Critical Mass was a highly successful Internet marketing services firm with a blue chip client list. The rapidly changing Internet environment demanded continuous innovation and an exceptional level of creativity from the Technology Group. The company invested substantial resources in a creative-friendly physical environment and organized an array of activities intended to keep creativity bubbling. The company was ready to embark on a significant expansion in its customer base and management had decided to review and reassess these activities to determine if they were having the desired effect and if corrective changes were required.
Pay Zone Consulting is a small, highly specialized global consulting group providing information management solutions for the exploration and production sector of the oil and gas industry. The company operates entirely virtually with consultants and software developers in different parts of the world. The principals are considering growth options but are intent on preserving the quality of life provided by their virtual business model. The case examines the communication technologies employed by the principals in support of their virtual teamwork and describes the administrative information technology infrastructure that enables the firm to operate with no administrative staff or office. The case also discusses the organizational and personal factors underlying the company’s ability to operate successfully virtually.
Shopster.com is a Calgary-based e-business company whose business is to assist other individuals or companies in setting up their own retail transactional websites. Shopster differs significantly from ordinary website developers in that retailers are able to select from a huge inventory of saleable products, through Shopster's network of goods providers. Shopster also provides software tools, and expertise, to allow anyone wishing to create an online retail store to do so quickly and easily. Shopster's business has done well to date, but there are plenty of operational challenges ahead. As well, the principals would like to raise the bar substantially, to something they refer to as Shopster 2.0, the specifics of which are still at a formative stage. The Shopster case provides an interesting example of a small but rapidly growing Canadian company with an innovative business model and big dreams for the future.
Anduro Marketing is a Canadian company that sells technical services to companies wanting to improve their search engine website rankings. Though small, Anduro has attracted several major clients in both Canada and the United States, and expects steady profitability and growth. Anduro believes it can generate substantial additional profit by developing and selling a suite of software products that automate its technical service offerings. Anduro's managers must decide whether Anduro is better off staying with its current safe and profitable strategy or if Anduro should instead pursue a riskier but potentially more profitable software sales model. Several tough questions must be answered to determine whether the risk is worth the reward. The Anduro case provides an interesting description of an Internet technical/marketing services business and contrasts this with software sales.
Stock Research Group (SRG) is an information broker. SRG's primary business is serving as a collection point for information useful to investors seeking to invest in small-cap mining companies. SRG, in effect, pulls potential investors to its site, then channels them to the specific sites of companies in which the investors may have an investment interest. SRG's revenue comes from the mining companies, who generally pay on an impression basis (i.e. pay for eyeballs delivered to their web pages). The resource companies are willing to pay for this, since on their own they are much less likely to attract much investor traffic. SRG is also in the business of developing web pages for these small-cap resource firms, since generally the companies do not have in-house expertise to create and maintain their web presence. SRG thus represents a new kind of business - the specialized infomediary, or information broker. SRG is doing quite well financially, something that cannot be said of many web-based companies. SRG's main challenges involve managing growth, deciding on appropriate future directions, and determining how best to lever the virtual community they have created.
Homegrocer is a new Internet-based grocery store that is experiencing slow market penetration because the business concept entails fundamentally changing individual grocery shopping behavior. The owner is wondering what it takes to attract new customers and then convert them into repeat customers. Other issues include lack of management IT experience, anticipated hyper-growth, investment decisions needed in a quickly changing industry and funding in the future.
Richard Ivey School of Business has a need for the creation of a database, to be used for managing information about students and their courses of study, in its Business PhD program. Information on students to date has been maintained in a mix of paper and computer-file systems. The program director would like to develop a database, using a facility such as Microsoft Access, to be used for this purpose. The case provides examples of the actual forms and data maintained currently, and challenges the students to first create an entity-relationship data model, then a design for a relational database.
Metalco is a large Australian mining company. It has a rocky history in terms of its effective use of information systems (IS), and there is widespread dissatisfaction in the company concerning IS and the IS department. A recent resignation of the chief information officer led to the decentralization of the IS function, to move it closer to the operating departments. At the same time, one of the division heads has proposed that the company buy the SAP enterprise-wide system, to replace an earlier internal system which had been poorly received. The price tag for SAP is very high, $23 million. Implementing it would also require substantial changes in company processes. In light of its history, recent IS decentralization, and the high SAP price tag, the company is faced with making the decision of whether to go ahead with SAP. An appendix in the case provides extensive information on the procedure used to evaluate SAP, and results thereof.
As a central component of its Vision 2020 strategy, the city of Wellington, New Zealand has developed preliminary plans to transform itself into a wired city. The overarching project was called Info City. One of the sub-projects was called City Link. The objective of City Link was to create a high-speed digital communications infrastructure for the downtown business district. Fibre optic cable was to be used to wire up, simply and inexpensively, the city's downtown businesses, to provide a backbone network that businesses could utilize, however they wished, to make themselves more competitive. A consortium of interested parties had recently been formed, a telecommunications architecture was being developed, and plans for stringing cable were under way. While the project champion was unclear about the utility of the new system, he was confident that once the infrastructure was in place, ideas for its utilization would readily emerge. This case provides a setting for exploring the issue of the role of IT in competitive strategy. It also raises interesting social policy questions, about who should pay for such undertaking, who should benefit, and so forth.
This is a condensed version of case 9A95E003. Western Mining Corporation is one of Australia's largest mining companies. This case tells the story of a large information system project from its inception through its development and to the eve of its rollout into the implementation phases. The Operations Management Project was commissioned to produce the Operations Management System (OMS), a new information system designed to provide operational personnel with better and more timely information to help them in their daily tasks. The project experienced significant delays and problems, from project management difficulties, to systems development methodology shortcomings, to steering committee dealings. Two additional cases on the Operations Management Project are also available: Western Mining Corporation (B), case 9A95E005, and Western Mining Corporation (C), case 9A95E006. The three cases together provide a rich and comprehensive description of the various challenges experienced by information systems personnel and operational personnel alike in the course of developing and implementing new information systems. Both the original case and the (B) case can stand on their own. The (C) case is best used in conjunction with the (B) case.
The manager of equity derivatives at ScotiaMcLeod is deciding whether to replace a software system that enables investment dealers to trade electronically on Canada's major stock exchanges. The new system allows access to institutional clients, which presents opportunities as well as threats to the traditional role of investment dealers. The case's primary objective is to introduce students to the concepts of financial markets and trading and to show the importance of information technology in the evolution of stock trading.
SunLife Assurance Co., a large life insurance firm, wishes to provide a greater degree of computer support for its sales agents. A program to encourage agents to acquire laptop computers for use in selling had been established for some time. However, only a few agents had taken advantage of the program. The company decided to develop a new system, termed Maestro, which would provide a suite of tools to help agents perform their jobs more efficiently and effectively. The tools would be made available to agents using laptops. Also, agents were charged a fee for the software by the company. The development of the new tools was handled by the individual marketing group, not by the MIS function. Initial rollout of the new system has been only partially successful, and the director of individual marketing is concerned about how to improve the acceptance and adoption of the system by agents in the future.