But in Symons’ case, it was a complete disaster. When they tried to implement the system, they were faced with problems after problems. Not only did the project go over time and budget, but it ended up being completely useless because after 6 years from when they initiated the plan for the SIS, they had still had not got to where they wanted to and in the end a complete revaluation of the system was initiated.
Circumstances of Change
The first difference between the two organisations comes from their circumstances of change. Symons was limited in choices from the beginning. They only realised that they had to change, when they realised that their existing system was no longer adequate. In other words, they had no formal or informal vision/plan that they were following. AA on the other hand already had a successful IS in place called ‘Command and Control’. It met their business needs but because of their forward looking nature, they could see that the system was inflexible in nature and also approaching the end of its useful life. Because they had time, AAHELP was not a project in the traditional IS project sense, but a part ongoing process.
In a nutshell, AA chose to change their IS, while Symons had no choice but to change.
Management Involvement
The main difference between the two organisations is shown here. In Symons, the senior management had no understanding and experience of computers. They just viewed computers as a tool for automating business processes. This was the case 15 years ago, but nowadays when we are living in the era of Strategic IS, it is vital that senior management people are trained and interested in IS. ‘Interested’ doesn’t mean paying lip-service and hiring consultants to take over the job. The relationship between senior management and IS is crucial for successful undertaking of SISP.
After an in-depth investigation of 14 large organisations in 1992, Feeny, Edwards, and Simpson stated few of the attributes that successful Chief Executive possessed. In general, they state that the Chief Executive has had some sort of training on IS/IT, experienced IS/IT project success, and therefore perceives IS/IT to be critical to the business.
In AA’s case, there was high management involvement from the start. Led by the Director of Operations (Alistair Cheyne), there were a diverse group of managers (IT, Operations, General, Roadside) who shared the vision and commitment of AAHELP.
This brought people of very diverse blend of skills together. It can also be seen that the AA board of directors took much more of a serious interest than those of Symons. AA Board of Directors demanded constant convincing and explanations throughout development, whereas in Symons the Directors mostly left the decisions for their Project Leader to sort out with the consultants they had hired. He says that
‘it was really the project team approving and management nodding.’
But this wasn’t the same as delegating. The board simply just didn’t appreciate the extent of organisational change involved. It also didn’t help that their project leader lacked leadership skills, experience in Information Technology, and ultimately power and authority.
User Involvement
The next main difference between the two case studies comes from the level of user involvement during Design and implementation of the system. In AA’s case, the level of user involvement and input were very high. It was seen to be driven by users and was all based on teamwork between the users and the IT team. I can’t stress the importance of this enough. The system has to be driven by the users.
They set up a team called the Project Assurance Team (PAT) which assessed the quality of the system at many different stages of development. The group consisted of not only the IT people, but also the operational people who were in the end going to be the users of the system. According to the AA’s IT Director of Member Services, this is
‘because it is easy to think you know what the business wants and produce it, and find that it isn’t what the customer needs’
The rest of the operational staff was not limited to passive acceptance of the system In other words, they weren’t just told of the new system and given training. They were consulted throughout the project. They hired a full time user manager just to co-ordinate and gather user requirements from the user.
The attention paid to the involvement of user may well be the key reason why AAHELP was well received by the users. Because most of them had some kind of an input into the system, they all felt like AAHELP was ‘their baby’ rather than AA’s.
However in Symon’s case it is completely different. When the system was finally implemented, it was soon greeted with negative feelings from the users. This was due to a number of reasons of which were caused mostly by lack of organisation and commitment of the management. Because the board member didn’t think that the system would and should create a major change to the organisation, they weren’t too bothered about the need of user-involvement. Therefore, during testing of the system, they picked only one ‘key user’ from each department. Due to lack of the Managerial commitment, the ‘key users’ were according to their availability rather than their experience or skills. This resulted in users who were unwilling to change procedures, and unused to the system.
During the Design and Analysis phase, there was even less user-involvement. Symons Management decided that they needed computer-based techniques to increase their decreasing sales. They hired external consultants who drew up the Invitation to Tender (ITT) of the proposed system. The first mistake is here. No matter how good some Consultants are, there is no way that they are going to know more about the Operations of the organisation better than the Operations people. Even if they did, the final users are going to be the operations people. The consultants needed to have incorporated the staff’s views in the ITT in order for the staff to be more accepting towards the system later on.
Approach to Design and implementation
I have already introduced above their main reason for their two different approaches to design. In the Symons case study we saw that it was a system-led approach. When drawing up the ITT, which was also their first stage of evaluation, it turned out to be more of an issue of functional specification. The Board of Members who had no experience in IT thought the change was to automate previously manual processes for added efficiency.
This idea, as discussed before, was fitting till the 70s and perhaps 80s. Nowadays, due to the increased power of computers, IS has emerged as an agent of integration and the enabler of new competitiveness for today's enterprise in the global marketplace. It is important that your IS strategy is linked closely to your Organisation, and Human Resource strategy in order for your organisation to prosper.
