Information Systems

Management

• Making wise infrastructure investments • Choosing and coordinating infrastructure components • Dealing with infrastructure change • Management and governance

Management Challenges

Spending on Infrastructure

Total cost of ownership

Starting out small

Competitive forces model

Competitive Forces Model

Question 1➜ Assume that you are an executive

in a multi-national Insurance company. Discuss how you are going to develop and manage a workable and powerful IT infrastructure for your company using this model.

1. Market demand for the firm’s customers, supplier & employees➜ Different categories of

customers & employees

➜ Make an inventory of the services provide for customers, employees

➜ Survey each group

➜ Find out services provide for them are meeting with the needs of each group

2. The firm’s business strategy

➜ Analyze the company for particular time period - five years business strategy

➜ Try to assess what are the new services and capabilities required to achieve company goals

3. The firm’s IT strategy, infrastructure and cost➜ Examine the information

technology plans - next five years

➜ Asses its alignment with company’s business plan

➜ Determine total IT Infrastructure cost

➜ Total Cost ownership analysis can be performed

4. Assessment of the firm’s current Information technology ➜ Check whether the firm is

behind the technology curve or at the bleeding edge of IT

➜ Not advisable to spend resources on advanced technologies that are still experimental, expensive & unreliable

➜ Spend on technologies which have standards and IT vendors are competing on cost, not design, and where there are multiple suppliers

5. Services of Competitor firms➜ What technology services are

offered by the customers to their competitors & employees

➜ Quantitative & qualitative methods to compare them with your company

➜ If the service level is law - the company is in a competitive disadvantage

➜ Looks on the possible ways to improve the service level

6. Competitor firm IT infrastructure investments and returns on investments➜ Gain a good idea of how

much you and your competitor firms are spending on IT infrastructure

➜ What you are receiving in return

➜ How your competitive position might be improved

Components of TCO

Hardware acquisitio

n Software acquisitio

n

Training

Support

Space and

energy

Downtime

Infrastructure

Maintenance

Question 2➜Discuss how you are

going to use this model to find out the best option using a real life example.

Question 3Discuss how you would approach this acquisition process by using the above model as your guide.

Five Major Steps in IS Acquisition

1.Project identification, justification and planning

➜ Should align the business process with the company objectives

➜ Should consider the overall strategy

➜ Specific process may need to be prioritized

➜ Process should be carefully analyzed

➜ Investment

2. IT architecture

➜ The purpose of the IT Architecture

➜ Identify what is compatible with the current system

2. IT architecture

➜ How well the new IS resources we plan to implement could integrate with the current business processes

➜ Whether they are comply with the rules and policies.

➜ We have to consider about feasibility in technical, operational, cultural, legal, economical, etc

➜ Build

➜ Buy

➜ Lease

Acquisition and Development.

Acquisition and Development.➜ How does one know how to select the best acquisition option???

➜ The advantages and disadvantages of each plan

➜ How well will the option fit with the organizations business plan

➜ Organizations capabilities

➜ What impact will it have

➜ Cost/Benefit and risk analysis

Testing Installation and Integration

➜ Testing• Verify and validate acquired resources

➜ Installation & Integration• Correctly introduced to the environment

and properly integrated with existing system

➜ Training• The users need to be trained appropriately

in order to use the new acquisition effectively

Testing Installation and Integration.

➜ Security

• Make sure appropriate controls are developed and put in place

• Make sure proper recovery policies are in place

• Make users aware of the controls and place and how to adhere to them

Operations Maintenance and Updating

➜ The phase in which the software is released to operate in the production environment

➜ Change management

➜ The acquired resources need to be monitored, sustained and supported as needed. (Benefit realization)

Further Discussion

Buy vs. LeaseAssume your company is planning on implementing a new accounting package. Discuss the buy and lease options for the new system