Ludwig Van Studios

8/2/2019 Ludwig Van Studios

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/ludwig-van-studios 1/17

Strategische Unternehmensführung

184.171

An IT strategy approach to a fictional company

January, 2010

Ivo Paz dos Reis 0927646

Sérgio Vasconcelos 0927647



Strategic Business Management – An IT strategy approach to a Fictional company

2

Contents

1. Overview ........................... ....................... .............................. .................... ............................ 3

2. The Company .......................... ...................... ............................ .................... ......................... 4

2.1 Background .......................................................................................................................... 4

2.2 Company Goals .................................................................................................................... 7

2.3 Present Organizational Structure .................... ............................ ................... ....................... 8

2.4 Intended Organizational Structure ..................... ............................... ................... ................. 9

3. IT Strategic Plan ......................... ...................... ............................... ................... .................. 12

3.1 Goal Objectives for IT ......................................................................................................... 12

3.2 Application concept ........................ ...................... ........................... .................... ............... 13

3.3 Risk Analysis ....................................................................................................................... 14

3.4 Project Plan ........................................................................................................................ 15

4. References ......................... ...................... ............................ ................... ............................. 16




3

1. Overview

To counter the increasing competition and to improve the development

processes, the leading gaming company Ludwig Van Studios,Co., situated in

Vienna, Austria, is focused on initiating a large-scale initiative to develop an

Information Technology strategic plan to encompass all its departments. The need

for this structural reorganization was primarily based due to problems in inter-

department communication and the possible merger with an international publisher.

This case describes the organizational and environmental context of Ludwig Van

Studios, and the project to implement a company-wide strategic IT plan.



Strategic Bu

2. The

2.1 Backgro

Ludwig Van Stu

founded in 2001 after

(Beethoven und Kinder)

Faculty of Electrical EnUniversität Wien. The s

requested and released, t

the major recreational so

In the year 2009

an average age of 25, a

products of the compan

spawned a wide range o

game, action figures, etc

educational games; mobi

described in terms of per

siness Management – An IT strategy approach t

ompany

und

ios is the top leading videogame co

the success of a children’s education

carried out by a team of five newly g

gineering and Information Technologyudio rapidly grew as more and more p

us in the following years the company e

tware house based in Vienna.

udwig Van Studios employed more tha

ong which 90% of them had a college

are: a franchise of a Science Fiction f

merchandising products (a series of bo

); an ongoing project with several school

le games and several minor projects. Th

entage in Figure 1.

Figure 1 - Income Sources

Mobile

Games

27%

Franchises

41% Educational

15%

Other

17%

a Fictional company

4

pany in Austria,

l music platform

raduates from the

f the Technischeojects were being

stablished itself as

n 200 people with

degree. The main

ntasy setting that

ks, a trading card

s to produce more

income is further



Strategic Bu

Throughout the y

houses in the Czech R

applications. Other resp

merchandising, creative

In late 2007 L

videogame company in

reached the 15 million e

year’s profits, which pro

Figure 2 - Ludwig Van St

The income in the

but the prospect of a fut

structuring may alter the

2002 2003 2

0.7

2.7


ars the company has also made business

public and Hungary, mainly for outso

nsibilities of the company are also o

esign and package and publishing.

dwig Van Studios was labeled the

entral Europe”, and by the end of 2009

ro milestone, an increase in 33% compar

pted the company to aim at wider mark

dios revenue in millions of Euros throughout the ye

year of 2010 is predicted to be more tha

ure merger with a bigger publisher and

e figures.

04 2005 2006 2007 2008

3.64.8

6.4

8.6

11.4

Revenue (in millions of Euros)

a Fictional company

5

ties with software

rcing middleware

tsourced, such as

“Most promising

the sales revenue

ng to the previous

ts.

rs 2002 to 2010 20 million Euros,

he IT strategy re-

2009 2010

15.2

20.2



Strategic Bu

The market share

how well the compan

(Germany, Austria and

company in Austria. Th

already multinational co

also because there are o

translated in languages o


Figure 3 - Market Share by region f the company is better described in figu

is doing within the DACH zone v

Switzerland) and also that it is clearl

European market is another matter alto

panies whose share in the market is we

nly a number of titles in Ludwig Van

her than German.

a Fictional company

6

re 3, which shows

ideogame market

the top leading

ether, as there are

ll established, and

tudios’ repertoire




7

2.2 Company Goals

Due to the fact that the company is growing at a steady pace, a need to

redefine its goals arose. Instead of just focusing on developing its current projects

and concentrate on the market it leads, Ludwig Van Studios is aiming at higher

grounds. The possible merger with a bigger and international publisher is also

fueling the need to rethink the company’s strategy to more global terms.

The goals are described as follows:

• Increase profits by 30% by the end of 2010

• Improve intra and inter-department communications

• Re-structure the company for a possible merger with a bigger publisher

• Attain a higher market share

• Minimize time and resource consuming in Software Development projects

• Reduce outsourcing needs

In order to achieve these objectives the company is willing to invest part of

its profits to define and implement an Information Technology Strategic Plan, to be

applied to all the sub-divisions of the company. There is also awareness to the

possibility of having to employ a large number of people to fill up the gaps created

by the necessary changes on company strategy and structural organization that will

occur.

