Strategic information system planning is the first of four fundamental stages in the system
development life cycle. This is where an analyst identifies an opportunity, establishes why
this system should be built, and develops how to structure the project. An organization may
not appropriately conduct proper planning if they fail to understand the technical or business
implications of the new system integrating into the organization. Organizations may also
inadequately plan because they focus too much on short-term goals or results, rather than
long term. Inadequate strategic IS planning may lead to an organization to be ill-equipped to
keep up with a quickly changing market. It can also lead to an organization suddenly having
an inadequate, competent staff to keep up with, or to implement a new system. There are
many reasons an organization may not implement proper strategic information planning.
One reason, for a small business, would be the lack of funding. Adequate IS planning
requires a team and that means a budget as well, so a small owned business most likely
won't have the same funding as a big business and IS would be put on the back burner. A
reason that a business might not be done adequately is the lack of accountability. Again,
going to a small business level, maybe the IS planning is pushed on a supervisor or manager
that already has a lot on their plate and naturally IS planning suffers. The benefits it IS
planning can be described as a long term framework for a company. While it may seem as it
is a "waste" I would show how it helps projects flow smoothly and with minimal issues, it
helps a company run smoothly, meet deadlines and troubleshoot quickly. Without adequate
IS planning things mentioned before would hinder a business. Clients do notice when a
business is always delayed or experiencing issues, which in the long run only hurts a
business. Strategic information system planning is important for every organization.
However, some of the organizations prefer not to perform the planning. There are various
reasons for which organizations avoid planning of the information systems. One of the main
reasons why organizations avoid strategic information system planning is the lack of
financial or monetary benefits. Since the organizations do not get any sort of definitive
financial benefits from the strategic planning, therefore they prefer not to perform strategic
information system planning. Another reason why they avoid strategic information planning
is the lack of proper rule or principle that enforces the strategic information planning within
the organization.
Despite of all the reasons why organizations avoid adoption of the strategic information
system planning, it must be understood that the planning helps organization in the long run.
With the help of the planning it is possible to make sure that the infrastructure or the
framework is robust and strong so that the organization can achieve its goals and objectives.
The planning ensures that the company can achieve the goals within the given time and
deadline. It also helps to avoid any sort of misuse of resources. Therefore strategic
information system planning helps to manage the resources of an organization properly. I
believe budget and cost would be the most influential reason for a business to not conduct
strategic IS planning. I assume many small and newly formed businesses do not have the
budget to immediately form a solid team for IS planning. Another instance where a company
may not conduct strategic IS planning is they no longer see the need for it. A business that
has seen great results from IS planning and believe they have reached a standstill to the
benefits reaped from IS planning would likely cut spending to the group and resources. No
matter the situation a business that lacks strategic IS planning have a disadvantage to
companies that maintain regular IS planning. Without detailed IS planning businesses could
be hurting their security and future profits. If I were to join a business that did not conduct
adequate IS planning, the first thing I would notice is how much extra work effort would be
needed to meet business goals that IS planning would have resolved.Strategic IS planning is
important for business success because it unveils areas of the business that need
improvement in order to strive or meet industry standards. Thorough IS planning and
investigation will determine what IS projects hold the highest importance. It seems to me
that some organizations do not implement Information Systems (IS) planning due to many
factors. This whole process requires a lot of resources that a company might not have. To
invest in a solid plan it would take time, money and the right people to do it correctly.
Another reason might be that they lack the information to understand what is being offered.
Information systems planning may be viewed as a long-term investment that may not
provide immediate returns. The organization that does prioritize this long term investment
will benefit the most with a solid working infrastructure. Organizations that use technology
for data, communication, and daily business needs should invest in a strategic IS planning
solution. IT investments make it clear that every change will benefit a company's resources.
