Today Information Technology (IT) has become an integral part of the
operation of many businesses. The success of the company is tied to its
effective use of information technology and its applications. Activities
are becoming standard processes with roles, responsibilities and
authorities. Workers will have access to information that allows them to
make certain decisions based on their responsibility without have to
wait for management direction. IT applications are used to automate many
operations, from finance, accounting, to tracking, measuring and
collecting data for further analysis and report.
With the application of IT, there is a high demand for new types of manager who can optimize the business process by manage and implement new technologies. With the use of cloud computing and Software as a Services, companies would no longer need lower skilled IT workers in data center to maintain and support IT systems since they will be outsourced to cloud computing service providers. However, the company will need higher technology skilled workers to automate their business processes for efficiency and productivity. These automation and standardization will require a well designed architecture to ensure company-wide fully integrated information systems. Without them, there will be chaotic if every unit or function in the company could turn on any application they wanted without any consideration on how their information is integrated with or shared across other areas of the company. That is why a new type of manager is needed to manage these information systems.
Traditional business managers are trained to manage people but the new type of managers is educated to manage technology. These managers must have both business and technical skills. The focus is on the management of critical technical resources and controls them to ensure effective governance of systems and resource utilization. These managers should have knowledge of process design and optimization, understand business processes, and have access to data to support planning and decision-making such as Business Intelligence systems.
In the traditional way of organizing a company, each part of business operates as “independent functions”. Each function can be optimized for its particular roles, to develop product or provide service. For example, a finance function will have its own finance people, its own computer system that focuses on finance. The Finance system has nothing to do with the human resource (HR) function which focuses on hiring and managing company employees. As Human resource function operates independently from other functions, they will have their own HR people and its own computer system that focuses on employee records, payrolls, and other policies. In every company, there are several independent functions and independent computer systems that do not interact with each other. Therefore it would be very difficult to get meaningful information for optimization or data collection. It is very inefficient, expensive and difficult to change.
With globalization, competition is fierce and the new rules are speed and efficiency. The application of IT would help improving the competitiveness of the company by improving speed and efficiency. This means that everything must change and be integrated. The application of comprehensive IT applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and Supply Chain Management (SCM) are being applied in many companies to gain those advantages.
However, for companies that organized by traditional independent functional structure, it would be very difficult to adapt to changing business needs. For many years these functions have evolved for a single purpose and its systems are optimized for that single purpose. In the new way of organizing a company structure, businesses are organized as “Integrated standard processes” to provide services to meet the needs of multiple functions of business. The management of processes is separated from the management of business. The design of services requires systems design expertise, the integration of services requires enterprise data management, and the efficient utilization of technology requires technical standards and skills. The agility of the company will depend on an overall design in which business services participate to produce customer value. These responsibilities do not belong to individual functional managers or line of business managers, but require a cross-company perspective. Effective governance also relies on access to information about the operation of the business, derived from the various business operation systems and integrated into consistent views.
Consequently, as manager of technology, the new information system managers are trained to support the effective use of technology to ensure that the solutions are optimized for the company as a whole, not for the particular interests of one unit of business or functional area. As they manage systems integration, they will drive the alignment of business and the supporting information systems according to a vision set by company owners. Basically they should be able to develop and enforce technical standards and policies to support integration and optimization throughout the company. They should manage all data collection to support the analysis, planning and decision-making at all levels. They should manage the company architecture-specification of business capabilities, the information systems that support them and the processes by which they contribute value to the company and its customers. They should control information protection to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of enterprise data and the systems that process and communicate it.
Today enterprise software packages such as ERP, SCM and CRM are being implemented all over the world but the failure rate is also high because many companies are still operate as “independent functional units: and not as “Integrated standard process” across the enterprise. Unless the management who are responsible to make it happens are well trained in managing information system and understand the interaction of multiple systems across the company, these systems will not be effective as they should.
