Managing the As Is Technology

ABC has progressively moved to align its technology unit with its global objectives. In the latter part of the 1990s and early 2000s the company implemented significant change within its technology group through which, as already stated, it realised many benefits. There were efficiency gains in productivity and cost savings achieved through the sharing of support and development staff, prioritisation of tasks, and rationalisation of the technology infrastructure throughout its local and international operations.

In addition, the company has established a range of information technology strategies to enable it to meet its objective to facilitate a truly global securities service market. Its investment in technology research and development ensures its businesses remain competitive and profitable. For this reason innovating technologies are seen as the way of providing better services and more efficient processes to the securities services markets. Mary says that 149

some of the company’s IT management practices have changed over the years to accommodate the sheer volume and complexity of the organisation’s operational environment:

‘While the business has to have very strict guidelines in terms of procedures and policies CS is still quite a free and open company. We try and keep it that way but there are certain, more formal things that we do need to do now as a result of our global growth. We do board reporting and we do things like formal reviews and salary planning and budgets’.

Perhaps the most dramatic of changes has been the restructuring of CS into teams based on its product lines and/or proprietary systems which Mary saw as beneficial in ensuring that there is a concentration of expertise with the right mix of skills. The teams are categorised as follows: development and operational, systems design and implementation, new systems group, web development and workflow. Mary adds that this arrangement allows the sharing of its technology expertise to be seconded, when required, to any office around the world to work on specific projects. Consequentially, the company is able to focus its initiatives and fully resource a development group that is situated at one location.

Other IT management strategies avidly pursued include protection and ownership of its IP, which is considered a priority. There have been reported instances where others have abused ownership of its IP, and this resulted in legal action against the perpetrators. The company is concerned about protecting its knowledge but at the same time it will seek ways to reuse and

extend this knowledge to new developments through its own technology group and/or with the assistance of its alliances. It will establish strategic alliances with a range of specialist technology providers, electronic document management and telecommunications providers, for example, but will ensure it retains ownership of its IP.

Having said that, the company has not previously outsourced any of its core technology components, but to ensure access to the latest technology, such as Wireless Application Processing (WAP) it is intended that some of its research and development will be undertaken in conjunction with third party technology providers.

E-business/e-commerce presents multidimensional security issues which have been discussed and analysed by many and from various perspectives (Godwin 2001; Gritzalis & Gritzalis 2001; Ratnasingam 2002; Tran & Atkinson 2002). For example, Tran and Atkinson (2002) outline an assortment of world regulations governing cross-border data exchange between multinational companies. Although the authors view these regulations as potentially risk minimising they are also part and parcel of the regulatory framework that Paul describes as impeding the company’s global progress. However, the company is compliant in meeting global security standards (see Tran & Atkinson 2002) and runs a secure network with what Mary describes as ‘….all the latest and greatest firewalls and anti-virus software, including system security and physical security’. In addition there are formal data back-up procedures in place and redundancy processes

incorporating a ‘hot site’ in each of the regions. In the event of a disaster the company can continue processing seamlessly from these sites.

The company does not consider security as a major risk factor. Although it implements and constantly revises its risk management strategies these are not considered critical tasks. According to Charlie, one of the company’s most important strategies was to implement tighter control over its technology products to ensure saturation of the company’s global solutions:

‘We cannot afford to have each country doing their own thing when it involves technology, which includes systems such as management information, marketing, HR and accounting’.

The company considers management of IT an important part of its local, regional and global business practices. It has been shown that management of IT is an organisational operational and global business enabler. The provision and management of generic products and services across global markets requires a range of strategies. These findings demonstrate that managing an organisation’s IT needs is considered a core requirement and mandatory to support its global objectives.