Management and Strategy for

Information Systems I

Assignment 2

Business and IT Relationship

Name: Laith Kassis

Unit: Management and Strategy for Information Systems 1

I declare that this assignment is based on my own work and that all material previously or
published in any source by any other person has been duly acknowledged in the
assignment.
Signed:

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Executive Summary
The research community at a NSW University relies on the services provided by
Federation of Information Technology Providers (ITP) comprised of three departments:
Major Projects Group (MPG), Strategic Planning and Architecture (SPA) and
Information Technology Services (ITS) to achieve its goals to develop its reputation as
an institution where pure and applied research and research training are conducted at
nationally and internationally recognised standards.

The University’s research community requires access to very high performance network
and computing capabilities, superior quality databases and other on-line information
resources and effective online collaborative technologies.

Following interviews with the IT manager, one IT staff member, two managers of
business units at the Research Office (RO) and a Program Area Manager at MPG, the
following report identifies key relationship issues with a University Federation of
Information Technology Providers (ITP) and business units such as the RO.

The key finding of these interviews included the following relationship features:
• The perception of ITP/RO relationship
• Understanding the relationship of ITP/RO
• Understanding the role of ITP department

Overall the relationship of ITP/RO is seen to be at a good level governed via the Service
Level Agreement (SLA) with ITS and through project management of the new
application implementation with MPG. The role of SPA was not clear and there was no
direct interaction of SPA staff and the RO. Few improvements could be made to ensure
the success of the ITP/RO relationship, which include:
• Improvement of the measurement of customer satisfaction
• Improve the process of ITP service delivery to its customers
• Improve end-user involvement with new project implementation and expand on
communication with them
• Improve the strategic ITP involvement with RO
• Improve communication among the ITP divisions

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Background Information

How is Information Technology Service provided

The University wide community competes for IT services and project funding. A
University Federation of IT Providers (ITP) has been formed to assist the organisation’s
CIO, in the effective provision of IT services across the University via three
departments: Information Technology Services (ITS), Major Projects Group (MPG) and
Strategic Planning and Architecture (SPA).

Strategic Major Information

Planning & Projects Technology
Architecture Group Services

Research Office

Figure 1 Current ITP Service Delivery Model

The Research Office Information Systems Profile

The Commonwealth government has allocated ~$92m to the University in 2002 on the
basis of formula driven block grants. Each of the relevant formulae has research
performance as a key component.

The RO currently maintains 5 separate systems. The data integrity from current
University systems used to determine research performance is poor as the systems are
obsolete (~10 years old in some cases, lacking Y2K compliance in one instance and not
compatible with current operating systems) and are not integrated within the office nor

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with other University enterprise systems. Similarly, current systems are not sufficiently
sophisticated to ensure full compliance with Commonwealth reporting requirements.

Since all RO processes involve a level of reporting – whether internally to

management/committees, funding agencies or government, existing systems have no
comprehensive reporting functionality to meet such demand requiring significant manual
re-work to provide essential reports.

A new application implementation is underway and will provide vastly increased data
integrity and enable compliance by replacing multiple existing systems and integrating
with other relevant University systems (PeopleSoft Finance, PeopleSoft Human
Resources Management System and a Student System) thus removing a significant
amount of duplication, and risk of error, and ensuring all necessary information required
to be reported is captured. This will also lead to greater efficiencies within Research
Office processes allowing resources to be allocated to increasing total research income
and publications reported by the University.

A new application will provide an integrated solution within the Office and the
University, with distributed access via the WWW to College / Faculty /Department users
to be offered once implementation within the RO has been achieved. Access to research
performance data will be based on appropriate delegations and is expected to be 100%
web enabled, searchable on key fields and user-friendly. The new application is promising
a suite of customised reports as well as optional reports for ad-hoc queries. As the RO
has recently inherited responsibility for providing research performance and Go8
benchmarking data for the University funding model, a sophisticated reporting tool
within the new applications is an essential requirement. Furthermore, a single
information management system for the RO will provide increased security and enable
more efficient back-up and disaster recovery procedures.

