Mini Case: Innovation at International Foods

The articles has stated that Josh and the peoples working at IFG will have to work in harmoniously with a lot of coordination so that they can achieve the IFG requirements. In discussion of the obstacles that Josh and his team faced the research here below is not limited to also offer provisions for the recommendations that Josh and his team have to use in achieving their goals. International Food Group being one of the provider of food products globally assigns Josh to be a manager after the merge in Chicago office. Josh is opposed by his colleagues immediately he start his first assignment and he finds himself under a lot of scrutiny as the commendable plans that he had initiated were not supported and this makes Tanya who is the immediate boss after Josh to come in and analyse the problem with Josh.

When big and small businesses merges there always arise an issues which might be very hard to overcome. As we know this small business require to have a structure that is very solid and much support by backing up by their consumers so that they can survive in the same market with this big businesses. Josh successful ideas and ways of running the Glow Food attracted the attention of IFG which led to them abducting the company by merging the two to one and offered Josh Novak a job at Chicago offices as a manager to help in developing his brilliant ideas to that demographic location. Josh is very much excited and over ambitious towards achieving the plans unlike the way he would have when still at Glow food.

In discussing with Josh, Tonya has foreshadowed some obstacles that need to be overcome and many of this lies in the organizational and much more in the leadership of IFG.  Some of the obstacles analysed by josh are discussed as below.

The organization Size. The International Food Group being a food business leading company globally has a structure that is hierarchical. When we compare IFG and the small business (Glow Food) of Josh Novak we see a lot of differences as IFG is large as it has many branches globally making it to be very large in terms of the structure of the organization and thus required various procedures and regulations to be adapted and followed before they are implemented when new policies arise. In addition both Tonya and Josh have discussed the differences of how the culture in working between IFG and Glow food is an obstacle as IFG being a large company with many departments with a lot of employees who are supervised by different head will have a very different culture at work compared to that of glow food.

Leadership. Ben Nokony argued with Josh team and other colleagues that they need to pass and talk directly to him before they go to the product teams in the production level. This transition is based leadership. Here we see that the IFG members see that Josh plans to be an obstacle and making them look inferior and much more they argue in ways that make them to look as if they are fighting for leadership. Ben is undermining the leadership of Josh by telling him that his team should be passing through before they get to the product team. This can be further seen when Singh the IT finance officer issued a request to teams regarding the plan for the budget of the year that followed. Ben in this case is an obstacle as he is very unhappy especially when Josh Team went directly to the product team. He feels oppressed and undermined as he used to in the IT office and sees Josh as a threat as what Josh is doing he was also familiar with. Josh team idea was to set the road right and bringing in new ideas but ben in his argument in the previous meeting which were formal sees the idea if Josh as a threat to his position. Josh team is so angry about Ben for he is so much aggressive and according to them they need to remind him that there are specific protocols that need to be followed while working at IFG.

Part A

The Articulations of Terms from Glow Food to International Food Group (IFG). The case of articulating the terms from the small business organizations to those of big or large business organizations is very hard especially when it comes to budgeting and using of resources. The team of Josh was struggling to come up with the costs and the benefits of the work that was proposed by Shema (Smith, 2012). The reason to that was because they lacked awareness of the financial cost until they could understand and realize the exact amount they could raise. There were a lot of difficulties for Josh team to outline a budget that was exact, but they could be able to prepare an approximation of a budgets that estimated the benefits and costs for Sheema. Josh team sat down with Sheema explaining their possibility worth of the ideas that were proposed to avoid bothering them when they are executing their processes at IFG.

Lastly but not least is that the above issues can be summarized and explained from the readers point of view and understanding to be as listed below.

1. The problem of adapting to the merger and the acquisition. The ways the two used to function is totally different and so when they merge then they might be hard to understand each other in different ways.
2. The other issue is people resisting to change to merger and the acquisitions ways.

• The structure and the organization of the two institutions especially in this case one is flat structured while IFG is hierarchical hence making them to be so different in adapting.

1. The set procedures and policies for following the IFG hierarchical Structure.
2. The Articulations terms for Glow Food(Small scale business) to IFG(large Scale business)

When josh and his team are ready to do a presentation they are picked to be apart the office of IT. They have exploited every point in their 3-point plan. Sheema who is concerned with values of business and their initiatives will need to give them support. In this case josh is worrying about the reviews that might be bad to the customers.  Rick is concerned with the security of the cloud and in order for Josh to show his 3-poin plan he will need to slow the roll of the ideas that might help as the recommendations as explained below.

