Hefty Hardware

Delivering Business Value with IT at Hefty Hardware

Teaching Note

Synopsis

This case highlights a retail firm struggling to make sense of the increasing criticality of information technology (IT) to the business and the value IT is currently delivering. Torn between “keeping the lights on” and “delivering new products and services to customers”, successive CIOs have failed to connect effectively with their business partners despite seemingly effective relationships at the mid-management level. How to collaborate effectively with the business at all levels remains the key IT challenge.

Key Issues

• There is increasing pressure on business to be more flexible and to deliver products and services to customers quickly. IT practices often inhibit these business goals.

• IT is expected to deliver both cheap, reliable operations AND create new business value. These goals can get confused by both business and IT leaders and leadership can mix these up when evaluating IT or when doing IT planning and budgeting.

• IT is a key player in delivering most business strategies these days. Too often, IT leaders see “getting to know the business” as secondary to almost every other IT issue, such as planning and architecture. Spending time in the business is seen as a “boondoggle.”

• “Technospeak” is confusing and frustrating for business. This can work against IT plans and strategies because business leaders don’t understand how these plans/strategies relate to their own needs, issues, and strategies.

• Business expects IT communication to be in business language.

Teaching Approach

As a start, pre-board the organization chart depicted in Appendix A. This helps to keep the various reporting and relationship roles straight.

Setting the Scene

This case takes a “horizontal” slice through a number of coexistent issues. As a result, the challenge is “knowing where to start” – just as it is in real organizations – and...