ICT416: Written Assignment I

Tanat Jarusyingdumrong 508333

Win Hlaing 506415

ICT416: Management of IT services

Dr. Soranun

July 3rd, 2009

1. What are the goals of the new work environment? Why such the goals are

formulated?

There are four main different goals of the new work environment.

Firstly, it is to promote and make use of leverage knowledge efficiently. Usually, it is

not knowledge about the IT system, but it is the knowledge that people know but cannot

really explain to the others. Basically, it is implicit knowledge in peoples’ head (intellectual

capital). And that knowledge is to foster sharing and to support the sharing with technology;

for example, email and groupware are informal groups where collective knowledge is used to

accomplish a specific task. And through the organization “pull”, people need help from the

others to solve a problem rather than the organization push to them with the overload of

works.

And another one is to organize for complexity since the world becomes more

complicated day by day and simple solutions are no longer needed and business alliances

have complimentary expertise, more complexity, and specialization. Now, every decision can

lead to many organizational impacts.

The third one is to work electronically in the organization by taking advantage of the

internet and networks. It is required in different organizing principles and management tenets.

This changes how the organizations interact with others, including customers. Plus,

microchip and bandwidth power/capability are increasing and their costs are decreasing.

The last one is to handle continuous efficiency when the product or service is fine.

And discontinuous change is needed to replace the existing product or service entirely.

2. Give at least three characteristics of the technology trends in hardware, software,

data and communication.

When we look at the hardware trends in 50s-60s, batches processing (centralized

system) was used. Then, in the mid 70s, processing power began to move out of the central

site. After that, in 1980s, the period of boom of personal computers took place. Next, Client-

Server computing by interfacing between client and server on the network holding the data

and applications with the major current development hits the market. Handheld devices

become more popular due to wireless system.

For the software trends; in 1960s, there was an improvement of the in-house programs

after in-house programmers had successfully created transaction processing systems. For

programming history - the first era is modular and structured programming techniques. Then,

it’s the era of life-cycle development methodologies. Then, software engineering arises.

Purchasing software also becomes viable alternative to developing in-house software. Plus,

the off-the-shelf software focuses on applications rather than transaction processing. In

1990s, Enterprise Resource Planning and Web Front Ends empowered employees rather than

replacing legacy systems. Major changes in software trend is the web service software in

which information and data can be accessed anywhere through the internet.

Data trend is started with the file management with the techniques to serve individual

applications; then to serve corporate database by serving several applications. All of these led

to a data administration function. The focus of shifting from data resources to information

resources in 1990s, together with data management, organizes internal facts to data record

format; for example, data warehousing and data mining. There are two major data concerns,

security and privacy.

Communication trends have experienced enormous change and are now taking center

stage. In the early stage, it is for online and time-sharing systems. Later on, it became more

interesting in both public and private data network’s eyes. Finally, the Internet has changed

everything; and today internet’s protocol has become the worldwide standard for LANs and

WANs. Communication-based information systems link organizations to their suppliers and

customers. Nowadays, the explosion of wireless technology moves us from second

generation to WIFI third generation.

3. From Supply-Push to Demand-Pull

- Compare and contrast between supply-push and demand-pull

Supply-push business strategy: A push strategy in marketing is used when there has

been a development or improvement on a new product which is unknown to the consumer.

As there is no consumer demand in the product launch, the product and the information are

"pushed" to the consumer by distribution and promotion.

Demand pulls business strategy: In a "pull" system, the consumer sector requests the

product and "pulls" it through the delivery channel. An example of this is the car

manufacturing company Ford in Australia. It only produces cars when they have been

ordered by the customers.

- Explain its impact on the internal organization environment

A push and pull-system in business describes the move of a product or information

between two sectors. In the market, the consumers usually "pull" the goods or information

they demand for their needs while the suppliers "push" them toward the consumers.

In the internal organization environment, the push strategy in marketing can be found earlier

in times where the organization decided what to put into the market. The new approach of

pull system aggressively impacts the organization to listen more to the consumers then decide

what to produce according to the demand. Therefore, companies are moving more into the

customer-centric to all-the-best satisfy the customers better than their competitors do.

Customer Relationship Management system becomes more like a must for a company.

- What does an organization need to be prepared for this significant shift?

Over the few years, a few innovative companies have improved and achieved their

strategic by using advantages of IT and these firms served as models of what could be done.

