Chapter 11, Information Systems Planning

"I'm not a complainer, Terry," said Lee Turner, Director of Information Systems, but I really concerned that I'm out of the loop. I have been here for 10 months and think our systems are basically under control now. But I'm not always clued in on the big picture. It always seems to me that you, Dale, and Pat get together and decide what will really happen and I only get a small part of the story. I think I could contribute much more if I got in on some of the original planning discussions. At minimum it would help me make sure that our IS plans are really linked to the business plan. In addition, I think I could add some good idea since we rely so much on information systems both as part of the service we offer and as the we keep the organization organized"

Terry mentioned this conversation at the next management meeting with Dale and Pat. Of course the idea of linking the IS plan to the business plan made sense, but there were just a few problems. First, the fact was that company didn't really have a well worked out plan. Terry, Dale, and Pat had been struggling with that issue for years. It was hard to know what the competitors would do next month, no less next year, and the important improvements in customer service and product quality often came from just doing some experiments, seeing what worked in a few stores whose managers were interested in the idea, and then trying it out with more stores after it was tested.

There was also a bit of disagreement about Lee. The way Dale's programmer friend seemed to be shoved aside when Lee came on board was still a sore point. Although Terry trusted Lee and believed a great deal of progress had been made in the last 10 months, Pat wasn't as convinced, and thought Lee had tried to control things too much. For example, the decree that Lee would personally approve every computer, software, or telecommunications purchase in the company seemed excessive to Pat.

Terry also wondered whether the company really needed the type of IS staff Lee was trying to build. Lee had recently asked for four new programmers plus 3 months of training for each of them in newest technologies such as object-oriented programming. The company wasn't using these technologies yet, but Lee believed that programmers who wanted to do things the 1980s way just didn't belong in a company that intended to grow during the 1990s. Unfortunately for Lee's argument, one programmer who had just received this training recently quit to join another company that could use these new skills immediately.

Going further in thinking about the future of the IS group, Terry wondered whether outsourcing would be a more effective way to do the company's computer-related work. "After all," Terry thought, we aren't in the computer business. Why shouldn't we give that work to someone who is?" Terry was reluctant to get into this conversation with Lee. Since Lee already felt out of it, a discussion of outsourcing might raise fears of having less power, and Terry didn't want Lee to get that impression at this point.

1. Based on the Chapter and your understanding of the company, identify some of the choices Lee might make about information systems and information technology if the company were to centralize or decentralize its IS efforts as much as possible.

2. Considering the ideas in the Chapter, make a recommendation about the extent to which Lee should be integrated into the company's long range planning efforts and the general direction Lee should take for building the IS staff.

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