An organization that I believe does not conduct adequate strategic IS planning
would be my current employer. I work at a sizeable soft-drink production
plant on the production side, but from what I can see there is a lack of
strategic IS planning. They lack in this area mainly because the plant is in
a smaller town. Because of this, there is a lack of understanding of the
importance of strategic IS planning and possibly a lack of resources to
invest in it. The implications of inadequate strategic IS planning are
significant. Without proper planning, organizations may miss opportunities to
implement new technologies, optimize their processes, and improve their overall
performance. Also, organizations might waste resources on projects that do
not align with their goals or fail to deliver expected benefits. As an IT
professional, I would explain that strategic IS planning is crucial for
organizations to identify and select IS projects that align with their business
objectives. Without strategic IS planning they risk investing in IS projects
that do not deliver expected benefits, wasting resources, and missing out on
opportunities to improve their organization's operations and competitiveness.
While working in the healthcare profession, One of the most crucial changes
in the healthcare industry was the HITECH Act (The Health Information
Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) of 2009. That mandated all
healthcare facilities convert from paper documentation to EMR (Electronic
Medical Records) by January 1, 2014. Since these regulations involved
facilities incurring additional operational costs, management started cutting
corners by using cheap vendors, failing to understand the industry's needs,
and ignoring the industry's reality and facts. Some of the reasons why a
strategic plan did not reach its full potential are as follows.
Partial commitment from ownership or leadership leads to cost-cutting
investment in refurbished, outdated hardware and software, compatibility issues
that would crash or freeze, resulting in staff productivity issues, overtime,
and causing backup documentation crises in patient health recordings.
Compliance is vital in strategic planning in any industry; they are the
framework that gives groundwork to ethical practices in the business world;
for example, if boundaries are not set in using and releasing medical records
results in a violation of the law. HIPPA laws and security mandate medical
providers to monitor and control PHI (Patient's Health information). Patient
EMRs should be confidential, protected, and require prior authorization before
discussing or sharing with other medical professionals, families, and third-party
vendors. Implication-related poorly implied strategic planning leads to significant
compliance issues related to industry standards and can face legal and
financial consequences. Furthermore, failure to abide by strategic planning leads
to miscommunication, lack of organizational cohesion, lost information, plans
falling through the cracks, essential issues like compliance, and resources
skyrocketing costs.
The importance of strategic planning is relevant to business today;
understanding how outdated management is to the current market standard is
an essential factor that can give the planner insight into the organization
and defines the best route in achieving the short and long-term goals. The
primary step in strategic business planning is outlining the business purpose,
budget, and goals aligning with current and feature needs, identifying strengths
and weaknesses, and what hinders growth. Furthermore, a well-designed plan
is a well-informed client, which can put resources at your disposal and add
value to the business and customer convenience. One organization that comes
to mind as not conducting adequate strategic information system (IS) planning
is a small local retailer that has been operating for decades with a traditional
brick-and-mortar approach, and has only recently begun to embrace e-commerce
as a secondary channel for sales. Two reasons why this organization might
not be conducting strategic IS planning appropriately or at all are:
1. Lack of Awareness: The organization's leadership may lack awareness
of the importance of strategic IS planning or may not fully understand
the potential benefits it can bring. They may view IS as a secondary
function and not prioritize strategic planning for IS projects, resulting
in a lack of dedicated resources, budget, and attention.
2. Short-term Focus: The organization may have a short-term focus and
prioritize immediate operational needs over long-term strategic planning.
They may be more concerned with day-to-day operations and short-term
revenue generation rather than investing in strategic IS planning that
requires time, effort, and resources with long-term benefits.
The implications of inadequate strategic IS planning can be detrimental to
the organization's competitiveness and growth. Without proper planning, the
organization may miss out on opportunities to leverage technology for
optimizing operations, enhancing customer experience, and gaining a competitive
edge. It may also face challenges in adapting to changing market dynamics,
technological advancements, and customer preferences, leading to a loss of
market share and revenue.As an IT professional, I would emphasize the
importance of strategic IS planning in identifying and selecting IS projects
by highlighting the following points: Alignment with Business Goals, Resource
Allocation, Risk Management, and Innovation and Agility. Working as a
government contractor in the information technology/cybersecurity field, our
organization at times does not conduct adequate strategic information planning
for the following reasons:
• Compliance: Government systems need approval to operate (ATO) to
run. This ATO is driven by the Federal Information System
Management Act (FISMA) law. There are times when controls or
technologies are mandated to be put into place without any
consideration to end user experiences or sufficient testing to determine
the impact to the system.
• Lack of understanding: As with the compliance example, there are
times when the information assurance (IA) team lacks the understanding
of the control or the technology and therefore doesn’t strategically plan
its implementation.
