JJJ PLC - A CASE STUDY IN INFORMATION STRATEGY PLANNING
FOR SMALL TO MEDIUM ENTERPRISES (SMES)
The case study concerns a church supplies manufacturing company, which we shall
call JJJ PLC, who, along with other SMEs, were invited to a seminar (seminar notes
related to information strategy planning given in appendix 1) which aimed to attract
participation in a Welsh Development Agency (WDA) pilot scheme entitled
‘Harnessing the Information Technology of SMEs in Wales’. The proposal prepared
by a computing consultancy is given in appendix 2. For most organisations involved
in the study it was agreed to use the funding available from the WDA to make more
effective use of hardware and software. For JJJ PLC the agreed format for the study
was to enable the organisation to become autonomous in their Information Strategy
Planning. As such this was a move away from the strict terms of reference of the
original proposal but sufficiently within scope to attract funding.
The main stages of the study involved
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

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audit and report
verification of findings
strategic analysis
timescale for future work and handover.
The case study reports on the stages of the study and then considers the
appropriateness of approach and the effectiveness of analysis tools and techniques in
effecting a successful outcome. Additionally the case study analysis considers the role
of strategic IS planning for SMEs in general.
History of JJJ PLC
The Piercemüller group consists of three private limited companies which are
financially independent. Piercemüller AG was registered in Bremen in 1952 to
produce church furniture, vestments and consumables (such as candles). JJJ PLC was
founded in 1986 to provide a second manufacturing and marketing base for
Piercemüller products. Whilst a fraction of the size of its German counterpart, JJJ
PLC maintains the attention to quality products and services for which the German
company is renowned. In 1990 a new German company Piercemüller Marketing was
established to deal with the component department of Piercemüller AG, thus allowing
the latter to concentrate on its materials and research activities.
Over the years the Piercemüller group has forged strong links with technical
institutions and other companies in various countries. Piercemüller is currently
involved in several joint research and development projects with academic and
commercial concerns within the EC. JJJ PLC specifically has a design alliance with
an Italian manufacturer and outlets for sales in both Italy and Croatia.
Business profile
JJJ PLC offers a manufacturing capability for the production of most types of high
quality church furniture and materials. Lecterns and fonts are produced as custom
designs and also in standard ranges. A highly flexible production facility ensures
short lead times on custom designs as well as standard products.
A small amount of business is with factored products (selling German manufactured
products).
17% of turnover is spent on research and development and 50% of turnover is
generated by special products. The estimated growth is 20% per year.
Although the majority of orders are for vestments the biggest growth area in 1995/6
for JJJ PLC was in candles. The candles business is tied to an alliance with a
Slovakian organisation, QRSP, for wick design.
The customer profile shows that of 200 customers the top 20 make up about 60% of
the business. Of the 60 or so suppliers the top 20 supply 80% of components.
JJJ PLC employ 18 full time salaried staff who work in administrative or management
roles and an additional 20 who are production line workers. (Organisation chart,
appendix 4). Currently some of the production workers are on temporary contracts to
allow for flexibility in dealing with erratic order processing.
Business objectives
 To increase profit, with long term profit being more important than short term
 To continue growth of turnover at about 20% per year.
 To aim for stable employment for all staff.
 To continue with manufacturing and factored products.
Key decisions
 To determine a future for JJJ PLC that is either manufacturing or sales. One
possibility is to establish a separate organisation perhaps called JJJ Sales UK.
 To determine an investment strategy in IT/IS linked to business objectives.
Culture
The culture in JJJ PLC owes much to the philosophy of the German owner HS. He is
a very caring person and very thoughtful with regard to the well being of the
workforce. When JJJ PLC began, this caring may have been excessive and the
Managing Director reflects back to a time when the atmosphere was ‘more like a
holiday camp than a factory’. Over time however the balance between control and
caring has been established and currently it remains a happy place to work as well as
being a productive place to work. Many of the non-production staff work unpaid
overtime and voluntarily occasionally miss holidays. All staff are on first name terms
and change is always discussed rather than enforced.
This section should be read in conjunction with the organisation chart in appendix 4
The audit involved interviews with key staff which were identified in conjunction
with the consultant and the managing director. The most in-depth interview was with
BC the managing director and sponsor of the study. The interviews were semistructured and based on three main areas:
 How would you describe your job/role at JJJ PLC?
 On what occasions and for what purpose do you communicate inside and outside
JJJ PLC?
 What is your use of IS/IT in your job?
 Do you foresee IS/IT possibly changing the way you work in future?
The interviews were transcribed and analysed using a grounded theory approach.
