Management Information Systems
Essays

United Parcel Service (UPS) is a global package service delivery company that offers time-definite delivery letters, small packages, documents and ground service for its customers at over 220 countries. With constant increase in the fuel price, UPS has faced challenges in managing its fleet of vehicles. To address the logistic problem, the report suggests that UPS should integrate GIS in its business operations to route the mileages of its vehicles efficiently and to decline the costs of managing its fleet of vehicles.

Alcan's continued revenue growth is the result of the combined success of increasing sales in four main business units, in addition to growth through acquisition. The cumulative effects of these two factors have served to create a profitable business and one where a highly decentralized organizational structure dominates (Chang, Wang, 2011). The catalyst of the organization becoming so decentralized is the continued revenue gains made across four businesses, each competing in market areas that face heavy pricing and commodity-like market conditions. Despite the heavily process-centric based approaches the industry takes to supply chain management, production and distribution, Alcan has been also able to profitably grow sales in the more mature markets they compete in. The senior management and IT departments credit the highly decentralized nature of the enterprise-wide systems that run the company. During the time period of the case, Alcan generated $23.6B in sales in 2006, and has 68,000 employees throughout its global operations that span 61 countries. The four major groups include Primary Metal, Engineered Products, Packaging and Bauxite & Alumina. Each of these business groups have their own Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and IT infrastructure. They each also have their own maintenance contracts with enterprise software vendors including SAP who the company pays approximately $100M a year in maintenance fees to. There are also the costs of operating over 400 different pricing systems, many of which duplicate functions across divisions as well. The new CIO of the company, Robert Ouellette, enters into a challenging situation and one that will require a completely different IT and organizational structure to succeed. Organizational Environment The Alcan organizational environment is highly decentralized to the point of there being four separate companies in the same corporation, each with its own entire value chain and supporting functions. As with the value chain concept, each of the four divisions has created its own main and supporting functions, and no two business units or divisions are the same. From the initial supply chain management and supplier quality management processes and systems to the supplier qualification, new product development, production and fulfillment including logistics, each business unit is significantly different than the other. When information systems and processes become unique to a given organizational business unit or division, the information and intelligence shared redefines the identity and over time, the core competencies of a business unit (Boh, Yellin, 2007). This is exactly what's happening in the four business units of Alcan during the time period of the case study. The Primary Metal, Engineered Products, Packaging and Bauxite & Alumina have in effect become their own companies, each with its own ERP, Manufacturing Execution System (MES), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and myriad of pricing and distribution systems. The case states that there are over 400 different pricing systems in place across the four business units or divisions. CIO Robert Ouellette and other senior executives see the potential for consolidating all systems together and creating a centralized IT architecture. Creating a highly centralized IT architecture and framework would require the fundamental structure of the company to change significantly. It would also require an entirely new IT architecture, followed by redefinition of processes, systems and procedures throughout the company. As the information platforms or technologies of a business define not only the performance of divisions but the structure and performance of business models over time, Robert Ouellette and his staff must think strategically as to how they will modify the overall organizational structure.

Business strategy is continually evolving as information technology and business process redesign assist in the innovative design of central business .Attempts to get rid of the mainframe and replace it with an all PC network have failed, with systems failed and information was lost or misplaced The revolution of IT and its use in businesses is due to the personal computer and local area network technology. Networking either by Ethernet or LAN technology assisted organizations to improve communication, transmission of reports and messages across the organizational structure

Social networking privacy is a very hot topic nowadays. Everyone involved in the social networking sphere has their own responsibilities. Advertisers and businesses need to use their data ethically. The social networking sites themselves need to protect their users. Users need to not act foolishly or assume that the social media sites or a lawsuit will protect them because this usually not the case.

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