MILITARY AND COMMERCIAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS
MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGIC PLANNING.
CAN THEY OFFER MUTUAL BENEFITS?
Vasilios Martzoukos, George Haramis
ABSTRACT
While war is an extreme phenomenon of interaction between two or more competitive
military (usually nation states) which have a struggle of wills, there is another kind of
“war” between business competitors in every day’s life. In both cases the ultimate end
is victory, regardless if that doesn’t mean always the capitulation of the opponent but
rather his cooperation under terms favorable for the winner.
Every kind of war has to shape its doctrine, planning, strategy and tactics, according
to its age. Information is the main characteristic which distinguishes our era from the
past. This characteristic affects the nature of the environment in which competition
takes place and dictates the tools and capabilities of participants.
Contrary to past practices, where military needs promoted technology which in turn
facilitated civilian activities, today the commercial sector demands, causes major
advances in Information Technology which in turn increases competitiveness.
Recently military thinking has adopted similar concepts and shapes accordingly its
doctrine, strategy and technological substructure.
This paper examines in broad terms the recent military changes, driven by
information technology as well as their advantages and limits. At the same time the
information systems management and strategic planning in both military and
commercial sector are examined in order to investigate possible mutual benefits in
gaining competitive advantage and accomplishing their missions successfully.
INTRODUCTION
The Information Age has contributed significantly to globalization since it compresses
time, increasing the complexity and the tempo of our lives, it shrinks distances,
changes ways of creating wealth and alters the distribution of power among and
within societies. Information Technology (IT) is fundamental, between competitors,
for value–creating activities through which the velocity of operations is governed
rather by immediate decisions, instead by time and space. Information affects raw
material, products and the production energy needed. However, the increasing
availability and affordability of information and information technologies, increases
the potential of creating powerful competitors from impotent adversaries.
In business world, winning organizations are those that can be far enough and fast
enough, “information enabled”, through coevolution in interrelated parameters like,
social and economic changes, technological advances, changes in concepts of
operation, organization process, command and control approaches, education, training
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and people. These organizations achieve domination of their ecosystems by
developing and exploiting information superiority.
In military operations Information Superiority is achieved when a competitive
advantage is derived from the ability to exploit a superior information position gained
from information operations that protect the ability to collect, process and disseminate
an uninterrupted flow of information, while exploiting and/or denying an adversary’s
ability to do the same.
Some argue that commercial sector is not really relevant to military organizations
since business is not warfare. Others support the view that the basic dynamics of the
value–creation process are domain independent. May be the proper approach is not to
mutually copy blindly the lessons learned either from the commercial or the military
sector but to use it as inputs to the each time concepts, developments and processes of
interest.
INFORMATION AGE COMMERCIAL ORGANIZATIONS.
The case studies in creating value which results in competitive advantage, should be
focused mainly in the commercial sector since it prevails in information technology
market (the defense sector represents only a small fraction). A competitive advantage
can be achieved by enhancing the relative value delivered vis-à-vis competitors, that
is increasing attractiveness of a product or service, its reliability, maintainability,
usability, responsiveness as well as reducing time lines and lowering prices.
Information and IT provide valuable means to this end. Networking, for example, in
stock markets has led to a shift from trader-centric system to a network-centric
system. Relative to this is the Metcalfe’s Law which states that as the number of
nodes in a network increases linearly, the potential value of effectiveness of the
network increases exponentially as the square number of nodes in the network. The
interactions between the network’s nodes are information intensive and as information
has the dimensions of relevance, accuracy and timeliness, the ideal aim for an
information age organization should be to achieve the percentage of 100% in those
dimensions.
Information Systems (IS), ensure that information is available to the managers in the
form they want it and when they need it. A Management Information System (MIS),
converts data from internal and external sources into information and communicates
that information in an appropriate form, to managers at all levels (operational, tactical,
strategic) in all functions, to enable them to make timely and effective decisions for
planning, directing and controlling the activities for which they are responsible. MIS
made it easier to store, process and access information than ever before. A Strategic
Information System (SIS), assists in strategic decision making and provides a
competitive advantage by changing competition ways in facing the main competition
forces namely, new competitors, intense of competition, pressure by replacement
products, buyers’ and suppliers’ bargaining force.
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A usual Strategic Planning Process for Information Management and Technology
(IM&T), for commercial organizations, includes the following general steps:
1. Develop IM&T Strategic Vision.
1.1 Review and define corporate and business unit mission, objectives, goals
and values.
1.2 Review and analyze current technology infrastructure, assess technology
opportunities and set technology goals.
1.3 Define IM&T strategic vision, by consolidating the outcomes of above
steps 1.1 and 1.2
2. Develop IM&T requirements.
2.1 Identify current IM&T situation (strengths, weaknesses, threats,
opportunities e.t.c.)
