P31164-Information Technology and Strategic Management Assignment Sample
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Report on Managing information for globalisation and innovation
I. UCB IT group’s successful initiatives, challenges faced and maturity audit.
A. UCB IT group’s successful initiatives
The UCB has130 subsidiaries with 10,000 employees and it is subdivided into Chemicals, Pharma and Films. The company has shown a good profit projection in beforehand with respect to the tax and other exceptions.A number of successful initiatives taken by the firm led towards of growth. Some of such initiatives taken by it were:
- Opening a new research and development (R&D) facility for Filmsin August among the price war.
- Opening a new state-of-the-art research facility.
- Leveraging its research-oriented activities and also acquiring companies.
- An acquisition helped Chemicals to benefit by means of strong margin improvements.
- Innovation, speed, and flexibility were the reason behind UCB’ssuccess.
- Covering the global market with the support of agents, distributors, and licensees, and selling its products virtually all over the world.
- Job rotation at all levels of the company.
- High degree of cross-sector knowledge and a noticeable spirit of collaboration.
- Films has spread its business units in three continents having its production facilities and the other technical service teams and sales in 50 countries.
- Films also extended its business over the world by making partnerships with various international organizations and also in national markets.
- Ensuring resources were in place in the case of developing new innovative products.
- Turning to specialty applications for higher margins.
- UCB Chemicals is producingspecialty productslike Radcure resins, polyester resins which is of high added value.
- Delivering products for industrial coatings (such as wood or safety glass), graphic arts (such as inks and varnishes), and optoelectronics (like that of flat liquid crystal screens and printed circuits).
- Sales representatives working out of fixed offices.
- Steps taken to enable sales representatives’ work from home.
- It has established itself own sales force in both the United States and Europe along with the efficient marketing relationship in those countries.
- Throughout the world it has employed over 750 people out of which 380 were in research and 370 in the area of development.
- Geographical distribution of R&D staff.
- Building R&D organization through acquisition and internal growth.
- Research for development of new and innovative drugs.
- Making acquired companies/places – a key location for sales, marketing, clinical trials management, and a variety of customer-oriented support groups.
b. Challenges faced by UCB
- In spite of its growth, UCB’s has been trading its stock price at lowest level from January 1998.
- The company has to face difficult economic climate during the year of 2001.In case of Films, the profit is affected due to climate and also because of the loss in Cellophane which is in United States (UCB, 2002).
- It has faced the challenge of synchronizing the IT/IS plan with the business plan.
- The UCB’s supplychain encountered problem in enhancing services and cost as it is not properly addressed.
- In case of customers, there were not proper information provided to them regarding the order and services.
- The systems imparted in UCB is found to less functional to cope up with the new challenges among the competitors.
- Thecosts of software maintenance and upgrades were on the increase.
- Thecomputing capacity was not efficientlyutilized.
- Rightpriorities were not framed for the demands faced by the IS/IT budget.
- The priority-setting process was in It failed to prioritizeprojects.
- There is no proper alignment to meet the demands caused in terms of geographically and organization wise.
c. Maturity audit for UCB
Exhibit 1
II. Classification of the challenges
a. Challenges faced by UCB – cost pyramid
Exhibit 2
b. UCB’s contribution, support, globalization or innovation
The ICB has a great contribution towards globalization and innovation. A number of moves led to this. It branched out and grew wide through acquisition of many companies. They followed a strategical planin driving the specialized range of products in the markets which is supposed to have high added value. The three divisions (Chemicals, Pharma and Films) had an organization which is decentralized one and the strategic guidelines are framed by executive committee. The central services of the organization was responsible for the entire control and coordination of the three sectors along with finance, human resources, investment, law, administration and IT/IS which gave UCB the flexibility to capture more opportunities, making rapid decisions and also providing best service.
UCB had high flexibility and ability to adapt. It had a high “Speed of action”. It developed an information system which makes use of intranet, e-mail and People soft. It acquiredseveral companies and also possess practical approach that led to “quick wins” by means of having business value of clearly identifiable. It has its subsidiaries and associated companiesin Western Europe, Asia and America where there is expeditious growth. The company makes it business all over the world with the association of distributors and agents.It has employedover 10000 people for Pharma, UCB Chemicals and Films. In the Belgium production facility one third of the people are working with.
Jobrotation at all levels of the company- across geographical regions and industrial sectors. It resulted in a high degree of cross-sector knowledge andnoticeable spirit of collaboration. The dependence on information technology, the way IT/IS was managed, setting standards, coordination of human resource led to enormous corporate growth.Specialized range of products with high added value is put forth in markets, its strategic guidelines, ability to grab opportunities, rapid decision making process, provision of eminent service, flexibility and ability to adapt and developing new information system.It leveraged its research oriented activities and acquisition of companies has developed a special and high performance products for the market. It set up six major sites in Europe—and others outside Europe in places such as Australia and America. All these efforts lead to its successful contribution to globalization.
c. Efforts of UCB
UCB Films business units is spread over three continents and the technical service teams are present in 50 countries.Its business was driven by investment in R&D. It had acquired growth of €396 million in sales in the year of 2001 and also spent €15 million for research. The company has put forth its objective in case of the production of highly value added products. It I found that the company had generated 40% of sales from its product named Radcure resins.Chemicals delivered products for industrial coatings, graphic arts, and optoelectronics. In 2001, sales were €652 million. It was €664 million during 2000. Chemicals spent more on research, €35 million. It faced challenges to profitability and had fluctuations in raw material prices.
