Consider how the Organization\'s strategy shapes it\'s decisions, outlooks and g

Question

Consider how the Organization's strategy shapes it's decisions, outlooks and generally how it runs its organization.  But more importantly how they think about information systems and technology.

Part 1: Find an organization that talks about their IT department. How are they organized? Are they there own department? Or are they spread out across each department? Is there a CIO or CTO in charge? Who do they report to? Do they explain WHY they organized their IT group this way?  You must cite your source(s).

Part 2: Apply Porter's Five Forces analysis, pick a company and assess them on their 5 forces. Complete an Assessment (weak/medium/strong) on each area (refer to example in book as a guide as a guide) - create your own chart for a company of your choice and identify criteria and then indicate the assessment (rating).

In a single, well-formed essay (i.e., follow example paper format - coverpage, double space, references cited properly), submit your thoughts on both part 1 and part 2 to explain how the organization views technology.

Explanation / Answer

Part 1:

I will share the details of Google that how IT departments are handled in Google.

Running an IT department is hard enough under any circumstances, but imagine doing it at one of the world’s preeminent technology companies. Your customers aren’t haplessly trying to set up their voicemail; they’re experts in technology and expect it to work.

In that sense, you might think Ben Fried, Google’s CIO, has one of the toughest jobs in existence. On the other hand, few CIOs can boast a company culture as supportive of technology.

Google's CIO is responsible for the technology that people who work at Google get as part of doing their job. That also includes the major line of business systems that power the back office and related functions of the company, as well as the front line support and operations elements for all of that.

So what do you do at Google that is different than most IT departments?

One initiative is an area where IT has a harder time understanding its role traditionally: workplace technology. It’s all the productivity tools and technology you use to get work done, that aren’t part of a line of business; it’s a large portfolio, but any company that has a company directory or something it thinks of as “the intranet” can relate. In a lot of workplaces, these technologies don’t get thought of in strategic terms, but those are actually most of the touchpoints people have with IT. Google see a lot of CIOs spending a lot of time — which is very important to do — on major business initiatives. But Google often see an inadequate amount of time spent where the day-to-day, most frequent touchpoints are, which is with all the other ways the people in the company are their users. One of the big changes that has come with the mass consumerization of technology is that IT needs to flip that around a little and spend more time focusing on the overall employee experience.

When the people you deliver technology to are technology experts — and it’s not just at Google where that’s the case, but any workforce that has people born within the last 30 years — it’s really important that you make sure that that daily impression, that first impression they get of IT, is a good impression.

To do this you have to have IT people who are more knowledgeable about the technology and the best ways to use it than the average employee. In the future, that kind of thinking is going to differentiate great IT departments from good IT departments.

If that’s the case, why isn’t everyone doing it that way already?

(words of the CIO)

If you’ve got a problem with your laptop, the person you bring it to should be an expert who knows more than you do. I can’t tell you how many shops I’ve been to where the first person you bring your problem to is someone who is being paid, or whose employer is being paid, on a per incident or a per ticket basis. The standard approach is to apply tough cost control. That generally means that front line, in many cases, are the lowest cost of labor, who are generally working off a well-scripted common recipe of how to provide tech support. The sad thing is, a savvy knowledge worker can tell you’re dealing with someone who’s not really an expert. We take great pride in the fact that the people we hire to be that first touchpoint, they’re our employees. And most of the time — over 90% of the time — they’ll solve your problem themselves.

The first response when you talk to people who are marinated in the old ways of doing things is ‘That’s gotta be way too expensive.’ It’s actually a lower-cost approach, because it’s faster for a more tech-savvy person to resolve the problem. Secondly, you can do more with a smaller support workforce as a result. Third, you get better people when you take this approach, because you get people who are attracted to solving hard problems. It turns out that this approach produces what I think is a virtuous cycle that brings costs down and customer satisfaction up.

how IT has changed since you came to Google?

(words of the CIO)

One of the reasons why I really wanted the Google CIO job was I’d had these very early indicators when I was an IT leader at an investment bank that the demographics among the users of technology had changed. I was starting to see the effects of having a deeply technology-savvy workforce across the company, and not just in IT. And I saw that that led to big change.

The changing demographics of the workforce are one thing that every CIO has to wrestle with. That is a workforce that is much more opinionated, much more rightly so, comes to work already knowing how to work, already having made a choice about how it wants to work. And that’s the thing that CIOs face right now.

The other tidal force that CIOs face is this aspect of economies of scale, and economies created by vertical integration that really, really large cloud companies like Google have. Google has economies of scale that I don’t believe any other organization in the world — and I’m including governments when I say that — have. And that’s a tidal force that will change the role of the CIO, because the cloud is going to become the better delivery mechanism.

There’s only so long enterprises can hold out against that. One of the things I’d learned working for a number of CIOs was that IT is most commonly viewed as the largest cost center in the enterprise. One of the reasons I wanted to come to Google was to have some small role in helping to shape the direction of a product suite for enterprises. I thought, ‘Listen, I can be on the outside and have this done to me, or I can be on the inside.’

