The Journal of Strategic Information System - Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss about the Journal ofStrategic Information System. Answer: Introduction: Strategic planning for Information Technology is regarded as one of the chief components of corporate planning as well as a complex focus area for the governance of any company. Accordingly, this has now become a concern for both the academics as well as practitioners (Loeser, Erek Zarnekow, 2013). For the practitioners the primary concern is to ensure that technology effectively supports and gets support from a companys corporate strategic objectives, so that it can provide the essential capabilities for delivering business value. The advantage of achieving the strategic fitness is to ensure that technology is positioned for assisting to add value to the products as well as services that in turn helps in competitive positioning and management competence through cost controlling and accurate reporting. Similarly, in the academic context, preceding research of strategic planning of technology supports the necessity for ensuring collaboration between IT and the business strategy. This paper has discussed Apples organizational structure along with its products and services. It analyses the companys current process and gaps which the system will fix. The Information system strategy is analysed along with the strategic flexibility that the company can achieve in order to overcome the difficulties. The dissuasion concludes with the problems that the Information system projects faces and provides possible solutions. Structure, products and services of Apple Inc. The paper analyses various issues relating to the information system and discusses a brief overview of the operations of Apple Inc. in order to enable a deep understanding of the overall impact of the information system in the company as well as its relevance to various activities undertaken by Apple. The company was incorporated in 1976 primarily by Ronald Wayne, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Initially the company had lesser financial depth to compete with the big players like IBM and HP but raised the venture capital to set up new corporate. Since 1977, Apple has been launching successful products to create pathway for organisational development. By 1980, the company had several thousand employees and had 50% market share. Gradually the company started to sell computers internationally. However unlike other companies, Apple also faced management and operational hurdles due to lack of communication clarity. The board was focused to bring efficiency by implementing new investors as w ell as employees. These led to division between the new and the old employees therefore, the company changed from a functional organization to a product oriented institution. It was segmented based on the product lines like Apple II, III and Macintosh, Lisa, sales, manufacturing, human resource, administration, services and so on. The discussion on the corporate structure of Apple Inc. discloses the primary and support activities which can help in finding the communication gap. It also addresses the method of effective deployment of the management information systems that that helped in solving the issues. The organisational structure of Apple had undergone several change that was mentions beforehand. Now the company has a linear structure where all the departments work with equal responsibilities. Figure 1. The organizational structure of Apple Inc. The above structure of Apple is quite flatter as well as allied with the functional part of the various directors of the company. In case of Apple, its structure has chiefly been a traditional hierarchy, which have some significant elements from diverse sorts of organizational structures. The organizational structure of Apple is one of the most important contributing factors that marked the organizations successful innovation (Leonardi, 2015). Its organizational structure has created opportunities for growth. However, this structure has also imposed some limits on the firms development of the business. Apples success is closely linked to innovation and leadership of Steve Jobs, but such organization structure is partly responsible to guarantee the support for such kind of leadership. Presently, under Tim Cook the new leader, Apple has introduced some negligible changes in its structure to suit with the market and industry demands. The products that the company offers internationally areiPhone, Mac, MacBook Pro. iMac, Mac Pro, MacBook Air, iPod - touch, shuffle, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV. These hardware varieties are followed by a huge number of software chiefly for Mac OSX and iOS. This includes keynote, pages, iMovie, iTunes, iPhoto, Logic Pro. Operations and functionality Current process: This kind of organizational structure undoubtedly enhances power to regulate the organizational operations as well as helps in keeping the attention on core competencies among these different departments of Apple. This type of organizational structure has created numerous possibilities on the part of the lower level manager of the organization and provide them opportunities so that they can foster strength for the company (Apple.com, 2017). The next level of the company is structured in such manner so that it can have competitive advantages even in the foreign markets. The company operates in Americas, Japan and Europe and this mid-managerial level is segregated according to different geographical lands that it serves. This level helps it to be responsive by understanding numerous operational issues in these foreign markets which eventually helps in leveraging the skills internationally. The organizational structure of the company enables it to continue innovation rapidly. The