For Josh and his team to have success in their plan then they will be needed to make their business to be of small scale version that have an interactive site and cloud as they used to do when they had not merged to IFG.  Josh has the mandate of updating his members in the office of IT at various stages of the project that is being implemented in particular. This will help in outlining all risks that are potential to security, fiscal cost estimations and the benefits of project.

Secondly when finished with updating the other members he can clearly show the office of IT the ways of covering the surveys of communities which are very different and at the same time still able to test his work. With his rolling to the three-plan point Josh is able to please all people in the department where he will make it safe and very affordable.

The idea of John plan is connecting directly with his customers and hence or these to achieved then the IFG sites that has been blocked such as the Facebook, twitter and the real time support will have to be unblocked so that Josh team can be able to communicate and converse with their clients.

All of the above recommendations can be summarized in to the below explained areas. This will be connection that is directly to their customers about any new products or ideas that needs to be developed and thus they will need access to sites such as the web, Online-interactive chats and the Facebooks. A market research on the basis of computer deeds and the needs of future plans. Last three-point plan is the maintenance of the Dbs. over the cloud for easy accessing and making of decisions. In this approach in making the above Three-point plan suggested by Josh to come to fulfillment we will need understand the advantages of the proactive approach in connecting customers directly other than them being reactive (Pinkham, 2013). Some of this advantages as such as the.

• The cost will be effective
• Time will be saved
• Results will be generated quickly
• The will be able to avoid gatekeepers who screens out the surveys that are paper-based

Part B

This study is basically asking us to explain how Porters principles can be applied to states and explain the current and future challenges that might be encountered when doing the alignment of IT functions with those of the business strategy. The idea in understanding the alignment will be based on two things and that will how the management of the organization and that of the business strategy reciprocally influence each other and the process they will use when aligning the management of the organization and business strategy (Benko, 2013). In the history of there before we understood that business strategy and alignment to be a responsibility that is governed by the senior managers such as Josh Novak and planning of the project where they also execute all processes that need to be performed within the project.

In aligning the business strategies an empirical literature will need to be performed in all ways in that they will be used suggest the nature of the alignment of IFG and its business strategy and the process they use in aligning such projects and their strategies in the business. In the porter’s understanding of the value chain and the business strategy we analyse the IFG analyses of the business strategies to be namely the leadership cost, differentiation and the best cost that they need to set for their consumers.

For any organization that need to be successful then it has to be able to identify the threats and challenges that may make it not be able to determine the alignment of IT functions with the business strategies. In order for one to identify such business challenges and risks like those of IFG we will need to associate ourselves with the use of information technology. IFG will need to have a view of the challenges of aligning IT functions to be broader by going beyond all traditional standards that aligned the IT strategic directions of such business. Some of the challenges that need to be noted and explained are such as follows.

1. Improving the current alignment of the information technology with the business needs. When we understand the challenge then we can be able to expand the agility of IFG business very easy and quickly and hence responding to this changes in a way that is informed and with decisions that are measured.
2. Protecting the Brand of IFG and the Revenue they earn. This will help to assess the challenges currently faced by IFG team that is led by Josh Novak in the infrastructure of information technology, the existing and potential business structures or benefiting IFG risk tolerance in helping to plan a realistic strategy for the expected future results(IBM, 2012).
3. IFG has to know the challenge for the current IT services not improved so that it can achieve the strategic business initiatives. This will help the managers such as Josh Novak in managing all IT risks current and in future in way that is more accurate and giving information that is very accurate.
4. In understanding the above three threats then we be able to eliminate the challenge of increasing the financial and reputational exposure. Currently and in future it will help in protecting the business from all negative disclosures that leads to losses and fines and even to penalties in other case.
5. Last challenge of threat is that of the competitive advantage. When we understand that there is less competitive advantage the alignments of IT functions and that of the business strategy of IFG will help to protect IFG from all disclosures, penalties, fines and losses that might be negative. With this understanding then we can be able to calculate the responses with risks that competitors may be lacking for making the insightment.

If the above challenges currently experienced by IFG can be easily addressed then in future we can directly align the Business strategies of IFG to Information Technology Functions by easily documenting all of the above in the Key Performance indicators (KPI) and the other document is that of risks which is known as the Key risk indicators (KRI). The other idea in addressing such challenges in future will be prioritizing the risks that are based on the impacts and significance of the goals of IFC strategies. Lastly if the business is able to follow the above then we can be able to balance a better risk management plans, where we will employ clear communications that are well planned and continually setting standards that are easy to monitor the stated risks or challenges even in future.

In the past the Job of IT function was understanding the strategy of the business and then figuring out a plan that can be used to support it.