2.2 Develop business systems requirements
2.3 Develop information management requirements
2.4 Develop information technology requirements
3. Develop IM&T Strategy.
3.1 Identify strategic directions
3.2 Develop project briefs, roadmaps and business cases.
3.3 Identify interdependencies
3.4 Define implementation timeline.
4. Obtain Commitment to IM&T Strategy.
4.1 Refine & draft strategy & obtain approval
4.2 Finalize strategy and obtain commitment
As far as management tools are concerned, strategic planning is very popular and has
been adopted by most large organizations. Some of the usual mistakes in strategic
planning process include skipping rigorous analysis, believing that strategy can be
built in a day, failing to link strategic planning with strategic execution and avoiding
strategy review meetings, in order to keep strategic plans alive.
Regardless of the specific character of distinct companies’ information strategic
planning, the creation and exploitation of information superiority, needs the following
general steps to be considered:
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* From D. S. Alberts, J. J. Garstka, F. P. Stein “NCW: Developing and Leveraging
Information Superiority”.
The ability to generate an awareness of one’s competitive domain constitutes a basic
enabler to effective decision making at the strategic and operational level, as well as a
key to risk suppression (increased costs and/or reduced value). Virtual
organizations, enabled by networking, bring the necessary resources (people,
processes e.t.c.) together to accomplish an “ad hoc” task, after witch they can be
released for other tasks. A virtual organization can reduce time lines and increase the
tempo of operations. Virtual collaboration enables individuals (even geographically
dispersed) to collaborate in a virtual domain in order to produce faster, products of
better quality and lower price. In the financial services sector, the real-time awareness
and real-time transaction capabilities has changed the competition dynamics.
According to a 2008 research, the UK businesses fail to maximize the value of their
IT investments, potentially wasting $3.5bn a year (consultancy KPMG), due to lack of
alignment between the IT agenda and the overall business agenda. IT becomes a
strategic asset when it makes the entire business adaptive and ready for change by
connecting people, process and information to drive results. The IT benefits are
maximized when IT investment is coupled with investments in organizational
reengineering, restructuring and redesign. In conclusion IT and networking, enable
firms to create a high level of competitive awareness and new types of informationbased relationships with and among organizations.
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MILITARY OPERATIONS IN INFORMATION AGE.
THE NEW ENVIRONMENT
Information age has changed the nature of defense and security interests (political,
economic and military). Besides the challenging typical warfare, new parameters like
technological evolution, operations other than war (OOTW), infrastructure warfare
and asymmetrical forms of warfare, have to be faced by military organizations.
Information age, has altered mission objectives, limited some erlier options, provided
new options and equiped potential enemies with new capabilities. The word
battlespace is used instead of battlefield, the nature of combatants and weapons is
different, the number of possible enemy targets has been increased and their priority
has been changed while privacy is lost. The improvements in sensors and actors cause
a transfer of intelligence from the weapons or sensors to an information infrastructure
and a corresponding relocation of complexity from the platform to the network.
NETWORK CENTRIC WARFARE
Network Centric Warfare (NCW) concept encompasses everything that can be done
to protect our information systems from being exploited, corrupted or destroyed while
simultaneously exploiting, corrupting or destroying the enemy’s information systems.
NCW is not only about technology, but broadly about human and organizational
behavior as a military response to the Information Age.
Under a high performance infostructure, military forces may now be geographically
dispersed (massing of forces of the past, today present attractive high-value targets).
With effective linking and interacting, these forces (nodes), share awareness (between
sensor, decision and actor nodes), become knowledgeable, self-synchronized, able to
cause massive effects with increased tempo of operations, increased responsiveness
and under lower risks and costs. All players and assets (battle management, planning
and execution) are merged and get into the game at the same time.
Command and Control (C2) is an iterative decision-making process, where the
battlespace is the feedback for new plans and corrective actions. Yesterday’s C2 at the
strategic, operational and tactical level, consist on a series of unfolded steps (e.g.
sensing, fusing, understanding, deciding, conveying the decisions and acting), in time
and space. Today’s political realities and technology, make difficult the clear
separation between strategic, operational and tactical, while space and time have been
compressed. Information age decentralizes C2 by self-synchronization and integrates
planning and execution processes, by collaborative decision making and by greatly
increasing the operating tempo of events, while reducing the “fog” and “friction” of
war. With less uncertainties (acceptable risk), the decision-making process can be
proactive and agile instead of defensive. The necessary condition to materialize all
these innovations is to invest in all the elements witch have to be compatible to the
new concept of operations, such as the organization, its doctrine, the set of systems
able to flow, exchange and utilize available information and the proper education and
training of personnel. May be the traditional command and control structure has to
shift into a sense-and-respond model and logistics.
