BIS420 LECTURE 4

Achieving Strategy through Technology

 Information Technology –
Supports Strategic Management
• Innovative applications: Create innovative
applications that provide direct strategic advantage to
organizations.
• Competitive weapons: Information systems
themselves are recognized as a competitive weapon
• Changes in processes: IT supports changes in
business processes that translate to strategic advantage
• Links with business partners: IT links a company
with its business partners effectively and efficiently .
 Cost reductions: IT enables companies to reduce costs.
 Relationships with suppliers and customers: IT can be used to lock
in suppliers and customers, or to build in switching costs.
 New products: A firm can leverage its investment in IT to create new
products that are in demand in the marketplace.
 Competitive intelligence: IT provides competitive (business)
intelligence by collecting and analyzing information about products,
markets, competitors, and environmental changes.
SUCCESSFUL FORM OF
ORGANISATIONS
 Decentralised way of operating
 Flatter organisational hierarchy
 Interorganisational networking
 Cross functional teams
 Globalisation of operation
 Enterprise Wide Systems
 To improve quality (i.e., have full transaction information for each
business/service transaction)
 To provide a platform for process innovation
 To ensure efficient operation of work flow across the
whole business/enterprise
ERP AND SUPPLY CHAINS
ERP or enterprise systems control all major business
processes with a single software architecture in real time.
• It is comprised of a set of applications that automate routine
back-end operations:
– such as financial management
– inventory management
– Scheduling
– order fulfillment
– cost control
– accounts payable and receivable,
• It includes front-end operations such as:
– POS
– Field Sales
– Service
• It also increases efficiency, improves quality, productivity,
and profitability.
SOME ENTERPRISE WIDE ISSUES
 Ethical
 How much to integrate
 Role of IT/IS
 Organisational adaptability
 Organisational agility
 Project Management
 Technical considerations
 Organisation change and culture
CONTINUED.
 Role and involvement of end users
 Trying to predict and measure intangible benefits and costs
on the enterprise wide system
STEPS TO IMPROVE THE EXPLOITATION OF
ENTERPRISE WIDE BASED SYSTEMS
 See the implementation of such systems as continuous process
 Ensure that the new system can allow users what they could do in
the old legacy system with extra and value adding features
 Encourage effective dialogue and engagement with users
 Allow they to play with the enterprise wide system
 See resistance as source of ideas, innovation and creativity
 Understand the essence is information not information technology
 Try and not control and plan all aspects, it will take a life of its
own
CHALLENGES RELATING TO THE EXPLOITATION
OF ICT. –CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS
 Project Factors - We know that having a project champion is important but
an Enterprise System (ES) often takes several years & in this time period
people often move on. Similarly members of the initial project team may
not stay for the entire duration of the project.

 Technical Factors - It is impossible to plan resources for various technical

jobs that need to be done, such as configuring tables, cleaning data &
testing, but it is almost inevitable that these plans will not be completely
accurate.

 Organizational Change Factors - While most implementation plans

include resources for the organizational change programme that will be
important for getting people to change practices (e.g. resources for
communication & education), research demonstrate that the organizational
change resources that are ear-marked for the project are often reallocated
to the technical problems that are almost inevitable but not budgeted.