Accredit - a case study

AgCredit – A Case Study

AgCredit, a Midwest Agriculture Credit and Loan Company, is a financial organization that mainly focuses of financing agribusiness and has grown over the past few years due to its extensive customer knowledge. The organization is currently in such a state where its IT is a mess and does not have a specific structure or architecture (McKeen & Smith, 2012).

Analysis of case study makes it clear that IT issues in the organization is the main reason behind every other problem. The organization did not have a CIO who could support Enterprise Integration Process (EIP), a plan to make AgCredit a process centric organization. Finney appointed Paul Manley, the senior VP of E-Business as the in charge of IT (McKeen & Smith, 2012).

In the process of redesigning the IT state of the organization, Manley identified many issues which are discussed here. The IT structure of the organization is a complete mess and there is no governance over IT. The organization has many business units and each business unit head made decisions regarding their IT based on their current requirements (McKeen & Smith, 2012).

Many of the organizational IT projects were outsourced unnecessarily. The IT staff were not clear about their roles and responsibilities and some of them also lacked the technical expertise to get the job done. There were no good IT managers and in addition to this problem, many of the positions in IT were vacant. The organization has 4 different databases which resulted in redundancy of data (McKeen & Smith, 2012).

The executives of the organization never believed in the IT department of the organization. Most of the executives complained about the capability of IT and some others suggested to outsource all IT related projects. In the process to solve the IT problems in the organization, Manley hired an external consultant who suggested him to implement an SOA throughout the organization. Though Manley was unsure about this idea, he decided to implement the SOA (McKeen & Smith, 2012).

Discussion Questions

1. Propose an organization structure for the IT department that you feel would support the transformation of AgCredit into a process centric organization

The high level management of the organization should involve in discussing and solves the IT issues in the organization. In addition to this, the organization should also form a committee which is responsible for selecting the projects undertaken and the same committee should ensure that the projects are within the SOA framework, the framework being adopted by the organizational IT department. The CIO should involve in the high level meetings of the organization and understand the requirements of the business and how their IT could provide a possible solution for that requirement. In addition, the CIO should be capable enough in understanding the IT issues and communicate them to the business side and vice versa (Kangas, 2003).

The organization should reassess the knowledge and skill of the employees in the IT department to ensure that only the right ones capable of completing a task and held on to and the others are either fired or trained to the required skillset. All the vacant positions in IT should be filled and this can be done through internal recruitment and sourcing. This provides an advantage that the individuals working will have some knowledge of the business functioning of the organization and hence could get adjusted well with the requirements (Kangas, 2003).

2. Outline a project selection process for Ag Credit to ensure alignment with the enterprise business vision

In order to have a good project selection process, the organization should form a committee comprising of individuals from different departments. This committee should be given the authority to make final decisions on the project selections. The committee should select the projects considering the impact of the project on all the departments in the organization. All the heads of each department should have an idea of the undertaking projects and the roles and responsibilities of each individual involved in the project should be determined prior to the project initiation (Knights & Murray, 1994).

Since the organization would be implementing the SOA architecture, all the projects being selected should fall under this framework. Before finalizing a project, the impact of the project on the organization as a whole should be considered while also taking individual departments into consideration. Any disputes between the members of the committee in selecting a project should be solved by organizing a meeting with the management and a decision regarding the project should be made in the meeting without any further delay, thereby saving resources and time (Knights & Murray, 1994)

3. How should Manley “make the case” for SOA to ensure that the executive team at AgCredit buys in?

In order to convince the executive team in implementing the SOA architecture for the IT in the organization, Manley should highlight the advantages of this architecture and how it helps the organization in solving most of its problems. Some of the important features of SOA to be included in Manley’s case are as follows.

· SOA helps in simplifying the current business processes in the organization (Chan, Cheung, & Liu, 2008)

· The process of project selection and implementation will become much more easier and faster (Chan, Cheung, & Liu, 2008)

· The utilization of the organizational resources would be at a maximum extent possible with the implementation of this architecture (Chan, Cheung, & Liu, 2008)

· SOA also supports web based services, which the organization can use to expand its business and stay ahead in the competition (Chan, Cheung, & Liu, 2008)

· SOA architecture would increase the financial gains for the individual departments in the organization, there increasing the organizational revenue (Chan, Cheung, & Liu, 2008)

· SOA architecture will allow the organization to have common processes and this will help the organization in achieving its goals and vision (Chan, Cheung, & Liu, 2008)

· The issues of data redundancy will be reduced and the updating and retrieval of data becomes much more easier than earlier (Chan, Cheung, & Liu, 2008)

4. What new internal IT capabilities will have to be developed in order to create an IT department to support AgCredit’s future business architecture?

IT plays an important role in supporting AgCredit’s future business architecture. The customer issues should be solved to ensure their satisfaction by implementing good IT solutions. Since the management is responsible in aligning business processes with the overall goals of the organization, it should take necessary measures in doing so. The organization should make efficient use of the information present to take decision that would solve the issues in the organization and help in developing the business (Taylor, 2004).

All the development process should align with the SOA architecture towards attaining the goals of the organization. The hardware and software in the organization should be upgraded that would simplify the business processes. Regular audits must be conducted for the performance of IT and necessary policies should be implemented, if required to improve its performance (Taylor, 2004).

5. What aspects of IT governance do you think would be important in supporting this transformation?

The high level management of the organization should reconsider its vision and mission and also create short term and long term goals to achieve the vision of the organization. The organization should draft specific policies for the company which should be implemented strictly and necessary audits must be conducted to measure the compliance with the organizational policies (Hackney & Dunn, 2000).

The organization should form a committee to for project selection and this committee should involve people from different departments and also all the stakeholders. Measures to improve the communication and coordination between the employees should be taken. Regular meetings with the stakeholders should be held, encouraging them to come up with new ideas that would help the organization in better decision making (Hackney & Dunn, 2000).

References

Chan, M.-C., Cheung, R., & Liu, J. K. (2008). Challenges in information technology management. New Jersey: World Scientific.

Hackney, R., & Dunn, D. (2000). Business information technology management: alternative and adaptive futures. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Kangas, K. (2003). Business strategies for information technology management. Hershey: IRM Press.

Knights, D., & Murray, f. (1994). Managers Divided: organization politics and information technology management. New York: Wiley.

Taylor, J. (2004). Managing information technology projects: applying project management strategies to software, hardware, and integration initiatives. New York: American Management Association.