An organization’s culture influences its people’s behavior when carrying out their work tasks. This management philosophy applies to the company’s ability to drive and optimize value from business information systems implementation. To maximize the return on investment in business information systems, employees from different departments or lines of business must be able to work, support, and collaborate with each other effectively and efficiently.
For this Assignment, you will continue to examine a case study that demonstrates how an organization’s culture can affect the implementation of information technology as well as its ongoing management. This case provides an opportunity to analyze factors that influence the success and failure of information technology implementation in a real-world context. You submitted Part 1 in Week 7, and you will submit Part 2 this week. As you continue to develop your report, be sure to include specific examples where applicable, as well as relevant citations from the Learning Resources, the Walden Library, and/or other appropriate academic sources.
BY DAY 7
Submit Part 2 of your case analysis report by presenting and supporting your 3- to 4-page rationale for the following:
Part 2: Information Technology and an Organization’s Culture
- Based on UVN Consulting’s findings, analyze what you believe to be the problem. Think about the issues in the context of organizational culture, process, and communications.
- Evaluate how the current organizational culture impacts the success of information technology implementation.
- Summarize what needs to be changed going forward at the organizational level to avoid similar issues.
To prepare for this Assignment:
- Read and review the case study: Organizational Culture’s Role in Information System Success (PDF)Download Organizational Culture’s Role in Information System Success (PDF)
- Review, as needed, the following resource: How to Analyze a Business Case Study (PDF)Download How to Analyze a Business Case Study (PDF)
- Return to the same report template you utilized in Week 7. With the research and readings from Week 7 and Week 8 in mind, incorporate any feedback as needed into your presentation as you complete Part 2.
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Case Study: Organizational Culture’s Role in Information System
Success
The Company Orange is a b2b cellular phone service company that serves carrier, retail, and enterprise customers that offer cellular network services or equipment to retail customers. Orange operates in 60 countries and has an annual revenue of $10B. The Problem Orange experienced frequent system outages that affected their ability to fulfill the service-level agreements they had in place with their customers. These outages had the potential to damage the company’s reputation and lose their enterprise customers. Large cellular carriers in the United States, Europe, and Australia had already expressed dissatisfaction with Orange’s CEO and threatened to terminate their contracts, which would have a potential multibillion-dollar impact on Orange’s bottom line. The Investigation Orange’s CEO asked his CIO to investigate and resolve the problem urgently. The CIO turned to the VP of Infrastructure for answers since the VP of Infrastructure managed all information systems and was responsible for fulfilling the service-level agreements in place with their customers. The VP of Infrastructure responded to the CIO, indicating that his infrastructure group had investigated and tested all infrastructures, including networks, servers, and all networking peripherals. They did not find any problems. The VP of Infrastructure suggested to the CIO that the problem was not from the infrastructure. The problem was caused by the complex, multitiered application implemented and maintained by the application group. The CIO turned to the VP of Application for answers. The VP of Application presented their application test results, which showed high availability and performance of the application. The VP of Application insisted that the problem was with the infrastructure since they had tested the application thoroughly before deploying it to the production environment’s infrastructure. The CIO was getting frustrated and coordinated a meeting with the VP of Infrastructure and the VP of Application to discuss the issue. Nothing was accomplished at the meeting since both the VP of Infrastructure and the VP of Application insisted that their group did not cause the problem and justified it with their test and performance measurement reports. The CIO decided to hire a consulting company to help investigate the issue. They hired UVN Consulting for this investigation. The UVN consultant interviewed the CIO, the VP of Infrastructure, the VP of Application, and a few key staff members from each group. They also reviewed all testing, performance measurement, and outage reports for the
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prior 4-month period. The UVN consultant also interviewed the sales and marketing departments. The Consultant’s Findings The UVN consultant presented their findings to the CIO, indicating the following:
– The multitiered application, which is a mission-critical application, was implemented and tested by the application group in their test environment before deploying to the production infrastructure managed by the infrastructure group. The test and performance report from these tests show no issues.
– The infrastructure group’s continuous network monitoring report shows system outages occur whenever there is network load fluctuation. The consultants observed an unusually high volume of network traffic right before each system outage.
– The UVN consultant suspected the marketing department’s marketing campaigns caused the unusually high volume of network traffic. The infrastructure group was not aware of the marketing campaigns.
– The UVN consultant suspected the system outage could affect the performance of the application and/or the infrastructure.