In the process of collecting the above IS background about the RO from the IT Manager
at the RO, I have also interviewed the IT Manager; an IT staff member directly reporting
to the IT manager; the Research Grants Administration Manager and the Ethics Manager
to investigate and learn more about the perceptions of ITP service provision. The
methodology of this paper is based on Gatto's (2000, p.89-121) work in
dealing with customers. To analyse ITP’s relationship with the RO, I have asked the
following generic questions:

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 • What do they expect/need from ITP – what services, products, systems etc?
• How does the ITP help your business unit them do their jobs?
• In terms of function and service delivery – what does ITP do well?
• What are the areas where the ITP could add more value?

What do you expect/need from the ITP - what services,

products, systems etc?
The three managers and the IT member staff share a common view of their need of ITP
services, including:
• Professional, responsive desktop support for Windows and Macintosh platforms;
• Professional, responsive server support (web hosting, file sharing, backups,
database hosting);
• Advice and assistance with software procurement and licensing;
• Advice and assistance with hardware specifications and procurement/leasing;
• Advice and assistance with planning and implementation of standard operating
environment for business units;
• Advice, assistance and training on best practice for management and maintenance
of business unit IT infrastructure;
• Maintenance of network infrastructure;
• Maintenance of PABX and telephony infrastructure;
• Maintenance and support of enterprise systems;
• Project management expertise for large-scale system implementations.

How does the ITP help your business unit to do their jobs?
According to the IT manager, ITP helps the RO do their job via
• Service level agreements (SLA) for and the provision of desktop and server
support;
• Provision of files shares and associated backups;
• Provision of web and database hosting;
• Maintenance of network and telephone infrastructure;
• Maintenance and support of existing enterprise systems
• Project management expertise via MPG (application implementation project).

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In terms of function and service delivery - what does ITP do
well?
According to the IT manager, events and initiatives organised by the Federation of IT
Providers are a boon, from both knowledge and networking perspectives. Furthermore,
ITS’s desktop support and server support are generally done well. Problems raised are
usually resolved within acceptable timeframes. Project management services provided by
MPG for the implementation of the new application project have been outstanding. This
finding is in alignment to a report published as advice for the CIO that “IT departments
score best at solving IT problems (a 70.4 percent approval rating) and delivering projects
on budget (65.6 percent)” (Heeley and Leake, 2001).

What are the areas where the IT Portfolio could add more
value in terms of relationship to business?
According to the IT staff member, there is an opportunity to add value via the creation,
maintenance and communication of a set of recommended hardware specifications and
list of preferred hardware vendors. Furthermore, the IT manager explained that there is
an opportunity to assist business units in organising cost-effective leasing arrangements
for hardware.

Furthermore, the IT manager insisted that there is room to provide Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs) of detailed statistics relating to service calls to the Help Desk as it
would add immense value for the RO by allowing them to:
• Assist in the identification of common, recurring or ongoing problems that might
point to hardware or software issues, or to the need for additional training;
• Track response times against commitments made in service level agreements
managed by ITS (where SLA commitments are not met some form of support
credit should be given to the business unit, otherwise there is no incentive for
ITS to meet the SLA);
• Engage in expectation management among our user groups by providing
documentary evidence of positive outcomes.

Furthermore, according to the business managers at the RO, their staff often reported
frustration in dealing with the Help Desk. While it is appreciated that Help Desk staff at
ITS are doing a difficult job with limited resources, but on some occasions business unit
staff have received incomplete or incorrect advice from the Help Desk. On other

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occasions communication between the Help Desk, desktop support and/or server
support teams has not been effective, with issues appearing to fall through the cracks
when referred between teams.

The IT manager explained that communication from the desktop and server support
teams at ITS is lacking at times, which leads to a general lack of confidence in the
responsiveness and efficacy of desktop and server support. ITS could add significant
value for business units by improving their communication relating to the resolution of
service calls. In many cases the causes and solutions of issues are not effectively
communicated to business unit staff. In cases where issues could not be quickly resolved,
ITS often does not effectively communicate the reasons for any delay. In the worst
instances, ITS projects to the business unit the appearance of not working towards a
resolution of the outstanding issue.

Moreover, the business managers noted that MPG could immensely add business value if
they involve them and their staff in scheduling for project activities. MPG was very
demanding on end-user schedule to meet project activities and deadlines during peak
workload cycles indicating poor MPG-RO business unit relationship.

