Jeanne W. Ross

The ERP Revolution: Surviving vs. Thriving

This paper presents preliminary findings from a research project that examined how firms are generating business value from their investments in enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The research, which was done jointly with Benchmarking Partners, describes the stages of ERP implementation, the obstacles that firms encountered in generating benefits from the systems, and some critical success factors for getting business value from the implementation of an ERP system in business.

Dow Corning Corporation: business processes and information technology

This case study, which is divided into parts A and B, describes one firms experiences as it adopted a process perspective to managing its business, examined the implications for its information systems needs, decided to acquire SAP (an integrated, enterprise-wide software package) and embarked on the SAP implementation. ‘Dow Corning Corporation part A: Rethinking the Role of IT Within the Firm’ focuses on the business context and describes the role and structure of the information technology (IT) function at Dow Corning in late 1994. In the midst of a legal crisis that was draining financial resources, the firm had to address global competition. The case poses the question of how IT should be organized and managed to meet current business challenges. ‘Dow Corning Corporation part B: Re-engineering Global Processes’ is set in March 1997. The IT organization had been redesigned and reported to a member of the senior management team. The case focuses on Dow Cornings pilot implementation of SAP and its plans to re-engineer global processes. Special attention is given to the IT units role in the re-engineering and systems implementation processes.

The information systems balancing act: building partnerships and infrastructure

Describes how IS (information systems) units are currently applying balancing mechanisms to help them address the limitations of organizational structure. IS units require organizational structures that both facilitate partnerships with business unit clients and enable tight co‐ordination of computing platforms to strengthen the technology infrastructure. For years, IS executives have recognized that the structure that best supports each objective is counterproductive for the other objective. Thus, they have periodically undertaken major restructuring, which has the effect of alternating between the objectives rather than addressing them simultaneously. Today’s IS executives, however, are increasingly attempting to achieve partnership and infrastructure development simultaneously by implementing balancing mechanisms: structural overlays and process enhancements that leverage the strengths of an existing organizational structure while compensating for its limitations. Balancing mechanisms enable the IS function to work towards those dual IS management goals simultaneously, as well as to respond more quickly to today’s competitive environment. Also describes individual balancing mechanisms used in Fortune 500 firms and a strategy for implementing suites of mechanisms to achieve IS management goals.

Management commitments that maximize business impact from IT

As digitization becomes pervasive, many organizations struggle to drive value from the growing number of IT-related opportunities. We show how the drivers of IT value creation can be framed as firm-wide commitments to a set of IT capabilities. On the basis of 20 published case studies, we identify a small set of IT decisions that organizations must make to use IT to successfully enhance their impact. We group these decisions into a framework of four commitments. Making these commitments helps organizations reinforce what really matters over time, which in turn helps focus the attention of their employees. We demonstrate, via a survey of 210 publicly traded firms, that firms which are more effective in making these four commitments have higher business impact from IT, which in turn correlates with higher financial performance. We suggest the construct of commitment is a step toward unifying the IT value literature and creating an overarching concept that brings together many of the important management practices identified in previous work.

Information and Transformation at Swiss RE: Maximizing Economic Value

In 2007 Swiss RE was striving to maximize economic value, a metric that would allow the company to assess its performance over time despite the volatility of the reinsurance industry. Maximizing economic value required that decision makers throughout the company understood the risk profiles of individual investments and the performance profiles of individual investment instruments. Swiss RE management had recognized several years earlier that the firm had to globalize processes and share data to provide needed information to decision makers. This case describes Swiss REs journey from a regional to a global firm and highlights the role of information technology in enabling the standardization and sharing of the firms global processes and data. Swiss Re was still working in 2007 to drive the benefits of its global process environment, but decision makers were learning to take advantage of enhanced information.

Enterprise Cognitive Computing Applications: Opportunities and Challenges

Enterprise cognitive computing (ECC) applications are generating a great deal of excitement for organizations. However, they have yet to demonstrate a business impact on a large scale. An important reason for this is a failure to understand how such applications can contribute to a company’s business objectives and the challenges associated with implementing them. In this article, the authors provide an overview of cognitive computing applications for the enterprise. In particular, they classify opportunities for developing ECC applications and describe challenges in implementing them. Their findings are based on a study of 51 ECC application initiatives across a broad range of industries in North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region. Given the lack of systematic descriptions regarding what is possible from ECC, this article should be valuable to researchers and practitioners in unpacking the black box of cognitive computing.

Credit Suisse: Engineering a Global Financial Services Business

In 2010, Credit Suisse was attempting to leverage its global scale by integrating key business processes across geographies and business units. The IT unit, under Global CIO Karl Landert, assumed a pivotal role in enabling business integration. But the IT unit had developed distinctive cultures and capabilities reflecting two very different business units — private banking and investment banking — and different geographies. To help understand and develop the skills needed to support business integration, Credit Suisse’s IT unit developed clearly defined job families and career paths for its 8,000 IT professionals and 4,000 contractors. This case examines the transformation of the IT unit as it implemented its job families and defined IT roles that would help Credit Suisse become a global financial services business.

The IS-business partner relationship (panel)

The IS-business partner relationship is crucial to the effective implementation and support of information technology in organizations. Many IS executives are introducing structures and practices targetedl at improving this relationship. In particular, they are Ioc}king for ways to establish effective communication channels between IS and business managers. This panel will examine mechanisms intended to improve IS-business partner communication and thereby enhance the relationship. In particular, panel members will discuss the potential benefits and pitfalls of alternative approaches they have observed in practice.