IS Strategy Development and Implementation - Literature review Example

?IS strategy development and implementation Introduction Strategy is the scope and direction of an organization in the long run; that is aimed at achieving the organizational advantage through coordination of its resources within the challenging environment, so as to meet the market needs and fulfill the expectations of the stakeholders. The development of IS strategy is an opportunity to carry out a review of the existing provision, plan an approach for delivery which is long term and coherent, take stock of the likely challenges, and to exploit information and technology (Mawdudur, 2008). The IS strategy prioritizes the initiatives that are primarily designed to benefit the organization in the short run as well as investing in the long term projects. This IS strategy is like a plan or method that has been chosen in order to accomplish future goals of the organization. It helps in marshalling and planning resources for their most effective and efficient utilization. IS strategy defines competitive forces that determines the product or service ability of the organization to accomplish a strong strategic position in the market (Williams, 2007). For instance, the IS strategy in our case studies will determine competitive forces such as: entry, the ease of entry into the organizational market by other competitors, and whether they face some significant barriers. This will include barriers to market entry; threat of substitution, this will discuss whether there are particular services or products that can substitute the products and services of the organization in our case study; the bargaining power of the consumers, whether a small number of consumers are responsible for the better part of the organizational sales, and whether they can easily switch suppliers; the bargaining power of suppliers, whether the organization have various suppliers and whether there are substitutes to be used; and rivalry among the currently existing competitors, the intensity of the rivalry among the competitors and the way in which that competitors affect the ability of the organization to sustain profits. The developed IS strategy will deal with the above forces in both our case studies. According to Mr. Porter, a firm may take generic strategies in order to create much superior profits. Some of these strategies include: overall cost leadership, differentiation of products and services, and focus on the unique needs of the consumers. It is hence critical that organizations make clear strategy choices in their approach. This is what the implementation of IS strategy is likely to result in the organization. This paper therefore seeks to critically examine two main aspects of IS strategy development and/or implementation through the use of case studies to illustrate the arguments and conclusions. In so doing the paper will discuss how and why the IS strategy has been developed through the Venkatraman, and how and why the IS strategy has been implemented through ERP; CRM or MRP. The paper will do this through illustrating a literature review, explaining the two case studies and then giving a conclusion of the arguments in the paper. The case studies are of two different information technology firms that aim to address a serious economic organizational recession and plan the cuts in the public sector as well as the funding. The two firms are also looking up to achieving their long term goals using the IS strategy to be developed and implemented through the mechanism that will be described in this paper. Literature Review This section will illustrate how and why the IS strategy is developed as well as how and why the same strategy is implemented. According to the Strategic Alignment Model of Venkatraman, one determination that separates successful business from failed business is the ability to develop and analyze business strategy for success. Mastery of the steps of developing a strategy and creating a concrete business strategy approach to the business helps one to flourish with the business (Spinelli, 2005). The Strategic Alignment Model of Venkatraman is broadly used as the basis of the IT and Business alignment theories of developing IS strategy. Key to this model is the fact that in order to become successful, one should ensure that the strategy is aligned fully with the business strategy (Timmons, 2009). The Strategic Alignment Model of Venkatraman consists of 4 quadrants with each having 3 components. These components working together identify and determine the degree of alignment; this is done through the strategic fit linkage which uses the strategy to determine the business’ infrastructure. The other linkage used in developing IS strategy is the functional integration (Bey, 2002). This is most related to the alignment of business directly as well as to the IT. Through the Strategic Alignment Model of Venkatraman, IS strategy will be effectively and efficiently developed in the following procedure: going back and assessing the beginning, the Venkatraman model requires that in order to create a strategy, one needs to analyze appropriately where they started at, and document the purpose of the organization, the history of your business, and the mission of the business; define the business goals; start building and developing the strategy (Parker, 2007). The Venkatraman model requires that one defines how the goals will be achieved as well as the mission of your business; admit the weaknesses of the business and figure out how to overcome the mentioned weaknesses; and build stages of overcoming the weaknesses (Parker and Wood, 2005). Development of the IS strategy will include various processes in the organization. Some of these problems will include: broad national consultation; considering the problems and trends in use; building on existing policies, activities, and strategies; focusing on significant areas like at-risk groups and contexts of use and the range of interventions; being conversant with available evidence; and identifying responses that, in a timely manner, could be realistically implemented (Earl, 1989). Through this strategy development, we will also consider the elements of strategy that we must concentrate on in order to successfully develop and implement the IS strategy, these include: strategic functions, awareness raising, advice and education, and housing conditions. Therefore, before developing and even implementing the strategy, we will have to evaluate the IS strategy against the success criteria like the feasibility, sustainability and acceptability (Worsfold, 2001). The IS strategy will be developed in order to do the following: provide inspiring, effective, and accessible study, as well as both physical research and collaboration environment, and a virtual that which meet the various needs of the users as well as assist them in achieving their full potential; provide data and relevant sources of information, in both hard copy and digital format where necessary so as to ensure resources are well accessible and organized, and preserved and maintained sustainably; empower and support the users so as to exploit sources of information, information technology, and management data through providing intuitive and effective systems and services, and appropriate advice, guidance and training; deliver and promote sustainable and affordable interoperable services and systems and work towards