 |
 |
|
Kaplan et al.Management > Organisational Knowledge and Information Systems > Lectures > Independent Research > Kaplan et al.
Kaplan et al. (2005) IT InfrastructureThe days of building to order are gone and strategies of importing standardised plans are in. The concept of building individual systems for a company is good, as each is specifically designed to cope with the needs of the department or function etc. The issue with this is the “islands of knowledge” situation, where none of the IS are compatible and the firm becomes disjointed and not at all co-ordinated. The company loses control and awareness over its business facilities. One platform model is grouping capabilities (factory and product
portfolio) and business requirements (demand patterns) by application,
geography and user group. It will increase productivity by 20-30 percent. A company needs to understand the shape of current and future demand for infrastructure services, followed by segmenting those demands. A company needs to define its infrastructure in terms of its applications, sites and users. These can rarely be treated similarly to each other. Once the infrastructure group is done, the firm needs to focus on what it supplies, including at portfolio level (PDAs and laptops) and product level (knobs and dials) The authors suggest that this is a model to adapt to the existing resources and capabilities of the firm, not to be copied. They mention the roles of factory architects, who are both technology strategists and industrial engineers, as they look after the architectures, process and tools that support the product portfolio. The product manager looks at customer needs and tries to find commonalities etc. CIOs need to put in place capacity planning programs Organisational structures need to change as well, from functional specialists and focus to multidisciplinary teams that manage the performance of the infrastructure. To ensure efficient running of the infrastructure, IT leaders need to
consider:
|
|