Figure 4 - Priorities and dependencies between goals over time




8

2.3 Present Organizational Structure

The organizational structure of the company is based on the products it

releases; there are independent departments for each type of software created and

each one is responsible for development, quality assurance, marketing and its own

management. This way each department has its own functional areas that allow it to

manage their business in a seemingly autonomous fashion. Within each department

teams are built according to need, with a Project Director overseeing all of the

department’s work. Employees usually have to change teams during a project to

provide essential expertise.

Recruiting, administration, financial and legal affairs are all lead by the

Direction Team, which is also above in the hierarchical structure of all the

departments.

Outsourcing of middleware applications to aid in the software development

process are common practice and usually marketing of products is outsourced as

well.

There is no defined marketing strategy for the company and no IT team

responsible for the enterprise resource planning of each department. This leads to

occurring lacks of communication within departments, as well as time and resource

consuming tasks that, with different management options, could be avoided

altogether.

One of the main goals of the re-structuring IT plan is to provide a more

centralized, yet flexible, development system as well as to flatten the highly

hierarchal organizational structure.




9

2.4 Intended Organizational Structure

Urged by the need to compete in the ever-changing, dynamic environment of

software development businesses, Ludwig Van Studios will carry out a considerable

change in its organizational structure to a more horizontal and flexible one. The

creation of several new departments, including IT, will allow the company to fulfill

its desire of having a defined IT strategy plan and to enable a seamless merger in the

future.

Figure 5 – Intended Structural Organization of the company Several measures shall be taken regarding the re-structuring, establishing a

new matrix organizational structure for the company, which include the three inter-

connected development departments and a number of supporting teams, divided in

administration and development support.

The definition of the Senior Management Team, as opposed to the previous

Direction Team, shall distribute some of the employees to the newly formed

Project Director / Manager / Producer

ADMIN

SUPPORT TEAMS

IT

PR & Marketing

HR & Recruitment

Finance & Legal

Administration

DEVELOPMENT

SUPPORT TEAMS

Concept

Audio

Quality Assurance

Technology Team

Subcontracting

Technical Manager Creative Manager Design Manager

PROGRAMMERS

Games

Tools

Middleware

ARTISTS

Concept Art

2D & 3D

Animators

DESIGNERS

Game Design

Level Editors

Senior Management TeamStrategy / Development

Publisher




10

functional departments, and retain the lead members of the company to act as a

Board of Directors, analyzing and defining the company’s strategy as well as

managing the top-level development. A key factor is that a publisher will

communicate directly to the Senior Management Team, and all the subsequent

changes in development will be overseen by this team in all departments.

Instead of having separate departments for each of the company’s products,

the plan here is to create three major departments for development: Technical,

Creative and Design. Overseeing all the workload for each project will be a Project

Director, acting also as Manager and Producer. Each project will have its own team

in each department, but this structure will also allow for multi-project staffing and a

more coherent cooperation between areas of expertise. For the Technical

Department there will be teams of programmers specialized in games, tools and

middleware, with a Technical Manager responsible for coordinating efforts among

these teams. In a similar fashion, the Creative department will be composed of

Concept Art, Animators and 2D&3D teams; and finally the Design department with

the game Design and Level Editors team.

The choice to have several Development Support Teams is based on the fact

that these teams are not required to belong to any particular project, providing

services and aid the development teams. An independent Quality Assurance Team is

essential for analyzing a product from a different point of view and maintaining the

company’s policies and marketing strategies in mind, which can be a complicated

task for the developers. The Concept team will provide the blueprints for eachproject, documenting each change along production, and the Sound and Technology

teams will assist whenever the need arises. However, one of the most important

changes is the Subcontracting team, which will be responsible for analyzing the

company’s necessity of outsourcing services, software and technologies, working

close to the IT team to figure out the best possible ways to redirect available

company resources and avoiding needless expenditures. In order not to jeopardize




11

the company’s goal of stretching to wider markets, translations of the products will

initially be outsourced and possibly, on a later date and when the re-structuring and

IT strategy are well defined, establish a team entirely dedicated to this task.

Another key change is the creation of five administration support teams, each

responsible for a functional area of the company that presently are either done by the

Directors Team or externally. Public Relations and Marketing will play a major role

in the company’s future, being responsible for redefining the public image and

reflecting the new goals in all of the ongoing projects. As stated above, some

employees will be diverted to the Human Resources & Recruitment Teams, as well

as to the Financial & Legal and Administration teams.

The company did not have an integrated IT department that was responsible

for developing IT strategy, managing IT projects, supporting and maintaining the IT

infrastructure. The current IT infrastructure within Ludwig Van Studios is carried

out in part-time by the programmers themselves, which are at the time the only

employees with the necessary know-how in the company. The creation of the IT

team means that there is a solid intent of the company to establish by any means

necessary an effective IT strategy and therefore it is more than willing to recruit and

invest substantially in Information Technology team and all the essential associated

resources.




