

Role of Senior ExecutiveRole of Senior Executive

Need not become computer technicians However, must have vision for the company Also must realize the value of IS to a company

Role of Other ManagementRole of Other Management Identify requirements of new systems Budget funds for systems Must understand competitive role of systems

RelationshipsRelationships

Can be a formal organizational approach like an IS steering committee.

Can be important enough that it is an integral part of managing the business.

IT Transfer Through IT Transfer Through Organizational LearningOrganizational Learning

“There is a direct correlation between the successful introduction of a new IS and the learning curve of the primary users.”

How are users of a new system able to effectively learn how to use it?

Phases of IS ManagementPhases of IS Management

Direction: vision/strategy of the business Conceptual Approach: concepts of what

the system will be Specific Approach: specifically how the

system will be implemented It is important to know that Senior

Management, Functional Management and IS management all have a different sized role in each of these phases. (see Fig 9-4)

IS InitiatorsIS Initiators

Threat to Business Personal Power of a Senior Manager The need for business process

improvements One or more of the above things will

emphasize the use of IS in a business

Should the IS organization be a Should the IS organization be a ‘business within a business?’‘business within a business?’

IS organization fits specifications of a ‘business’.

But is it a business within a business? It has some attributes, but lacks profitability;

IS director’s goal is not to make a profit

Possible Exam QuestionsPossible Exam Questions

Does outsourcing the management of information systems impact its use as a competitive resource?

Explain the concept of “IT transfer based on organizational learning.”

Chapter 10 IntroductionChapter 10 Introduction

The Redefine and/or Define Concept

and

Change Management

Redefine and/or DefineRedefine and/or Define

Companies that achieve a sustainable

strategic advantage with information

systems generally redefine the factors

of competition rather than use the

technology in a traditional way.

Redefine and/or DefineRedefine and/or Define

What does it mean to redefine and/or define?

Redefine and/or Define What?

1. The business

2. Products and/or services

3. Business processes

Why do this?

Value to customer

Product and Service Delivery Product and Service Delivery ProcessProcess

Is the delivery process of the product more important than the product itself?

Value-Add ProcessWhat the Customer

Buys

Product/Service

Del

iver

y P

roce

ss

Pro

duct

/Ser

vice

Value to Customer

A tailored version should be included in Section III of the ATP.

Reengineering Business Reengineering Business ProcessesProcesses

Definition of business process engineering: An approach to achieve radical improvements in value to customer and/or business efficiency.

A proven approach to develop new approaches in the way the company does things.

Change ManagementChange Management

Four Major Change Considerations: 1. The pressures of change.

2. Financial controls that discourage an increase in the number of employees.

3. Shifting of productivity and other operational objectives to information technology.

4. Improvements in information technology price/performance and function.

ConclusionsConclusions Business dynamics dictate not only the need for

changes but the increasingly faster pace that they should be addressed.

Information technology can be a catalyst for change. A company can alter business processes, products and

services and even the very business itself. Dealing with changes can be difficult and must be

addressed as the important factor that it is in running a business.

Chapter 10Chapter 10

The Redefine and/or Define Concept

and Change Management

We live in a word of change, yet we act on the basis of continuity.

The Challenge of Change

Millions of ordinary, psychologically

normal people will face an abrupt

collision with the future. Many of

them will find it increasingly painful

to keep up with the incessant demand

for change that characterizes our time.

Alvin ToflerFuturist

Definition of ChangeDefinition of Change

Making an essential difference often

amounting to a loss of original identity

or a substitution of one thing for another.

You have to realize that every out-front maneuverYou have to realize that every out-front maneuver

you are going to make is going to be lonely, but if you are going to make is going to be lonely, but if

you feel entirely comfortable, then you're not far you feel entirely comfortable, then you're not far

enough ahead to do any good. That warm sense of enough ahead to do any good. That warm sense of

everything going well is usually the body everything going well is usually the body

temperature at the center of the herd.temperature at the center of the herd.

John MastersJohn Masters

Spirit of Feeling of Spirit of Feeling of InnovationInnovation

and Intraprenueringand Intraprenuering

Equipping a company with the latest technology doesn't mean a thing if you don't alter how your employees think and how management leads them.

Chad Frost

President

Frost Inc.

As we change what computers can do, we must change what we can do with computers.

Max Hopper

Former CIO

Information Systems

AMR and American Airlines

Redefine Change

Define Clarify

Companies that achieve a sustainable

strategic advantage with information

technology generally redefine the

factors of competition rather than using

technology in a traditional way.

Competitive Advantage Competitive Advantage Through Use of IS?Through Use of IS?

******************Redefine and/or Define:

1. The Business

2. Products and/or Services

3. Business Processes

To Provide Value to Customer

McDonald’s as Concept Source

• Defined its products.• Redefined processes to make the product.• Defined customer service as quality, product

predictability, fast service, cleanliness and friendliness.

• Set standards for these and trained its employees accordingly.

• Redefined the “hamburger business.”

