Purveyor of Widgets (pow)

INTRODUCITON

Technology continues to play an important role in creating competitive advantages. Therefore, Purveyor of Widgets (POW) must ensure that their investment purchases are limited to those that are a true necessity that can be used to create a "blue oceans". The Chief Operation Officers and the IT team must be careful to avoid falling into the trap of overspending. In order to ensure that the technology for POW is effective, a formal technology plan must be created. This plan will include acquisition of computers hardware, software, design of infrastructure, promotion of collaboration with management, innovation developments, communication technology and the flexibility to integrate new technology and alternative technology.

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER (CIO)

As the new Chief Information Officer, I have been charged to run the Information Technology (IT) department and act as a business council for Purveyor of Widgets (POW). I will have to ensure that Information Technology investment decisions return value to the company and the IT agenda is clearly defined so that the limited resources are not misdirected or wasted. The Information Technology strategy for POW must be consistent with the organization's overall strategies, goals, missions and business objectives. As described by Earl Fry, CEO of Informatica "An IT organization, is not only about technology, but it is about choosing the right technology at the right time, deploying it in the right way at the right cost to make sure that you're increasing business value and business productivity."

POW CORPORATE PRIORITIES

As CIO, I must ensure that the IT strategy is aligned with the corporate business objectives and mission. In order to accomplish this, it is crucial that senior management take a leadership role in IT decision making process. The crucial decision is to determine POW's business and organization strategy. Is the strategy to increase revenue or market share, to enhance business processes so that operation in more efficient, to increase customer satisfaction (internal and external), or is POW concerned with its financial conditions such as stock portion and reduction in expenses?

After discussions with the CEO, executive management and the board of director, the decision was made that POW's priorities are to increase revenue and market share and increase customer satistifaction. Therefore, the IT strategy will include a review of the processes to ensure that we are maximizing on sales to new and potential customers and the products we are selling meet the needs of the customers. We will also include in the IT strategy - an analysis of inventory management, product production, and product distribution.

IT STRATEGY

As POW moves forward with the development of its IT strategy, the CIO should not fall into the pitfall that the IT strategy should be derived from a review of the organizational strategies and plans. Instead, the IT strategy should focus on defining needed application systems or determine if the IT strategy is better, if it is developed by using a rigorous methodology.

In developing POW's IT strategy, the CEO will use Porter's competitive framework to identify and create opportunities for competitive advantage with information technology. Some of the opportunities that matched the needs of POW include:

1. Increase customer's switching costs through value-added IT based information

2. Decrease switching costs against suppliers

3. Use IT to support product innovation

4. Share IT resources with rivals

5. Substitute information technology for labor

6. Use information technology in segmentation of customer base.

There are also other factors that must be in place to have an effective IT strategy. These factors are:

Revisit business models to ensure that the IT team understands the business and its focuses are business oriented

Adoption of strategic theme because it is easier to track and direct strategic thread with the organization

Get the right people involved such as managers at all level to provide suggestions and ideas by working in partnership on individual projects

Balance the IT resources with the IT opportunities so that the organization strategies are obtained.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT

The core responsibilities of the Information Technology Department will include management and support of the technology architecture, hardware, software, and resources. The IT department for POW will be divided into the infrastructure, telecommunications, and support divisions. The IT department for POW, during the first two years, will be limited to staffs that include the Chief Information Officer and three staff members.

The Chief Information Officer position will include supervision of subordinate staff members along with the allocation and maintenance of resources required to maintain the LAN, servers, workstations, network devices, applications, databases and security integrity of the information systems at POW.

Infrastructure Section

The infrastructure division will be subdivided into network and applications. The network component focuses on the LAN, from the media and network appliances to the addressing schemes, network services, and the hardware aspect of all nodes and equipment. The application component focuses on the software, data, and related support services requirements. Staff members will be responsible for

* Maintaining documentation of administrative passwords for systems

* Archiving and storing critical data in a secure location

* Proposing and implementing modifications and/or expansions IT infrastructure

* Enforcing all appropriate policies and procedures

Electronic Communication

The communication division will consists of expertise in electronic communication, which includes internal communication such as network driver or server access and external communication such as e-mails,