RR Communications Case Study

Synopsis

The case study for this week concerns the building of shared services at RR communications in which there are several issues that call for the building of the same.  The company is disintegrated as each of the lines of division is working independently with their IT systems. Also, there is a separate information management and with the lack of information management strategies in the firm. The mandated decentralization that is prevalent in the company makes the company not to be effective in the way it offers its services to the clients. It also means that several IT managers are in requirement and software products, especially the security software packages have to be installed on several machines due to the lack of centralization, and that is very uneconomical due to the software licensing requirements. Building shared services is of paramount importance if the company is to realize its vision and mission.

Discussion Questions

List the advantages of a single customer service center for RR Communications. There are six of them.

·         For easy management of the information technology and the entire firm to be ensured, a single customer service is a must

·         A single customer service center also helps to consolidate the data belonging to the clients in one central place thereby helping the data mining activities aimed at generating new opportunities.

·         A single customer service center can help the company to meet the objective of having a consistent brand that aligns with its vision.

·         Having a single customer service center in the company can also help it to eliminate the need for many auditors for each customer service center thereby reducing the expenses.

·         With a single customer service center, the company will ensure that the coordination of the auditing tasks is accomplished well as the number of centers on which the auditing should be conducted has been reduced.

·         With a single customer service center, the IT and the business will be able to work closely thereby achieving the company vision and objectives.

Devise an implementation strategy that would guarantee the support of the divisional presidents for the shared customer service center.

The support from all the divisional heads in the company cannot take place without a clear understanding of the benefits that will accrue from the same (Smith & McKeen, 2009). The executives need to see something tangible for them to believe and to offer their support for the implementation of a given system within the organization. That will take place via a series of brainstorming sessions that will also be intended to collect the views of the heads of departments. After these heads have a comprehensive knowledge of the benefits of the consolidation, they will then be required to give their visions and departmental objectives so that they have integration into the overall plan for implementation.  All the divisional presidents will also form part of the steering team that will be monitoring the implementation and the completed system to make sure that it offers the benefits that were promised.

Is it possible to achieve an enterprise vision with a decentralized IT function?

An enterprise system is required to make sure that there is a smooth integration of the departmental as well as the corporate information including the accounting and finance information. According to Bowersox and Daughty (1995), centralization of the IT system helps to make sure that the information within an enterprise runs in a smooth and seamless manner and that it is relevant to all divisions especially the financial and accounting lines of business. Having a decentralized IT system means that there are visions that are differentiated and the departments do not work towards the achievement of the corporate vision. Bloomfield and Coombs (1992) state that, ‘that a decentralized IT system makes an organization to incur many unnecessary expenses and; that cannot support the achievement of the enterprise system.’

What business and IT problems can be caused by lack of common information and an enterprise IM strategy?

Many issues can impact a company when the different departments do not share crucial information and processes.  The company will be unable to offer desired and appealing services to the customers because for instance; there will be separate bills for related divisions.  Such issues can drive the clients away instead of retaining them, and that consequently reduces the revenue inflow for the company. The issues can also cause a bad reputation among the firm’s customers and it will lose the clients to its business rivals apart from negatively impacting its revenues.  In today’s competitive marketplace, protecting an enterprise’s reputation amongst its clients is key to the growth of the enterprise (Combs et al., 2006). Additionally, the projects that can have a corporate-wide impact will be relegated to the people with less experience as the communication paths as well as the information is not being shared. The other issue that is rampant with the lack of a common information and IM strategy is the existence of redundant data.

What governance mechanisms need to be put in place to ensure common customer data and a shared customer service center? What metrics might be useful?

The government mechanisms to be put in place in the organization to ensure that there is common and shared customer service center should relate to the IT and business. The mechanisms should align the IT and the business divisions, ensure there is transparency in sharing of useful information for business purposes; and ensure that the IT department and the business section have a joint responsibility of the single customer service center. The implementation of this governance should be under the monitoring and direction of the steering committee that was developed earlier. The objective of monitoring and support is to ensure that there continuous improvement and the provision of excellent customer services (Croteau & Bergeron, 2001).  The metrics used to need to be concerned with making departmental data fit the requirements of an enterprise system.

Conclusion

All the problems that RR Communications is facings can be attributed to two major issues namely lack IT centralization and the existence of separate customer service centers. That has hindered the development and the competence that the company would have in the marketplace. The paper has highlighted the key issues being faced by the firm and a strategy on how to delineate on these issues so as to make the company successful in its industry. The firm management should know that the customers are the reason for the existence of any business and if the organization’s reputation is tainted among the clients, then it has no future.

 

References

McKeen, D. & Smith, A. (2009). IT Strategy; Issues and Practices (2nd Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Bowersox, D. J., & Daugherty, P. J. (1995). Logistics paradigms: the impact of information technology. Journal of Business logistics, 16(1), 65.

Croteau, A. & Bergeron, F. (2001). An Information Technology Trilogy: Business strategy, technological deployment and organizational performance, Journal of Strategic Information Systems 10(2): 77–99.

Bloomfield, B. P., & Coombs, R. (1992). Information technology, control and power: The centralization and decentralization debate revisited. Journal of management studies, 29(4), 459-459.

Combs, J., Liu, Y., Hall, A., & Ketchen, D. (2006). How much do high‐performance work practices matter? A meta‐analysis of their effects on organizational performance. Personnel psychology, 59(3), 501-528.

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at Melda Research in best nursing writing services if you need a similar paper you can place your order for custom nursing papers.