Analysis of the Business and IT Relationship

The issue of relationship is significant success factor for the implementation of the
project. It is no longer sufficient to coordinate with the IT department, but it requires
getting the buy in from line executives (Pastore, 1999). Once a relationship is formed it is
important that this relationship is managed.

For example, according to the manager of the business units neither MPG nor the IT
manager at the RO discussed with them the strategic role for IT to play, or that a degree
of business development over the next few years is dependant on an IT enabler (Baker,
2000). In contrast, while the IT manager at the RO receives support from his Director on
IT/business strategic alignment, the IT manager believes that his department is perceived
by RO units more as a technical Help Desk service department rather than an ally to find
out what IT can do in terms of the business.

Another key factor in ensuring that the relationship of business and IT is maintained is to
manage negativity by providing services based on support and trust (MIS Harvard

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Update, 2002). Leaders must demonstrate concern for people and practice integrity to
build trust. Russel and Stone (2002) report that in the absence of trust, fear dominates
organisations and inhibits productivity and inhibits learning (Couto, 2002).

Another impediment is that IT staff are typically perceived as technologist first and
business focused second (Heeley and Leake (2), 2001). Whilst an IT staff is often judged
by his/her technical skills and the ability to deliver the required IT goods and services,
recent trends require IT staff to be closer to the strategic objectives of the organisation
and demonstrate leadership in par with other business managers. Hence, IT management
becomes about people, not technology. The paradox is that IT staff such as ITS work in
the technical path and do not identify and develop people and relationship skills early
enough in their careers (Santosus, 2003; Datz, 2003).

Furthermore, the RO IT manager and MPG had to manage resistance to the

implementation of the new application project by RO staff. Pounder (2001) emphasises
the leader’s responsibility for generating change, commitment to change and being
“change agent”. However, a primary and vital ingredient for effective leadership learning
is changing within (Buchanan, 1996) to encourage individuals to seek and foster change
within themselves (Stickland, 1996). The leadership challenge is to convince discouraged
people that change is possible and that their efforts to do better will be supported
(Borins, 2002). Furthermore, leaders have to educate followers about economic realities
in a way that makes their message credible (Couto, 2002).

When asked about ITP enterprise leadership, the RO IT manager explained in words
similar to Pastore (1999) that ITP functions “within a miasma of maybes, as politics and
personalities work to obscure the best course of action”. The perception is that Directors
of the three ITP divisions have political issues that they “don’t assemble all resources
they need. They try to deliver what they can with what they’ve got, but it’s never going to
be enough to satisfy expectations.” (Pastore, 1999). Furthermore, none of the
interviewees at the RO knew what SPA’s role was and have never interacted with its
staff. They were also unaware about existing strategic planning methodologies committed
at SPA.

These findings are also in alignment to a survey conducted of IT managers by

Enterprise-works Web site, where it has been identified that limited resources, length of

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time, poor IT-Business relationship and poor strategic planning methodologies are the
top barriers in implementing IT in an organisation.

ITP acknowledge its weaknesses. According to a Program Area Manager at MPG

supervising the project implementation at the RO, an initiative is required in response to
the concerns with the current method of ITP service delivery. As also explained, ITP
suffers from service delivery issues that include:
• Diffused and disorganised service delivery to deploy the appropriate expertise at
the right place and right time;
• Lack of formalised management of a consultative service (i.e. policies,
procedures, documentation);
• The service is not responsive to the changing needs of our customers;
• Inappropriate service quality levels;
• Potential loss of credibility through poor or inconsistent delivery;
• Poor communication of existing services, communication structures, processes
and buy in;
• Inappropriate use of resources;
• An environment that encourages ‘feral’ system and methodologies;
• Lack of transparency – users don’t know how ITP works;
• Lack of user involvement in projects;
• Lack of ‘clean’ handovers from MPG to ITS;
• Relying on individual relationships rather than process: ITP can impact all of the
above causes;
• Role ambiguity – relationships between roles and lack of ownership;
• Lack of publicised definition of services; and
• ITP tension/turf issues/relationships

