CA3-ITM
Alcon is a worldwide enterprise that has its head office located in Montreal. Its employee population is 68, 000 with operations spread across 61 countries. Alcon is involved in the creation and selling of a large number of products, they include bauxite, smelter-grade alumina, and wire ingot among others. The income distribution of the group is well divided; the products each bring almost similar income hence no loss is accrued from one product or otherwise inequitable distribution of income. The networking and message handling are the only sections that have not been decentralized hence working successfully.
The management of Alcon has been missing a corporate IT director for a year; this leads the enterprise to lack the driving power it needs. Additionally, the enterprise was organized in sole operations terms, in that; a person was set to be specialized in a specific area. This on one hand would create boredom and lack of efficiency (Dube, L., Bernier, C. and Roy, V., 2009A). The introduction of a coordinated business operation would enhance the efficiency as well lower the level of boredom. The creation of a new position in the enterprise was done with no clear role being put into place. In other words the enterprise lacked an important role allocation for a position which was easily created.
Another matter of concern is the decentralization of the IT system of management. In such a case, there exist several groups each operating on its own tasks, there is no set target by the groups. This would seriously affect the enterprise’s target which was similarly noted by Robert. Another concern was the approximation given to the IT investment which was too exact instead of an approximation. There were several errors in that the allocation of group operating costs in the IT costs.
The information technology placed into use by Alcon was quite complex with several information systems. The projects put into place took up a lot of the investments hence putting in a lot of pressure on the resources of the organization. The projects were similarly poorly coordinated.
The advantage of the new Alcon that is proposed by Robert was that the number of employees was reduced to smaller number which was easier work with. The organization, as it is basically an IT firm, it outsourced its services to other enterprises hence limiting its operating expenses by approximately 80%. The services in the organization which were initially ignored by the head office were now prioritized.
With the several advancements coming into place in Alcon, there was still an underestimation of the finances. This readily affected the outsourcing of several services hence the decision making process was hard. Another matter of concern was the skills available within the organization; the skills did not march to the standards required. The competitive advantage of the IT system was not identifiable or analyzed in the manner needed in the respective groups formed. In addition to the lack of a possible momentum in the IT system, there were late deliveries made as well as over budgeting.
Robert Ouellette’s focus on the enterprise’s which involved noting and formation of the management factors which was aimed at putting a new an organized face of the firm minimized the differences of the economies of scale, buying of software products and infrastructure. The measures put into place by Robert laid a basis for the shared services philosophy which was there in the old system but never fully put to practice.
The new technological system implemented would terminate the freedom that was set to groups operating in groups. The new model had well organized functions and duties of each person involved. So as to cater for the groups, Robert additionally created a committee that was set to hear their side, called the IT Leadership Committee. All centers of erroneous attributes were duly noted and avoided at all costs. The problem identified in the old technological system, that is diversity in the systems was changed with a standardized method. The structure formulated in the new system worked efficiently and had an allocated role which was relevant to the organization and not just a liability.
Yes, I agree with what has been proposed. The proposed technological system was quite perfect and was meant to sort out the mistakes put in place in the initial information system at Alcon. The organization of the structure was set to work in one unified group to achieve the organization’s goals. The proposition made would save Alcon a lot of money (Dube, L., Bernier, C. and Roy, V., 2009B). Looking at the number of employees employed, 19,000, this was quite expensive in addition to it not being organized. The proposed IT system would trim the employees a workable number as well as cheap, about 900 persons.
The organization is an IT based enterprise which involves several operations. Alcon was spending a lot in terms of performing services that it could easily save by outsourcing it to other specialized companies. Another reason to this is the placing of priority on certain sectors that were relatively ignored hence the development of a good cohesion between the several sectors of the organization.
Several offices were set up to collect views from other sources hence proving its capability of accepting a wide pool of knowledge relevant for future development. All the projects were strategically monitored from a central office hence the ability to analyze and evaluate on the failing centers in the organization. In general the achievements were quite many and improved the working situation of the organization to a bigger force in the industry.
References
Dube, L., Bernier, C. and Roy, V. (2009) Taking on the Challenge of IT Management in a Global Business Context: The Alcon Case – Part A. International Journal of Case Studies in Management. 7(2): May. HEC020.
Dube, L., Bernier, C. and Roy, V. (2009) Taking on the Challenge of IT Management in a Global Business Context: The Alcon Case – Part B. International Journal of Case Studies in Management. 7(2): May. HEC021