UCB Pharmahas indulged in the research of products which is elated to neurology and respiratory areas.Zyrtec’s which is UCB Pharma’s had worldwide sale worth €1.7 billion. The company had a plan to present itself in the three major world pharmaceutical markets such as Europe, the United States, and Japan. With this it is known sales of Pharma is €1,427 million when it is compared with the sales in the year 2000 which is of €1,149 million which shows increase of 24%. The increase was said to be 17% in region of Asia-Pacific and 50% in America.Due to the aspect of having own sales force the company had an effective marketing relationship in Europe and the United States.
III. Focus made by Damien
Damien expressed concern on the fact that past projects focused on the case of optimizing cost rather than the case of increasing and creating value. Yes, I agree to it. It is found that right after establishing central IT/IS system for organization, the company has started to look for opportunities for the improvisation of information services which would be bound to be useful in reducing costs throughout the geographical spread of the business. Damien has viewed about the standardization of business as it could benefit to the company in case of acquisition of other companies when dealing with maintenance and interoperability. He has focused on having standard systems for the company which is around the world.It has been given funds to upgrade the existing system to meet the designated standards throughout the company. He initiated efforts to standardize the applications related to business and also prohibited customization of certain packages like PeopleSoft, SAP which has also lead to ignore the internal development by agreeing with the non-customized software in the system.
In addition to the above, Hautfenne has made search to know the cost efficiency of the technology which is about to be used. In 1999, he grasped €2.7 millionof annualsavings from the budget. It made him to consolidate into small and individual purchases made by the sectors and it is turned out as a group by means of negotiation. It also tactfully made competition amongthe vendors which would enable to have handful of leveragein savings at the group level.He added one-time savings comprised of €5.5 million by means of againnegotiating contracts which has made already with respect to voice and data telecommunications along with high-priced application software which could be used throughout UCB.
The negotiation was made successfully which has led to have contract savings which is a challenge in terms of doing business globally and it made sure that it could not affect either regional or local business.It got the largest software contracts – a suite of products that was provided by one vendor. He was looking to save money all the means to gain support from the research group.UCB’s licensing the entire suite of applications from asupplier which is assumed to provide a 30% discount and also capturing the share of the technology of the supplier. There was considerable financial benefit from acting together. They had a clear intellectual benefit on cost savings from a large global contract. Damien description revealed that initially there wasconcern on sourcing from a single supplier, but later concluded that UCB was looking at a €2.5 million savings by means of partnership made with the vendors for the software.
IV. LIST OF ACTIVITIES – ITS DIFFERENCE IN TODAY’S APPLICATION
3R portal –an overview
In the technological revolution, there has been underlying challenges in the computer systems which are human centered. “Data in and of itself is worthless. Its value derives from getting the right information to the right person at the right time. This translates into good decisions that can help avert costly repairs or catastrophic equipment failures.” “In operational settings, the right information might be raw data, or integrated data, or an interpretation, evaluation, or diagnosis. The right person might be the maintenance technician, the technical expert, or the operator who takes decisive action, or even more likely the full chain of capable people leading to action. The right time could be an immediate shutdown or repair, or a near-term deviation from a preplanned maintenance schedule to replace a filter. Or it could be preventive, months or even years in advance for a major overhaul. Anytime you can effectively use data to take action, you are adding value.”[1] So, considering the importance of the 3R in the current scenario, the budget allocation on it needs to be higher.
Knowledge management
The concept of knowledge management is about the process which involves in defining, structuring, retaining and sharing the knowledge and experience of employees who are all present in the organization. The objective of knowledge management is to improve the efficiency of the organization and also about to save the knowledge within the company. The main areas of the knowledge management is comprised of three areas such as accumulating knowledge, storingknowledge and sharing knowledge. The knowledge management is of two type as tactic knowledge and explicit knowledge.It boosts the efficiency of organization in terms of decision making ability.It does also help in increased collaboration and to build the organizational knowledge.It has helped in increasing the employee happiness and retention which has been obtained through training and innovation(Jennex, 2007).
Extended enterprise for chemicals
In case of chemicals, the company must have extended enterprise as it could not operate in isolation as the success of the company is about to depend on network of partnerships made.Many times, managing the services and public relations on behalf of the organization. They also act as external agents when dealing with customers. All organizations supported by third-party members are subjected to make an extended enterprise(Jagdev, 1998).It is likely to have extended enterprise for chemicals as it has involved with the huge business process in the market. It helps the company to acquire a large space in the market.
