What are the three Merger & Acquisition strategy’s
- Absorption (the acquired company ceases to exist)
- Symbioses (the strengths of the company are combined)
- Preservation (the acquired company remains fully intact within the merged entity)
What are the four different IT integration strategy’s?
- Transformation (renewal) (replacing IT of both partners)
- Combination (standardization) (combining the best of both)
- Consolidation (takeover) (only using IT of one partner)
- Co-existence (synchronization) (leaving both parts intact with periodic synchronization)
What is IT governance?
How organizations control IT (investment) decision making (responsibilities, decision rights and accountability)
What is the goal of IT governance?
IT-Business alignment
What are the two IT governance types? and what are the advantages/disadvantages?
- Centralized
- advantage: no repetitive projects, better support for integration and standards
- disadvantage: unresponsive, no business accountability for cost - decentralized
- advantage: responsive to business needs, accountability for BU’s costs
- disadvantage: excessive overal cost, weak system integration and standards
What are the six IT governance archetypes for investment decisions?
- Business monarchy (decisions are made by corporate executives + sometimes CIO)
- IT monarchy (all decisions are made by the central IT department)
- Feudal system (when managers or BU’s make the decisions)
- Anarchy (when users make decisions)
- Federal (when executives, the IT department and BU’s decide together)
- IT duopoly (IT department and strategic BU’s make decisions)
What are the five major IT decisions to control?
- IT principles
- IT architecture
- IT infrastructure
- Business application needs
- Prioritization and investments
What are the roles of the board in IT governance?
- Monitor (review and approve)
- Advice (act like problem solvers)
- Co-opt (use external links for knowledge etc.)
- Assimilate (being aware of issues)
What are the functions of the board in IT governance?
- IT value creation
2. IT risk mitigation
What are the mechanisms of the board in IT governance?
- Decision-making structures (create decision making teams)
- Formal processes (create processes)
- Communication approaches (propagate principles and objectives)
What is IT Integration Capability? And what are the three components?
The new organization is able to integrate both firms:
- IT technical infrastructure (technical) (databases, applications, networks etc.)
- IT management processes (operational) (IT strategy and planning)
- IT personnel (social)
What are the four dimensions of IT Infrastructure Flexibility?
- IT compatibility (the degree to which IT components that run on a specific platfrom can run on another platform)
- IT connectivity (the number and variety of IT components, internal and externa, local and remote, to which a firms’ IT components can connect)
- IT Modularity (loose integration between IT components in a way that a change to one IT component affects as few other components as possible)
- IT personnel skills flexibility (business and technical IT skills such as ability to learn new technologies, interpret business problems, develop appropriate solutions and work effectively in cross-functional teams)
What are the three dimenions of Business flexibility
- operational flexibilty
- structural flexibilty
- strategic flexibility
