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The struggle of business is the struggle for advantage. The one with more advantages wins; the one with fewer advantages loses. The purpose of strategy is the building and sustaining of advantage.

“Go forth where they don’t expect it, attack where they are unprepared.”

Sun Tzu - The Art of War

Course Title: Information Technology (IT) Management

Dr. A. Albadvi

Learning Objectives: The main objectives of this course for students are:

a) To develop their knowledge about IT and IT adoption in organizations

b) To increase their understanding of strategies in utilization and management of IT applications

c) To review the lessons that can be learned from pitfalls and triumphs of Information Technology

d) To provide the most significant concepts by cases which underpin the best practices in achieving greater utilization and management of IT

Course Contents:

▪ Systems Theory and IT

General Systems Theory and concepts defining systems properties

Man, Machine, System

Communication, Information Technology and Cybernetic

Cybernetics and concepts defining systems processes

Information and communication theory

Entropy and redundancy

Semiotic theory

Pragmatics, Semantics, Syntactics and Empirics

The primacy of socio-technical systems

The future of Systems theory

▪ Business Process e-Engineering

Process-oriented organizations

▪ Case Study #1: CompuNet (1995)

The Web technology and e-Engineering

Web technology and general systems theory

The networking revolution

Web browsers as a universal client

The new communications model

The birth of Intranet

The Intranet in practice

On democracy, totalitarianism and administrative burdens

Managing the web explosion

Read:

• Thomas Thomas H. Davenport and James E. Short, "The New Industrial Engineering: Information Technology and Business Process Redesign", Sloan Management Review, Summer 1990, pages 11-27.

• S. Hamm and M. Stepanek, "From Reengineering to E-Engineering", Business Week , March 22, 1999.

Glance:

• Albrecht Enders and Tawfik Jelassi, "The Converging Business Models of Internet and Bricks-and-Mortar Retailers", European Management Journal, October 2000, pages 542- 550.

▪ Innovative e-Strategy and the Internet

The grassroots of e-strategy

Formulating an e-strategy

▪ Case Study#2: vs. BOL.de (1999)

Implementing an e-strategy

The use of innovative e-strategy in creating the 21st century organization

▪ Case Study#3: Advance Bank (1999)

Internet application flagships, 16 different categories, e.g. e-learning, smart cards,

e-government, e-health…

Web manufacturing

Virtual organizations

▪ Project presentations by students

Read:

• Michael E. Porter, "Strategy and the Internet", Harvard Business Review, March 2001, pages 63-78.

• N. Venkatramman and John C. Henderson, "Real Strategies for Virtual Organizing", Sloan Management Review, Fall 1998, pages 33-47.

• Hyper-Competition and IT Fighting

Sustainable competitive advantage (SCA)

Temporary competitive advantage (TCA)

The drivers of hyper-competition

Hyper-competitive theme

IT strategy and IT fighting

IT fighting advantage

IT fighting implications

The emergence of a clicks-and-mortar business strategy

▪ Case Study#4: Ducati (2000)

Read:

• N. Venkatraman, "Five Steps to a Dot-Com Strategy: How to find Your Footing on the Web", Sloan Management Review, Spring 2000, pages 15-28.

• R. Gulati and J. Garino, "Get the Right Mix of Bricks & Clicks", Harvard Business Review, May-June 2000, pages 107-114.

Glance:

• Armstrong, A. and Hagel, J., “The Real Value of On-line Communities”, Harvard Business Review, May-June 1996, pages 134-141.

Course Materials:

1) Jonathan Liebenau and James Backhouse( 1990) Understanding Information: An Introduction, Macmillan Education Ltd., London.

2) Lars Skyttner(1996) General Systems Theory: An Introduction, Macmillan Press Ltd., London.

3) Ryan Bernard (1996) The Corporate Intranet: Create and Manage an Internal Web for your Organization, John Wiley & Sons. Inc., Canada.

4) Efraim Turban; Ephraim McLean and James Wetherbe (1999) Information Technology for Management: Making Connections for Strategic Advantage, Second Edition, John Wiley & Sons. Inc., New York.

5) Raymond Papp (2001) Strategic Information Technology: Opportunities for Competitive Advantage, Idea Group Publishing, Hershey, PA.

6) Mehdi Khosrowpour (2001) Pitfalls and Triumphs of Information Technology Management, Idea Group Publishing, Hershey, PA.

Assesment Scheme

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The assessment scheme for this course will be based on the following items :

Contribution in class discussions 10%

Case analysis and presentation: 20%

Term project/Paper 50%

Final exam 20%

Case Assignments:

Case#1:

Prepare case: Business Process Redesign at CompuNet: Standardizing Top-Quality Service through IT (1995)

Questions:

1. Is it justifiable for a company such as CompuNet to invest a lot of money and effort into the service side of its business when service accounts for only 15% of its total revenues?

2. Is it advantageous or rather adventurous for CompuNet to design Lotus Notes applications requiring an ISDN-based telecommunications infrastructure that is not yet available in Germany?

3. How will the competitive environment change over time considering CompuNet’s shift towards a multi-vendor service provider? More specifically, who are currently the main competitors and who will they be in the near future?

