New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT)
Computer and Information Science Department (CIS)
CIS677:
Information System Principles
Professor: Michael
Bieber
I have found this one of the most interesting classes this semester - full of a lot of real-world experience. I believe the issues we discuss are relatively timeless - not much in this discussion will age.
Sirkka joins us by telephone from Austin. She's one of the co-authors of a paper we have used in this class on global IS:
Ives, Blake, Jarvenpaa, Sirrka and Mason, Richard, "Global Business Drivers: Aligning Information Technology to Global Business Strategy," IBM Systems Journal 32(1), 1993, 143-161.
I've included Sirrka photograph here:
From Lecture #1, we've learned that guests on the phone find it harder to jump in on the conversation, so generally I give Sirrka the first opportunity to answer questions.
We have some politically incorrect moments on this tape, and I hope that no one is offended.
It's quite an interesting hour.
{handout}
Configuration issues concern where in the world each activity in the value chain is performed, and in how many places each activity is performed. Coordination issues concern the coordination of each activity when it is done in more than one place. For example, if the company has three plants: in the US, Finland and Taiwan, how do the activity at each plant relate to each other?
MB asks (rephrased here):
The main problems and challenges seem to be ones of organizational
change more than international issues. In the figure, if you
substitute "region in the US" for "country" wouldn't all the issues
really be the same? For case (1), if you were a small regional
company looking to go national, aren't the issues the same as in a
national company wanting to go global? And for case (2), if you were
a domestic company that had been very decentralized in the past,
wouldn't the issues of trying to convince your relatively independent
branches or divisions that they should be more coordinated the same
whether these branches are in the US or abroad?
The role for IT in a global strategy:
Mark S asks, regarding the larger IS project failure rate for
global projects (440)
You said you had 75% failure and 80% for global. What exactly
meant by failure? What constitutes failure in an IS system?
{Handout: Zwass'98 Table 18.4}
MB asks:
Would the average worker in a third world country (or even Europe)
be able to read the details of the computer screens for a purchasing
system, for example?
e.g., in the purchase order process
There are many subtle and not so subtle cultural differences in other countries. These manifest themselves both in working relationships, i.e., how different IS employees approach projects, and in how end-users perceive and interact with information systems.
Different countries have different labor laws and laws concerning how data are used, and whether data can be transferred to other countries, especially data about its citizens.
MB asks:
Up to now we've been a bit parochial, assuming that the United
States was the standard or our anchor point, and everywhere else was
different. If we were in other countries in Europe or what we call
the "Third World", what would they say about these differences
regarding the US. What might frighten managers of non-US countries
looking to expand into the US?
Mark S. adds (886):
From what I've read the culture of work is different, particularly
in Europe more so than here in that. They pretty much work regular
days and they get longer vacations whereas in the United State you
basically work through nights and live on pizza, coffee, and
soda...
- Global Integration:
Thinking in Porter's terms of configuration and coordination,
companies will try to configure and coordinate their operations in a
way that is most efficient cost-wise and quality-wise. For example,
they may centralize large-scale production of products to achieve
economies of scale.
- Local Differentiation:
As different local markets will have different requirements,
companies also have to tailor their products and services to these
different markets. So they will have to "differentiate" their
operations in each different market to be competitive locally.
- Worldwide Innovation:
Clearly a company will want to look for improvements to its products,
services, the entire value chain, business processes, etc.,
worldwide. It should foster innovation worldwide. And for all the
innovations its employees develop, the company then needs to diffuse
these back to all its worldwide operations.
There are three basic organizational structures, each of which balances the three goals we just discussed differently. These are a multinational organization, a global organization, and a transnational organization.
-Multinational Organization:
Multinational companies take a decentralized approach, building
separate strong operations in host countries that respond primarily
to local needs.
- Global Organization:
Global organizations treat the entire world as a single global
market, and focuses on achieving economies of scale.
- Transnational Organization:
Transnational organizations aim to maximize worldwide innovation, and
perhaps come closest to what some people call "virtual"
organizations. They strive to develop into a flexible network in
which each unit provides a core competence, i.e., is formed so that
it can contribute what it knows how to do best to the organization as
a whole. They will often form alliances with other organizations to
achieve synergy among their worldwide functions.
MB asks regarding competitive advantage:
Can a global view of IS create a competitive advantage for a
company?
MB asks regarding global business processes:
As an organization, how would you think of innovating or
reengineering your business processes on a global scale? What is the
role for the IS department in innovating your business processes
globally?
(Sirrka, in her answer concerning the customer as a business driver, refers to the Global Business Drivers handout, which we skipped over earlier.)
MB asks, following up on competitive advantage:
How will the globalization strategy affect the job of the IS
manager or CIO of the company going global?
Mark S. wonders regarding budgeting for the "soft issues"
(1840):
When you do some international business, is
[socialization] often considered both time and dollar wise in
the project plan, i.e., the need to sort of smooze a bit ... In
American culture [we tend to] to jump right into the bottom
line of business but it is important that in a lot of other cultures
to establish a relationship first. Is the establishment of that
relationship taken into account in the project plan?
Mark P. asks: (1890)
How much effect does or will the Europe Union have sort of iron
out some of these wrinkles?
MB asks, regarding system flexibility and
customization:
Is it possible to develop an information system flexible enough so
it can customized for different cultures, or is it necessary to build
separate systems for different parts of the world? Can we really just
build one system that can then be customized?
This page: http://www.cis.njit.edu/~bieber/CIS677/lecture-notes/lecture12.html