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Appendix
A Humble Beginning The company found its root in a small cell phone retail store in Chicago. The founder acquired the small cell phone retail store from its original owner without payment. After taking over ownership of the store, the founder not only improved the cell phone retail store’s revenue, but he also transformed it into a $10B b2b cellular phone service company. Company Culture While Orange was transformed from a small retail store to a $10B b2b service company, its owner-centric and retail store management culture has never wholly transformed into an enterprise-oriented organizational culture. Each salesperson operates in a silo in a retail store. The focus is on individual sales performance, and the culture is driven by sales commissions. This retail, individual- salesperson culture significantly influences how the different departments operate at Orange. The company has been valued at $10B for 4 years, and it seems like it has a problem growing from here.
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How to Analyze a Business Case Study
Table of Contents
• What Is a Business Case Study?
• Why Use Case Studies in Business Courses?
• The Three Common Types of Business Cases
• Analyzing a Business Case Study
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What Is a Business Case Study?
• Business case studies present complex business issues. They are designed to turn real-world situations into teachable moments.
• The business situation in each case study is presented from multiple perspectives and highlights the interdependencies and non-linear nature of the information.
• Characteristics of a case study include:
• Identifying a significant issue, question, or dilemma
• Presenting comprehensive information to draw a conclusion
• Providing no objective conclusion, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusion(s)—just like in real life
• Presenting facts in a non-linear fashion, unlike a textbook that presents information in a logical or progressive method
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Why Use Case Studies in Business Courses?
• A business case study provides you with a controlled (safe) environment to discuss, practice, and apply the business skills presented to you throughout your course work.
• You can draw multiple conclusions from a case study, which simulates a real-life setting and allows you to present multiple solutions.
• There is typically no “right” decision, answer, or solution.
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The Three Common Types of Business Case Studies
• Decision Scenario Case
• In this type of case study, a critical decision is required, typically from the main character of the case study. After analyzing the case study, you would recommend what decision to make and explain why.
• Problem-Diagnosis Case
• In this type of case study, you would perform a comprehensive diagnosis that identifies the root cause of the problem described in the case and recommend corrective action.
• Evaluation Scenario Case
• In this type of case study, you would perform an in-depth evaluation to determine the pros and cons or strengths and weaknesses of the subject of the case study and then make appropriate recommendations.
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Analyzing a Business Case Study
• A case study analysis is not merely a summary of the case. Instead, it is a systematic analysis of the evidence within the case in order to identify the dilemma and then develop recommendations to answer, mitigate, or resolve it.
• When asked to analyze a case study within your course work, you will typically be provided with assignment instructions and a list of questions and/or prompts to help guide your analysis. You should begin your case study analysis by carefully reviewing these requirements, along with accompanying rubrics or other guidelines, to understand the objective(s) of your analysis.
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Analyzing a Business Case Study
• Important Disclaimer: The following slides provide some tips or guidelines for basic case study analysis. The purpose of each step described is to ensure you are equipped to analyze the information in the case in a way that will support your work on any academic case study assignments you encounter. The following guidance is not meant to replace or take precedence over any specific assignment instructions. You should always ensure that you adhere to the requirements for any assignments and use the information in this document for additional support.
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Analyzing a Business Case Study
• Case study analysis can be broken down into the following five basic steps:
Step 1: Find and highlight the most important facts surrounding the case.
Step 2: Find the cause and effect of the dilemma.
Step 3: Consider the course(s) of action.
Step 4: Evaluate the alternative action(s) to answer, mitigate, or resolve the dilemma.
Step 5: Recommend the suggested course of action based on the evaluations (i.e., your best solution).
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Analyzing a Business Case Study: Step 1
Find and highlight the most important facts surrounding the case.
• Read through the case several times to become familiar with the information it contains, paying attention to the information in any exhibits, tables, or figures. You may find that the case study provides a great amount of detailed information. As in real life, some of the information is more relevant than others in identifying the dilemma. Your job in this step is to determine what is relevant and what is not.
• As you read through the case, you may want to underline, highlight, and/or list the most important facts and/or figures that will help you understand and define the dilemma. You can assume all of the presented facts and figures in the case are true; however, some of the statements, judgments, and/or decisions made by individual characters may be questioned. (Remember, these are opinions and observations of individuals—just like in real life, they can be biased.) Note: It is good to compare and contrast individuals’ statements to help you determine facts.