4. To what degree does/will the management complexity of a multi-vendor service provider require strategic partnerships? For what specific activities should CompuNet consider such partnerships and who should it consider as potential partners?

Case#2:

Prepare case: versus BOL.de (1999)

Questions:

1. Is it justifiable for a company like to continue investing so much money and effort in a business operation that not only has never made a profit but is incurring heavier losses?

2. Will Bertelsmann benefit (or be hindered) by its physical organizational structure and management processes in its attempt to strengthen its position as an electronic commerce product/service provider? Defend your arguments.

3. In your opinion, what industries/companies would constitute a threat to and/or Bertelsmann’s BOL over the next three to five years? Explain.

4. What success factors do you think are critical for online books (and mass-media) sales

and, more generally, for launching an electronic commerce business?

Case#3:

Prepare case: Advance Bank

Questions:

1. Is the innovative use of IT one of Advance Bank's core competencies? Explain.

2. What should Advance Bank do next in order to further attract new customers and build loyalty among existing ones?

3. In your opinion, who will dominate the direct banking business in the long run?

Will it be:

. the large, branch-based banks,

. the relatively new direct banks which operate only in a branch-less way,

. other financial service providers such as insurance firms and credit card

processing companies,

. new entrants from outside the financial services industry such as large retail

chains and software houses, or other players in other industries?

Case#4:

Prepare case: Ducati (2000)

Questions:

1. Do you think that Ducati's decision to exclusively sell through the Internet its MH900e motorbike model was a risky or a safe bet? Explain.

2. Since Italy is the main market for Ducati and the Internet penetration there is one of the lowest in Western Europe, is it advantageous or adventurous for Ducati to embark on a bold e-commerce strategy?

3. Following the successful online sale of the MH900e model, what do you recommend to Ducati's top management to do next? In particular, do you think they should sell other products through the Internet? If so, how soon should they do it and what specific products should they offer?

4. “Success in the new economy will go to those who can execute clicks-and-mortar strategies that bridge the physical and virtual worlds.”

Discuss the above statement and provide your views as to how companies can get the right mix of bricks and clicks in order to win the distribution channel war. You may consider one or more industries as a business context for your answer.

Description of the Term project/paper

The major requirement for the course is a group project or paper that can take one of the forms listed below. The possibilities are to write:

1. A case study on an IT (be it a success story or a failure case).

2. A consulting report on an IT for a specific company.

3. A research paper that investigates an IT issue in the field of any e- ? like: e-commerce/e-business Examples of research issues are: Business models in e-commerce, Business process e-engineering, Internet-based customer relationship management (e-CRM), e-knowledge management, managing Internet-induced organizational change, pricing strategies for web-based goods and services, value creation in m-commerce, etc.

For options (1) and (2) the project work should focus on identifying, analyzing and assessing an actual IT issue, which is either implemented (Option 1) or suggested (Option 2). The context of this project could be a private or public sector organization, in Iran or elsewhere. More specifically, the project report should cover the following items:

Organizational context

Introduction to the organization, size, structure, markets (products or services), financial results, etc.

Industry analysis

Description of competitors, suppliers, customers, new entrants, and substitute products (if any).

Company analysis

Presentation of the corporate strategy ( in terms of the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats).

IT case analysis

Detailed description of the specific IT case (in terms of its formulation process, content, and organizational implementation)

Analysis of how this case helped (or is expected to help) the organization perform more efficiently and/or compete more effectively in the market place (with reference back to the earlier industry and company analyses).

IT case assessment

Critical analysis of the studied case in terms of the development and implementation approach that were used, its benefits (achieved or expected) and pitfalls, as well as its future potential..

Presentation of your own recommendations to the company’s management with regard to further leveraging the studied case and possibly refining it.

For Option 3, you are expected to clearly define the issue that you plan to investigate (in terms of scope and boundaries), the research objectives, the research methodoloy, and the (expected) findings of the research. Your research should be pitched at a suitable MBA. level; it should also be original and contribute to the existing body of knowledge in the field.

Deliverables

1. A project proposal: The proposal should provide a brief description (approximately 2 pages) of your project .It should contain the following information : (a) a title for your project, (b) a list of your group members, (c) the project theme(s) you will be investigating, (d) the methodology you will be using (such as interviewing managers, doing a survey, conducting a library search, etc.), and (e) what you expect to learn from the project.

2. The project report: The full project report should be approximately 15-20 pages (1.5 line spacing). It should contain a comprehensive treatment of the project theme, and also an executive summary and a concluding section describing the actual learning experience resulting from the project. You should also incorporate appropriate exhibits (charts, tales or graphs) into the report as well as any references you may use. Your report will be graded on content, writing style and presentaion.

YOU are to define your own project in consultation with Dr. Albadvi, keeping in mind that your project should:

• Demonstrate your ability to analyze a-e-strategy and relate that to the topics covered in class;

• Expand your understanding of how companies develop and implement IT that leverage the Internet for business gain; and

• Expand your knowledge and not just rehash something you have learned before.

The submission deadlines for the project/paper proposal and final report will be announced in class.

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