In the continuing quest for business growth, many CEOs are turning to their CIOs and IT organizations because technology is absolutely essential to two compelling sources of growth: innovation and enterprise integration. The speed of innovation often depends on the ability to coordinate across organizational boundaries. Innovations cannot reach a sufficient level of scale and impact unless they are integrated into the larger operations of the corporation. And yet, say recently retired Harvard Business School dean Cash, Oxford dean Earl, and nGenera director of research Morison, the two endeavors remain "unnatural acts": Far too many large businesses are better at stifling innovation than at capitalizing on it, better at optimizing local operations than at integrating them for the good of the enterprise and its customers. To make both pursuits seem more natural, the authors recommend creating two dedicated, IT-powered teams: a distributed innovation group (DIG) and an enterprise integration group (EIG). The DIG serves as the center of expertise for innovation techniques, considers new uses for technology already being developed inside the company, looks for new developments outside the company, and provides experts for internal innovation initiatives. The EIG selects the most promising from among competing integration projects, provides resources to give them a strong start, and then folds them into the operating model of the enterprise. Without such agencies, the authors maintain, innovation and integration won't spread far enough or fast enough throughout a large organization to keep pace with the smaller, younger, more technology-based competitors to which innovation and integration come much more naturally.
A start-up intellect exchange initially offered a public expertise exchange, connecting experts with clients. Now management wonders whether a new, more focused strategy will succeed.
Mike Connors, president of AOL Technologies, examines several efforts to correct operational problems inhibiting the company's growth. What will need to be done to support growth and counter competition from Prodigy, Compuserv, and Internet-related services?
Provides an overview of the system development process in large organizations. Describes traditional life cycle approaches as well as more recent methods, e.g., prototyping. The objective is to familiarize students with the terminology and issues involving system development that arise in other MIS cases and discussions. A rewritten version of an earlier note.
Describes the organizational components of the typical IT organization in a large corporation. Points out common problems and issues for each component of the organization. Also addresses the leadership issues for the IT function, and focuses specifically on the Chief Information Officer role. A rewritten version of an earlier note by L.M. Applegate.
General Electric Canada used sociotechnical design techniques to restructure its financial, administrative, facilities, and information technology service from a decentralized, hierarchical organization to a centralized organization composed of self-managing, multi-skilled work teams. The case explores the role of information technology in supporting and enabling the intensive information sharing and communication required by the new organization design.
Because technology now develops faster than before, in the future managers will be able to choose the kind of organization they want. New structures, associated with adhocracies, networks, or "cluster organizations," will spring up around old ones. Information technology will enable cluster-type organizations to have the benefits of small scale and large scale simultaneously. Teams will accomplish most work, with leadership shared among members, and workers will be better trained, more autonomous, and more transient. Finally, expert systems will make decision making better understood, and computers will allow control to be exercised separately from reporting relationships.
Mrs. Fields Cookies is a small company selling freshly baked goods through privately owned specialty stores (each store sells only Mrs. Fields products). The company has about 8,000 employees worldwide and less than 150 information systems people for a unique leverage of MIS resources. The company uses information systems extensively in its processing, communications, and other management functions, including operations of the stores and hiring sales employees. Teaching objectives include discussion of information technology architecture, organizations, management control, and strategy.