Briefly this analysis involves identifying categories from the transcripts which can be
compared with each other and abstracted to higher levels of category to produce a
hierarchy of categories which represents the ‘picture’ of the situation described by the
interviewees. Using this approach the categories can be audited to identify where in
the interviews the instances of the category occurred. Importantly this approach
depends on using the interviewee’s own words to describe their situation.
The audit report was an internal document in which much of the prevailing situation
was already understood and therefore for the purpose of this case study a synopsis of
each interview is included in the section below.
In addition to this approach it was also necessary to comply with the terms of
reference given in the proposal of the scheme. For that reason the audit report was
also used to generate a conceptual model based on the method outlined in the
proposal.
Both the audit report and the conceptual model were presented to the organisation for
verification. It was agreed by them that both represented the current situation but that
the approach used and the audit report produced was more satisfactory than the
conceptual model.
Key staff roles and responsibilities and use of IS/IT
BC managing director
BC’s role is to steer the company and develop it. He therefore is key in developing
the link with the Slovakian company QRSP for a design/manufacturing alliance.
Currently much of his work is still in candle design but it is expected that in the near
future that will change. He is still responsible for the main design work. About 25%
of his time is given over to preparing company brochures and preparing for trade
exhibitions. Because of workload he tries to push the management down to the other
managers and expects that the implementation of ISO 9000 will help in this process.
BC is certainly IT literate. He uses the engineering database regularly to update and
change drawings or design specification. He uses Framework for word-processing on
his own stand-alone PC mainly for letters. He also uses Excel. In order to provide
figures for planning he depends on hard copy summaries from the admin database..
He uses Corel draw to prepare documents for exhibitions and for data sheets and
catalogues. He accesses the technical indexes supplied to JJJ PLC on CD-ROM. He
understands most of the software used and was instrumental in setting up the two
Workgroups networks. He also does the backups on the server and some first line
maintenance although he wishes to move away from this as his managerial role grows.
He recognises that many of the suppliers are moving to electronic data interchange
(EDI) to streamline their own sales processes and he considers that although fullblown EDI is a long way off that JJJ PLC should be considering it for the future.
WG - southern sales manager
WG is responsible for JJJ PLC sales in the South of England. Most of the time he is
on the road. He has his own PC and mainly uses it for word-processing. He phones
KL with sales information and phones her for pricing details. He is rarely at base and
has little impact on company direction or strategy. He sees little impact of IT/IS on
his job in the future.
PD - technical manager/quality manager
PD deals with all technical engineering matters. When a custom design is specified he
sources all of the parts required from suppliers, costs the design using figures from the
engineering database and then passes this information to KL who can bill the
customer. With BC he is responsible for product design. Currently he is
implementing ISO 9000 for JJJ PLC.
He uses the engineering database for stock codes and product lists to help prepare
quotes. He uses MS Word for quotations and faxes (although KL prepares some of
the quotes). He is also using MS Word for the ISO 9000 documentation. He can
envisage needing a spreadsheet for analysing and logging results associated with
research and development work that he does on new designs. He also designs with
pen and paper and recognises that in time he will need to use a graphics package. He
routinely access the CD-ROM for supplier lists and prices.
He has a research and development link with a nearby (60 miles) university and
wishes he had e-mail and internet connection since he is regularly asked by them if he
is ‘wired up’ yet. He is however unsure of the potential of both and would like to
know more.
KE - company secretary
The title company secretary is a legal title. KE’s job broadly is accounts/finance,
logistics, stock control and sales order processing. Most of this work she supervises
rather than does herself. However the accounts is a job only she does and this
includes payroll, daily accounting and preparing quarterly accounts. She has extensive
experience with Sage and finds it very good. She daily exports from Sage to Excel for
reporting and analysis of figures and also for archiving data. Her problems with Sage
lie in the somewhat structured and limiting nature of the reporting system and often
she uses a variable field for a purpose other than that for which it was intended in
order to get a report in the form she wants it, such as for the production scheduling.
Given all of her years of experience she would prefer to stick with Sage than to try a
new product.
KL - admin assistant (sales)
KL deals with sales enquiries. She is responsible for sales order processing using
Sage. For custom orders she types up quotations given to her by PD and sometimes
has to ask AN to find information from the engineering database if there are
discrepancies in product numbers or costs of individual items. She has no access to
the engineering database and really thinks that it wouldn’t be worth it. She also
realises that she would only need access to a small bit anyway.
