Compare and Contrast Business Issues with Information Management Systems

Article 1

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.

            Similar to Harley Davidson, Royal Caribbean Cruise is a mechanical engineering dedicated firm where, Harley Davidson deals in motor cycles, RCCL (Royal Caribbean Cruise Ltd.) is dedicated towards the cruise services. The similarity of both the firm are very high and hence, HD (Harley Davidson) can take some lessons from the IT infrastructure of the RCCL. The most prominent lesson that the IT team at the HD can learn from the RCCL is regarding development of relations and while fulfilling the needs of the customers.

            Both of the firms believed in development of relations with the supplier and the customer as well. In case of the HD, all the decisions regarding the IT even the investment decision is carried out by the office of CIO. The company believes that the Office of CIO stays in direct line of sight in action and hence, they will made better decisions regarding the IT and the investment required. However, on the contrary, Tom Murphy was an English graduate with a minor in marketing but he was able to mitigate the threat IT threat of RCCL. He was able to mitigate the threat because he had experience in marketing, investment, customer services and others. So with the discussed experiences and Sutten, a strong technical expert the firm was able to overcome the IT challenge.

            The challenge was mitigated because Murphy understood the needs of the business and customer along with the resource utilisation and together with Sutten was able to come up with appropriate decision regarding the IT challenge. However, as office of CIO is comprised of only technical experts so the It team is not capable of providing attention to different aspects and hence, they should learn from the RCCL and make necessary changes to take account of the end-users.

Article 2

Peachtree Healthcare’s patchwork IT infrastructure

            Technology in the medical industry has played a major role and Peachtree HealthCare’s Patchwork is one of the prime example of the technological adoption in medical industry. In a dire situation one of the very adequate decision taken by the firm was adoption of consolidated, computerised patient’s records. It assisted the firm in organising, the medical record which can be accessed by any of the medical officers. It also mitigated the scattered storing of the data which is one of the prominent benefit in managing the data and protecting it against any physical lose. However, the dependence on the IT infrastructure has also been criticised because of the resources that were expanded on the maintenance of the system.

            HD on the contrary, spend most of its time in non-strategic activities such as data entries. The case of HD is similar to Peachtree’s however, the latter had a planned strategy for the data maintenance in a consolidated and computerised structure. The lack of proper strategy is consuming most of the strategic time of the HD employee’s in data entry. So, the discussed IT issue is one of the primary IT issue that the firm needs to maintain so that the IT infrastructure of the firm is effective and efficient.

Article 3

Ford Motor Company

            The similarity between both the company’s is evident because of their most prominent product is auto vehicle. Furthermore, both of them are global leaders in their respective fields. One id dedicated towards car while the other is dedicated towards motor cycles. Another similarity that both of the firm shares is that both started focusing on their IT infrastructure in the 1990’s. However, while the HD dedicated its IT infrastructure towards the physical or management systems. Ford had dedicated itself towards a more web based system. The firm started investment in their IT infrastructure for saving data, sharing of large files and similar other reasons. But with changing technology Ford upgraded its system to be more web-enabled.

            It is one of the lessons that HD can learn because the system that HD have in possession is not web enabled as they are looking for web-enabled system. However, the Ford also made certain mistakes with their IT infrastructure and needs to be considered. The first and foremost was not adoption of VoIP (Voice over IP) services, especially e-mail. Ford had a wide network of intranet but they did not offered adequate attention to the e-mail, fax and other VoIP. So, HD can learn from the lesson and develop a better system taking consideration of the VoIP.

Article 4

Encyclopaedia Britannica

            The discussion over the shortlisted customers have made it evident that in terms of the IT infrastructure, the HD associates believes that developing relations are not as prominent as that of having a proper functional system. However, as part of the SMS, the strategic plan have been developed to take the process slow and efficiently. Furthermore, since, the satisfaction level of the employees over the outcome based on the suppliers are not satisfactory so the questions over the strategy has been risen.

            Britannica, on the contrary developed its IT infrastructure to be user friendly. The benefit that was attained by the firm as part of the process was that they developed a team that was interested in research related functions and editorial function. On the contrary, if the Britannica system was more functional than user friendly. In that case the scenario would have been different, the team at Britannica would have been more technology aware and friendly. However, the need for the firm was different and having a user friendly technological infrastructure assisted the firm in developing a team that they required. Hence, HD can learn from the discussed lesson and should ensure that the system that they are developing are user friendly and functional at the same instance. The firms should not cite only focus on the functionality and should also account for usability, interface and others similar aspects of the product.

Article 5

British Columbia’s Pharmanet

            The discussion over the IT infrastructure of the HD has made it evident that the firm has its business distributed in different countries at a very early stage. However, one of the weaknesses or missing requirements that was identified in the need for the system was a centralised system that would control all the units. The centralised database could be capable of storing all the data from different units and it would assist the firm in making strategic decisions. Furthermore, the benefits of centralised database will enable the firm to stay safe from any internal security attacks and similar others.

            It is a lesson that the firm can learn from the British Columbia Pharmanet. The project in discussion invested in centralised database that was not just efficient for the project but project associates as well. The project associates here refers to the customers and employees. The customers and the employee were able to share or collect information that was crucial for them and the project owners were also able to control the flow and validity of the information. Other benefits were also offered by the centralisation of the system to the project owners. The management, collection, processing and retrieval of information will be simplified. The cost incurred on the data management will also be mitigated and similar others.

            HD had its services spread throughout 67 countries in the world in 1998 which made the database of the firm extensive and furthermore, the need for the management of the data is also crucial. Hence, it is one of the aspects of the IT infrastructure that should be accounted and HD should change accordingly.

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