1.

Effects of IT on the organizational strategy and competition (present the

current situation description, advantages, problems)

IT impact on strategy defines the role that IT plays in determining product, market, business

network, and boundary positioning. It seeks to explain the mechanisms though which IT drives

differentiation, sustainable advantage, and the development of proprietary assets. It also identifies the

impact of IT on defining the growth path of the company over time.

When IT was first introduced for commercial use, the primary target was to automate routine, information

intensive back-office transaction such as payroll processing and accounting. The primary goal was to

increase efficiency and productivity. Business quickly learned to apply these same benefits to front-office

activities that involved transactions with suppliers, distributors, customers, and other value chain

participants. But the impact of IT increased dramatically when businesses learned to use it, not just to

automate, but also to inform and transform.

Many moderns companies relies in their IT department to deliver their services and products, in fact it

could be the IT is the most important competitive advantage for these companies. For example, Amazon

can not operate one second without their IT department, the high growth sales at Amazon comes from the

creative ideas that been developed in the IT department such as recommendation from previous browsed

items and the universal shopping list.

Now with the advance of technologies and the increase of customers' preferences toward the use of internet

communications increased the dependency in IT department. The view of making business has been

changed besides strategies, planning, and the way they compete in their industries.

However, Quicken is no different than Amazon they heavily rely on the IT department to deliver the best

services available. Beside Quicken loans services and the tremendous effort from the IT department to

deliver number one loan service in the United States online, Quicken have a huge collections of personal

finance management software designed and developed in the IT department. The department is
responsible to support the customers with all the software and monitor the efficiency of the debugging

process.

Quicken's IT department have the upper hand all activities.

Like any IT department in modern companies that exict and center around technological activities.
• Appendices (such as internet prints, research paper copies, etc.)

2. Electronic commerce (present the current situation (description, advantages, problems))

• Introduction
Often referred to as e-commerce is the act of buying or selling products or services over the internet or

other electronic networks. Electronic commerce is also about reaching the global market, improving

customer services and fostering closer customer relationship.Before 1995 commercial enterprise on the

internet was strictly prohibited, mainly because there is no security protocols to transfer sensitive

transactions through the web and it was for the interest of the customers after all. After that the e-business

start booming where most of the American companies offer an electronic method to approach their

customers and many businesses came to exciting in this era.

In all organizations the IT department is the one responsible for establishing, maintaining, and analyzing

data of the electronic commerce in the company. Competitions between businesses shifted from traditional

methods and become more internet oriented.

The electronic commerce created more opportunities for businesses and customers, where it provides

multiple benefits to the consumers in form of availability of goods at lower cost, wider choice and saves

time. For businesses, the electronic commerce generate more revenue from the electronic sales and

advertisements.

• what are we talking about and why is it important; examples are welcome (e.g., what is
outsourcing in genera, what are the general risks and capabilities, opportunities of outsourcing,
etc.. The analysis at this session should be generic and not related specifically to the analyzed
 organization.
• A comprehensive analysis, discussion, and evaluation of the topic (what should the board know
about this issue, what is the status of the company regarding the topic, and evaluation of the
status);
• Conclusions and recommendations (what should the company do, including justification by
presenting the benefits for the company);

Also, Quicken are well known for there personal finance services that comes in different packages. We

think that their market share will increase in this area if they offer these services through multiple

mobile operating system such as Apple OSX or Google Android as an application, by that they will

increase there customer's satisfaction. For example, Quicken provide a service called Quizzle, this

service can manage family or individual expenses and budget, credit score and report, and other useful

financial tools. The users of the this service can plan and set a budget and then add there expenses in

daily basis, it is only available in personal computer. If Quicken could implement this software in

smart-phones, the process of adding users' daily spending can be instantly.

• Appendices (such as internet prints, research paper copies, etc.)

3. Systems integration

present the current situation (description, advantages, problems)

• Introduction

In information technology, systems integration is the process of linking together different computing

systems and software applications physically or functionally, to act as a coordinated whole. System

integration is also about adding value to the system, capabilities that are possible because of

interactions between subsystems.

Quicken have a lot of suppliers and to communicate with each one individually will cost the company a

lot of effort and manpower to maintain the communication systems between the suppliers. However, to
minimize the cost Quicken come up with a standard method of communication between the company

and other suppliers. For example, Quicken use The Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance

Organization (MISMO) this software is a standard platform. The MISMO standards are grounded in an

open process to develop, promote and maintain voluntary electronic commerce procedures and

standards that allow mortgage lenders, investors in real estate and mortgages, services, industry

vendors, borrowers and other parties to exchange real estate finance-related information and

eMortgages more securely, efficiently and economically. MISMO promotes data consistency among

transaction participants, reduces processing costs, increases transparency, and boosts investor

confidence in mortgages and real estate as asset classes while permitting cost savings to be passed on to

borrowers and other customers. MISMO constructs a standard approach using XML files format

whereby two business-related firms can streamline shared data contained in forms or reports. One of

the best features of this software is the ability of transferring data without interfering with the

organization’s software. In other word, MISMO does not dictate what kind of software to use or even

the appearance of loan-documentation forms. Rather, it dictates how to format data sent to another

party. This allows all parties to develop, run and maintain their own platforms while having uniform

efficiency.

4. IT and the organization (How well the IT department structure, location in the organizational
hierarchy, strategy, and priorities suit the organizational structure, culture, and strategy).
We could add a chart here showing the IT location in the organization.

5. Outsourcing

present the current situation (description, advantages, problems)

• Introduction
Outsourcing is the process of involving an external provider or third-party in part of the organization’s

activities. In IT outsourcing is common for some organizations, the main reason is to reduce cost. Most
view the action of outsourcing as simply removing unproductive or underperforming assets from the

balance sheet, while also lowering the expenses of operating and maintaining those assets.

There are some advantages that could come from outsourcing the IT. For example, by outsourcing, an

organization may have access to professional trained people, processes and advance technologies that it

might not otherwise financially obtained. Also, by outsourcing the IT activities to a specialist management

can focus more on the organization’s core activities.

In general, outsourcing is more suitable for small businesses where it is usually not cost-effective to

employ an in-house IT specialist. However, many researchers found that outsourcing is not the ideal way to

reach the organization’s goals in the long term. Many problems of outsourcing may arise in the future.

Loss of managerial control, hidden costs, threat to security and confidentiality, quality problems, and

culture misunderstanding are all a disadvantages of outsourcing. In other word, without the IT in-house

there will be an extreme case of difficulty between the IT provider and the company in general. In order for

the IT department to deliver the best result they have to be presented in the company floor to see the actual

process of the business from there they can generate and deliver the most officiant jobs to fit the

organization environment.

A study conducted by Deloitte Consulting found that 25 percent brought outsourced IT activities back in-

house after finding that the very act of outsourcing has enabled them to identify ways to lower the cost and

improve the performance by doing the activity in-house. Another 44 percent found that outsourcing did not

result in any cost savings, and over half found hidden costs that were not accounted for in the initial

contract.

6. End Users involvement and dominance