However, most companies do not have the resources or skills to follow those examples; so

only a few utilized IT in their organizations. Later, the dramatic growth of internet and online

business makes IT become a strategic tool in every industry. Companies are now looking for

more and better cohesion where the uses of intranets and portals are the most popular ways to

use IT. Firms are now in need to adjust their organizational structures to be more adaptive to

the fast-moving and highly competitive market. To do that, firms need to demise their big

hierarchical structures to become more “flat” and project-based to quickly satisfy the basic

demands in the market where they are under top management scopes. Firms need to both

change strategically inside their own organizations and valuing customer-centric

methodology. The popular ways are to use IT in working across business (B2B), working

with customers (B2C), and working with the employees (B2E).

4. What is IT governance and why has it become important?

The term “governance” has become prominent in all areas of business including IT.

IT governance is the assignment of decision rights and the accountability framework to

encourage desirable behavior in the use of IT. Governance differs from management in the

way that governance is about deciding who will be put/authorize to make decision while

management is about that authorized person making decisions once decision rights have been

assigned.

Governance has become important in the business world because financial scandals

have shown that there was not much true and effective governance in some very large

enterprises. Governance has become more important in the IS world because IT expenditures

have become so large and diverse that management has had to find a way to bring order to all

the decision making. Basically, it is the concept of putting the right man on the right job.

5. What are the four areas that make up the overall responsibility of the IS function that

we discussed in class? Briefly discuss the trend of IS function in each area in the future

organization.

The new trends have contributed in moving the IS responsibilities and performance

out of the traditional IS department into other parts of the organization or to other enterprises:

1. Computer Operations : the IS was responsible to take care of everyday operations that

involve the use of IT. Nowadays, companies outsource more in this area. For example,

KBANK outsources IBM to take care of its IS.

2. System development and maintenance : the IS was responsible to develop the systems

or applications that the users or the organization demand. IS is also responsible for

maintaining them later. Nowadays, systems and applications are usually purchased then

customized to fit the unique organization’s needs rather than to have the IS department

developing them. After the systems or the applications are developed, the IS department then

can take care of the maintenance. This approach saves time, cost, and manpower as the

organization do not have to hire more people just to create a set of systems and applications;

so they can focus on their actual business and let the professionals handle all the extra work.

3. System and information architecture : the IS is responsible for creating the enterprise

framework. This work area can be outsourced; however, it is better to do it in-house since

some security concerns may be questioned. Top management probably does not want

someone outside to know everything about the architecture of the enterprise which is highly

sensitive and confidential.

4. Business requirements identification : the IS was responsible to understand what the

business needs. Nowadays, companies are moving more into project-based orientation where

IT and business staffs cooperate and work together to come up with a system that can

efficiently satisfy the business needs.

The future roles for IS are broker for commodity services, such as, helpdesk, basic PC

support, etc. And for systems and information architecture area, IS will become an IT

strategist who align the technology with business requirement. In the future, the IS Lite

concept suggests that IS department can be viewed as managing three overall process in

diving innovation, managing change and supporting infrastructure where the work will be

integrating the outsourcers and the organization’s business people.

6. Describe the need of champions of IT project in an organization. How can we identify

them?

To answer this question, a proper definition of “champions” must be clearly defined; a

champion is someone with a vision and that person can gets it implemented by obtaining the

funding, pushing the project over hurdles, putting his or her reputation on the line, and taking

the risk of the project. And the special thing about these champions are that they can only be

found, not appointed. They have distinctive characteristics to ordinary workers. They can be

identified by the followings:

- they are opinion leaders: they are the frontline when it comes to commenting

- they have a good reputation for creative ideas or being involved with innovations

- they have developed strong ties to others in the organization: they are respected

- they have the organizational power and influence to get strategic innovations implemented

So why do we need these people in the organization? The answer is simple; to

compete better in this enormously populating business world. Nowadays, competent workers

are no longer an issue to any organization since the population is large and education is

abundant. Almost all of the workers have achieved at least high school diploma and many

more with undergraduate degree. What firms want today is a group of people who can come

up with original and creative ideas, ready to take the risk, execute remarkable both public and

internal performance, carry out duties and properly react to any surprising circumstances with

reasonable acts.

7. How has the Internet changed consumer expectations?

The Internet has changed a lot of things in these past few years; especially how

business works and how we live our lives. As before, consumers expected or hoped for the

suppliers (producers) to listen to them and come up with the things they demand. However,

these days, businesses are growing dramatically; firms are too competing against each other

and the ones benefiting are the customers. The customers now don’t “beg” for the goods, but

the firms are the ones begging the customers to buy their goods by improving quality, putting

in new creativity, reducing prices, advertising, etc. Basically, the customers are the ones

controlling what to produce now; for example, customized/personalized products.

