Chapter 13. Minicase 1
Verizon and Rivio Use the Web to Offer Big Benefits for Small Businesses
1. In what ways might IT strategy and alignment differ for small businesses as opposed to that of larger organizations?
The importance of IT is hard to overstate. Getting IT ready for the future by successfully planning for or creating that future is one of the most challenging tasks facing management, including IS management. To have a longer lasting competitive advantage, it is important to develop an IT strategy that includes a wide spectrum of techniques. Those techniques can enable a company to compete (or differentiate) on price, time (quick response), service, innovation, quality, or customer service.
If we are speaking about IT strategy it is important to mention that it is connected with company goals and sometimes is not sufficient to develop a long-term IT strategy and not reexamine the strategy on a regular basis. A good IT planning process can help ensure that IT aligns, and stays aligned, with an organization. But for large companies it is more common to do IT planning because they operate on higher level than small companies and have much more to think about. The other point is that large companies are oriented on long term and they are more stable than small companies that are too influenced by the environment. That’s why we can say that for large companies it is easy and cheaper in whole to do IT planning than for small ones.
2. What are some of the major challenges for aligning IT in a small organization?
Failure to align IT to business strategy is believed to result in the failure of many IS initiatives. Speaking about small organizations alignment with the strategic objectives of the organization is an important challenge for organizations. Failure to properly align IS with the organizational strategy may result in large investments in systems that have a low payoff or failure to invest in systems that might potentially have a high payoff. For small companies such failures are more sensible than for large companies.
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3. What are some of the pros and cons of using large providers to meet the IT needs of small business customers?
The main advantage could be the access to the large company with huge experience, great client-bases and proofed IT systems. It means that now small company can get the same opportunities as large one that was impossible previously. For example, companies can use now Employee communication management services, expense report management services, HR management services, payroll management services, time and attendance management services, access to Microsoft bCentral applications etc. It is also good that companies can try the service before buying it. And one more thing here is about saving time, because now companies can focus on other activities. But the disadvantage is that it is still not affordable for every small company. And may be large companies will use the general approach to all small companies and offer them the same spectrum of services without paying attention to the specifics.
4. Conduct some research on the Rivio system and make your own assessment as to whether the claim of Rivio’s chairman – that “Rivio will enable Verizon’s small business customers to more efficiently run their businesses, giving owners and employees more time to focus on revenue-generating activities” – is hype or reality.
According to the case it seems to be reality because small companies could benefit a lot from it. They can run their businesses more efficiently and save time for more important things like revenue-generating activities. It means that small companies don’t need to think about routine tasks and just do what they really need.