It helps maximize all projects that a company may work on and increase the success of that
project going well. Companies should embrace change that will keep them updated to the
latest protections. Technology advances every day and so do cyber threats, having a good
infrastructure can prevent a complete loss of company resources. As we get more advance
with technology and use of applications, software, databases, and the internet we try to keep
up with the next solution with implementations of the current technology. There are several
reasons why some organizations don't utilized the strategic IS(Information System) planning
but I feel like the main two reasons are lack of knowledge of technology and lack of system
to adapt to current market. With the lack of knowledge in the current technology is a major
setback to any organization because the current market demands more online applications
for its users and their operations. With these demands the organizations needs to be
knowledgeable about the current technologies to meet those demands and find a solution.
Also the employees plays a huge part in any organizations, having employees that
understands the current technology is huge advantage for the organization.Many times when
organization try to adapt to the current market demands their operations is not design to
adapt. which leads them to more time and cost to change their entire system. This means that
organizations goes through huge change but the time they change to new system, they
already behind the competitions and the market. But once they have a operational system
that can handle changes and employees that are educated with the current market demands
will have the upper hand.As a IT professional I will emphasize that keeping with the market
has a huge advantage for any organization by IS planning they can have the upper hand.
Also being educated on IS planning makes the organizations to take in new projects and can
limited the lost of potential revenue.
Strategic planning is a long-term process, but the proper procedure needs to be known,
which can lead to problems, and we need to identify the issues and causes of failure in
strategic planning.
Strategic planning influences the ability of the organization to survive in the long term. The
viability and survival of the business organization in the long term depend on its capacity to
change according to the changes in its market. The business organization must change for
you to address the needs or demands of the target market effectively. For example, a
business organization needs to change its products and services over time to ensure that they
continue to match the expectations and needs of the customers. Such changes could occur in
the form of variations in the features of products and services. These changes could also
appear in the form of the development of entirely new products and services to maximize the
organization's capability to get potential consumers' attention. However, the strategic
planning process in the organization determines the ability of the organization to become
flexible enough to change according to the changes in the market. The specific
characteristics of the strategic planning process determine the organization's ability to
change and effectively address the changes in the market demand, trends, expectations, and
so on. Sometimes, the reason why adequate strategtic information system planning may not
be conducted by an organization but simply be because of ignorance. You would be
surprised as to how many organizations don't truly understand the value of IS system
planning or how their business is jeapardized without it.
Another reason could be arrogance. Not doing your due dilligence on the matter or verifying
that your team has the skills, or credentials upon the on boarding phase can really hurt you
down the stretch. When I think of implications of an inadequate strategic IS plan, I think of
an instance where the head of the IT team decides to no longer work for a company, but
when he leaves? Everyone is now scrambling because they didn't take the time to plan
everything out. Which means they don't know how anything works or what to do when a
certificate may expire or when someone's workstation caught a virus. I would explain that
it's important for the entire company to sit and learn not just how to use the tech but how
each department plays a role in the system, what tod o and not to do, and who to
communicate to and not communicate to. One reason, I believe, why an organization does
not plan well is because some organizations go through the plans just because they believe
that because they are a big organization they have to have some kind of plan. So instead of
having and making sure the plan is good they have one adopted from another organization
that wont necessarily work as well for them. The second reason is that they don't pay
attention to changes in the business environment and don't understand the need to pursue
results. The implication of strategic planning involves the needs of the business
organization, including the need for the organization to ensure that its operations properly
match the conditions of the market. As an IT professional I would explain that a project
should be assessed for realism, capability and cost and how about thirty percent of all
projects end midstream over half of the completed projects end with an average of 200%
over schedule and over budget, according to a 2001 study by the Centre for Innovative
Management. A few reasons why Strategic Information Planning may not be done
appropriately could be because the business objectives may not be totally understood. One
of the first step in strategic IS planning is to understand the organization's overall business
goals and objectives. Also assessing the organizations In It’s IT infrastructure is a key to
determine its ability to support those processes. Implementing and ongoing monitoring are
two of the final tips in strategic IS Planning . Some of the implications of inadequate
strategic planning could be that they reduce the efficiency and productivity, increase cost,
decrease competitiveness, Cybersecurity risk etc. Strategic planning is important because its
planning helps to optimize the utilization of IT resources by identifying overlaps and
redundancies in systems and applications. Strategic planning helps to identify potential risks
and threats to the organization's IT systems, enabling proactive risk management and
mitigation. This helps to prevent IT-related incidents that could have a significant impact on
the organization. Lastly Strategic IS planning involves stakeholders from across the
organization, ensuring that the needs and requirements of all relevant parties are considered.
