.. .. .. .. .. Strategic Analysis and Selection of Information Systems . . . . . . Edgar Donovan Touro University International ITM 501 Dr. William N. Kaghan Module 4 – Session Long Project Monday, March 7, 2005 . . . . .. .. .. .. .. Strategic Analysis and Selection of Information Systems The 1990’s witnessed a boom of companies specializing in consultancy services . . that went beyond business strategic analysis to include the selection, development, . . . . . . deployment, and operation of information technology processes. The third party . consultancy model has been successful throughout the twentieth century in industries such as accounting, auditing, business strategy, marketing, and advertising. Today it is relied upon by prestigious “Big Five” consulting firms and smaller companies alike to provide a myriad of IT related development and support services. In terms of business strategy, IT strategy, and IT deployment/support methodologies are concerned, they are as varied as the number of consultancies present in the market. Therefore, it is practically impossible to define a unique business strategy and follow-up IT strategy that will be universally accepted by all players in any given industry. Knowing that most consultancies prefer to focus on delivering services as close to the expertise of their personnel as possible, it is reasonable to expect that regardless of how non committed to a particular technology vendor a consultancy is or how much they promise they will adapt the solutions to fit your needs and not vice-versa their methodology will always be seen through the culture of their strongest core competencies. Some of the differing core competencies may be business strategy, vendor selection, vendor management, systems programming, systems maintenance, training, installation, support, project management, personnel management, etc. . .. .. .. .. .. Ex. 1 – Coherent Strategy (CartoonStock.com) Regardless of methodology diversity in the marketplace, for purposes of this discussion I will separate the thinking process that is induced when a group of people come together to attempt to achieve commercial goals into two camps: business strategy formulation and information technology strategy formulation. I believe that the following are very useful questions that should constitute part of the analysis process when discussing business strategy formulation: 1. Do we properly understand our company's market position, resources, and key leverage points? 2. In what new markets or existing markets can we profitably increase market share or mind share? 3. Once we have isolated the proper markets, can we construct a detailed customer profile? 4. Once that is done, can we interview potential users to understand their expectations and priorities so that we can begin developing appropriate product/service design parameters? 5. If expectations seem reasonable, can we gain build a durable competitive advantage through the deployment of a properly managed IT infrastructure that will help us to cost effectively market, sell, and maintain our product or service? 2 6. If so, do we have the financial, time, and talent resources to be devoted towards accomplishing this goal? 7. If not, do we have the means to acquire missing resources? 8. If yes, are there any precedents that can help us estimate risk? 9. Once we have accurately determined it are we willing to incur the risk involved? 10. How can we best create an IT development? I believe that the following are very useful questions that constitute part of the analysis process when discussing information technology strategy formulation: 1. How well does the system we want to build adhere to current and future strategic requirements? 2. Does the system need to interact with any current legacy systems and if so how much middleware would need to be developed to get it to do so? 3. How much installation and training resources would be required to deploy this new system? 4. What additional mission critical and non mission critical benefits would this new technology platform provide during its run-up, operational, and future life-cycle? 5. If we have one where does our currently operating system fail to meet our needs? 6. What are the costs to do what we want done? 7. Do the benefits of the system we want to build outweigh the costs? 3 .. .. .. .. .. Ex. 2 – Web Commerce Puzzle (CartoonStock.com) The following are firms that offer IT related consulting services. I have provided brief descriptions regarding the nature of their services: Edu-Tech International This company seems to be the less technical of all the firms analyzed. They seem to be more involved in the business and strategic side of things. A potential client firm would probably use Edu-Tech’s service if they needed to outsource a business or project manager role to help figure out what their IT needs were. Subsequently this could evolve into an external vendor/application service provider (ASP) manager service. Alternatively, this service could be used to manage a small in-house IT staff to operating a variety of IT processes. Social Entrepreneurs, Inc. This firm seems to specialize in delivering custom software and application solutions in situations where no acceptable commercial product exists. This seems to be either an ultra niche service that builds systems entirely from custom software (OS included) or is just a redundant marketing pitch describing the creative development and deployment of custom software applications to work between legacy systems and proprietary products. Like may consultancies of this sort, they also offer training to go along with their services. 4 RsmMcGladrey This firm seems mostly devoted to delivering software and application programming solutions. The Microsoft Certified Logo on their web site tells us that they are probably experienced in building solutions with or around a variety of Microsoft technology platforms. This consultancy seems like a good match for any firm with significant prior Microsoft technology platform system dependencies requiring programming or implementation projects that go beyond the range of their in-house staff. Phoenix Health Systems This firm seems to offer an Outsource-Your-MIS-Manager/Director service for the healthcare industry. The main benefits of having this type of service would be that you could run a small in-house IT staff with just a business or project manager. Under that scenario, Phoenix Health Systems would ensure would run occasional reports with the client firm to determine an IT hardware/software buying, installation, and training schedule. They would then proceed to manage all the required vendor relationships including volume pricing programs freeing up the business or project manager to effectively run the IT staff. Allman Horrocks Consulting This firm seems to specialize in building solutions that reside on top of legacy systems thus bridging together established core competencies with the network application environment possible with web technologies. What is interesting about this firm is that they try to pitch a methodology which is not committed to any particular technology (Microsoft or UNIX, Java, SUN, etc.). They promise to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your current system and to build a solution from there. They have probably adopted that approach because they have a significant number of industry veteran people (10 years in the industry or more) who have extensive business consulting and legacy systems management experience. That would obviously be very positive for firms that fit the profiles described in their case studies section of their web site. However, this attribute could go against them if they 5 .. .. .. .. .. were to serve clients that needed business systems built entirely with new technologies from scratch. The companies above specializing in consultancy services go beyond business strategic analysis to include the selection, development, deployment, and operation of information technology processes. The third party consultancy model has been successful throughout the twentieth century in industries such as accounting, auditing, business strategy, marketing, and advertising. Today it is relied upon by prestigious “Big Five” consulting firms and smaller companies alike to provide a myriad of IT related development and support services. 6 BIBLIOGRAPHY Works Cited CartoonStock.com. Coherent Strategy. CartoonStock.com, 2005 CartoonStock.com. Web Commerce Puzzle. CartoonStock.com, 2005 Allman Horrocks Consulting. Information Systems. Ahc.co.uk, 2005 Phoenix Health Systems. Information Systems Procurement. PhoenixHealth.com, 2005 RsmMcGladrey. Information Systems Planning and Selection. Rsmmcgladrey.com, 2005 Social Entrepreneurs, Inc. Information Systems Selection and Implementation . Socialent.com, 2005 Edu-Tech International Information System Planning and Selection. Edutech-int.com, 2005 II. Works Consulted CartoonStock.com. Shopping During Class. 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