Furthermore, consumers tend to demand more IT functions for their convenience like price

comparison, online transaction, data mining for suggestions and recommendations, saving

records (like billing and shipping addresses) so that they don’t have to key in again, etc.

8. What are the three strategic uses of IT in an organization? What are the purposes or

the essences of each strategic use?

I. B2E or Business to Employee (working inward):

This is to create a cohesion among workers; this process is to ‘glue’ isolated employees

together. A very famous tool in this area is intranet. By building up an intranet system, firms

can establish better relationship between themselves and their employees. Furthermore, the

system can improve working efficiency and save time and cost with an improved internal

processes and structure (examples: using the existing Internet to expand its intranet to other

locations, reducing training time to users since it is web-based application, and the firm needs

to store records at only one place while allowing its workers to access anywhere in the

world). Lastly, it creates a sense of belonging to its workers. Its workers will feel like they are

being taken care of and not left out alone.

II. B2C or Business to Customer (working outward):

This is to dramatically improve the relation between the company itself to its customers. This

process focuses on the firm’s products and its relationship with workers. The very famous

tool to use is the CRM or the Customer Relationship Management. By implementing B2C

system, a firm can achieve either these two things or both; gaining competitive advantage or

finding itself at a disadvantage. This system also gives the customers the feeling of being

taken care of; everybody is a valued customer (examples: data mining technology lets the

firm knows what this particular customer or customers as a whole like then they can serve

them fully to its potential; on the other hand, the customers will recognize the help from the

firm that try to take care of them. Another example is the tracking system that can give the

customers the feel of safety that they can track their cars, packages, etc. They can also do

business online at the tips of their fingers; their lives have changed forever to be more and

more convenient. Therefore, we must focus on this issue and deliver what the customers

want.

III. B2B or Business to Business (working across):

This is to improve a company’s processes and relationships with its business partners. A clear

picture is the company and the suppliers or among companies that are in the same industry

that need to be sophisticated like banking and transporting mostly through IOS or Inter-

Organizational Systems that take care of inter-banking transactions and reservations for air-

line and travel agent ecosystem. The integration can be of tight, close, and loose relationship.

Firms with tight relationships mean that they gradually share the system and information

together; which means, if the system fails, both firms will not be able to continue both of

their businesses until the system is recovered. The further apart the relationship, firms are less

dependent on each other. Firms with close relationships share only some information and

system together while they still have their own systems running. In case of any downtime of

the co-system, their systems can still work fine by being a stand-alone system; however, their

business values can be decreased since their normal inter-organizational services are limited

(example, banking system can become quite useless if inter-bank transfers cannot be made).

For loose relationship firms, they only share some of their information while their systems

remain independent or mostly independent. Anything that affects one firm will be a tiny

effect to another firm.

9. What are the major differences between operational planning, tactical planning, and

strategic planning? Give examples of each planning approach to support your answer.

Strategic planning is like setting a vision for the whole organization. This planning normally

takes around 3 to 5 years to achieve the vision. It is set by senior management (CXO).

Tactical planning is focusing on the smaller scale like selecting projects and allocating

resources. This usually takes like 1 to 2 years timeframe set by middle managers.

Operational planning is the actual carry out of work on day-to-day basis like managing the

“existing” project (this is the big difference to tactical planning since the tactical one analyzes

and selects what project should be conducted while this operational one is the planning on the

actual work of that particular project) to meet the time and budget scope. This is normally set

by project/line managers. It should take less than a year to complete.

Example:

An ABC Technology Corporation, a specialized IT sector company manufacturing computer

chips, has its headquarter residing in America with 2 factories locating in Thailand and

China. Its strategic planning or its vision is to have its inventories be used by all levels of

users; doesn’t matter a big businessman or an ordinary student.

Then its tactical planning should be considering opening up more factories in more countries

to have a variety of quantities of products to gain more market shares like in Philippines,

Japan, and Taiwan.

Made-in-China products tend to be purchased by little spenders like students and ordinary

workers for cheaper prices.

Made-in-Taiwan/Thailand/Philippines products are more for the middle-class people while

high-end Japanese made chips are for the high purchasing power group like middle to top

management and rich people.

It also needs to consider quality controls, implementing B2B/E/C models, coming up with

new managing techniques, etc.