This helps to build buy-in and support for IT initiatives and promotes collaboration across
departments. This weeks lesson discusses the planning phase of systems development. In
one of my previous positions, when I worked in sales, my sales manager would always say,
if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. This statement rings true in everything. Proper planning
is integral in achieving success in any project. An organization that I am very familiar with,
to me, did not seem to conduct adequate strategic planning, when it related to migrating their
antiquated billing system, with a new billing system that was able to support multiple
services. They provide various telecom services to residential and business customers, but
the business services billing was limited to coaxial internet, analog voice, and video in one
system, while some of the advanced services, like VOIP, SIP trunks, and Fiber internet had
to be billed separately in a different system. I think that with this particular billing system
migration project, the initial analysis was done correctly, but the project management failed,
in addition to the flawed processes of how the company operates differently from region to
region, instead of standardizing processes across the company. I also believe that poor
budgeting delayed the project, and then the CoVID-19 pandemic further complicated the
already complicated and mismanaged project. The result is a company that now has some
customers' accounts migrated to the new system while others are still in the old billing
system, with no estimated time table for when the migration will begin again in order to
finish. The implications of inadequate planning is failure of the projection completely, or an
inefficient system that ultimately fails. Time is money, and completing projects correctly the
first time will be much more lucrative for the company.
The importance of strategic planning can be highlighted in various ways. Feasibility analysis
will determine if the project how the company will benefit financially and what the ROI will
be. Technically, can we build this system and how well it integrates with our current
technology. The company I am going to choose that does not conduct adequate strategic
information system planning is my former employer the United States Post Office. I'm sure
many companies are guilty of the newer is better policy. So is the post office. It is even
worse when it comes to information systems. Not only do they fully embrace new "exciting"
ideas, but they lease many programs instead of building them themselves. They utilize many
different systems that can all be combined into one simple system. The systems often crash
and have bugs. I am not privy to how they chose what programs they use or how they decide
who gets the contract. It is apparent these programs are not economically feasible or
business savvy. As an IT professional I would explain the importance of having inhouse
programmers to build the systems or at least have IT professionals that can test these
systems to see how often they crash. I would also recommend that they get an economic
feasibility analyst. One that can look at all the programs and decide if it is financially sound
to purchase multiple programs or one or two that can do all the functions of the many
different programs. There are several small or medium sized organizations are there that
does not possess a proper information System Planning method. One such organization is
Health maintenance organizations (HMOs) which fail to conduct an adequate strategic
planning. They want short term results. They fear to adapt a new technology.
Reasons why some organization avoid IS Planning Process are as follows:
• Information system planning is a challenging and difficult process.
• Is planning a long-term process. I.e., it takes more time and people want short term process.
• People are habituated with the current System and don’t want to add a new System
• The IS Planning Process is costly and requires more money.
• It needs talented developers for developing a new system. People scare to adapt a new
technology.
• It needs more resources and people.
These reasons are not admissible because the people in the organization are not bearing in
mind the development of the organization. The people do not understand that they must
adapt a new technology to survive in a competitive world.
They are hesitating to invest money. User must not think that by investing small amount of
money will result in a big benefit. By investing a small amount of money, company greatest
welfares are not done.
Problem if IS planning is not done properly:
Several problems occur if IS planning is not done properly or not done at all which are as
follows:
• The people will not know about the user’s requirement properly.
• The users do not get the actual data they need.
• The organization will not survive in a competitive world.
• The organization will not know the flaws in the existing system and cannot achieve its goal.
• It cannot provide the product and service according to the market demand. So, the
organization will not go in a way of success.
