Week 4 Respond to 2 Colleagues Disc Post

Respond to two of your colleagues in one or more of the following ways:

· Based on what your colleague observed from the WestJet case, explore ways that your organization might assess its information technology capabilities. What lessons did the case provide that help an organization make a better assessment?

· Expand upon your colleague's observations by positing additional problems that a business manager might encounter if a similar assessment were done for their organization.

· Offer your colleague alternative perspectives, if in fact you drew different conclusions from the case.

· Describe the IT governance model used in your organization, and explain why it is important to the organization's ability to achieve its strategic goals.

Please be specific, and use citations and references as appropriate and necessary.

1st Colleague to respond to:

When Cheryl Smith was appointed as CIO of WestJet Airlines, in her early assessment of the organization information systems, she saw the need for a system upgrade to meet industry standards. There are significant opportunities to bring innovation and creativity to “deployment of IT and herself as a “change agent” and felt confident in her ability to affect critical business transformations using IT” (Munro & Khan, 2013, p. 4). Her priority was to access the competence of the IT staff and organizational structure. Besides, she accessed ways to restructure the IT department to have a better collaboratives effort to meet organization goals. She also reviewed the “IT planning/budget process limitations, which was a challenging experience for both the business and IT in terms of project funding and executing” (Munro & Khan, 2013, p. 6). The assessment mentioned above is important to ensure the organization's information system meets the airline standards for the airline to provide the best service to their customer and be able to compete among their peers in the airline industry for profitability.

The organization immediate goal is to upgrade the airline information systems and restructure the IT departments for a better outcome. The approach was to review the current system and staff and access what process and system are working and come up with a plan to revitalize the IT structure and capabilities. Cheryl Smith’s experience span various industries in the leadership role, but she might not have enough experience in the airline industry. She is an intelligent individual with the skillsets to revitalize WestJet IT systems and IT business units. Her approach would have been to get the support of the current IT team to create an executable plan for the proposed improvement. Involving team members in such an effort will help build trust and support for employees who will be motivated to drive the initiatives. The focus is for the organization IT infrastructure development and involving all stakeholders in this effort will be beneficial. Also, rather than planning several improvements at once, it will be more beneficial to have a sort of rolling plan in phases so the team can focus on one goal at a time. 

There were several issues with IT resource allocation and struggle with business units to share limited resources. This has sometimes resulted in the issue of accountability and the need for resource alignment and allocation for better productivity. Cheryl Smith's goal is to restructure the IT business unit and systems to meet the organization's goal and remain as one of the top airlines in the industry. “WestJet operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the IT staff worked during the day and were available only on an overtime/on-call basis after regular business hours”. (Munro & Khan, 2013, p. 6). The employees are working rigorous schedules which are negatively impacting their morale and productivity. Employee satisfaction is a key factor for job dedication and low turnover rate which need to be addressed urgently and is one of the new CIO plans. Another critical item is the issue with budgeting and appropriately allocating resources to projects that need action to be taken for the organization's financial stability.

The lessons I learned from WestJet is that management should ensure that there is continuous improvement to organization infrastructure for stability and meeting its objectives.  The hiring of the new CIO helps the organization to assess its current IT systems if it is aligning appropriately and functioning properly to deliver the best customer service. “The emerging vision was that strategic growth could be realized immediately by focusing on guest services and satisfaction” (Munro & Khan, 2013, p. 6). The organization's goal should be understood by all stakeholders and be achievable with a plan that will drive the initiative. My organization will also need to evaluate the current information technology systems and upgrading to the latest IT infrastructure to support the organization goals.  Hiring a new CIO to manage the IT team will be a key change that will help to optimize the IT department's effort in supporting organization needs as well. This will help the organization to properly align IT services with business needs and increase productivity and profitability

Reference:

Munro, M., & Khan, S. (2013). WestJet Airlines: Information technology governance and corporate strategy (Ivey Publishing Case Study No. 9B13E020).