Peter Drucker’s Assessment:

Redefine and/or Define Redefine and/or Define The BusinessThe Business

USA Today

American Airlines

American President Companies

Amazon.com

eBay

Redefine and/or Define Redefine and/or Define Products or ServicesProducts or Services

Charles Schwab Banc One Any company that has introduced an

E-commerce approach in addition to an existing brick and mortar operation.

Redefine and/or Define Redefine and/or Define Business ProcessesBusiness Processes

Boeing

LL Bean

All of your ATP companies—intranets, extranets, E-

Business processes

When making a purchase decision does the delivery process become more important than the product or service?

Value to Customer

Product/Service

Del

iver

y Pr

oces

s

Prod

uct/

Serv

ice

Value Add Process What the Customer Buys

Figure 10-1

• Stock, Bond and Mutual Fund Trades• Financial Product Options • Competitive Fees• Timely Execution of Trades and Money Transfer• Personal Service• Confidence in Financial Custodial Responsibility

Charles Schwab & Co.

• Computer Based Trades• Client Broker Service Street Smart Telebroker Equalizer• OneSource• Electronic Transfers• Trade Risk Analysis

Value to Customer

Product/Service

Del

iver

y Pr

oces

s

Bro

kera

ge S

ervi

ceWhat the Customer BuysValue-add Process

Figure 10-2

Value to Customer Analysis

• Point-of-Sale (POS) System Ticketed Merchandise UPC Scanning Price Look-up Credit Card Approval• Wireless Portable POS• Warehouse System • EDI Systems with Vendors• Infobot Voice Response

Value to Customer

Product/Service

Del

iver

y Pr

oces

s

Prod

uct/

Serv

ice

Value Add Process What the Customer Buys

• Quality Apparel/Home Fashions• Competitive Prices• High Merchandise Availability • Personal Service• Fast, Accurate Check-out• Fast Credit Approval• Access to Credit Information

Value to Customer Analysis:Mervyn’s

Figure 10-3

• An aircraft designed for passenger comfort, operational efficiency and safety.• Flexible design configuration• Competitive price• Logistical support

Value to Customer AnalysisBoeing Commercial Airplane Group

• CAD design system and review process• Customer input through network• Co-design process with customer• Quality control system• Vendor EDI system

Value to Customer

Product/Service

Del

iver

y Pr

oces

s

Com

mer

cial

Air

craf

t

What the Customer BuysValue-add Process

Figure 10-4

Value to Customer

Product/Service

Del

iver

y Pr

oces

s

Prod

uct/

Serv

ice

Value-Add Process What the Customer Buys

ReengineeringReengineering

Hammer Definition: Reengineering is the

fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of

business processes to achieve dramatic

improvements in critical, contemporary

measures of performance, such as cost, quality,

service and speed.

Key words are fundamental, radical, dramatic and processes.

Michael Hammer VideotapeMichael Hammer Videotape

The father of reengineering.

At least the term.

Reengineering Business Reengineering Business ProcessesProcesses

Difference between business functions and business processes?

Definition of a business process: A sequence of predefined activities executed to achieve a type or range of desired outcomes.

Definition of process engineering: An approach to achieve radical improvements in value to customer and/or business efficiency.

Business ProcessesBusiness Processes

• New product development.

• Customer order fulfillment.

• Customer service.

• Supply chain management.

• Budgeting.

• New employee recruitment and hiring.

Reengineering MotivationReengineering Motivation

• Improve value to customer.

• Strengthen alignment of core processes to business strategies.

• Pursuit of new opportunities.

• Optimize cross-functional performance.

• Broaden scope of activities and individual jobs to improve

responsiveness or flexibility.

• Reduce operating costs.

Reengineering GuidelinesReengineering Guidelines

1. Senior management commitment to adopting a new process.

2. Team empowerment and decision-making.

3. Be careful about how you draw conclusions and create perception.

4. Move toward inquiry, not conclusions.

5. Make the space and time available for the official beginning with a team kickoff.

6. Reward system must be correctly focused.

Reengineering MethodologyReengineering Methodology

InstituteContinuousImprovements

AnalyzeLeveragePoints

IdentifyProcessBreakthroughs

Design Business Processes

ImplementBusinessProcesses

•Critical Success Factors•Activity Value Analysis•Benchmarks and Surveys•Processing Modeling•Investment Analysis

Process Prototyping

and Implementation

PerformanceReporting

Pha

se 1

Pha

se 2

Pha

se 3

Pha

se 4

Pha

se 5

Pha

se 6

Source: ISS Corporation

Reengineering Success FactorsReengineering Success Factors

• Business Imperative.

• Strong Sponsorship.

• Right Team.

• Clear Objectives with a Well Defined

Foundation.

Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard

Reengineering Lessons Learned:

1. Goals and accountability must be clear.

2. Process ownership is crucial.

3. Links among business owners, process

owners and IS organization are critical.

Avon Reengineering ApproachAvon Reengineering Approach

Process Culture

1. Stay Focused 1. Analyze (Opposition)

2. Be Specific 2. Educate (Concerns)

3. Deliver Results 3. Motivate (Buy-in to

process)

American Express MethodologyAmerican Express Methodology

• Ownership

• Teams

• Goals

• Tracking

Competition

Complexity

Computers

Change

Change ManagementChange Management

Resistance to Change?Resistance to Change?

