The project deliverables are as follows:
Discuss where you see the company now:
People: Do your IT people have the skills to maintain the existing software and hardware systems?
Processes: Does the company have the policies and processes in place to adequately manage IT strategically?
Technology: Is the company technology (hardware, software, networks, etc.) up-to-date and able to handle existing challenges, or is it falling behind and in need of major updates/grades?
Discuss where you see the company in 5 years:
People: Will your IT people have the skills to maintain the projected software and hardware systems?
Processes: What policies and processes will the company need to have in place to adequately manage IT strategically?
Technology: What technology (hardware, software, networks, etc.) will the company need to be able to handle those future challenges?
Recommend why your company needs to do to address the gaps between now and 5 years from now.
Summary
Name the document “yourname_IT375_IP3 .”
Running Head:
INNOVATIONS AT INTERNATIONAL FOODS
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INNOVATIONS AT INTERNATIONAL FOODS
Innovations at international foods
Institution
Name
Date
Table of Contents
2
Table of Contents
2
1.1 THE COMPANY OVERVIEW
3
1.2 Current IT Strategic Planning and Management
4
1.3 PROBLEMS CITED IN THE CURRENT IT PLANNING STRATEGY
4
2.0 BUSINESS IMPACT OF THE PROBLEMS
5
3.0 TECHNOLOGY ROADMAP
5
4.0 INFORMATION SECURITY STRATEGY
6
5.0 IT FUNCTIONS AND CAPABILITY STRATEGY.
7
6.0 SUMMARY
9
7.0 REFFERENCES
1.1 THE COMPANY OVERVIEW
The International Foods Group (IFG) Tower was a Chicago landmark as well as part of the company’s logo, which appeared on the packages of almost every type of food one could imagine—breakfast cereals, soft drinks, frozen pizza, cheese, and snack foods, to name just a few. IFG was now the largest purveyor of food products the world had ever known. , IFG kept right on growing, gobbling up dozens of companies each year—some because IFG wanted to stomp on its competition and others because it wanted their good ideas.
1.2 Current IT Strategic Planning and Management
IFG has taken over Glow-Foods since the company has done well in using social networking, mashups, and multimedia to support its marketing strategy and has an impressive ability to reach the under thirty demographic with technology. IFG has traditionally marketed its products to women with children missing out on the youth. It has a functional Web site—a place where customers can find out about its products and where to buy them. More recently, it has added the products nutritional content, some recipes, and a place where customers can contact directly with questions, but it is unidirectional and pretty dry. Enough of what had been done in Glow-Foods succeeded that demand for the company’s products had skyrocketed. Young adults and teens had responded en masse to the opportunity to post pictures of themselves drinking their Green Tea Shakes in unusual places on the Glow-Foods Web site and to send a coupon for their favorite Glow-Foods product to a friend. Serialized company mini-dramas popped up on YouTube and viewers were asked to go online to help shape what happened to the characters—all of them using Glow-Foods products extensively. Contests, mass collaboration in package design, and a huge network of young part-time sales reps linked through Facebook all contributed to making the brand hip and exciting—and drove sales through the roof.
1.3 PROBLEMS CITED IN THE CURRENT IT PLANNING STRATEGY
The team has encountered some problems during the strategic planning. Access to instant messaging and Facebook require prior approval from Rick Visser’s group. They need to know why Josh’s team needs it. Ben demands that the team goes through him since he is the contact person and claims he should be present in all meetings. Sheema requested that the team should request their proposed work, with costs and benefits for the fiscal year beginning six months from now. The team is not sure how the plan will play out, it could be great and would need lots of resources to scale up or could bomb and fail.
2.0 BUSINESS IMPACT OF THE PROBLEMS
Since access to instant messaging and Facebook require prior approval from Rick Visser’s group, this could affect communication and information could fail to deliver on time. The information could also fail to reach the receivers incase Visser’s group fails to approve the information. Ben demands that the team goes through him since he is the contact person and claims he should be present in all meetings. Incase case Ben is engaged elsewhere and is not able to attend a meeting, it means that the meeting will be postponed and this is a waste of time and resources. Sheema requested that the team should request their proposed work, with costs and benefits for the fiscal year beginning six months from now. The team is not sure how the plan will play out, it could be great and would need lots of resources to scale up or could bomb and fail. For this reason a definite budget cannot be made.