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Shared battlespace awareness requires that the information collected by sensors be put
in a form that makes it possible for other battlespace entities (but not necessarily all
others) to fuse appropriate information, place it in context and understand its
implications (Common Operational Picture). Collaborative entitie’s work needs the
link between decision, actor and sensor entities to be direct (raw data) or indirect
(products) and further more to be one-way, two-ways or interactive.
The overlap in requirements of military and commercial information systems is
steadily growing. The use of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) IT in military
systems, provides low development and support costs and risks, while it offers
improved interoperability, accelerated deployment and incremental system evolution.
Although commercial technology is broadly used in the military, it does not always
meet the military standards like information security, sustainability, robustness,
capacity, message and signal routing, protocol compatibility e.t.c., since it is focused
to a market of commercial business enterprise. At the same time problems exist in
military acquisition process and the philosophy of doing business with companies
with commercial terms. Given other budget requirements, it makes little sense for the
military to fund the R&D necessary to meet all of its systems development needs.
Commercial R&D investment is huge and new products emerge every 12-18 months,
while the slow military acquisition process cannot capture the commercial IT at a
faster pace.
Just as new theories and doctrines were developed for industrial age warfare, so
strategists have begun to develop new theories and doctrines for information warfare.
Strategy (the ways to harmonize means and ends), today is more challenging since the
ends (national objectives) are less identifiable and means besides manpower,
materiel, money and forces, include knowledge (information warfare). Commercial
and military Information Strategic considerations present many similarities. As an
example the basic steps of the U.S. DoD Information Management & Information
Technology Strategic Plan 2008-2009 are as follows:
1. Vision: Deliver the Power of Information (An agile enterprise empowered by
access to and sharing of timely and trusted information).
2. Mission: Enable Net-Centric Operations (Lead the information age
transformation to enhance effectiveness and efficiency.
3. IM/IT Governing Principles
3.1 Ensure mission effectiveness through the transformation to net-centric
information sharing.
3.2 Ensure IM/IT investments and mandates meet mission needs.
3.3 Identify, leverage and share best practices from industry, government and
academia.
4. IM/IT Goals:
4.1 Net-Centric Transformation (Accelerate net-centric transformation to
facilitate effective and efficient warfighting, intelligence and business
processes and other national security activities)
4.2 Information as a Strategic Asset (Use information sharing to enable
effective and agile decision making through visible, accessible,
understandable and trusted data and services, when and where needed.
4.3 Interoperable Infrastructure (Ensure robust and reliable world-wide
connectivity and infrastructure within DoD and with external mission
partners.
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4.4 Assured Information Access (Protect and Defend DoD systems, networks
and information to maximize mission assurance)
4.5 Return on Investment (Maximize the contribution of IT investments to
national security and defense outcomes)
4.6 IT Workforce Development (Maintain an agile IT workforce with the
skills to build, extend, exploit and defend a net-centric DoD).
Regardless of the specific information management and information strategic
planning, applied by the armed forces of different countries, according to their distinct
needs, the creation and exploitation of information superiority, needs the following
general steps to be considered:

From D. S. Alberts, J. J. Garstka, F. P. Stein “NCW: Developing and
Leveraging Information Superiority”.
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COMMON CHALLENGES AND CONCERNS OF MILITARY AND
COMMERCIAL I.S. MANAGEMENT, STRATEGIC PLANNING AND I.T.
The previous brief analysis of the private and military sectors, reveals a significant
portion of common approach and practice in Strategic Planning Processes for
Information Management and Information Technology. Additionally there are almost
identical basic steps to be taken, between the two sectors, in creating and exploiting
information superiority. It is then possible that an extensive and dynamic cooperation
in these areas, could provide mutual benefits since possible weaknesses of one sector
can be complemented by corresponding strengths of the other. For example
innovative technology, procurement and supply processes as well as methods for
saving money, constitute strengths of the private sector, while reliability,
sustainability and safety characterize mainly the military sector. Finally infostructure,
a responsible MIS and the relative change in doctrines, organizations, training,
behavior and practices, is a challenging issue of interest for both sectors.
To achieve the convergence needed between the private and the military sectors, a
dynamic cooperation at organizational level should exist (for example frequent
meetings between armed forces and business R&D representatives). On the other
hand selected suitable civilians with business experience should be employed in
military organizations while ex-military personnel are often suitable for higher
positions, in commercial companies, since they work efficiently under pressure, they
are very good team players, efficient decision makers and strategic planners.
IT is cheap and spreads quickly, causing decentralization of government, military,
corporations and other organizations, despite the current hierarchical command
structures and centralized control. Since a large portion of commercial enterprises
provide military high technology material, acquisition process in the military, should
be centralized, in order to ensure that the policy of employing commercial IT is being
followed to the highest degree practical.
