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| I know it is kinda late for me to write this weblog but i was crazily having too much party lately in christmas haa.
Anyways, I really enjoy this Management Information System course in city U and it is really a nice idea to make it one of the core course in MBA program. As IT becomes more and more important, most top management of the companies should realize that IT is actually a profit earning business instead of a "support" department. In my current company, which is a local famous betting/horse racing company, the CEO of the company really thinks that IT helps the company to earns "big" money. IT is one of the biggest division in the company and we got a lot of support from the director board. Without IT, horse racing betting and football betting cannot be so convenience to the customers. It is also essential for using IT technology to keep track of the updated news and information. Otherwise, customers will not get the first hand news and they won't be satisfied. As we all can see, IT in my company is one of the core "money driving and profit earning" department in the company. I am sure many financial companies like i-banks and e-businesses companies agree that IT is one of the most important department in their companies. It is just a matter of how to utilize IT to earn profits. As mentioned in class, systems like ERP and DSS/GSS/ESS really do help company to earn profits. However, in Hong Kong, there are still many companies which are managed by "old" top management still think that IT is just for supporting the business of the company and it can be reduced greatly whenever it is needed. I think it is very difficult to change their mind in this stage. I just wonder when is the time that most top management of the companies will agree that IT can actually be the "main character" in the company and help making profit.......Hopefully before i am retired :P
But it is not easy and I don't think we can change their point of view in the near future. Most of the work should be done by the government to promote IT more instead of just focusing on the financial sector. One of the reason that HK economy fell so fast in this current economy crisis is that HK rely too much on the financial sector. It maybe the time for HK to start invest in some other area like maybe IT??
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| Offshoring and outsourcing projects are common in many companies. It is no difference in my company. There are many IT projects outsourced to different vendors. However, my company also found out that there are many problems in outsourcing. The first thing is the quality of the vendors. Even within the same vendor, there may be many different IT support people and developers with different quality and service level. In my company, we have our in house development team as well. For most cases, our development team will handle all the web/windows and database development. For all the other difficult and special developments such as SMS transmitting and Interactive Voice Response System, my company will hire vendors to do the work and the development team will supervise the vendors.
One of the main criteria in choosing a vendor for my company is Cost. Cost is always the first priority. The lower the cost in the proposal, the higher the chance of winning the bid for the vendor. Since the Business Process Development department will choose vendors mainly based on price and they don't fully understand the quality of the vendors, IT department always has a difficult time handling different vendors. In the vendors' point of view, sure they won the bid but they earn little money from the projects because of the low prices. They do not want to commit a lot into the projects in our companies since they also have a lot of different clients to deal with. The IT department will find difficulty to even contact the vendors, and the quality of work is low. They complain to the Business Process Development Department, but they don't care. As long as they did their work, they are happy and they don't want to solve the problem between IT dept and the vendors. Therefore, many projects are either a failure or imcompleted for a long time. Top management saw the problems and decided to hire more developers instead of outsourcing to vendors.
I think cost is just one of the main factors in choosing a vendor but we also have to look at the quality of the vendors and choose a reliable vendor wisely. Otherwise, the consequences will be great. I also agree with all the stuffs that Dr. Davison said in class such as the communication style, quality of work and cultural differences in offshoring and outsourcing.
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| People ask me why I suddenly updated this dead xanga again. It is because of a course i am taking in City U. Otherwise, my xanga would be dead forever :P
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| After the class about ERP System, I finally understand about the how important a culture of a company is. Implementing a new ERP system is really a culture change to many employees and departments. In one of my previous company (a tourism company), they were about to implement a new tours booking system. However, they faced a lot of resistance since there were about 50% of the people are over 40 (not willing to change) and they were all got used to the "paper and pen" with a simple computer system (it is using somewhat an old technology). The top management had lots of meetings and tried so hard to find a solution but the employees just weren't going to co-operate. At the end, they used some kind of a "brutal" force to force all the employees to accept the new systems. However, some of the employees were disappointed and not going to do their best at work. As mentioned in class, i think this system were a failure. I left that company soon after the system rollout but I heard that the result/impact of the system are not quite positive.
In a chinese society, especially in HK after the economics recession and SARS, people in HK always put "Self-interest/protection" as their first priority. Many people see IT system are going to help cutting labour force and cost. Therefore, employees always think that IT system are some kind of a poison to their jobs security and are not going to co-operate with the new ERP system. I totally agree that the project has to be leaded by the top management instead of the IT director/CIO/CTO. In most cases, CIO/CTO has not enough power and business knowledge to carry out the project. Top management has to give him 100% support or else the project will fail. It is also very important to have a cultural change on all the employees before starting the ERP system. In HK society, the first thing to let the employee know is the benefits they would get from the ERP system and also some kind of job security, meaning that ERP system is not going to replace them but to help them. However, deep in my heart, I also think that many IT systems are tools that help cutting headcount in a company. (SORRY, but it is true most of the time)
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| Today, I went to an interesting class (FB5003). I just found out that I actually uses many decision support systems daily, whether in office or at home. Most of the time I look at the aastock.com or yahoo.com.hk stock market historical data to make my decision on the stock market. I believe they are a very popular decision support system for many people. I totally agree with Robert that DSS is for decision making but not for problem solving. Otherwise, I wouldn't lose so much money in the stock market. It sure helps me to make a lot of "wrong" decision so it also requires users' experience, research and deep thinking. For GSS, this is the first time i heard of it because I think I have never been using a GSS before. It maybe a good idea for the company to use a GSS when they want to listen to all the voices inside the company. The idea of being an annoymous is fantastic. Therefore, all the employees in the company can share their ideas, opinions, and point of views on their working environment, all the office politics and the strategical direction of the company. ESS is also a very important application. Since i am not in a senior position in my company, I don't get access to it but I am sure many managers and directors in my companies uses somewhat a ESS in our ERP system. Hopefully, I will get a chance to use such a wonderful system to help me make decision for my company in the future. | | |
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