Then its operational planning should be considering about their construction projects whether

they are on time and cost scope or not. How are our B2X models doing? Is the new policy

setting the new working time effective in motivating our workers?

10. What is a sense-and-respond approach to planning? What are the success cases for

this approach you can find in the internet?

Sense-and-respond approach is the new method of carrying out the operations to achieve the

business vision (strategy). In the old times, in order to get close to the set strategy, the top

management makes one big decision for the whole corporate to follow. The advantage is that

everyone really knows what they are doing while the disadvantage is that if something goes

wrong or if the choice is later viewed unprofitable and they want to terminate it, it will result

in a waste of time, manpower, and budget. On the contrary, sense-and-respond approach

comes up with many small choices conducted by teams. The advantages are faster decisions

can be made, members have the sense of belonging, and small commitments are present; if

once choice fails, the rest are unaffected and the company wastes only a small portion of

budget, time, and manpower. However, the disadvantage is that people don’t know where

they are going. The goals are too diverse as there are many teams doing many tasks. To fix

this problem, a strategic envelope is used to set the overall frame for all of the teams to

follow to be guided to the same direction.

11. If you were in charge of systems planning for a small firm, what questions would

you ask company officers to determine which planning frame work(s) would be most

appropriate? Carefully elaborate your answer.

Suppose there is a newly open company called Mikey Trading Corporation. Its nature of

business is to be a sub-broker investor for anyone who wants to invest but has financial

limitation. This company will throw all of the funds into a central pot to buy and sell stocks

with share ratio for every investor while the investors do not need to watch any news, observe

the market, and analyze anything for a service charge of only 0.2675% for every incoming

and outgoing transaction.

Since it is a company dealing with financial-limited customers, they probably have limited

connection speed and computer specifications, and the company provides service not product,

therefore, it should focus on service-oriented architecture. There will be no application

involve; however, the database (spreadsheet) can be viewed at anytime by the customers via

Google Docs (so there’s no need for the customers to download any application, and it is

faster to view via Google Docs than to send the Excel file). Plus, these customers only want

to invest a small amount of money and they do not need to access real-time data. They only

need to see how their money is is used and how much do they gain/lose whenever there’s any

movement (transaction).

Bonus:

1. What is cloud computing? How does it differ from the grid computing or cluster

computing that you learned in the computer architecture class?

Cloud computing involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. Cloud computing

services can be divided into three main services: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-

as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The name cloud computing represents

the Internet in flow charts and diagrams.

The service of the cloud computing system is different from the traditional hosting and the

users can have the service as much or little as they want by minute or hour. All of the services

are 24/7 managed by the provider and the customers don’t need to have expert knowledge in

computing but a personal computer and internet access.

A cloud can be private or public. A public cloud sells services to anyone on the Internet. (For

example- Amazon Web Services) and A private cloud is a proprietary network or a data

center that supplies hosted services to a limited number of people.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service like Amazon Web Services provides virtual server with unique IP

addresses and blocks of storage and customers use the provider's application program

interface to start, stop, access and configure their virtual servers and storage.

Platform-as-a-service can be the software and product development tools hosted on the

provider's infrastructure. Developers create applications on the provider's platform over the

Internet.

In the software-as-a-service, the seller supplies the hardware infrastructure, the software

product, and interacts with the user through a front-end portal. SaaS is a very broad market.

Services can be anything from Web-based email to inventory control or even database

processing.

Grid computing is the application/software of hundred or thousand of computers to

solve a single problem at the same time. It is usually to use a scientific or technical problem

that requires a great number of computer processing cycles or access to large amounts of

data. One of the main grid computing strategies is to use software to divide and apportion

pieces of a program among several computers.

The difference of grid computing from cluster computing systems is that grid

computing tends to be more loosely-coupled. Furthermore, when a computing grid is

dedicated to a specialized application, it is often constructed with the aid of general-purpose

grid software libraries and middleware.

2. Who is Gartner (whom we talked about in class)?

Gartner, Inc. is the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company.

It delivers the technology-related insight necessary for its clients to make the right decisions.

Its clients varied from CIOs and senior IT leaders in corporations and government agencies to

business leaders in high-tech and telecom enterprises; and from professional services firms to

technology investors. It is the indispensable partner to 60,000 clients in 10,000 distinct

organizations. Through the resources of Gartner Research, Gartner Executive Programs,

Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, they work with every client to research, analyze, and

interpret the business of IT within the context of its customer’s individual role. It was

founded in 1979. Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A. wtih 4,000

associates; including 1,200 research analysts and consultants in 80 countries.

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