IT Strategic Plan Part 2

Information Technology Strategic Plan Part 1

Jesse Holmes

Professor Alice Gretch

IFSM 301: Foundations to Information Systems Management

June 25th, 2015

Most businesses or organizations are starting to hold the general understanding that Information Technology planning goes past just simply IT spending in the budget process of strategic planning. Considering the potential governing needs and pressures from the marketplaces requiring investments in technology programs, organizations cannot afford to continue looking at IT spending in the same aspect as they did years ago. In order to establish the present and future goals, organizations must establish a comprehensive work plan that analyzes the current needs and projects sending over years to come. The project plan also needs to be appraised against the company’s strategic planning and revised in respect on a consistent basis. (Ogbonna, 2006)

Business Statement

Wobbly Wheels Company is a regional company in the distribution business that operates across the Mid-Atlantic region. The company conducts services to approximately seven major cities within the region. Wobbly Wheels has been in operation for more than six decades and its main headquarters is located in Wilmington, Delaware. The company is the most competitive and employs about four hundred employees, over one hundred distribution vehicles; forty box trucks, forty panel trucks, and six distribution channels. Wobbly Wheels also operates twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Daily operations consist of the dispatcher, whose primary job, is listing the freight vans. The driver will follow the freight order for the vans. The freight vans are assembled at the distribution terminal and unloaded, and the loads are sorted for the day deliveries while the other loads are stored at the terminal.

Wobbly Wheels Company doesn’t have the best processes and the growth has been blocked by the slow economy. The company operates in a competitive environment with profit margins of four per cent and operating revenue of thirty nine million dollars. The president of the company would like to potentially see a revenue growth of five percent per annum, and operating cost reduced by five percent to accommodate new initiative plans. There is a need to elevate the competitive advantages over the competitors by applying complementing tools. These tools include the IT department of the company. Comment by Gretch, Alice K.: “percent” Comment by Gretch, Alice K.: “thirty-nine”

The sales team of the company keeps in touch with the customers regularly to access service provision ability of the company. If a customer is interested in using the company’s services, they keep in touch with the dispatch crew and place their orders providing necessary information including the address and the details of the products they need. For development of the new ITSP, the company should consider the impact on its staff. The overall goal is to boost the morale of the customer and not the opposite. Comment by Gretch, Alice K.: Very thorough; well done. Actually some of the information on the operations can be eliminated, but no deductions will be taken. However for improvement when resubmitting this with the ITSP #2 assignment, you can eliminate some of this information that I noted.

Business Strategic Objectives

Business strategic objectives give the particular goal drawn by an organization or a company which the business demands for their appropriate fulfillment. Wobbly Wheel Distribution Company has laid down several strategic objectives in line with the company’s business goals and objectives. The company has a unique operating strategy that functions simultaneously on different levels of supervision. (Shapiro, 2009) Some of the business strategic objectives in an organization can include as followed:

· Offering the customers warehouse services especially for the individuals who want to cut down on their delivery time by availing the product locally

· To increase the percentage of loaded miles in the delivery trucks. This will lower the cost by matching the deliveries as well as the pickups of freights in the same region Comment by Gretch, Alice K.: “freight”

· Keeping track of the freight locations, in terminals and trucks to provide accurate delivery by putting into considerations the factors of dates and times

The company carries out its operations as a leading and a highly competitive service provider in the distribution industry offering professional, consistent, and responsive services at affordable rates to its customers. Comment by Gretch, Alice K.: These three strategies are correct and noted from the case study. For this section, you were to add a 4th strategic objective not noted in the case study. This is missing, but must be incorporated into your revised paper for the ITSP #2 as you will related specific IT strategies to this new strategic objective.

IT Vision and Mission Statement

Mission Comment by Gretch, Alice K.: This should be in consistent format with the word “Vision”. Either both should be justified where this word is, or both should be centered and underlined like “Vision” is noted.

