Topic 4: ICT Strategy V2

Topic 4: ICT Strategy V2

1. Factors Influencing ICT System Strategy

   • Available finance
   • Legacy Systems
     • Older system places constraints on the development of the new system
   • geographical factors
     • geography of clients
     • affects the way goods/services are delivered to clients. This may require the use of other couriers to do this efficiently.
   • External factors
     • Compliance
       • Conforming to a specification or policy, standard or law that has been clearly defined
       • Regulations
         • Financial Services Authority (FSA)
         • HM Revenue
         • Customs
         • Trading Standards
         • Environmental Protection Agency
     • legislation
   • Business fulfilment
     • The process of receiving, packaging and shipping orders of goods
   • Internal Factors
     • Business goals
       • What the organisation wants to happen short term and long term.

2. Management of information assets over time

   • In business/organisations, information needs to be kept for a long period of time
     • ICT Systems need to have plenty of spare storage capacity to cope with increasing volume of data. This may involve the purchase of server space as well as servers.
   • Information Stored...
     • customer data
       • Retailers with loyalty schemes hold large amounts of customer data and so must ensure the data is kept safe and secure within compliance of the Data Protection Act, Computer Misuse Act, Copyrights, Patents & Designs Act plus the General Data Protection Regulations Act.
     • details about..
       • voicemails
       • e-mails
       • internal memos
     • Kept in case its needed as evidence in a legal case
       • Backup copies are kept aswell
     • Drawbacks
       • storage problems
       • finding information from several years ago takes times
         • and can be expensive
         • therefore you need to make sure that you can search for the archived data
           • data is archived so less processing power is used when searching for data
             • school archives data of old students so they only have to search around 1200 students when searching for relevant data

3. Future Proofing

   • The system must be able to handle new data in the future after development.
   • Application software is independent of operating system. If it fails, the system can still continue to run.
   • Data is stored separate to database software. This is stored in servers physically away from the system.
   • The concept of future-proofing is the process of anticipating the future and developing methods of minimizing the effects of shocks and stresses of future events.

4. Corporate strategy covering technology for ICT systems in large organisations

   • developments in technology
     • Need a flexible strategy that can be changed
     • Need to be able to move quickly to ensure competitive advantage
   • Procurement
     • This ensures the new components to the system are value for money.
       • The Chief Information Officer will choose the ideal companies/ individuals for providing hardware, software and services. They will also consider the types of training needed for the employees.
     • It is advisable to use a quote. A quote is the last price at which hardware, software or other components were sold. This can be used as a rough estimate of what the costing will be.
     • Tenders for large contracts formally offer a stated fixed price for carrying out work, supplying goods etc.
   • Technology life cycle
     • Research and development
     • The ascent phase
       • The cost of the new system has been earned back and now a larger share of profit can be made.
       • savings start to rise above research and development costs
     • The maturity phase
     • decline phase
       • where ICT system starts to be out of date
         • costs of maintaing rise
           • more difficult to maintain
   • People Considerations
     • Re-organisation may be needed
     • Existing staff will need training in new technology
       • to increase their skills
     • New staff may be needed

5. Standards affecting strategic choices

   • allow computers and computer equipment to successfully work together
   • E.g. School or College will exchange data with the exam board they use
     • this saves time
       • because the data is in a form that both computer systems can understand
         • therefore the school and the exam board have to use the same standards so their systems can communicate