Enterprise Solutions Unit 1 Caselet for Class

Here is a caselet about a progressive Indian Company facing several issues with business
applications of computers in the last decade of the last century and how the company made an
informed decision of showing patience and monitoring technology space for the right solutions to
be available.

This progressive Indian Company is a manufacturing company. It enjoyed leadership position

with more than 30-35% market share. The company’s top management was very progressive in
their outlook and was willing to invest in information and communication technology available at
that time. Many of the hardware platforms were acquired as and when need was felt and the
hardware platform available at best price after thorough negotiation was selected. It is important
to note that each of these hardware platform came with a unique operating system that needed
to be studied afresh. Efforts were made to at least maintain the programming development
language as common to ensure movement of programmers from one platform to the other.
However moving programming staff from one platform to another involved unlearning of one
operating system and learning of new operating system. This was time consuming process and
the concerned staff was not available for productive work during this time.

The General Manager (IT) who was in charge of In House IT setup had established a “System
Problem Report (SPR) procedure. SPR would highlight the issue faced. Many times SPR pointed
to technical constraints issues remained unresolved. The in house IT team tried to solve the issues
to the best of their capabilities but in many cases was helpless due to technology limitations.

The internal customers of Information and Communication Technology had more expectations
from existing information systems and in many cases were expecting enhancements.

Very often the in house team attributed technology constraints and technical limitations and
bottlenecks in meeting internal customer requirements and expectations.

The General Manager (IT) had a long list of pending SPRs that could not be closed due to
technology constraints.

The General Manager (IT) with approval of the top management team arranged a day-long
meeting one week-end away from workplace to discuss the issues that have not been completely
addressed, especially due to technical constraints. Here are some of the issues that were
discussed in this meeting.

1. Sales and Accounts are two different stand-alone applications working on platforms that
are from different manufacturers. Due to operating system constraints data generated on
one platform cannot be read on the other in magnetic form itself. This meant the sales
invoices printed on one system had to be given to data entry operators in Accounts who
would punch the invoices data again in accounting system. This involved effort duplication,
delay and possibility of human error calling for verification and auditing. With over 300
invoices being raised every day, the problem was obviously marked as major.

© 2015, 2019 Dr. Milind M. Oka

 2. Similar problems were present in case of purchase orders to accounts, branch
replenishment orders to sales and materials, goods receipt notes to accounts linked with
purchase orders, branch sales, branch stock figures and many such examples.
3. Reconciliation was a time consuming activity just to ensure there are no errors.
4. Backups was an activity that was platform dependent. General Manager IT had to ensure
that all hardware platforms are available for backup at specific time – typically past
midnight and his team members who can be relied upon for smooth backup were available
at that time.
5. Internal customers were not very happy with overall performance of Information and
Communication Technology setup.
6. General Manager (IT) felt his team was not utilized properly and their efficiencies were
low due to technical issues.
7. General Manager (IT) felt some of the hardware platforms were reaching “end of life
cycle” and would need substantial investment for complete replacements.
8. Most of the systems were stand-alone systems and there was no automatic data
connectivity. Each system was using a separate data storage system.
9. General Manager (IT) feels “piece-meal” solution will not suffice. Some radical decision
would be needed to ensure right solution for next 3-5 years.
10. This is just a representative list. There were many other minor irritants causing impact on
efficiency and effectiveness.
The General Manager (I.T.) as well as the senior management team members knew that many
of the issues were due to technological bottlenecks and would need technological breakthroughs
and innovations. It was a well-known fact that Moor’s law was not just applicable to hardware
but for other areas of information technology as well. The company preferred to watch the
information and communication technology landscape for the time being.

At the same time, it was necessary to have some immediate fix measures to ensure that current
working of ICT solutions does not come to a grounding halt.

Naturally routine corrective maintenance had to continue but capital investment decisions could
be differed.

© 2015-2019 Dr. Milind M. Oka. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this document in any form without
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© 2015, 2019 Dr. Milind M. Oka

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© 2015, 2019 Dr. Milind M. Oka