removing business process and technological barriers which pose limits to the effectiveness and opportunities of the organization; to be a reflective, responsive and learning institution which demonstrates the value for money and has internal impact amongst various societies and communities, and delivers and promote sustainability (Laudon and Laudon, 2006) and (Timmons, 2006). The implementation of IS strategy will involve resourcing, organizing, and employing change management procedures in the implementation process. This is because implementing strategy may need changes in organization like merging existing units, creating new units and/ or switching to a functional structure from a geographical one and vice versa. Implementation of IS strategy will also need a budget shift that will impact of capital expenditure and human resources (Taylor and Murphy, 2004). Eventually, the implementation of the IS strategy will obviously have impacts that ripple in the organization, which minimizes disruptions and saves time as well as reduce costs. An organization may have an excellent strategy, however, its implementation and full execution determines ultimately its failure or success. Once the IS strategy has been developed as mentioned in the above paragraphs, critical steps will be taken to ensure full implementation and that the employees can actually deliver results through it. Strategy implementation hence involves a continuous tactical planning, strategic planning, execution, delegation, and assessment (Turban et al., 2002). The following is the procedure of implementing the IS strategy: creating a strategic plan, this is a more specific and detailed than a strategy document. It will include the steps of accomplishing the strategy developed; translating organizational goals into tactical objectives that emphasize and focus on customer needs. This will be done through Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software package. We will also use planning tools like the Balanced Scorecard in order to organize our objectives and thinking in a SMART way; create a task list which is executable, this include the steps that are required in order to achieve the objectives and goals as well as those who are responsible for the various tasks. For instance the CRM may need performance of due diligence on negotiating contracts, software vendors, training the IT staff, and training customer service staff on how to use the software; delegate authority and tasks necessary for achieving the goals and determine the decisions made by employees without any kind of administrative delays; and finally monitor performance on a weekly or monthly basis depending on what the employees are doing. A request of feedback from both employees and customers on the use of the strategy is also required for successful implementation (Wynn, 2009). As discussed above, the two organizations case studies will develop and implement the IS strategy using the above discussed steps for both strategy development and implementation. The case study organizations will also accrue full benefits of developing and implementing IS strategy as illustrated in the above paragraphs. The first case study is the Slicesoft Company. This is an IT firm that aims to accomplish its objective including: to provide IT solutions to its customers. The IS strategy is needed in this organization in order to help the company achieve its financial goals which has been deteriorating due to the economic imbalances. The company is likely to benefit from the IS strategy development and implementation through the success it will result into by creating good relationships with their customers through CRM. The second case study is the Lucintel Market Research firm. This company deals in market research and performs due diligence for organizations. The company needs the IS strategy to help in achieving its goals which range from providing the best analysis of the customer business and giving insights that matter in the market. The IS strategy will ensure that Lucintel company achieves these objectives. Conclusion In summary, developing and implementing IS strategy is very significant if the organization has to achieve its goals and objectives. According to the above literature review, developing and implementing strategy revolve around communication and commitment of employees in executing the strategy. It is hence vital that for the organization to effectively develop and implement its strategy, they need to go through the above mentioned steps for strategy development and strategy implementation. Most importantly, the need to communicate their strategy and cascade the strategy throughout the organization so as it can be implemented well. Involvement of managers, employees and customers through Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is vital for this process (Wynn and Maldonado, 2007). The paper has therefore critically analyzed and examined two main aspects of IS strategy development and/or implementation through the use of case studies to illustrate the arguments and conclusions. The paper has done this discussing how and why the IS strategy has been developed through the Venkatraman, and how and why the IS strategy has been implemented through Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The case studies involved are of two different information technology firms that aim to address a serious economic organizational recession and plan the cuts in the public sector as well as the funding. The two firms are also looking up to achieving their long term goals using the IS strategy to be developed and implemented through the mechanism that have been discussed in this paper. List of References Bey, P. 2002. Information Systems, An Introduction to Informatics in Organizations, Palgrave, Basingstoke Earl, M. J. 1989, Management Strategies for Information Technology, New York: Prentice Hall Laudon, C. and Laudon, J.P. 2006. Management Information Systems, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 9th Edition. Mawdudur, R. 2008. Developing managerial information systems, London: Macmillan. Parker, D. and Wood, S. 2005, Business Information Management, Improving Performance Using Information Systems, London: Prentice Hall Parker, D. 2007 E-Business and E-Commerce Management, London: Prentice Hall Spinelli, E. 2005. Any way out of the labyrinth for managing IS? Oxford: Oxford Institute of Information Management Taylor, M., and Murphy, A. 2004, SMEs and the take-up of E-business; Urban Geography, Vol 25, Number 4, May-June Timmons J. 2006. Information management: the strategic dimension, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Timmons, E. 2009. Management strategies for information technology, London: Prentice Hall Turban, E., King, D., Lee, J., Warkentin, M. and Chung, H. M. 2002. Electronic Commerce 2002 – A Managerial Perspective, London: Prentice Hall Williams, A. 2007. Accounting control and financial strategy: a casebook, London: Macmillan. Worsfold, D. 2001, Making Business Sense of the E-Opportunity, MIT Sloan Management Review, Winter, pp41 – 51. Wynn, M., 2009. Information Systems Strategy development and implementation in SMEs: Management Research News. Vol 32 Issue 1. Wynn, M. and Maldonado, G. 2007, Implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems through Knowledge Transfer Partnerships: Two Case Studies: International Journal of Management Cases, Volume 9, Issue 2. Read More