The board viewed the IS as a technical system separable from its organisational context, history, and infrastructure. They thought that once the system was built, it would just automatically be implemented without any problems. This might have happened had the IS been a simple system. However, the IS that Symons were implementing was a Strategic Information System. In other words, it was an important system that affects the organisational performance but is also directly linked to the organisational strategy. The list of areas where the system was to be implemented shows that the system was anything but simple.
- Sales order processing
- Production planning
- Shop floor production control
- Finished Goods stock control
- Packaging stock control
- Purchasing
- Production Statistics
This wasn’t the case for AA. They had clear Organisational vision and views set out from the beginning. Their reason for the new system was to improve the standards of customer service for customer loyalty and to reduce their cost which is their organisational strategy.
This resulted in three main business requirements for the new IS.
- Development of a nationally-based system
- Separation of the functions
- The provision of a base for new products or services
AA’s system was definitely a business-led system. They had the idea for AAHELP long before technology caught up enough for the system to be implemented. Their IS system was led by a long-term vision from way back.
A lot could be contrasted during the implementation phase also. In AA’s case, they used a phase-by-phase approach. Each phase would have a business case. This was to make the job of convincing the board easier. This proved useful not only in convincing the board, but also in that it allowed a certain degree of flexibility, as the system could be adapted in order to deal with the changes in the organisation more generally.
This gradual incremental approach to the development meant that even though the overall time of the project took longer, the system was checked more thoroughly, and thus was much less likely to have problems later on when it would cost a lot more to fix.
This is shown very clearly in the Symons’ case. They hired ProSys to deliver the full system in one go. During implementation, they found a lot of costly errors such as differences in Numbering Systems, and changes to the system which cost them an additional ₤15,000.
IT TEAM
There were some differences between the two even in their I.T Team. Firstly, AA had their personal in-house I.T staff while Symons hired programmers. There are several benefits of in-house I.T staff. It takes shorter time for problems to be sorted out. Another difference was that the IT Team all worked in one location only. This built team spirit and encouraged formal and informal communications. Working so close together also meant that problems would be noticed, and sorted out much faster.
3 Strategic Information Systems Planning Methodologies
The task of strategic information systems planning is difficult and often time organizations do not know how to do it. Strategic information systems planning is a major change for organizations, from planning for information systems based on users' demands to those based on business strategy.
Vitale, et al. (1986) classifies SISP methodologies into two categories: impact and alignment. Impact methodologies help create and justify new uses of IT, while the methodologies in the "alignment" category align IS objectives with organizational goals.
Impact Methodologies
Value Chain Analysis
A form analysing business activities. It helps in devising information systems which increase the overall profit available to a firm and identifying the potential for mutual business advantages of component businesses, in the same or related industries, available from information interchange. It concentrates on value-adding business activities and is independent of organizational structure.
Strengths: It concentrates on direct value adding activities of a firm and thus pitches information systems right into the realm of value adding rather than cost cutting
Weaknesses: Basic concept of a value chain is difficult to apply to non-manufacturing organizations where the product is not tangible and there are no obvious raw materials. It also fails to address the developmental and implementation issues.
Critical Success Factor Analysis
Critical success factors analysis can be considered to be both an impact as well as an alignment methodology. Critical Success Factors (CSF) in the context of SISP are used for interpreting more clearly the objectives, tactics, and operational activities in terms of key information needs of an organization and its managers and strengths and weaknesses of the organization's existing systems. Critical success factors are limited areas of the business where if the result is satisfactory, will ensure successful competitive performance for the organisation
Strengths: CSF analysis provides a very powerful method for concentrating on key information requirements of an organization, a business unit, or of a manager. This allows the management to concentrate resources on developing information systems around these requirements. Also, CSF analysis is easy to perform and can be carried out with few resources.
Weaknesses: CSF analysis by itself is not enough to perform comprehensive SISP because it does not define a data architecture or provide automated support for analysis. CSFs also focus primarily on management control and thus tend to be internally focused and analytical rather than creative
Strategic Relevance and Impact Grid (SRIG)
A portfolio model derived from McFarlan (1984) considers the contribution of IS/IT to the business now and in the future based on its industry impact. Based on this model applications are divided into four categories, as shown here:
Strategic - Applications which are critical for future success
Examples: computer-integrated manufacturing, links to suppliers etc.
Turnaround - Applications which may be of future strategic importance
Examples: Make sales through internet
Factory - Applications which are critical to sustaining existing business
Examples: employee database, maintenance scheduling, etc.
Support - Applications which improve management and performance but are not critical to the business
Examples: time recording, payroll, etc.)
Alignment Methodologies
Business Systems Planning (BSP)
This methodology, developed by IBM, combines top down planning with bottom up implementation. The methodology focuses on business processes which in turn are derived from an organization's business mission, objectives and goals. Business processes are analyzed to determine data needs and, then, data classes. Similar data classes are combined to develop databases. The final BSP plan describes an overall information systems architecture as well as installation schedule of individual systems.