Part 2:

Microsoft Corporation’s Five Forces Analysis (Porter’s Model)

Microsoft Corporation strategically addresses the issues highlighted in its Five Forces Analysis. Michael Porter developed the Five Forces Analysis model to understand the external factors significant to an organization’s industry environment. In the case of Microsoft, these external factors are an effect of the activities of other firms in the computer hardware and software industry. Such factors are also based on the decisions of customers and suppliers. In relation, substitutes influence Microsoft. To maintain its market position as a major competitor, Microsoft must consider the issues outlined in this Five Forces analysis of the technology business.

A Five Forces analysis (Porter’s model) of Microsoft Corporation shows that competition is the external factor with the highest intensity in the computer technology industry environment. However, a variety of issues affect Microsoft, as shown in the details of the Five Forces analysis

Microsoft’s Five Forces Analysis :

Microsoft must develop appropriate responses to overcome the impacts of external factors identified in this Five Forces analysis. The ability to strategically address these concerns influences the company’s resilience. The intensities of the five forces in Microsoft’s industry environment are as follows:

Competitive Rivalry or Competition with Microsoft Corporation (Strong Force)

Microsoft needs to effectively compete to remain successful. This aspect of the Five Forces analysis determines the effects of firms on each other and the related conditions of the industry environment. In the case of Microsoft, the following external factors and their intensities exert the strong force of competition against the company:

Moderate switching costs have a corresponding moderate influence on Microsoft’s business. For example, customers have a moderate tendency to shift to other firms’ products. While such shifting is not easy, companies upgrading their systems could opt to use computer hardware and software products from Microsoft’s competitors. On the other hand, the high aggressiveness of firms leads to a strong force that significantly affects the company’s industry environment. These technology firms are aggressive in terms of their rate of innovation and their marketing campaigns. Microsoft must also consider the strong force based on the high diversity of firms. For example, the company must innovate products that compete based on a wide variety of features showcased in other firms’ products. In this aspect of the Five Forces analysis of Microsoft, external factors support the strong force of competitive rivalry, which is a priority issue in strategic decision-making.

Bargaining Power of Microsoft’s Customers/Buyers (Moderate Force)

Microsoft needs to continue satisfying customers, who significantly determine the company’s performance. The impact of customers or consumers on the computer hardware and software industry environment is evaluated in this aspect of the Five Forces analysis. Microsoft must respond to the moderate force of the bargaining power of customers, based on the following external factors and their intensities:

The low substitute availability represents the difficulty of access to effective substitutes to Microsoft’s products. For example, customers face difficulties in finding non-computer-network solutions that are as effective and efficient as the company’s products. This external factor exerts a weak force on Microsoft and its industry environment. However, the moderate switching costs create a considerable force on Microsoft’s business. Because of this intensity of switching costs, customers have a considerable tendency to shift from the company’s products and start using other firms’ products, instead. The external factor of the high quality of information further empowers buyers in terms of adequate information that they can use to compare Microsoft’s hardware and software products to competitors. For instance, such information is easily available from online sources. Based on the external factors in this aspect of the Five Forces analysis, Microsoft Corporation must include the moderate force of the bargaining power of customers as a significant concern in its business strategies.

Bargaining Power of Microsoft’s Suppliers (Moderate Force)

Microsoft’s business depends on supply conditions. This aspect of the Five Forces analysis outlines the influence of suppliers on the computer hardware and software industry environment. The following external factors and their intensities maintain the weak force of the bargaining power of suppliers on Microsoft Corporation:

The moderate size and population of suppliers enable them to impose a significant but limited influence on Microsoft’s business. For example, some moderately sized suppliers of computer hardware components can change their pricing, which ripples to a potential adjustment in the company’s prices. The moderate overall supply also creates a significant but limited force on Microsoft. The intensity of this force could increase if the overall supply decreased. Thus, the external factors in this aspect of the Five Forces analysis of Microsoft points to the moderate force of the bargaining power of suppliers as an important strategic consideration in the computer technology industry environment.

Threat of Substitutes or Substitution (Weak Force)

Substitutes can reduce Microsoft’s market share. The effects of substitutes on firms and their industry environment are determined in this aspect of the Five Forces analysis. In Microsoft’s case, the following external factors and their intensities impose the weak force of substitution on the business:

Substitutes, such as non-online or manual-mechanical processes, tend to have lower performance compared to Microsoft’s current products. This external factor weakens the threat of substitution against the company. In relation, the global adoption of increasingly advanced technologies reduces the availability of substitutes and further weakens the threat of substitution that Microsoft experiences. While moderate switching costs help facilitate substitution, this external factor is not enough to significantly strengthen substitutes. Based on this aspect of the Five Forces analysis, the weak force of the threat of substitution is a minor issue in Microsoft Corporation’s industry environment.

Threat of New Entrants or New Entry (Moderate Force)

In this aspect of the Five Forces analysis, the focus is on the influence of new entrants on the computer hardware and software industry environment. The intensities of external factors that lead to the moderate force of the threat of new entry against Microsoft are as follows:

The high cost of developing the brand of a technology business weakens the effects of new entrants on companies like Microsoft Corporation. However, the moderate cost of developing such a business presents considerable chance for new entrants to find success in competing in the computer hardware and software market. The moderate switching costs also partly contributes to the potential success of new entrants in competing against firms like Microsoft. These external factors have a moderate contribution to the potential competitive concerns of the company. Overall, such condition corresponds to the moderate force of the threat of new entry against Microsoft. This aspect of the Five Forces analysis shows that new entry is a significant issue affecting Microsoft’s industry environment.

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