2-a

Management should have looked into the need of its IT infrastructure considering
the life cycle of its IT system and disposal norms.

Being a large public firm error of judgement had been made by the management.

Maybe it’s the internal IT team who haven’t bring this issue up to the management
regarding the obsolescence of the PDP 11/23 computer system and availability of
Magnetic Tape Spool Recorder.

The point to be noted that PDP 11/23 computer comes with the limited storage and
company has to handle large transaction volumes.

Again, lack of proper planning can be seen as the company faced the shortage of
Magnetic Tape Spool Recorder and they ended up spending more money during
auditing to transfer data in hard drive.

Also, company ignored the industry scenario as magnetic tape spool recorder
original manufacturer stopped manufacturing it and it is went red flag was raised for
the company to plan to shift to new IT infrastructure but it didn’t and kept on using
the same old system and didn’t comply with the Industry and statutory compliances.

Thus, it is clearly the case of series of error of judgement by the company regarding
IT infrastructure and planning.
4-a

Traditionally CIO position have been considered for IT professionals with

management skills and business experience. That doesn’t explicitly say that CIO
position is only for IT professionals. Being a non-IT professional new CIO brings to
the table and to the IT team that is unique.

CIO’s management experience will help in identifying gaps in role of IT in the

organisation. These gaps might not just be in IT related tasks but also in motivation,
workload management and talent recognition. CIO will have to go through all the IT
activities taking place and might find details generally taken for by IT professionals

CIO without IT background will have to get a complete overview of IT technology

and will have to stick will latest developments to perform well at his role. But his
business expertise will help him find avenues where these IT capabilities can be best
utilised. But can augment the team’s capabilities by imparting business knowledge to
IT leaders to best serve the organisation.

CIO will have an advantage in articulating IT strategies in terms of other business

goals and will have ease in communicating with other CXOs of the organisation
related to IT needs for business strategies.

While in-depth technical knowledge is not a requirement for a CIO, knowing the
fundamentals of the enterprise IT architecture will allow for more thoughtful
decision-making. By leaning on their strengths and strategically acquiring technical
knowledge, CIOs coming from non-traditional backgrounds can be poised for
success from the first days of their new role. By approaching the job with the right
mindset, these CIOs can be in a unique position to support consistent growth in both
the IT organization and the business as a whole.
2-b

 PDP 11/23 is almost at the end of its life cycle. Investing in it will only lead
to diminishing returns. Even the original manufacturer of magnetic tape spool
recorder and machine reader stopped its manufacturing and third party
manufacturers for these devices may not be credible and might not comply
with the legal statutory requirements of the company.

 But for a moment keeping all there factors aside coming to present scenario of
the company when it doesn’t have enough budget to upgrade to new IT
infrastructure.

 It should continue using PDP 11/23 and arrange sufficient backup for
Magnetic Tape Stool Recorder for only a brief period of time and
arrangements should be made quickly for new IT setup.

 But this was not possible because of the auditing process and company had to
purchase hard disk for this process which was initially rejected by the
management because of high cost of it.

 So, to put things in perspective this company which is public firm handling
large transaction volumes should have considered EDP manager suggestions
and gone for hard drives even though it costs high but in long term it would
have benefitted and also, it’s better considering the position of the company.
2-c

Company management must have considered IT infrastructure as secondary priority

and focused on the business operation but forgot that the whole business operation is
supported by the IT infrastructure.

Maybe the Management was trying to save cash by pushing the limit of the available
IT infrastructure.

Management found it thoughtful to use the hardware to its fullest till its end of the
life cycle but forgot to see that as the hardware becomes old the servicing becomes
hard and costlier which was the same case with the PDP 11/23 computer as its
storage is limited external storage is required to be maintained and for that purpose
Magnetic Tape Scoop Recorder and machine reader is used.

IT team can also be pointed out here for not bringing up the need for Magnetic Tape
Scoop Recorder, this shows that IT inventory management was not done seriously.

But the management was more focused on saving cash even when EDP manager
suggested for hard disk to be used as external storage management disagreed saying
it would cost more.

Clearly mistake has been made by the management by ignoring the IT part even went
PDP 11/23 computer was at the end of its life cycle management took decision to
continue with it.

Thus, a company should always maintain documentation regarding the system

upgrades and should implement it timely without delaying as it can also harm the
company operations and privacy.
2-d

One option was with management to buy the hard drives which was suggested by
EDP manager but it was declined because of the high cost of hard drives and
management wasn’t ready to take that cost in its financial statement. But the fact it
is large public firm it should be willing to invest more on the IT front. Even though
it’s supportive function it’s the backbone of the operations.

Without IT company cannot function at all as it has become the essential part.

One more option is to completely upgrade IT infrastructure from PDP 11/23 to the
industry standard at that moment shouldn’t but this will cost company heavy and it
cannot be done in one go.

Proper planning and execution were required along with the training of personnel
and professional vendors to setup the IT environment.

Thus, the only option company management felt was right is to go with PDP 11/23
and buy magnetic tape spool recorder and machine reader from non-original buyer
which might not be credible and can harm the company’s privacy terms.

