Chapter 12

What you should get out of Chapter 12
• Familiarize and be able to recognize
‘factors’ that lead companies to be highly successful
• You should then be able to apply the key
Success Factors to any company you analyze

This chart lists key success factors that make up 150 different organizations.

Organizational Improvement
Three Essential Elements
Tools
Which one is most
important?
Culture
Source: www.cse.ucsc.edu
Processes

• A documented picture into the future that takes into consideration logical & achievable goals that can be both understood and accepted throughout the organization.

• What will the business look like in 10 years?
20 years? The Future?
• What has to be done to ensure that the company remains highly viable into the future?

• The environment of the company.
• A senior-management, value-driven factor.
• A certain feeling your company or organization projects

• The ‘culture’ of the company should reflect the customer service level as well as the quality of products and services.

• Where should the organization take risks?
• Is the organization willing to take a risk in acquiring and marketing products?
• Risk assessment should include information systems exposure and impact on the business.

• Planning should be viewed as a process.
• The plan can and will change at any time.
The organization should be aware of this as the dynamics of major business factors will make it logical to do so.

• How integral is information systems to the business?
• If information systems stopped functioning, what would happen to the organization?
• What would be the answer to the above question 5 or 10 years from now?
• What happens to the products and service if information systems stops?

• Save or Make Money?
• What does a company gain as they commit increasing funding for information systems?
• Financial Strategies of the organization in allotting capital to information systems.

• Senior Management & the Information
Systems Manager working together have to gain an ongoing working relationship.
• Senior Management has to view information systems as an integral and viable part of the company’s success.
• It is also essential that information systems management understand the business and its philosophies.

• Do Senior Executives have experience in dealing with information systems?
• They often lack the respect of information systems and the integral part it plays.

• Executives must accept and understand the role of information systems.
• All business departments should understand each others department.
• For example: Accounting should understand the role of Human Resource. Management should understand the roll of information systems. Finance should understand the roll of sales, etc...

• Opportunity! Operations is where emphasis has traditionally been placed by most companies.
• Is the current allotment of capital sufficient to support and grow information systems?
• Do these expenditures relate to the competitive advantages of the company?

• Just-in-Time
• Take a broad look at the value and use of more, better or more timely information in the entire spectrum of the business relationship with suppliers or other business partners.

• Is it possible to redefine the value of products and services to the customer through more, better or more accessible information?
• Should the delivery process also be redefined?
• Will the delivery process be as important as the products themselves because of enhanced information content?

Information Systems Service Personnel
Vendor System
System Customer Personnel
Product for online diagnostics

• Is the computer literacy of the people in the organization good enough to effectively utilize more advanced systems that have a competitive advantage objective?
• Knowledge Management ,making it available
• Collecting and Maintaining it

• There is a need for both systems flexibility and a quicker response to business needs.
• Systems architecture is crucial to the infrastructure. Why?

• Architect:
Someone who can understand the vision of the organization and put in place a logical, long-range plan that has high odds of being able to respond to future business requirements.

• It is crucial that the organization accept information systems within the organization. This is the only way to gain a sustainable competitive advantage though the use of these same systems.
• Provide a value-added resource
• Marketing effort should include all of the same factors that any marketing organization would address in dealing with and servicing a customer.

• Continue to build and maintain an ongoing relationship between the information systems organization and users.

• ??? Why so many factors?
• Is it clear as to why companies using these factors are successful?
• Differences in companies utilize different factors.
• Can you compare Wal-
Mart to McKesson?
• Can you compare
Target to Dillards?
• Can you compare
Boeing to GM?

• Known for time-sensitive overnight delivery that you can truly count on!
• $8 billion in revenue in 1994
• Over 2 million packages on average annually shipped thoughout all of the US and 186 different countries.

• Started the norm that other companies such as the US Postal service and UPS have had to use as a benchmark.
• Old day scenario: “three days and hope” based on the US Postal Service delivery schedules.
• Revolutionized the time factor!

• Company Vision:
“absolutely, positively overnight service”
• Company Culture:
Culture is very customer focused.
• The acceptance of the company vision & culture has resulted in the acceptance and use of information systems as a better way to achieve their customer service objectives.

Executive & Information Systems Management
Partnership:
• ongoing working relationship is an integral component of the entire Fed Ex distribution system.
• Fed Ex recognizes the fact that Information
Systems needs to play an active and key role in the management structure to carry out the vision and even the daily operations of the company.

• Fed Ex has a reputation of reliable service because of its state-of-the-art information technology. It was used to develop an innovative distribution system.
• IT was utilized to automate the distribution process.
• Utilizing IT in this manner improved efficiency, effectiveness, and proved a competitive advantage to competitors.

A Link to the Customer
• ability to pinpoint where a package is at any time in the shipping process
• this value add in has improved customer service while at the same time reducing costs for the company

Success Factor Profile
• largest international carrier in the world
• has consistently earned a profit for the last 10 years

Success Factor Profile
• Vision:
Customer service drives the vision of British
Airways.
• Vision was to build profitably the world’s premier global alliance, with a presence in all major world markets.
• Employees knew full well where the airline wanted to be in the future.

Culture
• Culture change!
• You have to be willing to change to survive and grow.
• “Putting People First” was implemented into the company to raise company morale.
• Business improved as service improved.

Information Systems Integral to the Business
• Information content is a huge factor in the airline business.
For example:
• passenger reservation system
• yield management system
• flight operations system

Executive and Information Systems Management Partnership
• Many of the people employed at British
Airways had experience in areas of information systems as well as business.
• Executives realized the need of IT and its role in the organization.

Information Systems Architecture
• To be a great company, executives know that a robust systems architecture had to be implemented.
• Anticipating future trends in technology is what keeps the company ahead.

Source: key3media.com

• The Success Factor Profile can be used as a planning vehicle to identify key factors that must be addressed for an organization to use information systems to gain a competitive advantage.
• Can also be very effective in terms of summarizing the reasons why a specific company was able to gain a competitive advantage through the use of information systems.