“Imagination is more
important than knowledge”….Albert Einstein
Types of Strategies
Without strategic, the organization will fail
There are several market strategies that organization managers may wish to
consider when assessing their information systems strategies.
- Incremental in small steps over time
- Standardization around one vendor's product line
- Best of The Breed
Incremental in Small Steps over Time
Although this has been reported to be the safest strategy, it may in fact
be the highest risk.
The recommended steps are that the organization breaks down their overall
project into smaller separate parts, prioritize them, and then implement each
over time, gradually and in sequence. This is generally the preferred method
of donors.
The problem in information systems development is that technology is
changing at a very rapid rate. By the time that one smaller part is developed,
the other parts may no longer "fit" into the design.
When implementing the incremental strategy, too often administrators of the
individual parts fail to consider the overall system and how their part
integrates. The problems in building integrated systems are many and complex.
The Management of the whole is very different that the administration of the
parts. Administrators simply do not address many of the critical needs and
rarely project requirements into the future.
For Example is that when a small part is implemented using one type
of technology, by the time that the next part of the overall project is ready,
the technology of the first part is obsolete. This now requires that either
the first part by changed or the next step be implemented with older
technology in order to integrated with the first part.
Another Example, is when projects are implemented in smalls steps,
the staff may not be able to see the "big picture." They have little
motivation to carry out their part in the program and the smaller parts
fail.
It is InHCc's belief that this strategy may to easily lead to being
"too late" and "too little." Because of rapid changing
information technology, InHCc considers this the most risky of the
strategies.
 One large NGO had just
received a large sum of funding to build a new "training center."
When the question was ask as to what the new center would do, the project
manager replied "I don't know. We will get all the money we can now and
worried about the other [is use] later."
Standardizations around one Vendor's Product Line
Although it is impossible for one Vendor to have the requirements of a
complete system, one vendor, Microsoft is trying.
Advantages:
-
Each
part of the system is well integrated
-
Updates
will integrate [to a certain extent] with the technology of the past
-
Less
costly
-
Easy
to train users
-
Better
Support
-
Standardized
across the vendors products
-
A
greater number of applications written
-
A
larger vendor (Microsoft in this case) may be in business longer than
smaller vendors, especially when technology is changing rapidly.
Disadvantages
-
The
individual parts of the system may not be the "best"
-
The
failure of the "one vendor"
-
Locked
in to the vendor technology
Best of The Breed
The "Best of the Breed" approve is for an organization to buy in
the market the best of each of the individual parts and integrate them
together into a whole. The only technology that is available at this date is
"COBRA" with a host of supporting standards.
Advantages
-
The
functioning of the individual parts of the system are the
"best"
-
The
failure of the "one vendor" is not as important
-
Not
locked in to one vendor technology
-
Some
parts (such as the Unix operating system) may be "free"
Disadvantages
-
Each
part of the system is may not be well integrated
-
The
Whole System may not function as well as a integrated (one vendor)
system.
-
Updates
may not integrate [to a certain extent] with the technology of the past
-
More
costly to purchase separate parts; both software and hardware
-
More
difficult to train users
-
More
difficult to maintain
-
Requirement
for multiple "interfaces"
-
Support
is needed from multi-vendors
-
Smaller
vendors have a higher business failure rate
-
May
not be Standardized across all vendors products
-
No
need to support more than one system (such as the MS Office products on
a Unix system)
-
Fewer
applications written for each of the components.
A Combination of the Two
Both Microsoft and COBRA will make it easier to integrate or communicate
with each other. We say "will" because as of this date, this
integration is not supported. However, there are many other parts of both
technologies that will integrate. An example, is Oracle (in place of MS SQL)
running on the Windows 2000 operating system.
Considerations
Early investments in any technology can "institutionalized" that
technology, thereby introducing rigidities in organizations that slow the
adoption of important market strategies arising out of changing market
conditions (Luke and Shula, 1999).
A NGO had just
received funding to replace their aging mainframe and accounting system that
had been written 15 years before. Instead of using this as an opportunity to
implement a newer modern financial package and update their processes, they chose to have converted their
older system. Their reasoning, "Everyone was familiar with it." The cost to convert was substantially higher than the cost to
buy a new package; the converted system did not perform as well, because it
had been written for an older system; and old system did not provide any
modern financial and accounting analysis tools.
All of this points up the need to closely integrate the "Complete"
Information System Package with the "Complete" Organization
Objectives.
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