Analyse_and_Evaluate_the_Strategic_It_Management_Effort_in_Critical_Mass

Introduction Critical Mass is an Internet services corporation which was born in 1995 and had a super client – Mercedes-Benz at the beginning of the company business started. Now, the firm has grown up and become a highly successful enterprise among all the competitors, it now has a large number of world-famous brand-name enterprise client lists such as Nike, Nokia, Samsung, Dell, etc. The company’s business strategy kept changing and innovating in the past few years, it now not only just offers simple website design but supply a vast range of digital sales market servings which focused on establishing enterprise branding through Internet (Munro & Huff, 2008, p.1). Although Critical Mass made a major of successes on its business, it still has some problems in a few aspects about how it running its business. This report is going to describe and analyse the advantages and disadvantages of Critical Mass’s business strategy using some IT strategic approaches such as IT strategic impact grid. Some recommendations based on the analysis in order to improve the firm’s business performance will be given in this report. However, there will be a few inevitable limitations caused by recommendations made for the company. Describe and analyse Critical Mass’s business strategy using IT strategy impact grid {draw:frame} {text:list-item} The IT strategy impact grid can be considered as two dimensions, four organizational possibilities: Factory, Support, Strategy and Turnaround. All the organizations can be classified into these four strategies depend on how much they rely on the functioning of existing IT and how much they rely on IT for its competitive edge through systems in the future (Davies, 2002, p271). These four strategies can be defined as: Turnaround: organizations require considerable amount of IT support, but the organization’s activities are not absolutely dependent on the uninterrupted, cost-effective functioning of IT support to achieve its short-team or ling-team objectives. Applications under development, however, are absolutely vital to the long-team health of the organization (Davies, 2002, p.272). E.g. many organizations in the retail industry have traditionally been in this camp. Factory: for smooth operation, the organization is heavily dependent on cost-effective, reliable IT. The IT development portfolio however is heavily dominated by maintenance work, and the applications under development, though important, are not fundamental to the ability of the organization to compete (Davies, 2002, p272). E.g. the manufacturing sector has implemented many systems, such as just-in-time manufacturing systems, that are heavily reliant on IT. {text:list-item} Another important issue for Critical Mass is to make innovations of its IT systems. According to Munro & Huff (2008, p.4), information technology is very significant in Critical Mass which is quite different from the other conventional firms. IT doesn’t just participate in important daily operations, it also plays a critical management and support role for delivering new products and services in Critical Mass. Moreover, the department of IT in digital marketplace is certainly involved in gathering information, solving problems, conceiving new products and taking responsibility for customer after-sale services. Therefore, the old and traditional systems are not good enough for the firm to retain its clients and extend its business. According to the strategic model which indicates how important both existing IT systems and new technology are to the company in the IT strategy impact grid: There will be an immediate loss of business and have serious consequences in both internal and external users if the existing IT systems fail for minutes (Satzinger, Jackson & Burd, 2007, p.132). Therefore, the innovations of IT systems in Critical Mass are the actions that admit of no delay. Recommendation {text:list-item} {text:list-item} Conclusion Reference Davies, P. D. (2002). Information System: An Introduction to Informatics in Organizations. New York: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN. Munro, M. C. and Huff, S. L. (2008). “Critical Mass: The IT Creativity Challenge”. Ivey Management Services. pp. 1-10. Nolan, R. and McFarlan, F. W. (2005). “Information Technology and the Board of Directors”. Harvard Business Review. October: 96-106.