The need for innovation in chemicals IT/IS
Innovation lies at the heart of this rapid change. Industries across domains are innovating in terms of learning & unlearning, implementing ideas differently or re-designing in this dynamic environment. Trying to understand this from the chemical industry’s lens, it is evident that the industry needs to be agile in adapting innovation and research to keep pace with the changing world. In the case of chemical industry there should be new technologies adopted for the case of making out of new products which could also make the business to gain more profit.All through the years there are such innovations in the chemical industry which had global economic growth on the back of these high-value innovations. Hence, budget allocation for innovation need to be higher(ASHFORD, 1983).
Transforming the chemicals sales force and support
Highly- customized solutions are built on Salesforce. It enables to get a vast data coming through connected devices to know customers more intimately and give them the fast, frictionless and secure experiences they want. Since UCB already has problems with information management, the budget allocation on the case of transforming the sales force of chemicals along with the intended support. The sales force must be changed as the chemicals which has been kept in the inventories should be sold at right time without any delay. The integration with the information system will help in understanding the amount of sales which has been made in a certain period of time. Through this a method or approach would be made to increase the sales of chemicals(F.Percy, 2012).
The “validation project” in pharma
In case of any industrial process, there needs to be the importance of validation which would be issued by the concerned department.Henceforth, the company has obtained validation for the production of new drugs through the various procedures mentioned.It has also mentioned that it is important to audit information system too as it is also used in the development of drugs. Henceforth, in chemical industry there has to be validation for all the manufacturing and other business systems which has been up to the delivery of drugs(Karapetyan, 2015). There would be additionally the entire process right from the procurement of materials to the end product would also be validated to know the quality of the drug which is about to beproduced.
Transforming the pharma salesforce
In Pharma, sales play a major role as the company’s profit solely depend on the amount of revenue generated through the sales. The sales of the company is different from the markets with which the product is entered globally. The sales representatives are the one who are directly involved in the marketing of the drugs which has been produced.There are regulations which will vary according to the country with which the product is about to be sold.The advent of technologies has also made the process in an effective and easier manner. The strict regulations enacted by the countries necessitate the use of PCs in case of sales(Dixon, 2012).
Exhibit 3
V. BUDGET PLANNING
If I were Damien Vincent, I would take into consideration all the 8 activities in the given list, but would prioritize.
EXHIBIT 4
In case presenting the project or initiative there are certain aspects to be noted. The initiative must be submitted to the budget meeting which has been made among the stakeholders of the project.To begin with the strategic goals of the project are framed and explained in a clear and precise manner.It helps in identifying whether the team has formulated the intended objective which is necessarily needed for the project which could make the business process to grow further more.Then the benefits obtained from the project are explained to the members who are all present in the meeting. The benefit realization is the most important aspect for any project to avoid unnecessary spending on budget. Then the team should know whether there is any gap which is present in the case of strategy formulation and execution of the selected initiatives. The team must overview the entire initiative to avoid budget to be spend on the area where does it not require any development.The initiative presented must inspire the sponsors as if it could make them that their investment is solely made for the growth and the profit of the company. There must be efficient ones who would proceed the project without any delay in time as it could lead to additional costs. The budget is also made in accordance with the type of the method which is employees in the project to get its completed(Ronald, 2018).The technologies which are necessary for the project are notified and included in the budgeting process before the starting of the project. The entire aspect of the project right from the starting stage and the requirements of the project are all presented over the meeting. It ensures that there would not be any consequences later when proceeding with the project.
References
ASHFORD, N. A., 1983. REGULATION AND TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION IN THE CHEMICALINDUSTRY. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/95f3/d5b710974b51612b32cf7099fd3fadebe901.pdf.
Dixon, A. L., 2012. Transforming Selling: Why it is Time to Think Differently about Sales Research. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274678107_Transforming_Selling_Why_it_is_Time_to_Think_Differently_about_Sales_Research.
F.Percy, N., 2012. Transformation of the Traditional Salesforce: Imperatives for Intelligence, Interface and Integration. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0267257X.2003.9728226.
Jagdev, H., 1998. The Extended Enterprise—A Context for Manufacturing. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247875467_The_Extended_Enterprise-A_Context_for_Manufacturing.
Jennex, M. E., 2007. What is Knowledge Management?. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314500732_What_is_Knowledge_Management.
Karapetyan, K., 2015. he Chemical Validation and Standardization Platform (CVSP): Large-scale automated validation of chemical structure datasets. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279059901_The_Chemical_Validation_and_Standardization_Platform_CVSP_Large-scale_automated_validation_of_chemical_structure_datasets.
Ronald, M., 2018. Analysis of Project Cost Management and The Effect On Cost Overrun In Construction Projects. http://www.ijirset.com/upload/2018/july/72_Analysis.pdf.
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