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Analyzing a Business Case Study: Step 2
Find the cause and effect of the dilemma.
• This is the main analysis step of the process. (Note: You will be applying many of your learned business knowledge and skills to help you to determine cause and effect of the identified dilemma.)
• In this step, you can use the facts you highlighted in the previous step to identify the key issue(s) of the case. As case studies may present multiple issues associated with the main dilemma, you will want to be able to identify the most relevant, always referring to the assignment instruction prompts and the business topic(s) being studied for guidance.
• Next, you should be able to understand how and why the dilemma occurred and how it affects the organization in the study. You may want to jot down some facts from the case to help you substantiate your position as part of your assignment. (Items to consider: Is this the result of management or leadership issues, technology issues, systems or process issues, market or external issues, etc.?)
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Analyzing a Business Case Study: Step 3
Consider the course(s) of action.
• You may want to create a list of the actions that can be taken to answer, mitigate, or resolve the issue(s) that led to the identified dilemma. These actions should be validated, not only by the evidence within the case study but also through credible sources beyond the case study. Remember to consult your assignment instruction prompts and the business topic/skill being presented for guidance.
• Some questions to determine the course(s) of action might be:
• Are new technologies, business processes, organizational structures, or management behavior required?
• What changes to organizational processes would be required by each alternative?
• What management policy would be required to implement each alternative?
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Analyzing a Business Case Study: Step 4
Evaluate the alternative action(s) to answer, mitigate, or resolve the dilemma.
• Evaluate each of the identified actions you listed in Step 3. Ask yourself: What would be the likely outcome if this corrective action were implemented?
• Identify the challenges/risks and benefits of each of the actions. Consider whether each action is feasible from a technical, operational, and financial standpoint. Be sure to note any assumptions on which you have based your decision and validate these assumptions.
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Analyzing a Business Case Study: Step 5
Recommend the suggested course of action based on the evaluations (i.e., your best solution).
• From your evaluation of your potential corrective actions, select your choice for the best action to be implemented and make some notes as to why you made this decision.
• Your final recommendation should flow logically from the rest of your case analysis and should clearly specify what assumptions were used to guide and shape your conclusion. (Remember, there is typically, by design, no single “right” answer.)
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References
• Ellet, W. (2007). The case study handbook : How to read, discuss, and write persuasively about cases. Harvard Business School Press.
• Wienstein, A., Brotspies, H. V., & Gironda, J. T. (2020). Do your students know how to analyze a case – Really? Harvard Business Publishing-Education.
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Weeks 7–8 Assignment: How Organizational Culture Impacts IT Implementation and Ongoing Management
Report prepared by: Yaina Delgado
Date: February 25th, 2024
Walden University
WMBA 6030: Managing Business Information Systems
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Part 1: Information Technology and Business Performance
Orange, a global B2B mobile services company, had recurrent system outages that posed the risk of non-fulfillment of service level agreements and, as a result, affected the company's revenue. There were also internal investigations, but they did not identify the reason. An external consulting firm, UVN Consulting, revealed possible mismatches between marketing channels and network patterns, demonstrating the complex nature of interdependent organizational structures.
Information technology affects business performance.
Information technology (IT) plays a critical role in modern corporate operations. It includes creating, storing, manipulating, and sharing data and information using computers, networks, hardware, software, and physical components. IT is an essential part of any business plan since it is essential to workforce management, operational effectiveness, and information access (Isal et al., 2016). Businesses may optimize their processes, analyze data to gain insights, and strategically plan their course based on patterns and information discovered from the data by utilizing computers and various software tools.
Orange’s continuous system crashes that resulted in no service to clients made it harder for the company to deliver as they promised their customers and keep their reputation. The IT infrastructure is the reason behind these outages. The case also shows that network load fluctuations happen during marketing campaigns. This illustrates the direct relationship between business outcomes and IT performance. The case study shows that Organisations rely significantly on information technology (IT) for various daily tasks, such as inventory control, accounting, Point of Sale (POS) system operation, and other complex operations. Moreover, IT provides security features to protect an organization's priceless data.
