Comprehensive summary of the lectures for the course Information Systems Strategy and Management. Suitable for students International Business. Given by Filip Hendrickx at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in the academic year . Allowed me to pass during the first session.
Summary:
Theory lectures Information Systems Strategy and
Management
PROFESSOR: FILIP HENDRICKX
Gino Aytas | 1MA IB | Academic year 2021 – 2022
Version 1
,Practical information:
100% of the grade is decided by a group assignment, creating a Business Case on an
investment in a particular company.
1. Lecture 1 | 15-02-2022
Businesses want to use tools, techniques and technology to achieve goals and fulfil needs.
Different solutions might be better fit for one organisation than for another.
One should always consider the following thoughts and questions when proposing an
investment in technology for a certain organisation:
➢ What problem does IS/IT solve? What opportunity does it (help) exploit?
➢ What is the role of technology? What do we need beyond technology?
➢ What alternative solutions exist?
➢ How are we organised to create, maintain, operate, support, decommission IS/IT?
➢ What is the value of IS/IT?
o Value of data and information
o Value of products & services enabled or improved by IS/IT
o Internal in the organisation and/or external to the organisation (suppliers,
partners, customers, society)
This is a non-exhaustive list, but serves as a good start!
Lets look at the big picture of ISSM, the course can be divided into 4 areas that we will
touch upon.
But what is the difference between IS and IT? In
the broad sense a system is a set of inter-related
components that work together in a particular
environment to perform whatever functions are
required to achieve the system’s objective. More
specifically, an information system is a system
that gets the right information to the right
person in the right place at the right time.
PAGE 1
,The IT System is the technology that enables this to happen, ranging from hardware to
software and so on.
There are several models that position IS/IT
in an organization. Starting with Porter’s
Value Chain.
The bottom half represents the primary
activities, necessary for the core operations of
the company. Additionally there are
supporting activities, of which technology is
one.
A more recent model is the Process
Classification Framework which is
divided into Operating Processes and
Management & Support Processes.
Managing IT & Knowledge is an
element of the latter.
Looking at these models it becomes
clear that IT is not part of the core
processes. Over time technology is
becoming more and more important.
Today almost every company is a “tech company” to some extent and utilized technology
in their business operations to a certain degree.
IS/IT can take on 3 different roles:
➢ Support the business (Ex. Physical Retailer)
o Support Processes
o Core Processes
➢ Enable the business (Ex. E-commerce)
o Enable online
o Support offline
➢ Be the business (Ex. Platform such as AirBNB)
o Purely digital business
The more a company relies on technology, the more vulnerable it becomes when there are
issues with these technologies.
For example ASCO, a company that builds airplane parts, which suffered a major cyber-
attack in 2019. The admin system went down, causing weeks of downtime for 1500
employees. Creating an overall loss of millions of euros. It took the company half a year to
become fully operational again.
Even companies that merely use technology to support the business can thus be severely
harmed from not being prepared to operate without it. This is where the management
part of ISSM comes into play.
PAGE 2
, A recent trend is that “tech giants” are good at mastering traditional business expertise,
whereas traditional companies find it harder to master technology.
Next there is the Henderson &
Venkatraman Strategic
Alignment model, which tries to
offer a way of thinking about how
Business and IT can be connected.
This introduces 4 different ways to
see which drives what.
Starting with where the Business Strategy, drives the
Organisational Infrastructure and processes itself
driving IS Infrastructure and Processes. For example a
retailer that always wants to have the lowest price
(business strategy). It has to put processes in place to
attain this (organisational infrastructure and processes):
update and check prices from other retailers. For these
processes to work efficiently, IT is put in place.
Secondly there is a Business Strategy, driving IT
Strategy which itself drives IS Infrastructure and
Processes. For example a company that wants to expand
its scope towards e-commerce. For this it has to adopt an
IT strategy which is realised via IS Infrastructures and
Processes.
Third there is an IT Strategy that is driving the Business
Strategy, shaping Organizational Infrastructure and
Processes. For example the retailer Coolblue, which
formerly utilised the ability for itself to deploy an e-
commerce website in a short amount of time.
Finally there is an IT Strategy that is creating IS
Infrastructure and Processes creating Organisational
Infrastructure and Processes. The role of Business
Strategy is much more limited, rather focussed on
marketing. For example a company such as Uber.
This model allows to position the importance of IT in a
company. A company can reside itself in multiple model
configurations at the same time.
PAGE 3
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