Information Management Literature Review
Abstract
The research is all about the use of information system in the organizations. There are many tools which are helpful in managing the whole organization. The business environment is getting highly competitive and many organizations are making strategies to grab the market share. A company was selected in order to understand the scenario. A conceptual frames work was developed in the mind to present the problem. The IBM organization was selected to conduct the research. Literature review presents the important theories and concepts along with the importance of the information system in organization. The introduction of the research was done by analyzing the problem which organization face because of the information. Literature suggested many systems which can improve the processes of the organizations. There are many other systems which can increase the performance infrastructure of service quality. The literature was extracted from different articles which improved the report. The report has many suggestions for the organizations. The study of this report can give solution to many problems which the company faced in the current scenario. The comparison was done in the later part of the report and the scenario and literature was matched in order to find loopholes in the system and to provide solution to incapability.
Introduction
Enterprise architecture is the process in which operation and structure of an organization is defined. The intention in the process is to achieve future and current objectives. One of the most agreed upon viewpoint is where business perspective, applications perspective, information perspective and technology perspective is part of the future objectives a company is likely to foresee. The use of enterprise architecture includes properly documented processes, systems, infrastructure and applications. This assignment briefly discusses various theories of enterprise architecture particularly at the strategic level and thus explains the theory with a practical example which further glorifies the literature review.
Literature Analysis
The evolution of the enterprise information system and management is the core responsibility of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the company. The CIO information processing and decision making is aided by the technique or process known as Enterprise Architecture. A model based planning and management approach to evaluate management wise information system is called enterprise architecture. The complexity of business supporting system and its significance has been addressed in this enterprise architectural approach. The planning and problem information system is under the responsibility of the Chief Information Officer (CIO). Thus, it can be rightly stated that enterprise architecture is the best way to aid decision making of CIO (Ekstedt et al. 2004a).
According to Eriksson and Penker (2000), the importance of a good modelling framework should be emphasized in the organization but the reason of choosing one model over the other is ambiguous. As a basic question, the model should be able to answer the questions pertaining to the reasons it is designed for. The enterprise architecture is successful in answering the question. The dilemma is to explore the probable questions the model is able to answer. In the enterprise architecture model it is possible to come across the questions of why and how of using the framework or model. In order to mitigate the risk involved, organizations can simply produce more than one model to select the most adequate one.
Analysis of the Enterprise Architectures
The decision making as followed by CIO can help in studying the architectural analysis model. The first step is to formulate scenario, the need to recognize the options available to the CIO is the foremost step in order to foresee the information system of an organization. The possible future states of the company can be conjured by performing this step. The next step is to determine the criteria to decide upon; in this step criteria allow CIO to set a benchmark to evaluate different models. One of the important questions needed in setting the criteria are to find out business support, IT security and availability. In this paper, architectural theory or criteria is used to evaluate the model. After setting the criteria the next step is to analyze scenario, in which case one of the criteria is selected to evaluate both models and then so on and so forth. Ekstedt et al. (2004a) explain that next, the firm undertakes the selection of the scenario where process selection of the model takes place on the basis of the chosen criteria and the support offer to the decision making of CIO.
Ekstedt et al. (2004a) further elaborates stating that the birth of the enterprise architecture took place twenty years ago and designed to address two problems poor business alignment and system complexity. In poor business alignment the problem of IT system to align it with the cost is addressed. Kandjani, H. and Bernus, P. (2011) add that in system complexity entails the need to develop IT systems. The basic idea is to serve the organization with less cost involved but providing more value and utility. However, according to the theory of Ekstedt et al. (2004a), the complexity and cost of these IT systems implemented in the organization have dramatically emphasized by now globally whereas the real value derived from the systems have decreased. Kandjani, H. and Bernus, P. (2011) stresses that the giant organizations fail to ignore such problems therefore the field of enterprise architecture is powerfully prophetic in the world today. Some methodologies of enterprise architecture are widely used in the world today however the large field makes use of mainly four methodologies.
According to Kandjani and Bernus (2011), the taxonomy is given another name to the work of Zachman and is termed as the first methodology of the Enterprise architecture (EA). Another methodology known as the Open Group Architectural Framework (TOGAF) is more precisely or accurately defined as the process. The Federal Enterprise Architecture is defined as a method of creating enterprise architecture and thus also known as proscriptive methodology. The practice of architectural enterprise is known as the Gartner methodology.
As articulated by Zachman (1982), the Zackman framework for enterprise is recognized as a framework which is contrary to the definition of the framework. The framework is defined as something that serves as a skeleton structure for construction. The second name given to the approach of Zachman is taxonomy and by definition it is a classification in ordered systems of organisms to give a natural relationship. The Zachman framework is in simple ways taxonomy and organizing of architectural artifacts for instance models, documents and specifications. According to Zachman (1982), the enterprise manufacturing and engineering is around for more than thousand years and will remain for longer. However Kandjani and Bernus (2011) stress that the understanding of the process is changed with respect to time. The Zackman is the most frequently used technique in large firms due to ease of application and best responses. It is also desirable to cater for necessary complexities of the system design while Enterprise Architecture.