Keeping all the facts in my the most viable option the company management had was
to upgrade IT systems immediately by allocated budget to it. It would definitely had
saved company’s cash as it spend more when the Income Tax department auditing
was done and they had to buy hard drive and migrate data from magnetic tape to
hard disks which ultimately also disrupted company’s plan to change to new IT setup
within new three years by saving little extra cash using PDP 11/23 computer
4-b

The new CIO was mainly a business leader and a strategist. Naturally the bias
towards Information and Communication Technology (ICT) was not present. This
was good for making decisions pertaining to ICT. And I totally agree with the
statement.

All decision naturally boils down to business goals and customer satisfaction and
with business leader and strategist as main skills for the new CIO, he can definitely,
take right decisions when required related to Information and Communication
Technology.

With skills of business leaderships, he can forecast business needs from ICT
accurately and will be able to take better decision when required to. Business
leadership also helps him to translate customer need into IT objectives which helps
setting IT goals for business strategies. He can take decisions which objectives are
best met utilising ICT.

As a strategist, CIO will have the experience to finding utilisation of new and
emerging technologies in ICT domain and will be able to help deploy them before
competition understands its use in customer satisfaction. CIO will understand the
need for innovation on inventions and progress in ICT domain, and will take right
decisions to innovate on right technologies.

CIO understands the gaps in ICT and its understanding with other CXOs and will be
able to bridge the gap by articulating effectively and help other CXOs in taking right
decisions when it comes to their domain. Such as utilisation of ICT for HR domain.
4-c

CEO had a meeting with in house IT team and openly asked if any one of them feels
that he/she fits the bill as CIO. After the answer was negative, CEO explained the
situation and requested full cooperation with the new boss. I think this was the
wrong move at the part of the CEO.

CEO should have known IT team will have reservations if CIO doesn’t have any IT
background. And when approached with the question they expressed their negative
answer. And situation explanation will look as if a compromise was made in hiring
their leader. This perspective will make IT leaders within the IT teams with doubts
in capabilities and will make them question the decisions often.

IT team will think their efforts will be misjudged and performance undervalued,
there will be a lot of discussions within the IT team which will form opinions and
speculations that will lead to image creation in their sub-conscious.

The new CIO might not get to say his side of the story, even if he shares his
experience on the first introduction those experiences will be drowned in the
opinions created within the IT team.

CIO has now an impression of being a non-IT CIO, this will act as a question mark
and IT team would always find situations where any CIO with IT background might
have done things differently.

New CIO will not make his first argument towards a blank audience but now the
audience will be full of negatives.
4-d

Monitoring exercise to check if decision about CIO was right or not has to be done.
The performance of CIO should be monitored based on reviews from team, customer
and vendor reviews regarding the IT projects that have been deployed.

These checks need to be done on semi - annual basis.

The reviews need to be taken to determine the confidence of IT team on their new
CIO. Has the feedback been positive or is there any change in their perspective
regarding his competence?

Not all project has to be evaluated some important and critical can be selected. The
projects need to be evaluated based on the decision made for selection of technology,
deployment ease and customer reviews. The need for external experts to make
review report on the projects and CIO’s has to defend decisions based on the report.
5-a

I feel the corrective action is adequate to avoid embarrassing situations in presence

of statutory auditors. As a corrective action can be taken on by respective authorities
such that any equipment location is changed can now be directly entered into the
register. Also, the change of location if equipment can be automatically detected by
the Problem Reports System and can raise an alarm.

The only precaution required is a minor one which has to be taken up by respective
authorities for equipment not plugged in. Which might not get detected with the
Problem Reports Systems.

An additional check on these equipment’s can be facilitated by the system by making

enquiry to respective authorities for details or a manual check.
5-b

The in-house team member just carries a lap top during asset verification and
accesses the database remotely saving big hassle of carrying physical registers.

This helps in searching and finding information about equipment’s easy for the team
member and also saves time for statutory auditors. This makes movement and
process cleaner. Use of RDBMS system to maintain register not only helps with
record keeping but also records verifications. As any information regarding an
equipment can be backtracked easily without the need to check multiple books.

Also, this particular public company has a large base of IT hardware and software
which translates into big stack of registers and using RDBMS helps in keeping books
easy.
5-c

The CIO can take up cases of unauthorized asset movement with respective
authorities to avoid such non-conformances in future. I do feel this does not provide
better control to the CIO over physical assets location.

As unauthorized asset movements can still take place in situations where the need
for the equipment is for short period of time or the teams are swamped in work and
doesn’t take necessary reporting steps. This might still create a problem during
audit.

The Problem Reports System will detect the change in location if the equipment is
plugged in after change of location and will raise alarms and update registers for
location of the equipment.

But this only solves the problem of book keeping and not human negligence. The
control over such situation still eludes CIO if equipment is not plugged in after
change in location.
5-d

Yes, a simpler technology-based application can change the process of physical

verification of IT assets.

Application has to installed at check point before any new equipment is plugged into
any new location.

Verification of equipment’s details and location status can be checked with the
register.

Any equipment that has not been plugged for a certain period of time will generate a
notification for check with respective authorities based on its location in the register.

And any change in location details can be manage both before and after change of
equipment’s location.