Business Paper

ITM

July

IT Strategy Case Week 2

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.

The partnership between IT and business at Hefty Hardware is poor. The first statement Cheryl O’Shea the VP says is “IT is a pain in the neck”. The COO Glen Vogel agrees, “You’ve got that right”. They both view the IT department as being painful to deal with. The competence building block has a little traction. Michelle Wright, the CFO does point out the IT team was able to successfully launce the new EFP system and her EA gives the help desk praise. There is little understanding of what IT actually does and this is common across all business. Typically executive management and business and sales teams don’t understand the technical jargon IT personal speak. Often times it is just a matter of trust. Even if senior managements don’t understand the technical side of what IT does, if trust is there, that goes a long ways. Overall there is obviously a shortcoming of how senior management views the IT team here. Perception that all the IT department does is keep computers up and running and clean spam folders, and when it comes to projects, IT throws roadblocks out to make the scope impossible to achieve is also an issue. With this both Cheryl and Glen even ponder if outsourcing the IT project is the way to go to get the project complete. Again, this goes back to not having a solid base of competence, credibility, and trust to understand the IT department’s value. Not engaging in the projects needs to be addressed for success in launching these programs. Cost of running the IT departments also comes into play. Glen asks if they are really getting value for all of the millions

Bolton - 2

that we pour into IT. The business and IT side need to work on building a relationship across both departments.

Question 2: Create a plan for how IT and the business can...