As the job of manager are changing from managing people to managing technology the question is how many people are ready for this change in direction? How many schools are prepared to provide management training in this “Information technology age”?
----------------------------------------
Prof. Vu
Carnegie Mellon University
With the application of IT, there is a high demand for new types of manager who can optimize the business process by manage and implement new technologies. With the use of cloud computing and Software as a Services, companies would no longer need lower skilled IT workers in data center to maintain and support IT systems since they will be outsourced to cloud computing service providers. However, the company will need higher technology skilled workers to automate their business processes for efficiency and productivity. These automation and standardization will require a well designed architecture to ensure company-wide fully integrated information systems. Without them, there will be chaotic if every unit or function in the company could turn on any application they wanted without any consideration on how their information is integrated with or shared across other areas of the company. That is why a new type of manager is needed to manage these information systems.
Traditional business managers are trained to manage people but the new type of managers is educated to manage technology. These managers must have both business and technical skills. The focus is on the management of critical technical resources and controls them to ensure effective governance of systems and resource utilization. These managers should have knowledge of process design and optimization, understand business processes, and have access to data to support planning and decision-making such as Business Intelligence systems.
In the traditional way of organizing a company, each part of business operates as “independent functions”. Each function can be optimized for its particular roles, to develop product or provide service. For example, a finance function will have its own finance people, its own computer system that focuses on finance. The Finance system has nothing to do with the human resource (HR) function which focuses on hiring and managing company employees. As Human resource function operates independently from other functions, they will have their own HR people and its own computer system that focuses on employee records, payrolls, and other policies. In every company, there are several independent functions and independent computer systems that do not interact with each other. Therefore it would be very difficult to get meaningful information for optimization or data collection. It is very inefficient, expensive and difficult to change.
With globalization, competition is fierce and the new rules are speed and efficiency. The application of IT would help improving the competitiveness of the company by improving speed and efficiency. This means that everything must change and be integrated. The application of comprehensive IT applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and Supply Chain Management (SCM) are being applied in many companies to gain those advantages.
However, for companies that organized by traditional independent functional structure, it would be very difficult to adapt to changing business needs. For many years these functions have evolved for a single purpose and its systems are optimized for that single purpose. In the new way of organizing a company structure, businesses are organized as “Integrated standard processes” to provide services to meet the needs of multiple functions of business. The management of processes is separated from the management of business. The design of services requires systems design expertise, the integration of services requires enterprise data management, and the efficient utilization of technology requires technical standards and skills. The agility of the company will depend on an overall design in which business services participate to produce customer value. These responsibilities do not belong to individual functional managers or line of business managers, but require a cross-company perspective. Effective governance also relies on access to information about the operation of the business, derived from the various business operation systems and integrated into consistent views.
Consequently, as manager of technology, the new information system managers are trained to support the effective use of technology to ensure that the solutions are optimized for the company as a whole, not for the particular interests of one unit of business or functional area. As they manage systems integration, they will drive the alignment of business and the supporting information systems according to a vision set by company owners. Basically they should be able to develop and enforce technical standards and policies to support integration and optimization throughout the company. They should manage all data collection to support the analysis, planning and decision-making at all levels. They should manage the company architecture-specification of business capabilities, the information systems that support them and the processes by which they contribute value to the company and its customers. They should control information protection to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of enterprise data and the systems that process and communicate it.
Today enterprise software packages such as ERP, SCM and CRM are being implemented all over the world but the failure rate is also high because many companies are still operate as “independent functional units: and not as “Integrated standard process” across the enterprise. Unless the management who are responsible to make it happens are well trained in managing information system and understand the interaction of multiple systems across the company, these systems will not be effective as they should.
As the job of manager are changing from managing people to managing technology the question is how many people are ready for this change in direction? How many schools are prepared to provide management training in this “Information technology age”?
----------------------------------------
Prof. Vu
Carnegie Mellon University
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Original source: http://www.segvn.org/forum/mvnforum/viewthread_thread,1377
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