You really don’t have a choice.

There are those that content that an organization has two choices: change or die.

Graying of Auto IndustryGraying of Auto Industry

Within the next two years, as many as forty to fifty percent of the auto industry workforce will be eligible to retire.

Auto companies must decide if they will replace these people with similarly skilled workers or redesign their jobs and recruit more technologically advanced workers.

The shortage of skilled workers is partially a result of changes in work requirements as the industry moves from an auto parts or components mentality to a systems mentality. e.g. not an odometer but an entire dashboard.

Change ChallengesChange Challenges

Organizations worldwide are confronting more turbulent markets, more demanding shareholders, customers with increasingly higher expectations and employees with a different values.

Success in making the changes required depends much on the quality of their leadership -- not only at the top of the organization but also among all managers responsible for operating results.

Leadership can make a great difference, and its importance for organizational success is intensifying.

Impact of ChangeImpact of Change

Change is intensely personal.

For change to occur in any organization, each individual must think, feel or do something differently.

Even in large organizations, which depend on thousands of employees understanding company strategies well enough to translate them into appropriate action, leaders must win their followers one by one.

Small wonder that company change is such a difficult and frustrating item on almost every company’s agenda.

Let’s Not ForgetLet’s Not Forget

• Xerox: Invented plain paper copiers but almost needed to

file bankruptcy after hemorrhaging financially while trying to

become the document company.

• Eastman Kodak: Basically popularized film photography

but struggled to decide if it was in the imaging business.

• Digital Equipment: Created the minicomputer

segment of the computer industry but has disappeared as a

company.

IT Related ChangeIT Related Change

If IT related change could be limited to only affecting the technology, implementation would be relatively simple.

Adding human factors increases the complexity of the change process significantly.

Successful implementation of change requires an understanding of the human as well as the technical aspects involved in the situation.

IT projects and people translate to “here comes the next wave of change.”

Managing ChangeManaging Change

Start with reality. Get all the facts out. Give people the rationale for change, laying it out in the clearest, most dramatic terms.

Jack Welch

General Electric

They have built in resistance to their own corresponding attitudes,

institutions and cultures.

Old Paradigms Die Hard!Old Paradigms Die Hard!

The Law of Change

Achieving change, of any significance within an organization, is in inverse proportion to the success that it has had up to the time that management feels a change is needed.

The greater the success of the company, the less likely it is to change.

Selecting a Change StrategySelecting a Change Strategy

Which strategy to use in approaching a change problem is a decision affected by a number of possible factors.

1.Degree of Resistance.

2.Target Population Size.

3. High, Medium or Low Business Stakes.

4. The Time Window.

5. Expertise Availability.

6. Organization and People Dependency.

Necessary QuestionsNecessary Questions1. Is the purpose of the new technology clear to its users?

2. Do the users accept the need for the technology change?

3. Were the users involved in planning the new system?

4. Has there been good communication regarding the change?

5. Is there acceptance of the increased cost compared to the benefits of the new system?

6. Is there a perception of organizational support for the new system?

7. Is there compatibility of the new technology with the old way of doing things?

8. Have the social aspects of the new system been assessed?

9. Do the users feel that the new system reflects negatively on

their past performance?

11. Have the habit patterns of the users influenced the design of the new system?

12. Is there a lack of respect and trust in the change agents?

13. Has excessive pressure been involved relative to the project?

14. Is the pace of change perceived to be too fast or too slow?

15. Is there a significant amount of user fear of failure?

16. Can the status quo be reestablished if the new technology

proves unsuccessful?

Change Management SkillsChange Management Skills

• People Skills

• Business Skills

• System Skills

• Political Skills

• Analytical Skills

Transition Versus ChangeTransition Versus Change

1. It goes on inside a person, not outside.

2. It takes much longer.

3. It starts with an ending.

4. It finishes with a new beginning.

5. In between is a neutral zone.

This applies to organizations as well as individuals.

Burning Platform DecisionBurning Platform Decision

A burning platform type of decision is at hand when the organization is facing a major, disruptive change in which the cost for the status quo is prohibitively high and there is a significant risk that implementation failure could occur.

Celebrate Your VictoriesCelebrate Your Victories

Companies often don’t celebrate enough when their people

win.

They get so caught up in the daily grind of work that they

don’t stop to enjoy what they have achieved.

Do things that build people’s self confidence. It’s all about

praising others and getting excited about their victories.

Celebrating success will help to convince people that they

are important, doing well and can respond to the next

challenge even if it involves significant change.

Change Management Change Management GuidelinesGuidelines

Plan change management like you would change new products.

A new process needs to reflect the appropriate culture.

A focus on tools can be counter-productive.

Expect people unhappiness in a change process.

Gear the entire effort to the goals of a new program or process.

Structure where possible to have fun.

ConclusionsConclusions

Change has become the norm in most businesses

Information systems are often the cause of or the vehicle for change.

Change within an organization has to be managed appropriately.