Summer 1998, Vol. 39, No. 4

 

Several articles in this issue reflect the importance of information technology as it permeates all organizations, processes, and our daily lives.

Michael Earl and Jeffrey Sampler apply their four-stage prescriptive model for transforming the IT organization to BPX, a $13 billion division of British Petroleum. They advocate an approach that balances the supply side of the IT function, that is, providing IT operations, systems development, and user support, with the demand side, identifying and prioritizing application requirements and opportunities. Earl and Sampler follow BPX's change program through various stages of disequilibrium to its final steady state.

Anthony DiRomualdo and Vijay Gurbaxani, in a study of fifty companies worldwide, examine how IT outsourcing can help a company achieve its strategic goals. They identify three strategies for companies to consider when outsourcing IT: firms typically want better performance from core IS resources, they want to develop the right mix of technical and business skills, and they want to generate new revenue and profit. The authors' lessons for managers provide helpful advice for both business and IS executives.

Inaccessible or poor quality data continue to be a problem for companies wanting to exploit IT. According to Richard Wang, Yang Lee, Leo Pipino, and Diane Strong, companies need to view information as a product, not a by-product. The disastrous consequences of inaccurate, outdated information for a bank, an eyewear supplier, a chemical company, and a retail store's database provide evidence that managers should change their focus and ask five questions: What is managed? How is information managed? Why manage it? How do you measure success? Who manages information?

Technology has made working at home a seemingly ideal situation; spend the day in your pajamas with your computer, phone, fax, beeper, and e-mail. Or drop into your temporary office space once a week where you have a "hotel room" with phone and computer. Or be fully mobile, on the road all day; your car is your office. Thomas Davenport and Keri Pearlson, in a study of 100 large firms, found that there are special challenges in managing a virtual office: the organization's culture is lost, workers fail to identify with the company, face-to-face communication is difficult, collaborative efforts suffer, managers don't know how to manage people they never see. Davenport and Pearlson suggest specific situations in which virtuality may be appropriate, while acknowledging the importance of the water cooler and the coffee machine in sharing information.

David Garvin penetrates the sometimes murky area of organizational and managerial processes by integrating tasks and activities into a single framework. By answering questions such as "Do we know how well our performance matches plans?" or "Is there a clear rationale, direction, and path of change?," managers can decide whether, when, and how to intervene in their company's processes. Garvin's perspective for examining how organizations get things done will prove invaluable to managers trying to improve their own skills and to organizations going through change and restructuring.

In a very practical look at product platforms, David Robertson and Karl Ulrich walk us through the design of an auto dashboard. Their suggestions for managing the platform-planning process make a lot of sense, as they call for top management participation and an evolutionary team-building approach. And they see good platform development ultimately affecting good product development; it's no longer possible to develop one product at a time.

Ian Stuart, Paul Deckert, David McCutcheon, and Richard Kunst recount the experiences of Allen Bradley Canada in establishing a supplier consortium. The network of suppliers became a learning opportunity for all involved, as participants shared experiences and ideas and were able to explore technological innovations. The authors point to the advantages of the leveraged learning network over other models, such as tiered supplier partnerships.

— Jane Gebhart

 

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