creation of newer products helped and supported to grow the organizational structure. The features are: Spoke-and-wheel hierarchy Function-based grouping Product-based grouping Gaps: There are various limitations in the current process in the company. on the one hand, this hierarchical structure in Apples organization, builds a strong control over the company. According to Tarhini, Ammar and Tarhini (2015), the hierarchy empowers the top leaders for controlling everything that happens within the organization. Through this kind of hierarchy, the function-based grouping and product-based grouping, Apple approves that the CEO along with the senior vice presidents control all the administrative processes. On the other hand, Apples organizational structure has the downside of low flexibility that creates a concern associated with communication because a matrix structure has been created in the lower level. Specific issues and criteria: The functional reporting is conveyed to the corporate directors and the operational elements are reported to the local directors. In order to solve these issues, the company needs to raise the efficiency of the information systems so that it can enable as well as sustain this issue of this dual reporting. The information systems will also help in turning this problem to be an advantage of the company. Information systems strategy: According to Bonham-Carter (2014), the society is changing drastically from the industrial one to an information society. This modern society are mostly driven by new technologies as well as large organizations that are currently operating on the trans-national networks with no geographical boundaries and these ultimately requires high efficient communication systems. Hence, the management information systems are to be described as the chief differentiators that helps the company to differentiate its products from services. The management information system can be described as the system which monitors as well as retrieves information from the environment (Pourbabaei, Parsa Jalalian, 2016). It captures data from the transactions and operations of the organization. After this it filters, arranges and chooses data to present them as information to the managers as well as delivers the means for the manager so that they can generate information as they desire. According to Leonard and Higson (2014), modern management is experiencing changes that can be seen in the progressive organizations in which the management is transforming as system oriented. Through this systems, the information is being made available to the managers when they need. These are helping in organizational planning and controlling all the sectors as they are tied to the operational system of implementation basically for availability of information. According to the researchers, there are various attributes to information such as the purpose of collecting information, mode as well as format of data, its efficiency, frequency of the data reporting, cost for gathering information and its reliability (Haux et al., 2013). Each organizational context has a particular influence upon the problems that it faces as well as the solution that are provided (Denolf et al., 2015). These problems are moulded by the organizational constraints as well as the structure in which the company works. At the time when some unanticipated issues take place within the problem solving process, they are identified as contingencies (Chofreh, Goni Jofreh 2015). This however indicates that the structure of the organization, technology or its technical process along with its environment are significant elements that influence the context of decision making procedure. In the context of strategic information management, Hill, Jones and Schilling (2014), has stated that some principles are required to be recognised that when the strategic information management is designed, there is no supremacy in the information technology organizational structure therefore, it is needed to be adaptive and must provide the value proposition, harmonisation of model to current situation that the organization is facing (Haux et al., 2013). This will arrange the issues according to the new development of the organization. In recent times, there are various developments associated with the strategic information planning or SIP. Despite this fact, the chief focus has always remained on the process of the planning which is the information strategies rather than on the outcomes. According to Dobusch (2012), there are other aspects such as the element of fusion among the strategies of business and the government strategies of IT in the complete blueprint that is to be deve loped for the organization. The another development that can be found in the area of virtual organizations or virtual business that introduces a third dimension of the issues of the information management. The virtual organization can be defined as an assortment of business units where the employees as well as the work processes of the business units are interrelated intensively that finally work for provide benefit for all (Chofreh, Goni Jofreh 2015). Despite the fact that this virtual organization concept is not very prevalent but the elements of this concept are being used by numerous organizations. These elements are applied by the organizations in segments so that the companies can utilise them to build comparative and competitive benefits in the market by leveraging many currently available information technology systems (Peppard, Galliers Thorogood, 2014). These concepts provide multitudes of issues that are usually faced by the different organizations and collects, assimilates and manages plethora of data so that the managers can select required information effectively and timely. Development problems and Solutions: The organisation structure of Apple with its international presence as well as its operation in different domain in electronic industry require a proper system of data dissemination that will enable availability of proper information to right people at right time. This process therefore will help in ensuring that these managers are taking consistent business decisions that will be supported by the appropriate availability of proper information. The researchers like Arvidsson, Holmstrm and Lyytinen (2014) state that the chief objective followed by Apple is its supremacy as innovative leader in the market. This similar philosophy prevails even in the manner that the managers follow to manage its internal communication which demonstrates their leadership. According to Whittington (2014), from the business perspective, there has been growing criticism for the weak alignment of the information systems along with the business needs within the organization. A swelling part of this particula r organizations resources have been spent on the searching, recording, refining and analysing the information, the connection between the information systems and the organizational performance along with strategy have been found to be uncertain. In Apple, most managers along with the users have been facing circumstances where they do not get information on which they can operate their units. Hence, the system development is repeatedly challenged by the companys dynamic nature of business along with the methods that the business activities are being organized as well as supported by the information systems (Huang et al., 2014). However, in solving this problem, the company needs to provide required platform to undertake more developed information systems for undertaking its complex communication process. This will enable the employees access to all required information. On the other hand, this developed systems will enable the company to relate to the chief suppliers as well as developers which will help in building an unlimited value chain in information domain through creating the virtual link between production units and the suppliers (Weiss Thorogood, 2014). Limitations of strategic information systems: According to Dobusch (2012), information technology has become the most valued assets of the modern corporations, expansion of the information systems (IS) is facing many problems. Among these, the most important issues have been low productivity, increasing number of let-downs and inadequate alignment of the information technologies with growing business needs. The first and foremost problem is the low productivity that has been recognized by the term the software crisis. This issue is indicated by development backlog along with maintenance problems (Osman, El Beltagi Hardaker, 2015). Simply, the demands to build new and improved information systems have improved faster than the companys ability to advance them. According to Masoumik, Abdul-Rashid and Olugu (2015) there are Some reasons that include the soaring cost of the software development chiefly when equated to the falling cost of the hardware, the inadequate supply of employees as well as funding with moderate productivity d evelopments. Secondly, information system development efforts resulted in a considerable amount of outright failures (Venkatesh, Brown Bala, 2013). These failures have been often due to financial mismatches for example budget along with schedule overruns. This surprisingly happens often for poor production quality as well as deficient user satisfaction. The survey estimates that more than 75% of developments which are undertaken got never completed or the resultant system has never been used (Goni et al., 2012). According to Nour and Mouakket, (2013), the organizations need to define more study plans for identifying the existing obstacles to use management information system better. They must apply the essential solutions for providing better training courses as well as participation of the managers along with the employees of the organization in this period. Providing an inclusive plan is compulsory for using the information systems before using the systems. Conclusion From the above analysis it can be concluded that the strategic information systems are highly essential as they provide the companies substantive advantages in the markets if administered properly. On the other hand, if these are not planned appropriately and positioned efficiently, the organizations can face a high risk by losing out essential competitive advantages. This also can incur far reaching loss if the taken decisions are not based on the available appropriate information by the managers. Therefore, it can be stated that the strategic information systems are such a difference that can create difference with in the organization. The knowledge based information system are gaining importance in the future therefore building virtual communities for the interacting between the supplier and the employees is essential. This will also help in developing newer technologies which will help the managers for assessing future viabilities. Hence it can be stated that the strategic inform ation systems play vital role in the overall fitness of the company in its markets. References: Apple.com. (2017).Site Map - Apple.Apple.com. Retrieved 19 December 2017, from https://www.apple.com/sitemap/ Arvidsson, V., Holmstrm, J., Lyytinen, K. (2014). Information systems use as strategy practice: A multi-dimensional view of strategic information system implementation and use.The Journal of Strategic Information Systems,23(1), 45-61. Bonham-Carter, G. F. (2014).Geographic information systems for geoscientists: modelling with GIS(Vol. 13). Elsevier. Chofreh, A. G., Goni, F. A., Jofreh, M. G. (2011). 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