Steps in a BSP
- Reduce and organize interview data
- Gain top management commitment
- Prepare for the study Conduct the kickoff meeting
- Define the business processes
- Define the data classes Analyze current business and systems relationships
- Interview leading executives
- Define an information architecture
- Determine architectural priorities Develop recommendations and an action plan
- Review the Information Systems Management
Strengths: Because BSP combines a top down business analysis approach with a bottom up implementation strategy, it represents an integrated methodology. It also has the reliability as IBM is the vendor of this methodology.
Weaknesses: BSP takes considerable time and effort for its successful implementation. BSP also requires a firm commitment from the top management and their substantial involvement and also requires a high degree of IT experience within the BSP planning team. There also is the problem of bridging the gap between top down planning and bottom up implementation.
Strategic Systems Planning (SSP)
Also known as PROplanner this methodology is similar to BSP. Although steps in the SSP procedure are similar to those in the BSP, a major difference between SSP and BSP is SSP's automated handling of the data collected during the SISP process. Software produces reports in a wide range of formats and with various levels of detail. Users are guided through menus for on-line data collection and maintenance. The software also provides a data dictionary interface for sharing SSP data with an existing data dictionary or other automated design tools. But in overall, BSP and SSP have similar advantages and disadvantages.
Information Engineering (IE
This methodology was developed by James Martin (1982) and provides techniques for building enterprise, data and process models. Theses models combine to form a comprehensive knowledge base which is used to create and maintain information systems. Basic philosophy underlying this technique is the use of structured techniques in all the tasks relating to planning, analysis, design and construction of enterprise wide information systems. Such structured techniques are expected to result in well integrated information systems.
Method/1
Method/1 is a layered approach for SISP. The top layer is the methodology itself, the middle layer of techniques supports the methodology, and a bottom layer of tools supports the techniques. Techniques supported by this methodology include data flow diagramming, matrix analysis, functional decomposition, focus groups and Delphi studies. This methodology has five distinct objectives
- To identify the organization's information needs.
- To find new opportunities for using information to achieve competitive advantage.
- To define an overall IT strategy for satisfying the organization's IT objectives.
- To define data, applications, technology and organizational requirements for supporting the overall IT strategy.
- To define the activities needed to meet the above requirements and thereby implement the overall IT strategy.
This methodology incorporates the value chain analysis in its approach towards business and competitive assessment.
Key Lessons from SISP Methodologies
Lederer and Sethi (1988) surveyed 80 organizations to examine the problems faced by information systems managers when they attempt to implement one of three alignment methodologies, BSP, SSP or IE.
According to this survey, the most severe problem identified by IS managers is the failure to secure top management commitment for carrying out the final plan. The second most severe problem identified is the requirement for substantial further analysis after the completion of the IS plan. Both these problems are related to the output of the planning process. Besides these top two, six of the next top eight problems are related to the resources required to carry out the strategic information systems planning (success of the plan depends on the team leader, difficulty in finding the team leader meeting the criteria specified in the study, methodology lacking computer support, planning exercise taking long time, etc.).
The results of this survey suggest that IS planners are not particularly satisfied with their methodologies. If the objective of the SISP exercise is to align IS objectives with business goals, then detailed, lengthy and complex SISP may be of limited value.
Where the objective is to use IT to impact a business strategy, these methodologies may not generate useful ideas for that purpose. It seems to me that a large number of methodologies that have been developed to add confusion rather than clarity to the (IS) planning process.
Although SISP is a major concern, most organizations find it difficult to undertake it. Besides their lack of experience with SISP, absence of a comprehensive, structured, easy to use methodology may also be a main reason for it.
A comprehensive methodology for SISP will need to incorporate both the `impact' and the `align' views. Method/1 incorporates Value Chain Analysis. IE supports Critical Success Factors Analysis. Even BSP is now incorporating CSFs.
Since it is difficult to find a team leader who meets the criteria specified in SISP methodologies, it is proposed that detailed guidelines on how to perform a SISP study by way of an automated tool will help. Such a tool will make the task more structured and less leader-critical.
Based on the case studies and a careful study of the current methodologies, certain generic steps in a typical SISP formulation can be identified.
Study Internal Business Environment
This is to determine the business IS needs. The internal business environment is comprised of mission of the organization, its objectives, strategies and plans, business activities, the organizational environment, core competencies, its critical success factors and the internal value chain.
Study external business environment
This helps an organization focus attention on the forces and pressure groups it encounters. These external forces exert a very strong influence on the business strategy of an organization. Factors to be considered here are the industry that the organization is in and that industry's critical success factors, competitive position of the organization in the industry, relationship with major buyers and suppliers.
Study internal IS/IT environment
This is mainly comprised of the current and planned applications portfolio that supports the business. Other aspects to be considered here are the present IS organization, skills and attitudes of people in the organization, IT environment and the IS/IT budgets.
External IS/IT Environment
This consists of scanning the environment for available and emerging technologies and their business implications. An important aspect of this is to understand how the competitors are using information technology.
ADD A CONCLUSION
Strategic Management Support Systems pg 219