Kandjani and Bernus (2011) also support the Open Group Architecture Framework (OGAF) which is which primarily used within four categories namely business architecture, application architecture, data architecture and technical architecture. The business process to meet the desired goals is described in the business architecture. The designing of the application and their probable interaction is studied under application architecture. The access and organizing of the data store is termed under data architecture. Finally technical structure talks about the hardware and software to cater for application and access (Ekstedt et al., 2004).
Kandjani and Bernus (2011) also explain the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) which is done to amalgamate ubiquitous and functions under enterprise architecture. But Msdn (2007) contends stating that this new methodology apparently is in the infancy stage so no noticeable work can be seen in the organization and there is not much talk about its failure. The last methodology employed in the Enterprise architecture (EA) is Gartner. It is the practice rather than a process of an IT and research consulting organization Gartner.
Literature Analysis Summary
The Enterprise Architecture is more of a theory than any thing practical. Above some methodologies are stated that shows different approaches to the EA and can be studied when considering different perspective. It can also vary with respect to the difference in opinion or difference in practice. These four approaches may be used by Giant Corporations to address different engineering, business and manufacturing issues. The large corporations are entitled to use complex systems which necessitate such EA methodologies.
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Current practice section
The implementation of the architectural enterprise is not resulted from designing the software or relating it with different business units. The organization itself along with processes affected must be changed sometimes in order to show flexibility and competency in the business functions. IBM has used EA model in the multi-brand enterprise and multi divisional enterprise. The purpose of this model is to enhance the debate and sharing among the top executives within organization. It is also designed to reach at a common goal by ignoring most of the differences and reaching to the potential outcome. The global system practices are avoided by the corporations if the intended outcome is local profit and loss only. In multi-local enterprises where P&L are regarded as the parameters to measure performance and that other performance measure are nonexistent. In this way two avenues left open for such kind of EA. The first that change in the incentive system is needed to address the issue. In this way enterprise sharing of resource or enterprise integration can be enhanced which was much needed at IBM.
The EA system as employed in the IBM is based on four consentient i.e. shared identity and purpose, common bonds of performance, shared knowledge and shared infrastructure. These elements when used together can help in integrating the organization with its functions (Gravesen, 2012).
Source: Adapted from Ghoshal S. and Gratton L. “Integrating the Enterprise.” MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2002, and Weill P., Subramani M., and Broadbent M. “IT Infrastructure for Strategic Agility.” MIT Center for Information Systems Research Working Paper No. 329, April 2002
The CIO organization or IBM business transmission integrates all the business units across geographies and transform strategic business priorities into initiatives of transformation. The company is entitled for maintaining IT Landscape as per the strategic roadmap provided.
According to Gravesen (2012), any organization does require strategic planning. It provides them the leverage to enhance their capabilities and gives them a direction. There are many aspects of planning which collectively make a strategic plan. Strategic planning helps keep focus on the area that is most responsible for boosting the profit levels and overall performance of organization. Since it leads organization to be focused it automatically makes organization polish its skills that are more required in running the business in an efficient and effective way. Innovation and new offerings are always very important for any company to increase its sales. Variety in new products is the obvious way but the manager must work on the execution of the issuance of new product because most of the times poorly executed new offering perform poorly and they end up in big losses.
The basic need to implement EA in the organization focused on the provision of the information and successful strategies in order to feed in the data before hand. This information should be sufficient enough for both stakeholders i.e. team designing the software as well the top managers making use of the information stored. In order to address loop holes in the system, a best-practice approach must be used in the system. The imposed system should be open to any kind of re purposing and time should be saved by doing re purposing instead of re-inventing. Secondly, it is desirable that system provides future state of the IT landscape along with existing risk and cost analysis.
One way of getting growth is to take full advantage of learning curve and utilizing economies of scale. Learning curve makes you more efficient in your production process. It tells you how to fully utilize your resources. Economies of scales help in reduction of average cost because of factors like managerial specialization and buying power. Strategic implementation is an ongoing process of an organization’s plans which they made in order to survive and to earn profit for a longer period of time. It consists of series of action plans which are integrated to each other. Strategic implementation of the plans which were proposed for the extension and growth are very vital. The long term strategy can help them create a loyal customer and to get more profitable branches which can earn profit for at least five years. The implementation of EA is found successful in the organization and supports the business functions across geographies. The Enterprise architecture used in the IBM is supported by Zachman methodology. His model is based on the integration of the organization which is clearly addressed in this section (Ibm, 2013).
Comparison of Literature and current practice
Literature has enlightened many aspects of the information which can help any organization to prosper. The problem which they are facing is that they do not use any information system which integrates the employees. They are lacking in the internal information. According to literature there are many tools which will help the organization to increase their productivity. Software like management information system, decision support system and others can help to improve the information flow within the organization. The current situation is that they are losing customers because of the service delivery time. Information system will align all the departments and will provide the information about the customer which will increase the overall flow of information.
Literature suggests that internal and external flow of information is very important for all the organization. Stakeholders must be contacted in decision making process. Decision support system integrates all the stakeholders and provides the best possible solution to any business scenario. Internal information with the organization must be improved and transaction processing system will be helpful to record all the business transactions. It was found in literature that information and feedback from employees and customer is very important and many organizations lose their customers because of this issue.
