MGT 300 Chapter 5 – Organizational Structures that Support Strategic Initiatives

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES

Organizational employees must work closely together to develop strategic initiatives that create competitive advantages.
Ethics and security are two fundamental building blocks that organizations must base their businesses upon.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Information technology is a relatively new functional area, having only been around formally for around 40 years.
Recent IT – related strategic positions:

•               Chief Information Officer (CIO)
•               Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
•               Chief Security Officer (CSO)
•              Chief Privacy Officer (CPO)
•              Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO)

Chief Information Officer (CIO) – oversees all uses of IT and ensures the strategic alignment of IT with business goals and objectives.

Broad CIO functions include;

•  Manager – ensuring the delivery of all IT projects, on time and within budget.
• Leader – ensuring the strategic vision of IT is in line with the strategic vision of the organization.
• Communicator – building and maintaining strong executive relationships.

  

Chief Technology Officer (CTO) – responsible for ensuring the throughput , speed, accuracy, availability and reliability of IT
Chief Security Officer (CSO) – responsible for ensuring the security of IT systems
Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) – responsible for ensuring the ethical and legal use of information
Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) – responsible for collecting, maintaining and distributing the organization’s knowledge.



THE GAP BETWEEN BUSINESS PERSONNEL AND IT PRSONNEL
Business personnel possess expertise in functional areas such as marketing, accounting and sales
IT personnel have the technological expertise.This typically causes a communications gap between the business personnel and IT personnel


IMPROVING COMMUNICATIONS

1. Business personnel must seek to increase their understanding of IT
2. IT personnel must seek to increase their understanding of the business
3.  It is the responsibility of the CIO to ensure effective communication between business personnel and IT personnel

ORGANIZATIONAL FUNDAMENTALS – ETHICS AND SECURITY

Ethics and security are two fundamental building blocks that organizations must base their businesses on to be successful.In recent years, such event as the 9/11 have shed new light on the meaning of ethics and security


ETHICS 

Ethics – the principles and standards that guide our behavior toward other people
Privacy is a major ethical issues;
Privacy – the right to be left alone when you want to be to have control ever your own personnel possessions and not to be observed without your consent
Issues affected by technology advances

Intelligent 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 lock like the real thing and sold as such

One of the main ingredients in trust is privacy
Primary reasons privacy issues lost trust for e-business

1.	Loss of personnel privacy is a top concern for Americans in the 21st century
2.	Among Internet users, 37 percent would be “a lot” more inclined to purchase a product on a websites that had a privacy policy
3.	Privacy/security is the number one factors that would convert Internet researchers into Internet buyers

SECURITY – HOW MUCH WILL DOWNTIME COST YOUR BUSINESS??

Sources of Unplanned Downtime
Bomb threat	Hacker	Snowstorm
Burst pipe	Hail	Sprinkler malfunction
Chemical spill	Hurricane	Static electricity
Construction	Ice storm	Strike
Corrupted data	Insects	Terrorism
Earthquake	Lightning	Theft
Electrical short	Network failure	Tornado
Epidemic	Plane crash	Train derailment
Equipment failure	Frozen pipe	Smoke damage
Evacuation	Power outage	Vandalism
Explosion	Power surge	Vehicle crash
Fire	Rodents	Virus
Flood	Sabotage	Water damage (various)
Fraud	Shredded data	Wind

·         

How much will downtime cost your business??




PROTECTING INTELLECTUAL ASSETS

• Organizational information is intellectual capital – it must be protected
•  Information security – the protection of information from accidental or intentional misuse by persons inside or outside an organization
•  E-business automatically crates tremendous information security risks for organization