12

3. IT Strategic Plan

3.1 Goal Objectives for IT

To achieve the objectives described in the previous chapter the company feels

it is necessary to implement an enterprise-wide IT strategy plan. In order to ensure

its success it is required to portrait further goals specific to the IT:

Create a coherent enterprise-wide information technology computing

architecture and a solid foundation for the company’s information technologyinfrastructure.

Identify issues and trends in technology that may affect the company’s

technology infrastructure and long-term architecture.

Define what services, if any, should be restructured or eliminated and identify

what outsourced services can be shifted to company resources.

Minimize duplication of effort, services and resources and eliminateinefficient and costly redundancies.

Develop a long-term organizational process and structure to ensure the best

utilization of the company’s information technology resources for the future.

Estimate the costs of infrastructure and support, including personnel and

training, in the new distributed environment.



Strategic Bu

3.2 Applicati

For a successful

enterprise architecture i

departments of the com

importance that every ta

IT strategic plan. This w

actions and resources.

Having an ent

communications betwee

implementation of a larg

step, partly because th

Administration Support

already have an establish


on concept

igure 6 - Ideal Strategic Management Framework

implementation of an IT strategy plan

in conformance with the designated IT

any will become related via an IT syste

sk performed within the company be par

y, the strategy of the company will be re

rprise-wide IT system will also

departments and even development te

e-scale ERP system in this case may se

only departments that would benefi

eams and mostly because the software d

ed platform of multi-disciplinary develop

a Fictional company

13

it is required that

standards. As all

, it is of outmost

t of the integrated

flected in all of its

allow for fluid

ms. However, the

m an unnecessary

from it are the

evelopment teams

ment.




14

3.3 Risk Analysis There are always risk factors associated to an implementation of an

enterprise-wide IT strategic planning. These risks normally range between

technology, organizational fit, human resources, and time.

Beginning with the specifications risks factors, one should be careful to, in

the first place, create a complete agreement amongst the Ludwig Van Studios

departments concerning the main project goals. On the other hand, is very important

to establish a clear, unambiguous and robust set of the system requirements to avoid

future changes or misunderstandings, as well as to minimize the application or

technical complexity.

One of the biggest risks factors is also associated with people. It is of the

outmost value to gather a team with the necessary and specific skills to each one of

the core areas regarding the project context and applicability. The team members

must have the intended commitment to the project and a good capacity to interact

and communicate with all the professionals involved in the planning and

implementation of the project.

Another common risk relates with inappropriate definition of the schedules to

be followed, which may directly interfere with the budget cost estimation. So it’s of

extreme importance to establish, as accurate as possible, a time and cost estimation

plan. Furthermore, previsions of future market evolution should be taken into

consideration, so the scope and objectives of the strategic plan won’t be a target of

sudden change.




15

3.4 Project Plan

Figure 6 – IT project plan

As described in Figure 6, the overall project plan starts with two major steps

that will initially allow for the IT team to specify the IT vision for the Ludwig Van

Studios. Understanding the inner workings of the company throughout interviews to

key members of all departments will provide the background for listing all the

resources available. This will than lead to the possibility of analyzing shortcomings

and unattended resource needs that might have been overlooked. The final phase

will consist in letting the staff know the results of the IT Strategy plan developed.




16

4. References

Khosrowpour (2003) Annals of Cases on Information Technology (volume 5)

Ed. Idea Group Publishing

Stoneburner, Goguen, Feringa (2002) Risk Management Guide for

Information Technology Systems, NIST

[available at: http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-30/sp800-30.pdf ]

Shanks, Seddon, Willcocks (2003) Second-wave enterprise resource planning

systems: Implementing for effectiveness, Cambridge University Press

Hansmann (2007) IT Implementation and Operations Improvement,

Intermountain Healthcare

[available at:

http://www.himss.org/content/files/IT%20Implementation%20and%20Proces

s%20Improvement.pdf ]

Coyne (1995) Designing Information Technology in the Postmodern Age,

Leonardo 0-262-03228-7




17

Long, Fui-Hoon Nah, Zhu (2003) Enterprise-wide Strategic Information

Systems Planning for Shanghai Bell Corporation, Idea Group Publishing

[available at:

http://www.igi- lobal.com/downloads/pdf/IT5681_52Z7UKFKda.pdf]

Sumner, Risk Factors in Enterprise Wide Information Management System

Projects, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

[available at:

www.bus.ucf.edu/shornik/ism6121/Readings/enterprise_riskfactors.pdf ]

Information Technology Strategic Plan (ITSP) (2006), United States National

Labor Relations Board

[available at:

http://www.nlrb.gov/nlrb/shared_files/reports/IT_Strategic_Plan.pdf ]

Schwarzenegger, Takai (2009) California Information Technology Strategic

Plan [available at: http://www.itsp.ca.gov/pdf/Strategic_Plan.pdf ]

Rosen (2004) Effective IT Project Management: Using Teams to Get Projects

Completed on Time and Under Budget, AMACOM

Ludwig Van Studios

Documents

Transcript of Ludwig Van Studios