Wobbly Wheels is the market leader in the service provision in the transport and distribution industry across the Mid-Atlantic region. As far as service provision is concerned, WW provides reliable shipment deliveries with accurate delivery dates and times. They do not compromise their dates or times. The company’s customers access real-time market information on the delivery vans and track their transit-goods freely. The company’s mission is to be recognized as a leader in quality and value as an important part of their corporate strategy, to be loved by their customers, as well receive appreciation from their staff. WW aims at providing its shareholders with high financial returns by offering high value-added logistics, transport and distribution through indomitable operating distributing channels. Comment by Gretch, Alice K.: What specifically is the exact mission statement that would appear in published company materials? I would assume this to be the last two sentences that are stated here.This statement was to relate to IT. Per the assignment instructions, “IT Vision and Mission Statement – Write one paragraph with a vision and mission statement for the Information Technology Department at WW. Use what you learn from the case study to create your own idea for the vision statement; and use the case study situation at WW to write the mission statement for the IT department.”You note “the company’s mission”, “WW aims”…which does not refer to IT.

Vision

WW aims to become the chief transport and distribution firm across the Mid-Atlantic region. The company wishes to make transport and distribution services easily available and affordable to everyone. They also seek to provide their customers with exclusive experience continuously enabling them to track their transit-goods at their convenience. WW will work tirelessly towards a creation of an all profiting relationship between its staff, partners, as well as suppliers. Comment by Gretch, Alice K.: Again, this was very well written. I assume all 4 sentences are the vision statement. However, there is nothing discussing IT (please review this section’s instructions in the above comment.

Governance

Wobbly Wheels Distribution Company works with an independent board of directors dedicated to the provision of high quality corporate governance. WW is superiorly committed to conducting business in highest ethically possible environment. The CEO shall design and oversee the implementation of strategy that supports the company’s strategy direction. The CIO shall stand up to challenges and implement a standard IT strategy, and increase capital to improve the IT efficiency. The CFO shall oversee all fields that impact the finances of the company such as IT purchases and personnel hiring. The Fleet manager shall be in charge of all assets pertaining to pick-ups, deliveries, and storage of freights. Although the fleet manager does not hold a critical role in the strategic direction of the company, his involvement is paramount to the success of the Wobbly Wheels Distribution Company. (Woerner&Wixom, 2015). Comment by Gretch, Alice K.: Capitalize this word. Comment by Gretch, Alice K.: Good selection of members of the governance team. However, there is, in WW, a Vice-President of Operations and Sales Manager who should have high involvement in the governance process since their operations are affected by projects/decisions. Per the case study, this is a President of the company, not a CEO.Part of the governance section was to discuss some of the following which is missing: not the governance team members’ day-to-day functions, but how they will be involved in the project, what governance methodology will be established, what their responsibilities related to the project would be, and how they would prioritize IT projects. This is missing.Per the assignment: “Using the textbook and the case study, describe in two or three paragraphs how the IT governance process should work for WW. Carol wants to engage the other senior leaders, so include: who the participants are, what their roles are (why they are members of the governance body), what governance methodology should be established, what responsibilities the governance body would have, and how they would prioritize IT projects. Refer to the Table of Contents for the textbook, and look in the Index under G – Governance for multiple resources in the textbook.

Inventory

Wobbly Wheels Distribution Company has some of the following projects being created; an accurate financials which will replace the new ones, a management reporting system to supply the management with the daily financial information, and a mobile marketing application for use by the sales team. The current design and development process is described by summary of the way it worked in the selection and incorporation of accurate financials. (Alchian&Demsetz, 2012.) The table below summarizes the IT system: Comment by Gretch, Alice K.: “old one”

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References

Alchian, A., and Demsetz, H. (2012).Production, information costs and economic organization.The American Economic Review.

Ogbonna, E. (2006). Initiating strategic planning.Strategic Direction, 22(5).

Shapiro, C. (2009) The theory of business strategy. Rand Journal of Economic, 20:125137.

Woerner, S., & Wixom, B. (2015). Big data: extending the business strategy toolbox. J InfTechnol, 30(1), 60-62.