2nd Colleague Response:

When Cheryl Smith was called into West Jet to evaluate their IT infrastructure, she made several observations. First, she focused on benchmarking the IT department by analyzing them against like-sized transportation industries. This gave her the insight to know if she had the right amount of resources, budget, and FTE’s. The study told her some of the skill levels of her employees and where she had some shortcomings. Benchmarking was an essential first step for Cheryl to perform; it helped her obtain critical information about the IT department, and if they had the right resources and budget to handle the business of WestJet. According to Khalil, Nor, and Bahrami, (2011), having a combination of IT resources, and human, and business factors as complementary factors can create a higher firm performance. Second, Cheryl found that the IT data storage system was adjacent to the runway, which housed all of their operations, and applications. This could cause all of WestJet’s services to come to a halt. Westjet needed a backup storage system in case of a loss. Another area of concern is the fact that the IT department does not provide service 24/7. They are in a business that functions 24/7, 365 days a year, and need to be able to give that constant support. IT support is vital on off-hours as well due to the limited amount of resources that are already on that shift. Lastly, Chery identified that the IT department was not aligned with business strategies or goals. She wanted them to be more business-facing, having greater collaboration with those units, and supporting their projects and initiatives. She then suggested having the rest of the IT department focus on the needs of the infrastructure, having a more global view, and supporting this organization as a whole and adhere to best practices. This strategy aligns with the business strategies, one area focuses on the customer and driving the business forward, while the other maintains the structure. According to Porter (2008), when a company restructures, it sends a message to its competitors to follow so that the industry transforms.

Cheryl’s Smith overall assessment was that the IT department at WestJet needed to be restructured. She pointed out that the IT department had the correct amount of resources, but their efforts needed to be redirected. She aligned them with a business unit, and VP to ensure their projects were at the forefront of new ideas. She wanted the IT team to be accountable 24/7, to match the needs of WestJet. Her assessment was accurate; she understood that the IT department needed to help financially drive the business of West Jet, and the only way to be able to be successful was to have the IT department more collaborative with the business systems. She changed the governance model to be business-facing, having more interaction with Vp’s, and the business units. According to Khani, Nor, & Bahrami 92011), IT capability is the ability to deliver a system, help reduce costs, and affect business objectives with IT implementation.

The lessons I have learned from this business case are to be able to assess your environment. Cheryl accomplished this by benchmarking her current organization against other similar-sized companies in the transportation field. In my current role, this was one of the first activities I performed. I did a thorough analysis of our staffing pattern to understand if we had the correct number of FTE’s and if we were bringing them in during the right times, correlating this with our surgical volume. What was discovered is that we were approximately 15 people short at 11 am, which is why at 5 pm, we were holding anywhere from 10-15 staff per day. This was a huge dissatisfier when I arrived. We then used our surgical volume data to drive our staffing pattern. According to Beath, Becerra-Fernandez, Ross, and Short (2012), data stewardship can be assigned to the IT department. Still, business leaders must take ownership for defining the value and acting upon it. Another lesson learned is having the IT department be business-facing. In my organization, IT partners are hard to come by to be assigned to one area. The Operating Room would be a great place to have this concept. We have 43 OR’s which use a lot of different pieces of technology, from EHR, to imagining displays, to I-pads to page radiology, and there are always issues, questions going on. We also operate 24/7, so having that support would be essential.

The changes that needed to take place at WestJet were essential if the business wanted to move forward and be sustainable. Smith’s governance model would allow WestJet to achieve its strategic goals by realigning the IT department with the business department’s initiatives. According to Porter (2008), thinking comprehensively about an industry’s structure can help to identify areas of opportunities. Cheryl did identify the areas of opportunity, put solid plans in place to increase revenue by increasing functionality between the IT and business units. Cheryl had strong leadership skills as well. She communicated the changes with her It department, she tied the mission of WestJet into her strategy and showed her team how these changes would have their work impact the overall success of the organization. She also developed relationships with her team by having her office be centrally located and not with the other senior executive leaders. Cheryl is a strong leader, combining strategy, with creating a positive work environment by instilling value in what the IT specialist contributed.

                                                                        References

            Beath, C., Becerra-Fernandez, I., Ross, j., & Short, J. (2012). Finding value in the information explosion. MIT Sloan Management Review, 53(4), 18-20.

            Khani, N. Nor, K., & Bahrami, M. (2011). IS/IT capability and Strategic Information System Planning (SISP) success. International Management Review, 7(2), 75-83.

            Porter, M. (2008). The five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard Business Review, 86(1), 78-93.