CHAPTER 5

ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURES THAT SUPPORT STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURES

• organisational employees must work closely together to develop strategic initiatives that create competitive advantages

• ethics and security are two fundamental building blocks that organisations must base their business upon

IT ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• information technology is a relatively new functional area, having only been around formally for around 40 years

• recent IT-related strategic positions:

> Chief Information Officer (CIO) is oversees all uses of IT and ensures the strategic alignment of IT business goals and objectives

> Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is responsible for ensuring the throughput, speed, accuracy, availability, and reliability of an organization's information technology

> Chief Security Officer (CSO) is responsible for ensuring the ethical and legal use of information within an organization

> Chief Knowledge Office (CKO) is responsible for collecting, maintaining, and distributing the organisation's knowledge

THE GAP BETWEEN BUSINESS PERSONNEL AND IT PERSONNEL

• business personnel possess expertise in functional areas such as marketing, accounting and sales

• IT personnel have the technological expertise

• this typically causes a communications gap between the business personnel and IT personnel

IMPROVING COMMUNICATIONS

• business personnel must seek to increase their understanding of IT

• IT personnel must seek to increase their understanding of the business

• it is the responsibility of the CIO to ensure effective communication between business personnel and IT personnel

ORGANIZATIONAL FUNDAMENTALS - ETHICS AND SECURITY

• ethics and security are two fundamental building blocks that organisations must base their businesses on to be successful

• in recent years, such events as the Enron and Martha Stewart, along with 9/11 have shed new light n the meaning of ethics and security

Ethics

• the principles and standards that guide our behavior toward other people

• privacy is a major ethical issue. the right to be left alone when you want to be, to have control over your      own personal possessions, and not to be observed without your consent

• issues affected by technology advances

• intellectual property - intangible creative work that is embodied in physical form

• copyright - the legal protection afforded an expression of an idea, such as a song, video game, and some types of proprietary documents

• fair use doctrine - in certain situations,it is legal to use copyright material

• pirated softwarebcounterfeit software - software that is manufactured to look like the real thing and sold as such

• one of the main ingredients in trust is privacy

• primary reasons privacy issues lost trust for e-business

• loss personal privacy is atop concern for american in the 21st century

• among Internet user, 37 percent would be "a lot" more inclined to purchase a product on a Web site that had a privacy policy

• privacy/security is the number one factor that would convert internet researchers into Internet buyers

Security

• organization information is intellectual capital - it must be protected

• information security - the protection of information from accidental or intentional misuse by person inside or outside an organization

• E-business automatically creates tremendous information security risks for organizations