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Introduction
The current business environment needs an integrated-enterprise information system that would reduce the manufacturing costs, cut the product cycling time and enable varying companies to collaborate on the design of products and production processes. This paper looks at the collaboration between business strategies and the information strategies, the problems with strategy formulation, implementation and also the problems with the strategic processes themselves.
The computing environment that is collaborative would help to link the management of the product data and other systems with important data hence would grant stakeholders suitable access to the inventory, financial systems, and any product changes by the use of computer-aided designs.
The design and the successful implementation of the information system would rely highly on the designers having a vivid understanding of the underlying organizational structures and management systems because the information system would be designed to support structures and the system and hence its design would be based on the design of the organization and its systems.
Planning is the most basic management function of an organization whereby all managers at all levels are expected to comply. It involves deciding well in advance what, when, how, and who to accomplish the plan. The outcome of a planning process is a strategic plan which is a configuration of the firm at a specified future date in terms of scope, target, and the assignment of resources. These objectives may target achieving a particular market position, profitability reputation, workforce, or efficiency.
The systems development stages that a system analyst considers include the problem identification stage, systems investigation stage, systems analysis and review stage, programming and testing stage, documentation, implementation, and maintenance stages.
Problems with Strategy Formulation
This is the development phase and the most critical because it aims at giving the designer understanding of the current systems and helps to determine the scope, complexity, and understanding of the problems that exist. A plan of specific objectives that address organizational needs is formulated. Requirement analysis is also defined through observation, interviews, audits, and questionnaires. Identifying the formulation constraints is also vital in helping the analyst to stipulate workable conditions. These constraints may either be internal or external.
The internal problems include the lack of top management support to the system analysts’ duties. The management may be unaware of the need for the systems development in their firms and hence may fail to accord the necessary financial support.
The system developer may also lack the assistive qualified personnel as the management may be unwilling to source for experts. Organizational policies consideration and bureaucracies in the company also create impediments to system development because support should be secured from all the managers since information systems cut across the entire entity.
Costs of systems formulation may also be unbearable especially for medium-sized firms. Experts are expensive to hire and also hardware and software remain expensive.
Other self-imposed restrictions like time and tools to be used also deter development.
External constraints of strategy formulation involve the customers who may be unaware of the developments in the company and need to be trained. Suppliers also may not have attained the same level of development as the company to be able to collaborate electronically.
The government also imposed restrictions like taxation policies that discourage system formulation. Trade unions as well as competitors also restrict the firm greatly and need to be factored in the systems development.
Finally, the formulation of new systems may lack feasibility in the organization and also feasibility costs are enormous.
Constraints in Systems Implementation
This is concerned with getting the system working satisfactorily after it is fully tested, well documented and staff trained and involves file creation and conversion and the changeover. Some of the problems encountered during the implementation of the new strategy may include a lack of compatibility between the existing and the new systems.
Transition to the new system also may be unfriendly to employees and therefore calls for the analyst to manage change in a suitable manner to avoid stress by using techniques like pilot running or parallel running.
The implementation also requires process testing until the involved personnel is satisfied and certain that the system shall meet the organizational needs when fully operational and this require extra costs of maintaining the experts.
Implementation of the strategy also demands system documentation (that narrates analysts’ work and manuals) be given to users to help them understand the system.
User and operator training is also needed since they are affected by change hence should be trained on how to handle the new system to enable them to feel confident and cope with the situation, all of which require extra costs.
Periodic systems reviews are also important to ensure that performance is maintained and this is conducted by the EDP team, users, and auditors, and reports are prepared. These actions create extra functions for the firm personnel.
Maintenance also needs to be done regularly to add new routines or delete obsolete routines and the necessary adjustments made, a thing that further increases costs.
Problems with the Strategic Process Itself
The returns have been below the expected standard due to the fact that bad managerial attitudes and the decision-making process have not changed to help exploit the rich data and information available through the electronic media. Lack of assessment with due care of the potential benefits, risks, and competitive advantages in the information communication technology field by the relevant stakeholders has resulted in losses instead of profits to the investing firms.
Another constraint is the lack of close relationship among the information technology managers and the business managers hence resulting in misunderstanding and lack of cooperation.
IT developments in most investor companies are not properly prioritized and therefore the top managers fail to provide the needed support.
Generally, the investor companies lack dedicated experts who can deal with the company with no legacy systems to help link internal systems to potential suppliers and customers in their industry.
Another setback is the failure of the business and IT standards to keep pace with the current market changes and the emergence of new standards needs skills updating while the general evolutional nature of ICT poses challenges to the firms.
Conclusion
Business managers should lead the IT development initiatives to enable understanding of the goals and issues of planning and implementation. They should also adopt a holistic approach to the IT processes to enable handle complex issues that surround the productive use of this strategic process.
References
Sawhney, M. (2002) B2B: Execution of the Concept Is Key to Success. Web.
Worthen, B. (2001). Collaborative Computing and True Enterprise Architecture Is Still Two Years Away. Web.
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