Delivering Business Value with IT at Hefty Hardware
The case study of Hefty Hardware shows a typical lack of inter-department communication, among company main business units and the IT department. Managers and stakeholders are unable to estimate the value that IT department brings to company business, and tend to neglect or debase it; the IT team, on the other hand, fails to communicate their milestones, technological difficulties and incompatibilities when implementing new projects and other aspects of IT operation in a comprehendible manner. The recent of suggestion by company CIO is to take some managers and top-ranking of IT department out into the field, to see for themselves how Hefty Hardware stores operate from the inside. Also, how can this vision to use for the improvements into current ERP implementation, or in general, company IT infrastructure, policies and procedures. Unfortunately, this suggestion has serious drawbacks, which will be discussed in the following paragraphs.
First of all, the typical well-known solution to such problems is to hire a business consultant, an IT consultant or an IT and a communication consultant. These are professionals that are able to solve some widespread types of problems like ineffective cross-department communication, cut down deficiencies in business and IT procedures, deficiencies in company management techniques and finally, facilitate effective knowledge transfer among company units. Without a consultant, the various departments at Hefty Hardware play a role of either a “consultant” or a “client” – for example, IT team representatives consulting company management on technical issues surrounding the implementation of a newly proposed marketing project. According to Dong-Gil ...
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...nced scorecard.
References
Dong-Gil Ko, Kirsch, L. J., & King, W. R. (2005). Antecedents of Knowledge Transfer from Consultants to Clients in Enterprise System Implementations. MIS Quarterly, 29(1), 59–85.
Hayes, N., & Westrup, C. (2014). Consultants as Intermediaries and Mediators in the Construction of Information and Communication Technologies for Development. Information Technologies & International Development, 10(2), 19–32.
Murby, L., Gould, S., (2005). Effective Performance Management with the Balanced Scorecard. Technical Report, CIMA, London.
Smith, H. A., McKeen J. D. (2012). Delivering Business Value with IT at Hefty Hardware. IT Strategy: Issues and Practices(2nd ed.) Pearson Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Vielhaber, M. E., & Waltman, J. L. (2008). Changing Uses of Technology. Journal of Business Communication, 45(3), 308–330.
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