The Indian Institute Of Business Management & Studies

Subject: It for Management.

Marks: 100

Note:
1. All questions are compulsory.
2. Use analytical description where required.
3. Cite references used if any while proposing solution to any question.

The Indian Institute Of Business Management & Studies

Subject: It for Management.

Marks: 100

Case 1
HOW GENERAL MOTORS IS COLLABORATING ONLINE
The Problem
Designing a car is a complex and lengthy task. Take, for example, General Motors (GM). Each
model created needs to go through a frontal crash test. So the company builds prototypes that
cost about one million dollars for each car and tests how they react to frontal crash. GM crashes
these cars, makes improvements, then makes new prototypes and crashes them again. There are
other tests and more crashes. Even as late as the 1990s, GM crashed as many as 70 cars for each
new model.
The information regarding a new design and its various tests, collected in these crashes and other
tests, has to be shared among close to 20,000 designers and engineers in hundreds of divisions
and departments at 14 GM design labs, some of which are located in different countries. In
addition, communication and collaboration is needed with design engineers of the more than
1,000 key suppliers. All of these necessary communications slowed the design process and
increased its cost. It took over four years to get a new model to the market.
The Solution
GM, like its competitors, has been transforming itself into an e-business. This gradual
transformation has been going on since the mid-1990s, when Internet band width increased
sufficiently to allow Web collaboration. The first task was to examine over 7,000 existing legacy IT
systems, reducing them to about 3,000, and making them Web-enabled. The EC system is
centered on a computer-aided design (CAD) program from EDS (a large IT company, subsidiary of
GM). This system, known as Unigraphics, allows 3-D design documents to be shared online by
both the internal and external designers and engineers, all of whom are hooked up with the EDS
software. In addition. Collaborative and Web-conferencing software tools, including Microsofts
NetMeeting and EDSs eVis, were added to enhance teamwork. These tools have radically changed
the vehicle-review process.
To see how GM now collaborates with a supplier, take as an example a needed cost reduction of a
new seat frame made by Johnson Control GM electronically sends its specifications for the seat to
the vendors product data system. Johnson Controls collaboration systems (eMatrix) is integrated
with EDSs In graphics. This integration allows joint searching, designing. Tooling, and testing of
the seat frame in real time, expediting the process and cutting costs by more than 10 percent.

The Indian Institute Of Business Management & Studies

Subject: It for Management.

Marks: 100

Another area of collaboration is that of crashing cars. Here designers need close collaboration with
the test engineers. Using simulation, mathematical modeling, and a Web-based review process.
GM is able now to electronically Crash cars rather than to do it physically.
The Results
Now it takes less than 18 months to bring a new car to market, compared to 4 or more years
before, and at a much lower design cost. For example, 60 cars are now Crashed electronically,
and only 10 are crashed physically. The shorter cycle time enables more new car models,
providing GM with a competitive edge. All this has translated into profit. Despite the economic
show down. GMs revenues increased more than 6 percent in 2002. while its earnings in the
second quarter of 2002 doubled that of 2001.
Questions:
1. Why did it take GM over four years to design a new car?
2. Who collaborated with whom to reduce the time-to-market?
3. How has IT helped to cut the time-to-market?

The Indian Institute Of Business Management & Studies

Subject: It for Management.

Marks: 100

Case 2
Intranets: Invest First, Analyze Later?
The traditional approach to information systems projects is to analyze potential costs and benefits
before deciding whether to develop the system. However for moderate investments in promising
new technologies that could offer major benefits. Organizations may decide to do the financial
analyses after the project is over. A number of companies took this latter approach in regard to
intranet projects initiated prior to 1997.
Judds
Located in Strasburg. Virginia, Judds is a conservative, family-owned printing company that
prints Time magazine, among other publications. Richard Warren. VP for IS. Pointed out that
Judds usually waits for technology to prove itself. But with the Internet the benefits seemed so
great that our decision proved to be a no-brainer. Judds first implemented internet technology
for communications to meet needs expressed by customers. After this it started building intranet
of the significance of these applications to the company is the bandwidth that supports them.
Judds increased the bandwidth by a magnitude of about 900 percent in the 1990s without costbenefit analysis.
Eli Lilly & Company
A very large pharmaceutical company with headquarters in Indianapolis, Eli Lilly has a proactive
attitude toward new technologies. It began exploring the potential of the Internet in 1993.
Managers soon realized that, by using intranets, they could reduce many of the problems
associated with developing applications on a wide variety of hardware platforms and networking
configurations. Because the benefits were so obvious, the regular financial justification process
was waived for intranet application development projects. The IS group that helps user
departments develop and maintain intranet applications increased its staff from three to ten
employees in 15 months.
Needham Interactive
Needham, a Dallas advertising agency, has offices in various parts of the country. Needham
discovered that, in developing presentations for bids on new accounts, employees found it helpful
to use materials from other employees presentations on similar projects. Unfortunately, it was
very difficult to locate and then transfer relevant ,materials in different locations and different
formats. After doing research on alternatives, the company identified intranet technology as the

The Indian Institute Of Business Management & Studies

Subject: It for Management.

