What strategies can an organization use to respond to threats from competitors or take advantage of opportunities? How does an organization’s mission statement help to guide them in identifying and pursuing these strategies?
I am going to start with the second part of this question and address mission statements. Mission statements are a short one or two line statement that summarizes a companies goals and values, in other words it’s reason for being. Corporations have spent countless hours and millions of dollars to come up with a catchy mission statement, while most are just an exercise in creative writing some actually come up with a catchy mission statement. Once they have come up with a mission statement, does the company actually follow it? “Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence” was the mission statement for Enron.
While companies may think these mission statements are the greatest thing since sliced bread, most of their employees are making fun of them, yes I have been on both sides. Most of their customers never read them, they are sort of like elevator music, you know it is there but you tend to block it out. In a lot of cases management doesn’t follow it.
Most mission statements can be summed up as follows, “Make the most money without pissing off our customers or screwing over our employees very much”. Therefore I say mission statements are a waste of time and money.
Now for the first part of the question, if a company supplies a quality product for a reasonable cost, with exceptional customer support while maintaining contented employees it shouldn’t have a problem.
The decision to create an information system is sometimes driven by new technology “that is, new hardware or software that makes it possible to automate a system or process” while others are driven by users’ the people who will ultimately use the information system. What are the pros and cons of each approach?
First let’s look at a technology driven system. With a this system you are going to have the newest hardware and software, it is going to be cutting edge and up to date, but cutting edge comes with a price. New technology is expensive since the R&D is still being paid for. There are quite often bugs and design flaws since they have not all been worked out. There may also have been older technology that would fit your needs at a cheaper price.
In a user driven system the hardware and software it tailored for the end user, hopefully having all the features, whistles and bells the user wants while completing the desired tasks. The main problem with this system is that you can never full satisfy all the users. What the finance department wants may not be what the maintenance department needs. You then have to balance out the system to make the most people or the most important people happy and you may have to give up features that other users want.
Recall a time when you were frustrated by the way a program or operating system was functioning. How did you solve the problem? For example, did you use a help desk, user manual, or solve the problem on your own? Could the design of the program or operating system itself cause the problem? If so, what changes would you recommend to make the solution to your problem more obvious.
I once worked for a large corporation that had a small base here in Indianapolis. Since the Indy base was the smallest in the organization the company decided that we didn’t need an on site IT department choosing instead to utilize the main base help desk and a subcontractor that showed up once a week. The company also had some of the highest computer security I have ever encountered locking out everything that could be locked out all the way down to setting the time on your clock. To make matters worse my job required me to work with some specialized software that was not installed on the standard work station. I logged so many tickets that the IT department finally gave me limited admin rights to my work station.
This problem could have been solved by treating each user as an individual instead of writing blanket rules for all users. Security is necessary and a requirement on any network, but security comes at a price, the more secure the less user friendly a system becomes.
Some users have suggested that user documentation should be developed before the system, and then used as the blueprint for system design. How would this approach change the development process and the system itself?
These users probably have their head up their butt. Sure you develop an outline or a blueprint but to develop the documentation first seems like putting the the thrust in front of the rocket. In most cases the documentation would change so much during the developmental process it would have to be rewritten anyway.