The implications of inadequate strategic planning in our organization has lead
to negative impact causing lost of productivity and poor moral. As an
example we had a situation where host based firewalls needed to be installed
on each workstation. The sponsor was the chief information security officer
(CISO) the implementation was being done by system administrators and
stakeholders were end users/developers. The system administrator lacks the
planning, rolled it out without understanding what port needed to be opened
for the developers to continue working on software that was being developed,
as well as letting them know when it was going to be done. The software
team spent a day troubleshooting their system because they thought it failed,
just to find out that it was the firewall port that caused the issue. The
importance of strategic planning is to align the information system with
business mission. It was once explained to me that you wouldn’t put a
hundred-dollar lock on a ten-dollar bike. As an IT Professional I would
explain the importance and process of planning, analysis, design, and
implantation. This would then allow stakeholders to understand risk and if
there is value to the business with the project. Strategic planning is used
for long-term goals and operations within the organization. Here, you'll look
at the mission statement and the vision statement to help define the goals
of the organization. Mission and vision statements align the organization's
goals and objectives with its purpose and values. The mission statement
provides the organization's purpose, and the vision statement provides an
understanding of its future aspirations. The strategic planning process helps
ensure the organization is moving in the right direction by aligning the goals
and objectives with its mission and vision statements. In short, we use
strategic planning to move towards a common goal. There are several reasons
why an organization might not conduct adequate strategic information system
(IS) planning. Here are two possible reasons:
Lack of awareness or understanding: zz The organization's leadership may not
fully understand the importance of strategic IS planning or may not have
the necessary expertise to carry out the planning process effectively. In such
cases, they may not allocate sufficient resources, time or effort to the
planning process or may prioritize other initiatives over strategic IS planning.
Resistance to change:
• The organization may have a culture that resists change, and this may
make it difficult to introduce new ideas or systems. This resistance can also
occur if there is a perceived threat to existing power structures or if there
is a lack of trust in the IT department's ability to deliver new systems or
change existing ones.
The implications of inadequate strategic IS planning can be significant. For
example:
• Wasted resources: The organization may end up investing in IT systems
that do not align with its overall strategy or that do not provide the
expected benefits. This can result in wasted resources, including time and
money.
• Lost opportunities: Without a strategic IS plan, the organization may miss
out on opportunities to leverage technology to gain a competitive advantage
or improve its operations. This can put the organization at a disadvantage
compared to its competitors.
Long before I became an IAAM, and telecommunications engineer I worked
for ADT Security Services as a Technical Support phone agent. When I say
that they did not have an adequate and strategic viewpoint on their it
infrastructure, it deployments, it rolls backs and anything else that factored
into their Salesforce cloud-based environment I am not kidding. There were
so many times that I would be in a phone que with 3000+ customers just
waiting on the other end of that que waiting for an agent. Ate that same
time their information technology department would send those automated alerts
via Teams talking about it being mandatory patching time, or rollbacks. So
those same 3000+ clients in that Genysis phone que would just be dropped
with no regard for how long they were in that que, or the needs that
brought them to it. When they came back into said que and finally reached
an agent the response, we were told by management to say was "We are
sorry however we had critical updates to do but we are here now so how
can we assist you"? This was also not a freak occurrence and happened at
least twice a week. Combine this with an improperly configured Active
Directory user configuration file and an exposed and confirmed compromised
Active Directory Contact list, you can just image the chaotic nonsense that
occurred on a daily basis. If it was not apparent from my explanation
above, I will highlight it a bit more. When these sorts of strategic failures
occur it not only effects the clientele of that organizations but also its
employees. As when those customers do catch up with you, they are not
trying to hear that you had critical updates to do. They will openly tell
you that is not their problem, and they are paying you to service their
systems and not to provide them excuses. Given that was the home security
industry this also caused many issues with the acquisition of monitoring
information for clientele about their systems, also information regarding their
billing proponents of their account and even if they needed technical support
on their system, this even effect that. As all of the tools that you would
be using to assist those clients with their technical support needs where run
through that same infrastructure that was just taken down during live
production time. Strategic its planning is essential because as I highlighted
above you can see what occurs when you do not have such a strategic
and sound plan in place. It also does interfere with the business continuity
plan and can interrupt practically every sector of the business and practically
bring said business to a stop. Stops in business mean lost revenue, lost
reputation, possible sanctions or criminal charges (Depending on the regulations
of what compliance that downtime has just violated). In short not having a
sound and strategic is plan that runs in line with your business continuity
plan is just a disaster for any business waiting to happen. Strategic planning
is vital; it lays the framework for identifying business needs, continuity, and
customer confidence. However, this planning is not simple; they attach different
feasibility. For example, in my previous healthcare job, my team of therapists
and vendors got an opportunity to plan and design a three thousand-square-
foot rehabilitation center. We went to the drawing board every time a
specification needed changes or updates, such as what type of flooring was
better non-skid so patients don’t slip on fall. Setting workstations for privacy,
what types of IT resources and access points, and what type of therapeutic
equipment and technologies were to be purchased so patients can achieve
maximum potential results. The best part was every team member had roles
and responsibilities that the team bought to the planning board before the
ownership approval. It was a great learning experience and a challenge in
which we all got great satisfaction and had to create a waiting list demand
for therapeutic services at the center. Planning is the cornerstone of everything
in business and just life in general. If you where to look at all of the
successful business in any of the industries around the world, you will see
the same pattern replicated. The finite planning and continued communication
between all departments of that organization in all the stages of everything.
So, to say that planning is important is such an understatement as your
statement highlighted. I used to have a supervisor back when I worked with
the Air Force. He would always tell me that without proper planning, the
only thing you're going to find is the unemployment line or a court room
filing for bankruptcy. This statement, even though it is a bit up front is
so phenomenal and true. It cuts right to the raw of it all, which is the
exact same thing your post did for me. Hence why I had to respond to
it.
