CHAPTER 5 : ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE THAT SUPPORT STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

CHAPTER 5 : ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE THAT SUPPORT STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

Organizational employees must work closely together to develop strategic initiatives that create competitive advantages.
These are the common positions found in IT positions within an organization to the strategic level.

IT Roles and Responsibilities

1. Chief Information Officer (CIO)

* oversees all uses of IT and ensures the strategic alignment of IT with business goals and objectives.
* CIO as manager – ensuring the delivery of all IT projects, on time and within budget.
* CIO as leader – ensuring the strategic vision of IT is in line with the strategic vision of the organization.
* CIO as communicator – building and maintaining strong executive relationships.
* CIO concerns the most about :
- enhancing customer satisfaction
- security
- technology evaluation
- budgeting
- staffing
- return on investment (ROI) analysis
- building new applications
- outsourcing hosting

2. Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

* responsible for ensuring the throughput, speed, accuracy, availability, and reliability of IT.

3. Chief Security Officer (CSO)

* responsible for ensuring the security of IT systems

4. Chief Privacy Officer (CPO)

* responsible for ensuring the ethical and legal use of information

5. Chief Knowledge Office (CKO)

* responsible for collecting, maintaining, and distributing the organization’s knowledge

These executive IT roles must have the skills pivotal for success such as ability to communicate effectively, strategic thinking and planning, understanding business processes and operations, negotiation/sales skills, thorough knowledge of technology options and technical proficiency.

The Gap Between Business Personnel and IT Personnel

Business personnel - experts in functional areas such as marketing, accounting and sales.
IT personnel - experts in technology.

The gap arises from these difference in expertise should be overcome by :
*Business personnel must seek to increase their understanding of IT
*IT personnel must seek to increase their understanding of the business
*It is the responsibility of the CIO to ensure effective communication between business personnel and IT personnel

Ethics and Security

Ethics and security are two fundamental building blocks that organizations must base their businesses upon.

Ethics - the principles and standards that guide our behavior toward other people.
Privacy – the right to be left alone when you want to be, to have control over your own personal possessions, and not to be observed without your consent.

There are also several issues affected by technology advances :

Intellectual property - Intangible creative work that is embodied in physical form
Copyright - The legal protection afforded an expression of an idea, such as a song, video game, and some types of proprietary documents
Fair use doctrine - In certain situations, it is legal to use copyrighted material
Pirated software - The unauthorized use, duplication, distribution, or sale of copyrighted software
Counterfeit software - Software that is manufactured to look like the real thing and sold as such.

Every organization has intellectual capitals and they must be protected. E-business automatically creates tremendous information security risks for organizations.

Information security – the protection of information from accidental or intentional misuse by persons inside or outside an organization.