MEMO TO: Leon Lassiter FROM: Elbay Aliyev SUBJECT: Midsouth Chamber of Commerce (B): Cleaning Up an Information Systems Debacle One of the first mistakes on behalf of MSCC was the fact that nothing was learned from past mistakes and the company relied on DMA too much. Even though any company can go through financial difficulties, much larger organizations could have a big capability of handling such difficulties and provide long-term support of a product for their clients. Another major source of the problems within the MSCC has come from negligent decision making of Gramen. The company has made the decision to move on from UNITRAK once Gramen was hired to replace Kovecki. The reason why Gramen was not a good candidate for a position is that he was extremely familiar with HP system, whereas the currently operating systems have been running on IBM AS/400.
This type of research has already been carried out by someone else; anybody can access secondary research data. Secondary research can either be internal or external. Primary Methods of Research Observation - A business can use observation as a source of primary research when inspecting the customer’s actions. When using observation as a method of primary research, the examiner and the customer are not interacting with each other. This makes it more difficult for the researcher to interpret customer behaviour.
As this manner of knowledge management is not efficient and outdated it is suspected to be the main cause for loss of sales. Objective Our objective is to provide recommendations to improve the current knowledge management system by providing available options and suggestions. Current system Basic system in place for accounting functions, but no available procedures available for the collection and tracking of essential customer information. Desired Outcome For Dooright Enterprises to have an up to date knowledge management system in place, including updated software for accounting and point of sales and software for tracking important customer information. Action Required * Install new and up to date software to keep accounting functions efficient * Install software for keep track of customer information * Implement new procedures to knowledge management Gap Analysis Identified Gaps in system performance | Potential Solutions | Priority for action | No system in place for tracking customer info | Install best suited software | Needs to be implemented immediately for best results | Update accounting system | Review and install up to date software |
ANALYSIS The “Blue Ridge Spain” case study introduces several individuals and organizations. In order to analyze the situation and provide recommendations, I will specify the main issues from their various perspectives. Delta’s senior managers were not keen on JV’s because they viewed them as time-consuming, and also an inadequate means of developing new markets. Delta was persistent and hungry for growth, owning strong brands that could support expansion into overseas markets without the need for local partners. Rather than form joint ventures, Delta preferred to hire local managers directly, or transfer experienced managers from their other divisions around the world.
Despite CanGo’s initial success, however, the organization is not without its fair share of concerns. The primary issue with CanGo is that it lacks a formal strategic business plan. The company has also failed to clearly define what its short-term goals and long-term goals are and how it plans to go about realizing those goals. The company also has problems with its current organizational structure. Although roles are clearly defined, CanGo often succumbs to a centralized form of decision-making, with Elizabeth Bennett micromanaging to such a degree that the decision-making process almost becomes paralyzed.
According to Gordon, 2013, “CompStat has spawned a multimillion-dollar industry”. Weaknesses (1) Use of predictive policing can not replace on-the-job experience police officers bring to the force. (2) Primary reliance upon predictive policing results may sometimes yield inaccurate results. (3) Given the limited budgetary challenges most agencies are operating under, not all police departments may not receive costly funding associated with installing, maintaining, training end-users, management and decision makers while sustaining the use the AIS system and peripheral devices. (4) Results are only as good as the data entered.
Other problems include the company having a lackadaisical business strategy, internal conflicts among upper management, an information technology department that has not been well run and is frequently criticized by peer executives, and a lack of integrated business objectives that do not align with information technology objectives, the inability to prioritize projects due to unclear business objectives. This has resulted in project failure, a bad company reputation, loss of market share, and stock price tumbling. Carlisle believes that IZL Corporation is salvageable, but needs to upper management to do this. In this paper, the problem, recommended and alternative solutions, as well as implementation strategies are discussed. Key Issues The key issues for Jack Carlisle, according to Robert Austin, are recorded in the informally published manuscript, Jack Carlisle, CIO.
The IT team had the business team so confused during the meeting that they eventually just tuned out and IT never actually got to talking about how the new technology could be used for marketing and why it was a good idea. The next issue is the lack of integration between IT and business. Not only do they have problems communicating the points they are trying to get across in language that can be easily understood, but the business end feels as though IT does not know how to meet their goals. A good example of this is on page 76 where it is discussed that “IT people don’t even know some of our basic business functions” and “We don’t feel IT is contributing to creating new business value for Hefty.” Lastly it seems as though there is bad time management and planning on the IT end. I cannot be too harsh on this considering that many projects do not go as planned, on schedule or on budget but this did raise a red flag in the mini case.
While The Behavioral Theory provided a revolutionary view of the internal characteristics of the firm, strategic and managerial considerations were not the focus of attention. The goal was not to explain market behavior, but rather to understand decisions and actions inside the firm. Cyert and March believed organizations were incapable of following specific, unified objectives. Such specific objectives are critical to the establishment of corporate strategy, and without this ability, managers could only marginally influence the direction of the firm. Any objectives agreed upon by a management coalition would inevitably be highly ambiguous goals, enfeebling the ability of a top manager or entrepreneur to truly control the direction of the firm.
Hypothesis 7: Enterprises do not agree with respect to the factors acting as barrier to the SCM implementation. In order to pinpoint the obstacles and bottlenecks, and to achieve superior performance, organizations embrace benchmarking as a strategic tool (Rigby, 2013). Shirley (1996) defined benchmarking as a continuous and systematic process in which an organization’s processes or practices are compared with its rivals having a better position in the marketplace, to discover the best way to perform a particular activity or process. Benchmarking imparts better comprehension of the current practices of the organization and allows the firms to re-engineer their business processes, so that they can attain best-in-class performance or beyond