The private sector leads the way in practicing network-centric approaches to meet
business objectives. The military stands to benefit from network-centric operations in
the same way as the corporate sector does. The functional and infrastructure
requirements of military and commercial information systems are steadily growing
closer. For example many businesses use GPS, GIS, encrypted data links, messaging
reliable delivery methods, computer support for confidential planning, e.t.c.. On the
other hand, the military have adopted commercial practices like “just –in-time”
methods (minimized stockpiles of spare parts) for mobilization. These methods are
heavily computer depended and if the computer goes down, everything freezes. One
of the main differences in the development of information technologies between the
industrial and military communities, is the fact that commercial market is driven by
profit and not always by the overall system performance. Additionally, the military
applications demand higher performance at reduced time cycles than do nonmilitary
applications.
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During the industrial-age warfare, there was a revolutionary rethinking in military
theories and doctrines, like for example, mechanized warfare and strategic bombing.
Today’s information revolution presents a similar situation, since IS are vital to the
military and civilian society. In present and future wars we can expect civilian and
military IS to be hacked, penetrated and infected with computer viruses.
The threat of strategic information war erases the distinction between military and
civilian systems. The strong connection between them complicates the process of
detecting an attack and developing an effective defense. In addition to the threat to
military forces, today one of the most effective ways to attack an opponent is to attack
its civilian information infrastructure like financial data systems, commercial
communications systems and broadcasting networks. How a government can protect
its information infrastructure, which it neither owns nor controls? The growing
dependence on sophisticated information systems brings an increasing vulnerability to
hostile actions which are cheap, easy, virtually undetectable and hard to associate. IS
protection should be a high priority, through close cooperation between commercial
and military sector, as well as through appropriate legislation. It is however
challenging to describe and apply the IW relationship between the military and
civilian society, when it comes to the protection of democratic values, like freedom of
expression, free market and personal privacy.
For the military as well as for business, access to IT is only an enabler, while the real
power comes from timely and innovative exploitation of that technology, by
organizing all the IW (or business competition) elements as a system, then integrating
it into the larger system of warfighting (or businessfighting), in a way that enhances
operations tempo. Such a system requires a high level of dynamic experimentation
and simulation capability.
IS interoperability is a high priority and complicated issue since it involves the
challenge of an effective cooperation between different commercial companies,
private and military sector, different branches of the armed forces, different armed
forces and different generations of IT. At the same time significant investment to IT
and interoperability, out of limited budgets leads to the dilemma of sacrificing needed
platform quantity.
Regardless of the growing reliance on network-centric operations, the users should be
aware of its technical, operational, strategic and cultural limitations. For example, the
need for more and more communications bandwidth and fragile technology (affected
by hacking, jamming, deception or weather conditions e.t.c.), could distort network
effectiveness, while too much information allows senior commanders to micromanage
and forces to be hesitant, indecisive or even paralyzed without it. Additionally the key
to winning strategic information war (or competition), may be lies in network
sovereignty (or autonomy). Finally human aspects of network-centric operations, like
training, doctrine, culture, attitude and leadership, still need to change.
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CONCLUSION
To enter the Information Age and to adjust to its new realities, is an essence and by no
means optional. Otherwise the business competitive advantage vanishes and military
forces cannot respond to their missions effectively. Without timely and reliable shared
information, modern companies or armed forces are “dead”.
IS Management/Strategic Planning and the relative IT, tie the civilian and military
sectors’ relationship closer than ever in history. For both, value-creation can be
achieved only if they can be far enough and fast enough “information enabled”.
Successful transformation to the demands of 21st century, includes interrelated
parameters like organizational processes and doctrines, as well as behavior, culture,
education and training of people. IT is not a commodity but rather a strategic asset,
when implemented and used appropriately, since it enables an organization and its
people to be reliable, unified, agile, adaptive and responsive. IT has the potential to
affect, silently and without a notice, government, social, business and financial
institutions, as well as C3 systems. Any of these societal attributes may be
contaminated or destroyed without a widespread physical destruction.
Despite different origins and motives, today, commercial and military sectors have
common interests in the domain of IS, MIS and SIS. For issues like value-creation,
competition, survivability, safety, responsiveness, sustainability, reliability,
interoperability, operational pace, IT, infostructure and networking, R&D investment,
organizational transformation, supply methods e.t.c., lessons learned of one sector can
be used as inputs for the other to each time concepts, developments and processes of
interest. To this end a dynamic and extensive cooperation has to be established
between the two sectors.
The edge will belong to those who develop a strategic plan and are willing to make
the investments necessary to always be ahead of the wave and not merely on it.
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