Information System
Part A Identifying problems in the case
Case Summary
Vicro Communication (Vicro) was supposed to improve its performance to boost a revenue and share via business process reengineering (BPR) via data-centric enterprise software called High Profile Technology (HTP). However, without rethinking of existing software and obtaining feedback from employees, the top management made the mistake by completely relying on software application. Consequently, having invested 280 million dollars in Information Technology (IT) infrastructure, the software was redundant. Additionally, Vicro was put in a risky position.
Issues and consequences
According to the case, there are four main issues when Vicro using the new software as follow.
1. Miscommunication * Between shareholders and Vicro management
The intension of the investment was to redesign processes, by which, improving overall system performance. The stakeholders believed that the information system would address the needs and complement BPR efforts (Paper, D., Tingey, K. B., & Mok, W., 2003). Unfortunately, the management simply deployed the software to solve problems without considering stakeholders requirements.
* Between top management and other managers and process workers
There were no efforts be made to obtain opinions and feedback from technical experts, legacy systems people, even senior managers like Ron. Actually, process workers were clear about the mismatch between their existing processes and the new one. The research found out many people at Vicro were unsatisfied with HPT and BPR. Some attempted to report these problems to management, but never got the response. * Between business objectives and the technology
Before investment, the management never fully considered the legacy system and processes. Moreover, technical engineers were not allowed to alter HPT to match existing processes, or vice versa. As some processes at Vicro were rather unique, Legacy systems were
Case Summary
Vicro Communication (Vicro) was supposed to improve its performance to boost a revenue and share via business process reengineering (BPR) via data-centric enterprise software called High Profile Technology (HTP). However, without rethinking of existing software and obtaining feedback from employees, the top management made the mistake by completely relying on software application. Consequently, having invested 280 million dollars in Information Technology (IT) infrastructure, the software was redundant. Additionally, Vicro was put in a risky position.
Issues and consequences
According to the case, there are four main issues when Vicro using the new software as follow.
1. Miscommunication * Between shareholders and Vicro management
The intension of the investment was to redesign processes, by which, improving overall system performance. The stakeholders believed that the information system would address the needs and complement BPR efforts (Paper, D., Tingey, K. B., & Mok, W., 2003). Unfortunately, the management simply deployed the software to solve problems without considering stakeholders requirements.
* Between top management and other managers and process workers
There were no efforts be made to obtain opinions and feedback from technical experts, legacy systems people, even senior managers like Ron. Actually, process workers were clear about the mismatch between their existing processes and the new one. The research found out many people at Vicro were unsatisfied with HPT and BPR. Some attempted to report these problems to management, but never got the response. * Between business objectives and the technology
Before investment, the management never fully considered the legacy system and processes. Moreover, technical engineers were not allowed to alter HPT to match existing processes, or vice versa. As some processes at Vicro were rather unique, Legacy systems were
References: August Wilhelm Scheer, Frank Habermann (2000), Making ERP A Success, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 43 No. 4, pp. 57 – 61. Gupta, A. (2000), Enterprise resource planning: the emerging organizational value systems, Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 100 No. 1. Mohamed Zairi, David Sinclair (1995), Business process re-engineering and process management: A survey of current practice and future trends in integrated management, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 1, Iss: 1, pp. 8 – 30. Majed Al-Mashari (2003), Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems: a research agenda, Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 103, Iss: 1, pp. 22 – 27. Paper, D., Tingey, K. B., & Mok, W. (2003), The relation between BPR and ERP systems: A failed project, Journal of Cases on Information Technology, Vol. 5, pp. 45-62. Walter Skok, Michael Legge (2002), Evaluating Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems using an Interpretive Approach, Knowledge and Process Management, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 72–82.