Required Areas of Improvement

ITP strategy should be based on consolidating and redefining a range of services by
leveraging existing people, knowledge and solutions and enables development of new
services using a structured methodology. From the interviews conducted, identified areas
of deficiencies that requires further improvements to ensure that the current ITP/RO
relationship develop and grow include:

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1-Account / Relationship Management – As discussed earlier, not only ITP has a
fragmented approached to service delivery, which can cause a duplicate in effort [vendor,
ITS, MPG], it also lacks ‘end to end’ problem resolution and accountability. There is also
the end-user confusion about ‘who to talk to’. This puts impediments to development of
good relationships with end-user and does not meet end-user expectations of the service
and reduces confidence in ITS capability. The recommended strategy is to introduce an
account manager role [MPG, ITS] and integrate it with Help Desk – problem
management; escalation; reporting and involve client in development of strategy. The
strategy entails developing a profile of ITP clients including all services provided to them.
The objective is to:
• Improve customer satisfaction by implementation of account management
services for ‘key customers’ or services;
• Improved customer satisfaction and confidence in ITP;
• More unified ITP;
• Improve communication;
• Revisit the SLA and project charters to better manage user expectation; and
• More efficiency: reduce duplication of effort; less time; reduce costs

2-The perception of IT and Advice Service – It is becoming essential to develop a

standardised process for Service Delivery within ITP and to change the current process.
As IT departments “strive to develop and deliver valuable services to the customers, the
required IT processes must be highly flexible and integrated, implement a robust process
measurements, define needs customer linkages and provide required reporting
mechanisms.” (Drake, 2000). In order to do so, ITP has to restructure its teams to
perform in a process that crosses functional or organisational boundaries (Drake, 2000).
It also requires developing internal portfolio wide processes to support the role and to
communicate more efficiently to client at a senior executive and end-user levels.

Strategic Major
Planning & Projects
Architecture Group
ITP

Figure 2 Proposed ITP Service Delivery Information

Technology
Services
Wider University community e.g. RO

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3-Communication – While communication is to a good level for senior managers at the
RO, this could be improved upon to other business units and end-users at the RO.
Furthermore, the objective is to:
• Improve the presentation of the Web sites of ITP to cater for the end-user
• Measure output
• Accountability through KPIs such as:
o All expenditure on projects is founded on business case
o Role defined, approved, filled and delivering
o All SLAs to include clear statements around end-to-end service management
o Service quality (as rated by customers) is benchmarked
o Enhanced service delivery

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References
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[accessed January 2004]

Borins, S. (2002). Leadership and innovation in the public sector. Leadership and
Organisation Development Journal; 23/8; 467-476.

Buchanan, R. (1996). The enemy within. McGraw-Hill Book Company, Australia.

Couto, D. (2002). Fear & Learning. Boss April 2002. Australian Computer Society, 2003,
M&S for IS 1.

Datz, T. (2003). How to launch a leader. CIO magazine.

http://www.cio.com/archive/091503/development.html?printversion=yes [accessed
November 2003].

Drake, J. (2000). The HP IT Service Management Reference Model.

http://www.hp.cz/servis/integrace/pdf/wp_v2-1.pdf [accessed January 2004].

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works.com/BuisnessITSurvey.htm. [accessed January 2004]

Gatto, R. P. (2000). The smart manager's FAQ guide. A survival handbook for today's
workplace. Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer publishing, San Francisco

Heeley, W. and Leake, A. (2) (2001). Are you a ten? MIS Journal. Australian Computer
Society, 2003, M&S for IS 1.

Heeley, W. and Leake, A. (2001). “Geeks” come out on top, CFO, April 2001. MIS
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MIS Harvard update, 2002, Managing negativity. Australian Computer Society, 2003,
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MIS Magazine Australia Winter 2003 Issue.

Pastore, R. (1999). Stranger in a strange land. CIO Web site. Australian Computer
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Pounder, S. (2001). “New leadership” and university organisational effectiveness:

exploring the relationship. Leadership and stress. Leadership and Organisation
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Russel, R. and Stone G. (2002). A review of servant leadership attributes: developing a

practical model. Leadership and Organisation Development Journal; 23/3.

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Santosus, M. (2003). Secrets to managing techies. CIO magazine Oct 1 Issue.
http://www.cio.com/archive/100103/hs_techies.html?printversion=yes [accessed
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