AN - Engineering assistant
Although taken on as an engineer AN has mainly been working on the development of
the engineering database. In the last 12 months or so she has attended numerous
Access courses and lately has attended advanced programming and security courses in
Access. She has no formal training in data analysis and tends to restructure the
database after each course. The database contains drawings and manufacturing
instruction sheets (which are presented to the operators for production). She decided
also to include supplier names and addresses and costs some time ago but this isn’t up
to date yet and she recognises that this information is probably held in Sage, to which
she has no access. She has written smaller databases in Access for BM to help him
analyse production times. She also produces snapshots of the database for KL from
time to time. She tends not to develop according to formal requirement specifications
but rather helps out when other people ask her if its possible to get something off the
database.
In the future she sees things carrying on as they have so far. She has little interest in
the administrative side of things and believes therefore she can’t really comment on
the overall IT infrastructure.
KJ - Production technician
KJ is responsible for the calibration of instruments and the provision and maintenance
of electrical and electronic equipment which is mostly testing machines. He also
programs and test equipment. He provides support (mostly hardware) for the network
and the PCs. This support rôle extends to helping out anyone who needs him and so
in the past he has done computer backups, set up production testing and trained
section heads on the use of test computers and instruments. He collects and analyses
test data from the test machines using his own spreadsheet. He views his work as
unplanned but he is always busy often working late and at weekends.
He programs the test machines in Q-BASIC and considers himself to be self taught
but he does have formal training in electronics programming and robotics. With BC
he was responsible for the move from a single network to the current 2 Workgroups
network. He still thinks this is a good solution since it physically separates the two
areas of administration and engineering.
He considers that a future solution may be to move to a hub which links the two
systems, but he really can’t see a reason for moving since the transfer of data by
floppy between networks seems adequate. He uses the internet at home to download
Q-BASIC test programs and looks at competitors’ web pages and suppliers’
catalogues. He sees this has benefitted JJJ PLC and sees a possible use for internet at
work also. He doesn’t want to see change for the sake of it.
BM - manufacturing resources manager and Health and Safety
BM is responsible for smoothing production demand and works with the section heads
to ensure this. He also relies on KE to provide stock information. He gets a
production schedule each day from the administrative office which has been generated
using Sage and he prioritises the production work from that list. He contacts suppliers
by either phone or fax and sends the written orders to the admin office who send them
to the suppliers. He is responsible for the buildings and the manufacturing equipment
and any contracting out (for example, for tooling). A large part of his job is Health
and Safety and in the last 12 months he has written the procedures in Word on his
standalone PC. He also uses Word to type up minutes of meetings and record risk
assessment exercises.
He has done some basic training on Excel and Word and an introductory course
(evening) on IT. He feels he still lacks confidence and relies on AN and KJ for
support. In particular AN has set up a shopfloor times database for him to help him
monitor production times and work rate of staff. He uses Excel for staff time sheets
and KE brings him (on floppy) an Excel spreadsheet with the data extracted from Sage
to deal with this. KJ does his backups for him.
CD - Teaching Company Associate (TCA)
CD is on a TCA scheme which is a partnership scheme between a university and a
company and is part funded by the WDA. The benefits to the company are two years’
(cheap) labour and for the university a research (MPhil) student in a live situation. In
addition, the university receives some funding for lecturer support and some
equipment.
CD is involved with the software tools for font design and is close to the end of his
time (6 months) with JJJ PLC. He has attended a number of Access advanced courses
and enjoys the software/hardware side of the job. [BC is of the opinion that CD is an
asset to the company; he shows both intelligence and diligence and very quickly
assimilates new concepts. - he hopes that after the TCA scheme to offer him a position
in the company.]
APPENDIX 1
The introductory seminar notes given to participants of the ‘Harnessing IT’
programme
The Strategic Approach to Information Technology
What is IS and is IS IT?
In order to maintain consistency I will begin this presentation with definitions of two
basic terms that are commonly misunderstood. Information Systems (IS) and
Information Technology (IT)
Information Systems can be defined as the interaction of: people
 processes
 technology
Information Technology can be defined as the machinery (hardware) and
programs (software) that enable: communication technology
 office automation
 production automation etc
Therefore it is possible to consider the IT strategy, which is concerned with a
technology infrastructure, to be one part of a larger IS strategy
For the purpose of this presentation a consideration of the wider implications of an IS
strategy need to be considered. In brief they can be identified as: IS/IT being an integral part of the usual business planning cycle
 IS/IT being dynamic and evolving as a business evolves
 Senior managers having an holistic (all encompassing) view of the
impact of IT/IS
IS/IT and the business planning cycle
Whichever planning model a business chooses to adopt, it should be accepted that the
development of business strategies should incorporate the consideration of IT/IS
strategy planning. In this way the key decisions, based on organisational mission and
objectives, may be able to be implemented through the use of IT/IS. This integration
of IT/IS and business objectives ensures that the technology can be used not simply to
computerise some operation, but may be used directly to achieve competitive
advantage.
