Information Technology Management
Management Concepts and Models
IT portfolio management
IT portfolio management is the efficient management application to deal with the investments, activities and projects of the department of information technology (IT) in the enterprise. It is the application of all the IT resources including planned and current to provide a framework for the planning, analysis and execution of portfolio of IT in the organization (Casco-Arias et al 2012).
Business/IT alignment
Business-IT alignment is a vibrant condition in which the ability of the organization begins to use information technology (IT) for achieving the objectives and purposes of the business. It is the capability to express the direct or positive relationship between the financial performance and the information technology (Luftman, 2004).
CMMI – Capability Maturity Model Integration
CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) is the program of improving the process of training and assessment that is highly demanded and required in the development of software. CMMI also works in improving the process throughout the organizations, a division or a specific project (Team, 2006).
COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology) is a model that is developed for the management of information technology and governance of IT. It works as a supporting framework or tools that help the management to reduce the technical and other business risks and increase the control over the requirements (Von Solms, 2005). .
ITSM/ITIL – IT service management and in particular the IT infrastructure library
Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a synonym to the practices of IT service management (ITSM). ITIL explains the procedures, processes and tasks not specifically for the organizations but for developing strategies, values and to maintain the level of capability.
Actual Application and Implementation of These Management Models
Wal-Mart Stores International is one of the leading retail chains of superstores, Supermarket, grocery stores and hyper stores in the world based in America. Operations of more than 1000 stores globally in more than 27 countries develop challenges; therefore, Wal-Mart has developed its business based on the information technology.
The new approach has been developed by Wal-Mart that is the integration of all the projects in different countries in one IT portfolio for the project. It works to arrange the plans and assignments of the company from around the world to sort with the order of value (King, 2014).
With the development of the technology and competition in the marketplace, Wal-Mart has considered the need of information technology. Recently, it has integrated the IT talent in the company to complete the projects successfully on the right time with the right talent on the right place (King, 2014). This is how; Wal-Mart has implemented the Business/IT alignment model in its organization to achieve its objectives. Wegmann et al (2005) have stated that the Business-IT alignment is emerged for the best practices in the business organization.
Integrating the Information technology in the organization, Wal-Mart has considered various challenges in governing it. For Instance, the lack of IT knowledge among the majority of staff that was resulted in the need of more professional IT engineers and the cost might be increased(King, 2014). Therefore, Wal-Mart can develop COBIT framework to solve the risks and challenges in IT governance to increase the return as it is the major objective of Wal-Mart for the implementation of IT management.
As the company is facing high challenges because of the high competition, it can also implement CMMI model to improve the business process and maintain the leading position in the market. For example, it can apply CMMI for benchmarking to achieve the loyalty of the customers by offering far better products and services as compare to the customers.
Although, Wal-Mart has already engaged in using IT for its business process, however, the risks and challenges are still there that may reduce the return rather than increasing (King, 2014). Therefore, for the best IT practices, it can adopt ITIL model. As the company is facing the challenge to hire IT professional engineers, ITIL will provide engineers and suppliers of the software. All IT services will be managed by ITIL model and therefore, the company will not require managing IT resources (Whitlock, 2005).
Supply Chain Management Advances in Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart has successfully developed its supply chain management to maintain its leading position. Wal-Mart has been continuously involved in improving its process and investment to emerge with more sophisticated technologies to achieve e-commerce industry. For reducing the risks of competition in the marketplace, Wal-Mart has considered the advancement in supply chain (University Alliance, 2015). Inducing the technology in supply chain management, Wal-Mart has become able to forecast the demands of the consumers in the market and to predict the level of inventory requires.
Contribution of Advancement in providing solution for the business challenge in Wal-Mart
Lu (2014) has stated that the success of Wal-Mart in terms of highest sales, inventory turnover and profitability is linked with its efficient supply chain management. The advancements helped it to improve the communication and process among the stores, suppliers and distribution centre. Forecasting and tracking the demands of the consumers, the company has achieved a leading sales and profitability and become the leading retailer in the world.
