Global IT Management Applications

Global IT Management Applications

IT applications may depend on business requirements (business drivers) caused by the nature of the industry and its competitive environmental forces. Business drivers for global IT applications include

Global Customers,

Global Products,

Global Operations,

Global Resources, and

Global Collaboration.

The search for systems economies was usually the initial driving force for global IT applications in many firms. For instance, an engineering firm wished to use a common engineering database to share project work between its U.S. and Asian offices. In addition to anticipated variations in engineering codes and relative costs of materials, management soon discovered that the Asian project requirements demanded far more detailed specifications for contractors than had traditionally been required of their U.S. office.

The following are the implications of some other common drivers for the global IT

➢        Global customer —Firms that serve traveling customers (airlines, hotels etc.) find it necessary to have worldwide customer databases. Corporate customers with global operations that more and more are demanding integrated worldwide services are increasingly imposing a similar requirement.

➢        Global product —The product is either the same through the world (e.g., Coco Cola) or is assembled from subsidiaries through the world (e.g., security), currency exchange etc.). Information systems can provide the ability to manage worldwide marketing programs.

➢        Rationalized operation — Different subsidiaries build different parts of the same product based on availability of skills, raw materials, or favorable business climate. For example, a computer manufacturer might build software in Japan, monitors in China, and circuit boards in Cincinnati and the U.S. MIS is used to coordinate the operations.

➢        Flexible operations — Operations al-e moved from a plant in one country to a plant in another. Fort instance, a computer vendor moves production of personal computers between plants in respond to labor strife or raw material shortages. Common systems exist across plants, which facilitates the move.

➢        Joint resource — National subsidiaries may share certain facilities or people. For instance, the Chinese subsidiaries for a petroleum company jointly own tankers or storage tanks. A material resource system is implemented to track the location of joint resource.

➢        Risk reduction — Risks associated with currency conversions, multiple global markets, and multiple traders are alleviated. For instance, a petroleum company develops a global system for bidding on crude oil contracts, or a multinational bank implements a global risk management system for currency trading.

➢        Legal requirements — Information requirements mandated by laws in one or more countries are consolidated. For instance, financial or environmental regulations imposed on a subsidiary may necessitate corporate-wide information requirements if the subsidiary intends to sell or use products manufactured elsewhere.