Implications of frequent system outages. To the company
On average, the estimated cost of every minute a business is closed is $5,600. Depending on the size of the impacted business, these costs could increase significantly (Wang & Franke, 2020). There are situations where a mere hour or two of downtime can cost millions of dollars, and there are even more dire situations where the damage to a company's reputation can bankrupt it. These outages directly threaten Orange's ability to deliver customer SLA (service-level agreement). Thus, it can adversely affect its reputation and mean a loss of enterprise clients. As the significant cellular operators discontinue their contracts and show their unwillingness to transact, the result could be a multi-billion-dollar profit loss to the company. In addition, operational breakdowns cause business interruptions with increases in inefficiencies and might not be closed business deals. The other possible expenses the company might consider are resolving issues, rectifying mistakes, and even legal actions about the broken contracts. Overall impacts include loss of revenue, excess costs, and possible long-term damages for the company as it may lose the market and profitability in the long run. When downtime causes services or products to become unavailable, customers experience delays, disruptions, and discontent (Wang & Franke, 2020). This damages their faith in the business, which may lead to a decline in loyalty and trust.
The relationship between business and information technology strategy.
Business strategy is a company's long-term operational plan that includes its goals, vision, and mission—all of which are defined through the creation of policies. A company's information strategy is a tool for implementing its business strategy; technology is how goals are realized. Companies see the integration or cooperation of these two strategies as the best course of action and the ideal approach (Chung et al., 2012). The direct impact that information technology has on the methods that businesses use to create and hold onto value explains its importance to business success.
The case study underlines that the business and IT strategy is interrelated. While business strategy defines the long-term objectives and ideas of the company, IT strategy is utilized as a technique to enact these ideas using technology. Cooperation between the two is critical to achieving organizational excellence. Frequent system failures hampered orange's ability to fulfill service-level agreements with customers. Due to these disruptions, the company's reputation was at risk, and enterprise clients might decide to go elsewhere. Significant telecom carriers in Australia, Europe, and the US have already expressed their discontent with Orange's CEO and warned to terminate the company's contract, which could result in significant financial losses for the business. Information systems are essential to business strategy because they help organizations with cost leadership, product/service differentiation, market expansion, and building strong relationships with suppliers and customers through practical applications like supply chain management and customer response.
The cost of misalignment between information technology and business strategy.
Business-IT misalignment is the failure or lack of coordination between IT and business functions in efficiently managing information to satisfy business needs. Since business and IT strategies must be aligned to maximize business value, this disparity will probably impact business performance negatively. According to AlGhazi et al. (2018), the alignment of the business IT system directly impacts business performance. However, because aligning IT and business strategies is inherently complex and observing alignment indicators can be difficult, conceptualizing and measuring strategic misalignment is difficult. Unaligned IT and business strategies will lead to high costs, and the organization will be affected by not performing effectively.
If IT projects are not aligned with business goals, inefficiencies arise, resulting in wasted resources, missed opportunities, and reduced productivity. Moreover, misalignment can be an obstacle to innovation and a loss of a competitive advantage as there may not be enough IT systems that will be efficient enough to support strategic goals. An additional negative consequence would be inadequate coordination, leading to operations disruption, thus having a negative effect on customers’ satisfaction and loyalty. Financial consequences include direct costs related to completing IT projects, back wages, and indirect costs, including lost revenue and damaged reputation. Besides, misalignment can result in overlooking market opportunities or declining business environment responsiveness. However, the overall cost of misalignment brings the issue of a synchronized implementation of IT and business strategies to the fore as a crucial factor for success.
References
AlGhazi, A., Li, M., Cui, T., Wamba Samuel, F., & Shen, J. (2018). Misalignment between Business and IT Strategic Objectives in Saudi Arabia Public Sector Organisations. Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Internet of Things, Big Data and Security. https://doi.org/10.5220/0006692902120220
Chung, Y. C., Hsu, Y. W., Tsai, S. C., Huang, H. L., & Tsai, C. H. (2012). The correlation between business strategy, information technology, organisational culture, implementation of CRM, and business performance in a high-tech industry. South African Journal of Industrial Engineering, 23(2), 1–15. http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2224-78902012000200003
Isal, Y., Pikarti, G., Hidayanto, A., & Putra, E. (2016). Analysis of IT infrastructure flexibility impacts on IT-Business strategic alignment. Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management, 9(3), 657. https://doi.org/10.3926/jiem.1916
Wang, S. S., & Franke, U. (2020). Enterprise IT service downtime cost and risk transfer in a supply chain. Operations Management Research, 13(1-2), 94–108. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12063-020-00148-x
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