3.0 TECHNOLOGY ROADMAP
International Foods Group (IFG) will connect directly with customers about new product development ideas through an interactive Web site with real-time response from internal staff. The company will then reach out to different communities and gain insights into their needs and interests, which in turn will guide the future marketing plans. These and other ideaswill be implemented on the ‘cloud,’ which will enable the team to scale up or down rapidly as it needs to while linking with company databases.
4.0 INFORMATION SECURITY STRATEGY
Successful accomplishment of the goals and objectives will result in realizing the vision and the transformation of the company’s operations, technologies, processes, and people. Program managers, users and supporting personnel will have confidence in the information needed to achieve their missions. Decision makers will share a seamless, enterprise-wide, and common view of information, networks, and systems, allowing them to jointly make decisions. The secure enterprise architecture will allow appropriate sharing of information and knowledge and enable multiple levels of information sharing across security environments.
Cyber security capabilities will be dynamic, sufficiently robust, and agile – reconfigurable on demand, available, and consistently controlled at all points of access, with reduced possibility for human and machine error. Cutting-edge protection, detection, and response technologies will be rapidly deployed across all systems and networks, outpacing adversaries’ efforts to exploit vulnerabilities.
Processes and governance principles will support mission accomplishment in a networked environment, will be continually improved, and will be sufficiently dynamic and agile to accommodate rapidly changing needs.
Cyber security personnel will consistently demonstrate the highest skill levels in managing and deploying the latest technologies and methods. The entire team workforce will recognize the importance of cyber security, understand their role in it, and will be constantly vigilant.
5.0 IT FUNCTIONS AND CAPABILITY STRATEGY.
Different models can help executives construct an IT strategy, most contain certain key elements including:
· A high-level overview of the IT department that covers its mission, core values, objectives and approaches to accomplishing its goals.
· Current budgets and fro spending forecasts a multiyear timeline.
· An outline of current and future IT projects and initiatives with timelines and milestones.
· A catalog of existing enterprise architecture; IT department capabilities and capacities; and future needs and requirements with details about infrastructure, staffing and other necessary resources.
· An analysis of IT’s strengths and weaknesses.
· A list of the internal and external forces (such as market and industry trends) that shape current technology requirements and innovations as well as the future forces expected to shape IT.
· A prediction of the potential opportunities and vulnerabilities that will necessitate technology responses to best position the organization for success.
6.0 SUMMARY
International Food Group is one of the best-known company in the production of food. The firm has kept on growing over an extended period becoming the most competitive in food production. The business generates most of the revenues from the social media platforms. They have established strategic marketing strategies that have helped the company to reach out most of their clients. Marketing their products mostly to women only is one of the significant problems that have affected the growth of the business. The youth are the most people who are using the social media platform. This means they have the most significant potential of customers and they have ease of access to the products (Stevenson & Hojati, 2007).
Lack of access to instant messaging has made the firm to have low sales since they cannot quickly respond to their clients’ needs and demands on time. The firm has to establish the mechanism of how they will get in contact with customers who need instant messaging. Without an immediate response from the firm, there will be a communication breakdown. A falling business start with communication breakdown. Then the firm ends up making fewer revenues that it could have made if there was established means of communication.
The destruction of firm reputation. It is the responsibility of all workers to maintain an excellent reputation to their customers. IFG is a firm that deals with online sales of products. Most of the customer’s details are conducted online which can include online payment. Companies that perform online purchases and payments have become targets for hackers and crackers. They are always working towards accessing the clients’ information (Dick, Carey & Carey, 2014). They also need to have access to the payment mechanism so that they can transfer to their accounts and commit fraud. It is the responsibility of IFG to equip the information technology department to enable prevent hackers and crackers. This will help in marinating the customers’ information privacy. The firm can install firewalls that control and keeps records of those who have access to the company information.
7.0 REFFERENCES
Dick, W., Carey, L., & Carey, J. O. (2014). The systematic design of instruction. Pearson Higher Ed.
Erica Olsen. (2006) Strategic Planning for Dummies. Teachers College Record,177 (4)
George Steiner (1979). Strategic Planning. The Free Press.
Rosa, M., & Soffer, P. (2013). Business Process Management Workshops. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Stevenson, W. J., & Hojati, M. (2007). Operations management (Vol. 8). Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.