Business

Case 1: Delivering business value with IT at Hefty hardware

1. Summary of case

As far as I concern, the relationship between IT and business at Hefty hardware is weak. Between conversations of top management, there are lots of trouble come out from IT and its influence to company business. For example, Cheryl, VP of retail marketing, she groused that: “IT is a pain in the neck”. Same with that thought is COO- Glen, he claims that IT people don’t even know some basic business function. While Michelle-CFO, the only one people in that conversation thinks that IT staffs do make a lot of effort to help company business has reliability and cost-effectiveness for company’s hardware and system. Of course, everyone can see that IT brings out good, cheap, reliable computer operation and value through the business process, also it keeps system functioned and prevents viruses and things. However the rest of company doesn’t feel that IT is contributing to creating new business value for Hefty. The other side, IT staffs feel hard to get convinced business staff about its project. People pay less attention and will not fund the project since they could not see as what IT staffs see. Conclusion, there are a lots brilliant tech guys, but they can’t ever seem to connect what they know to what business thinks it needs. On the other hand, the business can’t see how their bits and bytes they are talking about translate into something that it can use to make money.

2. Questions for thought

Question 1: overall how effective is the partnership between IT and the business at Hefty hardware. Identify the shortcomings of both IT and the business.

From what I believe, there are 2 major issues that business and IT department at Hefty Hardware need to resolve.

* The staff in the IT department seems to have a lack of knowledge on how the organization operates in business . The general consensus in the organization is that the IT does not contribute directly to the business...