The role of IT in support of the supply chain
Supply chain management is mainly based on dealing with the information available to the professionals of supply chain to perform their efficient role. As much as the information available, as much the supply chain becomes efficient. The information plays the major role, where, the technology can be affective to improve the quality and process of information. For instance, it has improved the information process of Wal-Mart by providing information of demand, supply, needs of the customers and changing in the market.
Recent advancement in Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart has recently introduced a new application of Savings Catcher with the aim to develop win-win situation between in stores and online channel for sales. The application can be used by the customers having smart phones to help them in shopping in the store (Miller, 2014).
Advance in Layman terms
Layman term simply means a person who is unqualified for the particular area of the field but have knowledge of that field. The advancement of Wal-Mart for the customers can be considered as the layman process as the customers have not professional knowledge and qualification of the IT and technology, however, they are mainly target to use the advancement as they have the knowledge of using applications on the Smartphone.
Contribution of Advance in Business Challenges
The advance application of Wal-Mart has planned to contribute greatly in increasing the customer satisfaction and loyalty by making them purchase repeatedly from its store. It makes shopping easy for the customers, mainly for those who have limited budget and want to buy those products that are affordable. It helps the company to achieve the maximum sales in the marketplace and achieve competitive advantage.
NIST guideline for Risk Assessment in Wal-Mart
NIST has provided the complete guideline for the organizations to manage their risks with the help of effective risk management. For the best practices of Risk Assessment based on the guide of NIST, Wal-Mart can reduce the risks of failure of its IT investment in the overall business process. Wal-Mart should adopt the assessment based on the following steps (Stoneburber, Goguen & Feringa. 2002):
Characterize the system
Identify the potential and all possible threats
Identify the weaknesses
Analyze the control of these threats and weaknesses
Determine the possibilities and changes
Analyze the impacts of the changes
Determine the risks
Recommend the control process and practices
Document the outcomes of the practice
Based on the following steps of risks assessment, Wal-Mart can easily reduce the risks in its practices and information technology development.
References
Casco-Arias, L., Bliss Jr, W. L., Biondi, S., Christopherson, T. D., Gauthier, C. S., Imming, K. A., & Wicher, C. H. (2012). U.S. Patent No. 8,121,889. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
King, R. (2014). Wal-Mart Changes the Way it Prioritizes IT Projects. Retrieved January 14, 2016, from; http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2014/10/21/wal-mart-changes-the-way-it-prioritizes-it-projects/
Kosasi, S. & Saraghi, H. (2014). How Rfid Technology Boosts Walmart’s Supply Chain Management. International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management, 24(1), 29-37.
Lu, C. (2014). Incredibly successful supply chain management: how does walmart do it? Retrieved January 14, 2016, from; https://www.tradegecko.com/blog/incredibly-successful-supply-chain-management-walmart
Luftman, J. (2004). Assessing business-IT alignment maturity. Strategies for information technology governance, 4, 99.
Miller, M. J. (2014). How Walmart Uses Technology to Connect Online, Retail. Retrieved January 14, 2016, from; https://www.google.com.pk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjtroe14KjKAhUEOxoKHV2GDnkQFgg6MAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Fforwardthinking.pcmag.com%2Fnone%2F324483-how-walmart-uses-technology-to-connect-online-retail&usg=AFQjCNHj3CT_hlUfW-P9kUhYPMeUt__6YA&sig2=g-hHvyrFQRH_4XQINAYroQ&bvm=bv.111677986,d.d24
Stoneburner, G. Goguen, A. and Feringa, A. (2002). Risk Management Guide for Information Technology Systems: Recommendations of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Retrieved January 14, 2016, from; http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-30/sp800-30.pdf
Team, C. P. (2006). CMMI for Development, version 1.2. Retrieved January 14, 2016, from; http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1378&context=sei
Von Solms, B. (2005). Information Security governance: COBIT or ISO 17799 or both?. Computers & Security, 24(2), 99-104.
Wegmann, A., Balabko, P., Lê, L. S., Regev, G., & Rychkova, I. (2005, June). A Method and Tool for Business-IT Alignment in Enterprise Architecture. In CAiSE Short Paper Proceedings (Vol. 2005).
Whitlock, P. (2005). How to make ITIL work for your company. Retrieved January 14, 2016, from; http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/How-to-make-ITIL-work-for-your-company
