7.02 - IT Architectures for Organization Support
The Pathway to Synergy Achievement
Global multi-site businesses must make cost effective use of information technology, while ensuring business effectiveness and flexibility to react to future organisational changes. It is necessary for synergy achievement to combine these three elements – Cost Reduction, Learning Curve Benefits and Global Integration.
Cost Reduction
Minimised software licence costs, shared hard ware networked to fit business processes achieve high utilisation and reduced numbers of supports staff. Insist on increased percentage utilisation of PC’s.
Learning Curve Benefits
Business wide benefits come from sharing expert staff skills groups to support users, standardised use of commodity software packages, and shared standardised training courses for users.
Global Integration
Global integration can be achieved via inter business applications supporting integrated processes within agreed club rules and standards for hardware interfacing, software interfacing, networks and data transfer.
Such synergies can only be achieved by careful system design using open-systems architecture through agreed club rules and standards.
Two basic dimensions guide effectiveness and flexibility of IT use and aid the improvement of business effectiveness and competitiveness measurement.
Use IT to integrate the three basic business processes and their sub-processes: Development – Manufacturing Operations – Support Operations Network each of these and link via standard interfaces, including external EDI links.
Divide the business value-chain into standard generic elements that interface with standard support elements for information exchange. Some of the generic elements are: manufacturing assembly, component manufacture, technical centre and new product introduction process teams, inbound logistics, outbound logistics, sales and administration. This can be achieved by:-
- Standardising on commodity software application packages
- Standardising networks within business processes
- Standardising measures of performance for each element
- Group PC’s on networks within business processes
- Process centred IT not department centred
In this way generic elements of building blocks of businesses in different parts of the globe can effectively be integrated into a global business.
Client Server Architectures
Business processes use application software modules in an integrated way within a homogeneous and standardised hardware and software platform environment.
Definitions
Server: A geographically independent standardised and homogeneous computer operating environment including standardised data management and storage.
Client: Local computers focused on applications support for business processes sharing support from the servers(s) via a network and using a common man machine interface.