Course Objective

Provide Frameworks & Approaches

for Managers to Successfully Deploy
IT in support of business goals
 IS/IT: Manager perspective
•How is IT relevant to a Manager ?

•How do manager contribute to IT

success ?

•What role do managers play in

course of an IT effort?
 IT: Manager perspective

•Selection
•Buy
•Outsource
•Adoption
•Exploitation
 IT: Manager perspective

Buy/Outsource
IT Live
Selection System
Adoption
system
Exploitation

Build
 Role : Selection

•“Outside-in” approach

•“Inside-out” approach
 Role : Selection

Are all IT systems (e.g. E-mail, an ERP

system, and computer-aided design
(CAD) software) essentially the same
from a managerial perspective? Is each
unique?
 IT Categories
•Function IT (FIT)
IT that assists execution of a discrete task

•Enterprise IT (EIT)
IT used to impose work structures

•Network IT (NIT)
IT that facilitates interactions without
specifying their parameters
IT Categories and their Capabilities
IT Categories Capabilities

FIT •Experimentation
•Precision
EIT •Design
•Standardization
•Monitoring
NIT •Self-organization
•Collaboration
•Judgment
 IT Categories
-
IT Categories Example -

FIT Simulators , Spreadsheets ,

CAD/CAM , Statistical
software

EIT ERP, SCM ,CRM

,Sourcing/procurement
Software

NIT E-mail , Instant messaging

,Wikis , Prediction markets
 Function IT : Capabilities

Experimentation:
The rapid and inexpensive execution of many trials
using a digital model of a real-world system.
Computer-based simulation can cover large
portions of the “solution space” of a given situation

Precision:
The generation of almost arbitrarily accurate
information about aspects of a system of interest
 Enterprise IT : Capabilities
Design:
The configuration of a multistep business process that
generates, uses, and/or transforms information. Design can
entail defining tasks, assigning them to process participants,
setting them into sequences, establishing decision points
and possible outcomes, and handling exceptions.

Standardization:
The deployment of consistent data and/or business
processes across some portion of one or more organizations

Monitoring:
The ability to observe, typically from a remote location,
activities, events, trends, quantities, etc
 Network IT : Capabilities
Self-organization:
The appearance over time of patterns and structure within a
system as the result of many low-level interactions, and
without any centralized planning or direction

Collaboration:
Interactions among people outside of formal, pre-defined
business processes

Judgment:
The expression of beliefs or opinions. Judgments are the
results of people’s cognitive processes; they may or may not
be based on rigorous analyses.
 Selection

IT selection objective is based

on acquiring desired Capability

“Do we need a customer relationship management

system” is rephrased as
“Do we need to impose standardized data collection
across our sales force so that we can better monitor and
analyze their activities?”
 IT & Competitive advantage

“What makes a resource truly strategic is not

ubiquity but scarcity. IT has become a commodity.
Affordable and accessible to everyone, it no longer
offers strategic value to anyone.”
 Complements
IT capabilities are acquired
(adopted) and benefits are
maximized (exploited) only when
the appropriate set of
Organizational Complements are
put in place.
 Organizational complements
IT as a general purpose technology, the value of which is
maximized by the presence of Organizational complements

•Greater interdependence [Higher

levels of teamwork]
•New\Redesigned workflows
•Allocation of decision rights
•Better Skilled Workers.
 Role : Adopt & Exploit

Managerial skill in adoption and

exploiting IS/IT systems is the only
skill that can provide sustainable
competitive advantage through IT
systems.
 Complements
Categories Characteristics
FIT •Can be adopted without complements
•Impact increases when complements are in place
EIT • Imposes complements throughout the
organization
•Defines tasks or sequences
•Mandates data formats
•Use is mandatory
NIT •Doesn’t impose complements but lets them
emerge over time
•Doesn’t specify tasks or sequences
•Accepts data in many formats
•Use is optional
 Responsibilities

The Role of Managers is to determine

what IT based capabilities are required
and to put in place the organizational
complements to maximize IT impact.
 CCR Framework

Capabilities
Complements
Responsibilities