IS/IT dynamic and evolving
Traditional approaches to the introduction of computers, has been to consider the
project as having a fixed end-point. For example, a stock control system may be
considered to be finished when it is delivered and working. Unfortunately it is the
case that systems quickly become obsolete for two main reasons
 the business changes its processes or procedures
 technology advances are made which mean that new hardware or
software may increase the effectiveness or efficiency of the existing
system
For these reasons it is imperative that IT/IS be evaluated in a planning cycle, and that
the development of any system is considered to be the first in a series of evolutionary
steps. In this way the IT/IS can be as dynamic as the business is dynamic.
Holistic approach
There is a great temptation to be driven by technology, and in particular the ‘whistles
and bells’ technology that offers much and perhaps delivers little. One approach to
keep ones feet on the ground is to consider the IT/IS in the context of all other aspects
of the organisation. This should include
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


structure
history
culture
people
existing processes and procedures
It may be that in order to maintain the working environment the sudden introduction
of IT may be unwise. For these reasons it is worth considering the following two
aspects of an holistic approach: participation of staff in job redesign
 lifelong learning
This approach has much in common with quality initiatives such as TQM (total
quality management) and it should be no surprise to those already involved in any
aspect of quality that the successful introduction of IS/IT depends heavily on staff
belief that it will provide a better service or enhance an existing process.
A model for helping to develop IS/IT strategy
There are numerous methods and models available for developing an IT/IS strategy.
Unfortunately time does not permit the presentation of all of them. Therefore in this
section one of these methods, the applications portfolio, is explained. As you will
appreciate from the first part of the presentation there is not a simple step by step
guide to developing a strategy. As with any business strategy each individual
organisation has its own limiting or opportunist set of resources and constraints.
Nevertheless this method at least highlights a means to achieve some of the above.
The Applications Portfolio
This method is based upon the product life cycle model and the Boston Consulting
group (BCG) matrix widely used among business analysts:High
Wild Cat
Star
Dog
Cash Cow
Market
Growth
Low
Low
Market Share
High
The matrix classifies business, divisions, or products according to the present market
share and the future growth of that market. A successful product which lasts from
emergent to mature market goes clockwise around the matrix. The intention is to
distinguish between cash generators and cash consumers.
McFarlan and McKenney (1982) proposed a similar model to classify an organisation
in terms of its needs for information technology:High
Turnaround
Strategic
Support
Factory
Strategic Importance
Of Planned IS
Low
Low
High
Strategic Importance of Current IS
This matrix separates businesses by virtue of the different degree to which the firm is
functionally dependent upon IS/IT today or the degree to which IS/IT developments
will create competitive advantage. By positioning existing or planned IS/IT
developments into the boxes a number of questions can be asked,
 to what extent are the existing IT/IS systems critical?
 to what extent will the IT/IS systems be critical in the future?
This matrix also implies movement. For example, an internal electronic mail system
for passing office memos may be considered to be ‘support’. However it may be
developed to contact customers/suppliers electronically or provide the impetus for
marketing opportunities via the internet and become ‘strategic’
APPENDIX 2
Harnessing IT - initial audit report
Current systems/applications portfolio
STRATEGIC
RESEARCH AND
DEVELOPMENT
innovation
(Desk top
publishing?)
external focus
internal focus
Engineering -Access
Admin/Stock control
- Sage
INTEGRATED
Excel
Corel DRAW
Word
CD-ROM
Access
(DTP?)
SUPPORT
driven by
business objectives
Characteristics of STRATEGIC Information Systems
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
Executive IS - overview system(s) as a basis for decision making/strategy planning
Links to external stakeholders - electronic links to suppliers/customers
May provide value rather than profit - eg a profile on the internet
Linked to business objectives/critical success factors.
Portfolio analysis - summary
The integrated backbone systems are in fact quite separate due to the nature of the
current network infrastructure. There is some evidence (detailed below) that there is a
need or may be a future need for these to be integrated in some way.
