Transnational IT operations and management

Transnational IT Operations

Given the rapid rise in globalization, both manufacturing and services companies are increasingly relying on transnational IT operations. The intent of this paper is cover the essential elements of transnational IT operations, with the need for an IT continuity plan being critical for the stability of any organizations information, collaboration, and planning assets..

Transnational IT Operations begins with a solid IT Continuity Plan

Ensuring IT continuity during any company's transnational operations needs to begin with securing the company's core databases including pricing, manufacturing planning, scheduling, finance, accounting, procurement and purchasing before implementing any integration with systems located at remote geographic regions. Take for example a company choosing to move its manufacturing from the U.S. To China for example, and the need for having their ERP system consistently functioning during the move. This is where a solid transnational IT Continuity Plan is essential.

What is most critical within the context of the IT Continuity Plan is that the core business processes are not interrupted. These include the daily collaboration of managers with the manufacturing, purchasing, engineering, and logistics staffs, and the critical tasks of integrating enterprise resource planning with accounting, pricing, and finance. The software platforms and applications relied on to support these processes include collaboration tools including e-mail, the website, intranet portals and content management systems, manufacturing-related processes including inbound and outbound logistics, time and materials scheduling and accounting, job cost accounting, supplier management and procurement. To ensure these processes are not interrupted the systems and databases that contain these records need to be first replicated and then moved to an interim hosting center in the new location. Many companies rely on Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to ensure the minimum levels of performance are met. Sun Microsystems (2002) has defined a series of best practices for SLAs, and increasingly these agreements are considered as essential for the managing of transnational IT operations as hosted and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) based approaches to managing systems is being used. SLAs are considered the definitive statement of service levels as they relate to service levels in many transnational IT deployments and operations.

Transfer of Work and Global Networking for Transnational IT Operations

In terms of supporting transnational IT operations including the transfer of work, companies are increasingly relying on services companies who specialize the transfer of information systems and process workflows to secondary locations. These services companies often use an implementation plan with the following steps:

Creating a secure storage area for departmental and enterprise servers, and then connecting with the local Internet Service provider for access to the Internet, broadband services, and leased lines for EDI transactions with buyers and suppliers globally.

Meeting with department managers to plan out the network topologies, security levels of databases, and uses of the network departmentally. From this a planning matrix is created that guides the installers in getting the departmental Local Area Networks (LANs) connected to the servers. 12b bit encryption and firewalls are installed and tested prior to any servers going online internally.

Laptop docking stations and special-use systems are next installed by department.

Servers and PCs go through a series of network compatibility test to ensure they are running correctly.

The departments become operational again.

Transnational IT Continuity Milestones for Year One

Migration of data from hosting services to company servers.

Definition of a new contingency and risk assessment strategy for the new location including costing for replacement of systems.

Integration of purchasing, procurement and logistics systems with manufacturing.

Transnational IT Continuity Milestones for Year Three

Integration of buyer and supplier relationship management systems with the ERP systems to gain greater cost efficiencies over having disconnected systems. According to AMR Research (2002) when there are five or more systems integrated together there is a significantly higher level of Return on Investment generated.

Hosted CRM, ERP and supply chain systems with real-time integration links to buyers and suppliers piloting phases begin. This is to get away from the high software licensing and maintenance fees the company is paying today.

Integration with supplier hubs for more efficient procurement workflows globally.

Transnational IT Continuity Milestones for Year Five

Fully functioning SaaS-based platform hosted at the hosting centers and at the manufacturing site which is 100% fault tolerant and accessible entirely through a secured Internet connection.