Marks: 100

best potential solution. Needham hired EDS to help develop the system. It started with one office
in 1996 as a pilot site. Now part of DDB Needham, the company has a sophisticated corporate
wide intranet and extranet in place. Although the investment was substantial, Needham did not
do a detailed financial analysis before starting the project. David King, a managing partner
explained. the system will start paying for itself the first time an employee wins a new account
because he had easy access to a co-workers information.
Cadence Design Systems
Cadence is a consulting firm located in San Jose, California. It wanted to increase the productivity
of its sales personnel by improving internal communications and sales training. It considered
Lotus Notes but decided against it because of the costs. With the help of a consultant, it
developed an internet system. Because the company reengineered its sales training process to
work with the new system, the project took somewhat longer than usual.
International Data Corp., an IT research firm, helped cadence do an after-the-fact financial
analysis. Initially the analysis calculated benefits based on employees meeting their full sales
quotas. However, IDC later found that a more appropriate indicator was having new scales
representatives meet half their quota. Startup costs were $280,000, average annual expenses
were estimated at less than $400,000, and annual savings were projected at over $2.5 million.
Barry Demak, director of sales, remarked, we knew the economic justificationwould be strong,
but we were surprised the actual numbers were as high as they were.
Questions:
1. Where and under what circumstances is the invest first, analyze later approach
appropriate?

where

and

when

is

it

inappropriate?

Give

specific

examples

of

technologies and other circumstances.

2. How long do you think the invest first , analyze later approach will be appropriate
for intranet projects? When (and why) will the emphasis shift to traditional project
justification approaches? (Or has the shift already occurred?)
3. What are the risks of going into projects that have not received a through financial
analysis? How can organization reduce these risks?
4. Based on the numbers provided for Cadence Design Systems intranet project, use a
spread sheet to calculate the net present value of the project. Assume a 5-year life for
the system.

The Indian Institute Of Business Management & Studies

Subject: It for Management.

Marks: 100

Case 3
Putting IT to Work at Home Depot
Home Depot is the worlds largest home-improvement retailer, a global company that is
expanding rapidly (about 200 new stories every year). With over 1500 stories (mostly in the
United States and Canada, and now expanding to other countries) and about 50,000 kinds of
products in each store, the company is heavily dependent on It, Especially since it started to sell
online.
To align its business and IT operations, Home Depot created a business and information service
model, known as the Special Projects Support Team (SPST). This team collaborates both with the
ISD and business colleagues on new projects, addressing a wide range of strategic occur at the
intersection of business process. The team is composed of highly skilled employees. Actually,
there are several teams, each with a director and mix of employees, depending on the project.
For example, system developers, system administrators, security experts, and project managers
can be on a team. The teams exist until the completion of a project; then they are dissolved and
the members are assigned to new teams. All teams report to the SPST director, who reports to a
VP of technology.
To ensure collaboration among end users, the ISD and the SPST created structured (formal)
relationships. The basic idea is to combine organizational structure and process flow, which is
designed to do the following:

Achieve consensus across departmental boundaries with regard to strategic initiatives.

Prioritize strategic initiatives.

Bridge the gap between business concept an detailed specifications.

Result in the lowest possible operational costs.

Achieve consistently high acceptance levels by the end-user community.

Comply with evolving legal guidelines.

Define key financial elements (cost-benefit analysis, ROI, etc.).

Identify and render key feedback points for project metrics.

Support very high rates of change.

Support the creation of multiple, simultaneous threads of work across disparate time
lines.

Promote known, predictable, and manageable work flow events, event sequences, and
change management processes.

Accommodate the highest possible levels of operational stability.

The Indian Institute Of Business Management & Studies

Subject: It for Management.

Marks: 100

Leverage the extensive code base, and leverage function and component reuse.

Leverage Home Depots extensive infrastructure and IS resource base.