The support systems are based on MS Office. The DTP is problematic since the role
of the drawings/brochures etc serve a number of purposes. Operationally the drawings
are used for production, they are also used for sales purposes and marketing. In some
senses then this aspect of work could be considered strategic since it partially provides
links to external stakeholders. However to be truly strategic the method of marketing
the drawings must be more clearly specified in terms of the IT support. (See detail
below)
There is no evidence of IT/IS research and development and no indication of existing
or planned innovation. One possibility here is to move by stealth with some IT
innovation linked to a business area (see internet/faxware below)
The IT/IS infrastructure
 Two Workgroups networks - one for admin. (6 users) and one for engineering (6
users)
Admin/Office network
Sage - accounts; payroll; sales order processing; purchasing; stock control; reports;
management information(cash flow, budgets, quarterly accounts)
Excel - import data from Sage to produce collated reports such as turnover for one
customer; historical data; historical analysis.
Word - contracts of employment; letters; faxes [mostly stored on the network in users
own area - only informally shared]
Engineering network
Access - product design; manufacturing information; material specifications; drawings
{stored as linked objects to Corel DRAW];
Excel - calibration records; plant machinery records [all stored in KJ’s own area]
 BC prepares documents for exhibitions in Corel DRAW on own machine. Uses
CD-ROM for technical indexes and supplier catalogues
 One stand alone PC for Health and Safety and some production times monitoring
(the ‘times’ database)
Portfolio analysis - evidence and detail
1.
The hardware infrastructure has two networks and yet there is evidence that
they are not functionally separate: KL needs access to data on the Eng. network. Currently this is overcome
by carrying disks. This is non-critical at the moment.
 BM receives snapshots of the Eng database on disk
 BM uses a standalone Access application for production ‘times’ database.
A listing of this is given to KE to provide costing figures for Sage on the
Admin. network.
 KE provides (once) Excel data to BM to populate a spreadsheet for his use.
 BC needs access to both networks, but for Admin information he ports data
by floppy disk
None of the above are critical in the sense that the numbers of staff involved
are small and the numbers of transfer are small. Also access to rapidly
changing data is not a problem. It does however raise questions for planning
purposes: What affect will an increase of staff have?
 How long before a new network infrastructure is needed to support staff
size and application size?
 What are BC’s EIS needs?
 What business decisions or business objectives are the strongest drivers?
2.
The Admin network relies on Sage. The reports from Sage are in an
inappropriate format and require daily export to Excel.
 Is there a requirement for ODBC software to link to Excel?
 Is the current version of Sage the most appropriate?
3.
Access on the Engineering database.
 How is the efficiency of the design evaluated?
 How is the development of ad-hoc systems justified (for example, BM’s
‘times’ database)?
 What are the security implications in maintaining the integrity of the data?
 To what extent do the Access and stock control application share/duplicate
data?
4.
Use of the CD-ROM
 The CD-ROM is a resource for BC and PD but one might ask how long that
format will be supported as the internet grows?
 What are the expectations in terms of the use of the internet for the future?
5.
No external focus for systems/applications
 Can a business case be made for applications which have an external focus
such as internet, e-mail, www pages, faxback?
For this there is evidence of business drivers and they include:




marketing
stakeholder contacts (PD)
design alliance with Slovakian company QRSP
market advice (PD)
where is the business coming from, sales or manufacturing? (BC)
The holistic view
There may be a danger in addressing individual elements of the portfolio without
consideration of the impact on other parts. A holistic view considers both the
software and hardware infrastructure as a whole and links this to business objectives.
Therefore it is advisable to consider some ‘all through’ possibilities:Document management - INTRANET ?
MRP (Material Resource Planning)?
EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)?
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
 Financial position/cash flow is very strong
 Strength in innovation and development in the product line
 Manufacturing ability
Weaknesses
 Dealing with sales
 Reliance on one product area - vestments represent about 80% of turnover
Opportunities
 Candles growth - two overseas agents in Italy and Germany are providing a
significant level of enquiries
 Market sense indicates that candles could be 3 times vestments in about 5 years
 Strategic design alliance with a Slovakian candle company, QRSP
Threats
 Reliant on one product area - vestments
 Mostly dependent on UK market
 May need some EDI facility sometime before someone outside forces it.
APPENDIX 4: JJJ ORGANISATION CHART
RR Director and major
shareholder
HS Chairman and
shareholder
BC
Manager in chief
BM Manufarcturing
Resources Manager and
H&S
Maintenance
chargehand
KE
Company Secretary
PD Technical manager
and Quality Manager
WG Southern Area
manager (Sales)
Section Heads (4)
Production operators (20)
Stores Officer
New post:
Admin assistant
(purchase)
KJ
Production technician
KL
Sales Assistant
AN Engineering
Assistant
CD Teaching
Company Associate