Chapter 5:Organizational Structures That Support Strategic Initiatives

Chapter 5:Organizational Structures That Support Strategic Initiatives

Organizational Structures

Organizational employees must work closely together to develop strategic initiatives that create competitive advantages.

Ethics and security are two fundamental building blocks that organizations must base their businesses upon.

IT Roles and Responsibilities

Information technology is a relatively new functional area, having only been around formally for around 40 years.

Recent IT-related strategic positions:

Chief Information Officer (CIO)

Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Chief Security Officer (CSO)

Chief Privacy Officer (CPO)

Chief Knowledge Office (CKO)

Chief Information Officer (CIO) – oversees all uses of IT and ensures the strategic alignment of IT with business goals and objectives

Broad CIO functions include:

Manager – ensuring the delivery of all IT projects, on time and within budget

Leader – ensuring the strategic vision of IT is in line with the strategic vision of the organization

Communicator – building and maintaining strong executive relationships

Chief Technology Officer (CTO) – responsible for ensuring the throughput, speed, accuracy, availability, and reliability of IT

Chief Security Officer (CSO) – responsible for ensuring the security of IT systems

Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) – responsible for ensuring the ethical and legal use of information

Chief Knowledge Office (CKO) - responsible for collecting, maintaining, and distributing the organization’s knowledge.

The Gap Between Business Personnel and IT Personnel

-Business personnel possess expertise in functional areas such as marketing, accounting, and sales

-IT personnel have the technological expertise

-This typically causes a communications gap between the business personnel and IT personnel

Improving Communications

-Business personnel must seek to increase their understanding of IT

-IT personnel must seek to increase their understanding of the business

-It is the responsibility of the CIO to ensure effective communication between business personnel and IT personnel

Organizational Fundamentals –

Ethics and Security

Ethics and security are two fundamental building blocks that organizations must base their businesses on to be successful.

In recent years, such events as the Enron and Martha Stewart, along with 9/11 have shed new light on the meaning of ethics and security.

Ethics

Ethics – the principles and standards that guide our behavior toward other people

Privacy is a major ethical issue

Privacy – the right to be left alone when you want to be, to have control over your own personal possessions, and not to be observed without your consent.

Issues affected by technology advances:

-Intellectual property

-Copyright

-Fair use doctrine

-Pirated software

-Counterfeit software

-One of the main ingredients in trust is privacy

-Primary reasons privacy issues lost trust for e-business

Security

Organizational information is intellectual capital - it must be protected

Information security – the protection of information from accidental or intentional misuse by persons inside or outside an organization

E-business automatically creates tremendous information security risks for organizations

Apple – Merging Technology, Business, and Entertainment

1.Predict what might have happened to Apple if its top executives had not supported investments in IT

2.Explain why it would be unethical for Apple to allow its customers to download free music from iTunes

3.Evaluate the effects on Apple’s business if it failed to secure its customer’s information and it was accidentally posted to an anonymous Web site

4.Explain why Apple should have a CIO, CTO, CPO, CSO, and CKO

Executive Dilemmas in the Information Age

The vast array of business initiatives from SCM to ERP make it clear the IT is a business strategy and is quickly becoming a survival issue.

This case explores several examples of executive IT issues resulting from IT.