Online File W 15.11 shows how this kind of organization works for home depots e-commerce
activites. There is a special EC steering committee which is connected to the CIO (who is a senior
VP), to the Vp for marketing and advertising, and to the VP for merchandising (merchandising
deals with procurement). The SPST is closely tied to the ISD, to marketing, and to merchandising.
The data centre is shared with non-EC activities.
The SPST migrated to an e-commerce team in Aughust 2000 in order to construct a Website
supporting a national catalog of products, which was completed in April 2001. (This catalog
contains over 400,000 products from 11,000 vendors.) This project requires the collaboration of
virtually every department in Home depot (e.g., in the figure). Also contracted services were
involved. (the figure in online file W15.11 shows the work flow process.)
Since 2001, SPST has been continuously busy with Ec Intivatives, including improving the growing
Home Depot online store. The cross departmental nature of the SPSt explains why it is an ideal
structure to support the dyanamic, ever-changing work of the EC-related projects. The structure
also consider the skills, strengtyhs, and the weeknesses of the It employees. The company offer
both the online and offline training aimed at improving those skills. Home Depot is consistently
ranked among the best places to work for IT employees.
Questions:
1. Explain why the team based structure at Home Depot is so successful.
2. The structure means that the SPST reports to both marketing and technology. This is
known as a matrix structure. What are the potential advantages and problems?
3. How is collaboration facilitated by IT in this case?
4. Why is the process flow important in this case?

The Indian Institute Of Business Management & Studies

Subject: It for Management.

Marks: 100

Case 4
Dartmouth College Goes Wireless
Dartmouth College, one of the oldest in United States (founded in 1769), was one of the first to
embrace the wireless revolution. Operating and maintain a campuswide information system with
wires is very difficult. Since there are 161 buildings with more than 1,000 rooms on campus. In
2000, the college introduced a campuswide wireless network that includes more than 500 Wi-Fi
(wireless fidelity: see chapter 6) systems. By the end of 2002, the entire campus became a fully
wireless, always connected community a microcosm that provides a peek at what neighborhood
and organizational life may look like for the general population in just a few years.
To transform a wired campus to a wireless one requires lots of money. A computer science
professor who initiated the idea at Dartmouth in 1999 decided to solicit the help of alumni
working at cisco systems. These alumni arranged for a donation of the initial system, and cisco
then provided more equipment at a discount. (Cisco and other companies now make similar
donations to many collages and universities, writing off the difference between the retail and the
discount prices for an income tax benefit.)
As a pioneer in campuswide wireless, Dartmouth has made many innovative usuages of the
system, some of which are the following:

Students are developing new applications for the Wi-Fi. For eample, one student has

applied for a patent on a personal-security device that pinpoints the location of the campus
emergency services to ones mobile device.

Students no longer have to remember campus phone numbers, as their mobile devices

have all the numbers and can be accessed any where on campus.

Students primarily use laptop computers on the network. However, an increasing number

of Internet-enabled PDAs and cell phones are used as well. The use of regular cell phones is on
the decline on campus.

An extensive messaging system is used by the students, who send SMSs (Short Message

Services) to each other. Messages reach the recipients in a split second, any time, anywhere, as
long as they are sent and received within the networks coverage area.

Usage of the Wi-Fi system is not confined just to messages, students can submit their

class work by using the network, as well as watch streaming video and listen to Internet radio.

An analysis of wireless traffic on campus showed how the new network is changing and

shaping campus behavior patterns. For example, students log on in short bursts, about 16

The Indian Institute Of Business Management & Studies

Subject: It for Management.

Marks: 100

minutes at a time, probably checking their messages. They tend to plan themselves in a few
favourite spots (dorms, TV room, student centre, and on a shaded bench on the green) where
they use their computers, and they rarely connect beyond those places.

The student invented special complex wireless games that they play online.

One student has written some code that calculates how far away a networked PDA user

is from his or her next appointment, and then automatically adjusts the PDAs reminder alarm
schedule accordingly.

Professors are using wireless-based teaching methods. For example, students armed

with Handspring visor PDAs equipped with Internet access cards, can evaluate material presented
in class and can vote on a multiple-choice questionnaire relating to the presented material.
Tabulated results are shown in seconds, promoting discussions. According to faculty, the system
makes students want to give answers, thus significantly increasing participation.

Faculty and students developed a special voice-over-IP application for PDAs and iPAQs

that uses live two-way voice-over-IP chat.

Questions:
1.

In what ways is the Wi-Fi technology changing the Dartmouth students?

2.

Some says that the wireless system will become part of the background of
everybodys life that the mobile devices are just an afterthought. Explain.

3.

Is the system contributing to improved learning, or just adding entertainment

that may reduce the time available for studying? Debate your point of view with
students who hold a different opinion.

4.

What are the major benefits of the wireless system over the previous wire line
one? Do you think wire line systems will disappear from campus one day? (Do
some research on the topic.)