RESPOND WITH AT LEAST 200 WORDS EACH, CITE ALL REFEREES, AND NO PLAGIARISM!

POST 1:

• What challenges does Brown, the CIO, face in creating a process-oriented organization?

Brown’s process orientation was based on his conviction that the functional model had run its course (Raghu, T. S. 2010). Brown states that the most significant approach to business transformation should be service and process alignment orientation (Raghu, T. S. 2010). For this to happen there is need to convert from a functional model to a process model. First was to transform their IT, they were using the functional model for fifty years so this task proved to be difficult (Raghu, T. S. 2010). Along with that was the creation of a process engineering services which provide support for continuous improvement and information services process (Raghu, T. S. 2010).

• What are the requirements for creating a process-oriented culture in an organization? To what extent does Pinnacle West address these requirements? Where is it lacking?

According to Janne Othonen, creating a process-oriented culture requires the following;

• Having a genuine focus on the customer – it is important to always aim at satisfying customers at all times. Customers’ needs should come first at all times.
• Focus is on mastering from a customer oriented perspective – focus on building customer trust by delivering quality services.
• Have fact and data driven management – state clear measures for gauging the performance of the business and gather necessary data and carry out analysis using the hey indicators (Janne Othonen, 2012). In a situation where it does not contribute to success then there is need to eliminate it.
• Create boundary less collaboration culture – one should break down the barriers that the organization face and to improve team work within the organization.
• Require proactive management – goal setting is important and this should be done frequently to ensure that the organizational goals are met.
• Support a drive for perfection, combined with a tolerance for failure – one must be willing to take chances and this is through trying new ideas as well as approaches that have some risk of failure to make changes leading to perfection.
• Is it necessary to push the process-oriented culture to the entire company, or is having a process-oriented information technology organization sufficient for driving value from business information systems?

Yes, it is necessary for one to push the process-oriented culture to the whole company. Big business transformations are happening within IT today. Businesses have become more focused on better customer-facing through services, along with IT supporting people and new or current technology.

• What lessons can you learn from the Pinnacle West case, and how might you apply those at your organization? How effective is management at promoting a process-oriented culture? What could management do better or improve upon to create or implement enterprise-wide business information systems? Provide specific examples to support your observations.

Pinnacle depicted the importance on how one should be adaptive to ideas or processes to succeed. Brown was a key factor in taking the organization from a functional process to a process-oriented organization. Management can be improved through the implementation of enterprise-wide business information systems as well as case studies of other companies that have made similar change before. There is need to bring in management from other similar companies as a consultant to oversee the proposed changes.

References

Raghu, T. S. (2010). Creating a process-oriented enterprise at Pinnacle West (Ivey Publishing Case Study No. 9B10E002).
Retrieved from https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/pl/23289610/23289618/4969e88db9fafc83c775d2959dfa0bc7

Othonen, Janne. August 29, 2012. 6 Key Ingredients for a Process Culture that Brings Results. BPM Leader: Independent community for business process management professionals.http://www.bpmleader.com/2012/08/29/the-6-key-ingredients-for-a-process-culture-that-brings-results/

POST 2:

Driving Value of Business Information Systems Through Process-Oriented Organization

The information services initiatives were designed to support the business process transformation efforts and ultimately transform the business (Raghu, 2010). When working to transform the system into a process-oriented organization, Brown encountered difficulties from the first step of transforming the IT department. The difficulties are a direct result of decades of experience run on a functional model as well as the lack of change this model was willing to take. Changing process systems is also difficult for long time employees who are knowledgeable and comfortable with the functional model system.

After creating a Center for Process Excellence (CPE), Brown worked towards institutionalizing the process transformation knowledge gained within the information services organization to provide facilitation and redesign services throughout the enterprise (Raghu, 2010). The group of employees in this center were from different backgrounds and had many different skills sets. Obtaining a variety of employees would allow Brown to focus on the business aspect of the transformation while bringing many different ideas and problem solving solutions to the company.

Pinnacle West followed the advice of Brown by creating a process engineering services group to support information services process and the continuous improvement of these services (Raghu, 2010). Pinnacle lacked in staffing this group of support employees by only staffing four workers to help more than 600 employees. With a support to employee ratio such as this, the support team is grossly understaffed. Without proper numbers and competent individuals in this department, the information processes systems cannot be continuously upgraded or monitored properly. The employees who seek the support of this team are most likely not able to obtain the guidance, training, or support needed to work competently with the processes or systems required for Pinnacle West to operate correctly and efficiently.

I believe pushing the process-oriented system to the entire company is an important part of transforming the information systems as well as the value of the organization. For a company as whole to work in different methods of information processing would be detrimental to the customer service and the employees as well as the value of the business. Employees could easily be cross-trained to do different tasks in the same system. This could also lead to higher, positive customer experiences and returning business.

Reference:

Raghu, T. S. (2010). Creating a process-oriented enterprise at Pinnacle West (Ivey Publishing

Case Study No. 9B10E002). Retrieved from: https://services.hbsp.harvard.edu/services/proxy/content/72085969/72085975/5ed9caf939472c549f58bcc8bf0993d0.