Essay R.L.Polk Case Study

Key Issues At NAF, delivering value with IT is about more than delivering projects on time and on budget or having a good IT development shop. They have all this but theres still not enough value getting delivered. This case explores the questions of who is responsible for delivering value with IT and when IT value is delivered. It emphasizes that value delivery should be a business-IT partnership responsibility and will require change in the business over time. The first part of this case looks at the relationship between business strategy and IT development projects. It makes it clear that enterprise business strategies need enterprise solutions and a procedure for matching these. It also introduces the concept that investing in IT

All these advancements by the IT team of M&S are aimed at encouraging customers to use technology to spend more money at M&S.

James Polk was the 11th president of the United States, James Polk was 10 years when his parents crossed the Appalachian Mountains. James Polk was born November 2, 1795. James Polk

Like many of its most profitable competitors, Alcan has grown quickly through insightful series of mergers, acquisitions and rapid product development and launch strategies throughout the major markets it sells into. The company has settled on a highly decentralized divisional business model that has to the point of the case study served them well. Their IT systems are showing signs of massive overduplication of expense, with a $500M level of spending on enterprise applications with SAP being the majority. There are further signs of massive waste in their highly diversified organizational structure. There are 400 systems in the company all dedicated to pricing, a massive duplication of costs, time and effort on the part of IT across the five divisions. There are also over 1,000 concurrent enterprise-class IT systems being used throughout the company at any point in time. Conservatively speaking the company is spending 20% of their total enterprise software spend on maintenance costs alone. This is forcing the CIO, Robert Ouelette, to re-evaluate both the organizational structure and IT systems supporting it. The goals of this analysis are to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the existing application or IT management structure. An analysis of the proposal by Robert Ouelette is also provided along with an assessment of it potential effectiveness in solving the challenges is facing today.

No matter the business to goal is to profit with little cost of attaining the profit. Technology has the most dramatic effect on business. A newer faster operating system can improve the efficiency to the company. New technology almost always offers way to make things run smoother with less chance or error and stay ahead of the competition. Not being caught up the newest technology can lead the competitor to have the upper hand. Employees will feel more confident and less likely to question the progress of the company if technology is something that isn’t lacking. The first step of the four function of management is planning. Planning cannot be done if there is not technology, much less up to date technology. Planning is a never ending step in the process, it is necessary for a company to sustain. Organizing the next step. Management must organize the structure of the business and evenly distribute the resources. Technology helps setting up and distributing the right information to the right departments. Directing, step number three requires never ending communication. This allows managers to allocate tasks to fix areas of weakness to improve and strengthen a company. Controlling is the last of the four functions. Technology helps companies establish standards, and help show ones job performance. Having this as a tool helps with areas of improvement for lower level members of a company as well as on up to the big dogs. Controlling is

Think of it like an ongoing wellness program. A healthy network creates value with happier, more productive staff; fewer customer frustrations and increased returns on investment. Instead of making knee-jerk technology investments, a true Technology Management approach starts with an in-depth inspection. It follows with discussions about long term business objectives and includes details about the investments needed to achieve business goals. Like a gym membership and a healthy diet, once the upgrades are completed, monitoring and management continues the work of maintaining consistent health. Regular review meetings ensure that technology keeps pace with growth and changing objectives. The most competent vendors will include in these reviews detailed budgeting to remove surprises and assist in decision making well in advance of critical

The major elements are cost efficiency, eliminating wastes, and researching future IT investments. In the IT Doesn’t Matter article, three main points were outlined, and they were spend less, follow, don’t lead, and focus on vulnerabilities, not opportunities. Overspending has always been a major issue in regards to applying new technology, and it is important to execute an IT budget for any organization. Office Depot adopted new technology to improve all of their operations, especially in the supply chain. They were able to increase efficiency, while modernizing their budget. Information technology can benefit any organization if they are researched thoroughly and will improve the business needs of the organization. If it will not improve the business needs, there is no need to invest in expensive technology. The most important phase in the system development life cycle is the systems analysis phase. The goal of this phase is to identify what problems need to be fixed and breaking down how the system will benefit all users. Therefore, the business needs need to be identified and outlined before new technology is adopted into an organization’s business model. Once new technology is applied, organizations must continue to research information technology. If organizations follow these elements of

This all relates to technology. When the technology is up to date it reduces process times and in the end it helps to create more profit for the company because work is done faster, customer needs are met in a timely fashion and there is less waste.

I think that in the case of Mr. Polk and his religious hairstyle belief, he should have a right to be allowed to violate the grooming policy because he has a religious proclamation with the sanctity of his dreadlocks. He grew his hair out because of his religious views and I think if he was denied this right that it could probably be a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That would mean that the company was discriminating against him and would not bend the rules for his religious beliefs. Mr. Polk should be given a special exemption from this rule that the Fedex policy holds. Bethel University (n.d.) says that “FedEx ordered Polk to cut his hair or be assigned to a job with no direct customer contact and lower pay. He

Failure to meet business technology needs to remain competitive, to maintain or replace obsolete technology in a timely manner or inadequate investment in technology resulting in lower customer retention, customer anti-selection impacts or lower business growth.

In the market today, business is showing growing interest to partner with IT to make sure they get the value for investing huge in technology. But, still there is a gap between the two departments and the IT folks think that they do not have enough support from the business to ensure the value is realized for the organization. A good example of deep integration of IT and business is the recent firing of the Apple maps chief. The ill-fated Apple maps was the failure of both the IT folks who couldn’t develop an efficient app for maps and also the business who couldn’t gather all the requirements and couldn’t manage the project to achieve the desired output. As a result, the Apple exec Richard Williamson was blamed and fired for the disastrous project and humiliation for the organization.

As most business they knew that proper investment in the Information systems and Information Technology is the best way to go but they dropped the ball when it came to proper investing, they either didn’t realize or ignored the problems

Information Technology (IT) is a foundation for conducting business today. It plays a critical role in increasing productivity of firms and entire nation. It is proven that firms who invested in IT have experienced continued growth in productivity and efficiency. Many companies' survival and even existence without use of IT is unimaginable. IT has become the largest component of capital investment for companies in the United States and many other countries.

In 2003 when Nicholas Carr wrote the article “IT Doesn’t Matter” companies were just beginning to utilize information technology as a competitive advantage. Mr. Carr contends that technology is not a permanent advantage because in time the competition will acquire the same resources and Information Technology (IT) just becomes another commodity. For the majority of companies throughout the world IT resources have become easily accessible and affordable. If Mr. Carr’s opinion is correct then the equality of IT access has just become a cost of doing

This paper will discuss the processes and pitfalls faced by Information Technology managers in today’s world of business. Today’s IT managers need not only be savvy about existing equipment and upcoming technology; but must also understand the budget issues they face and how to properly address them. The IT manager is asked to look into a crystal ball and predict what products will be beneficial and which requirements can be cut from the budget. They must be able to differentiate between the new shiny fad and products that will be a true asset to the company’s visions and goals. An IT budget can no longer be a static number on the company’s finance sheet; it must be a clear vision of the department’s future spending while falling in line with the goals and expectations of the company.