1. We have to revisit the business models of IFG.

The Point-Plan in using technology in helping to reach to the IFG to reach its customers.

Many are times when we confuses the models and strategies of an organisation like in the case of Josh and Ben IFG (Ross, 2002). Business model at IFG is structured by explaining the different pieces of a single business together. Understanding the business model of IFG will help in ensuring everyone in IFG is focused on the kind of values that it wants to create. The willingness of many managers and the organisation themselves has brought an urge for many to understand the technology implications in the real world, thus this has helped in translating the basic ideas and concepts in IT world in to business language (McKeen, 1996). From the above we can recommend the use of IT in aligning with business strategies because they will help in understanding and putting all their focus on the business as stated by the IT manger group Josh Novak.

1. Adopting the strategic Themes.

IT strategy was known there before to be of projects of individuals. The rise of IT in business has made many to understand nowadays that its focus is developing the specific business capabilities. If these strategic themes are adopted then they will give IFG and Josh the IT manager a broad focus on the interests that are known for challenging the moves that are beyond the operations currently in use (Kanter, 2002).

1. Getting the right people to be involved.

Many are times that we are unable to distinguish the factors of IT business value and the managers performing the leadership role. When we abdicate it becomes the responsibility of recipe disaster (Ross, 2002).

1. Working in partnership with the business (IFG)

For the successful integration of the business strategies there will be a need for the true partnership and that is between the IT and the IFG leadership. In understanding good partnership then we have to dwell our focus on the how effective it is when strategizing and how continuous and dynamic it is when determining the synchronization capabilities (Prahalad, 2002).  

1. Balance the IT investment opportunities.

There are so many challenges for developing an effective IT strategy is the fact that technology that are used in many ways (Weill, 2006).  The opportunities are known to be too less. There were five recommendations that were put across by the IT focused team group and this were the improvement of business, business-enabling, business-opportunities, opportunity-leverage and the IT infrastructure (Weill, 2002).

In understanding the concept on the innovation at the international foods group we came up with some of the following findings that has made Josh three-point plan to be hard to implement in all corners of the organisation. The first findings is that there has been a lot of conflict between the leadership making it hard for Josh and his team in implementing the proposed plan.

Secondly is that there are so many reasons and challenges that make it hard for smooth running when a small company and big company merges. Acquisitions and adapting the technicalities and functions of the other is always a problem. This is because the two organisations had different business values and models and hence a lot of differences making it very hard when they are merging as one uses small scale while the others is using the large scale.

Third findings is that the structure of the large scale like for the case of IFG is that of a hierarchical while that of Small scale is that it is Flat so when it comes to leadership and management becomes a problem. Lack of understanding the right procedures to follow will be a problem. This has resulted to many conflicting in the manner that nothing should be done without my notice or nothing should be attempted before I have been authorized like in the case of Ben who is asking Josh team to first inform him everything before they contact the product team.

Last findings is that all of the above has resulted to major challenges which are affecting IFG at whole. This issues can be addressed by accepting that IT is part of IFG and that it plays a major role in running the organization. If we understands then it will be easy to align the business process with the IT functions and the business strategies (Burke, 1995).

References

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Burke, 1995. Examining Business Process Re-engineering, London: Kogan.

Chan, Y., 2002. The importance of organizational structure,” MIS Quarterly Executive. Why haven’t we mastered alignment?, 1(2), pp. 97-112.

Eason, G. E. A. a. B. M., 2003. experimental investigation of electronic focus groups, London: Easton.

IBM, 2012. Operational risk analytics in the context of information technology (IT) infrastructure,”, Republican: IBM.

Kanter, R., 2002. Sloan Management Review. Strategy as improvisational theater, 43(2), pp. 76-81.

McKeen, J. a. S., 1996. Successful Strategies and Appropriate actions. Management challenges in IS, 45(3), pp. 5-7.

Pinkham, R., 2013. Rights era and compared it to other movements in American history.. Civil Rights Movement Fairfield University , 1(1), pp. 47-78.

Prahalad, C. a. K. M., 2002. Sloan Management Review. The dynamic synchronization of strategy and information technology, 43(4), pp. 22-43.

Ross, J. a. B., 2002. Sloan management review. Beyond the business case, 43(2), pp. 51-59.

Ross, J. a. W. P., 2002. Harvard Business Review,. Six IT decisions your IT people shouldn’t make, 80(11), pp. 5-11.

Smith, M., 2012. issues and Practices. IT strategy, 2(1), pp. 12-17.

Weill, P. a. A. S., 2006. Sloan Management Review. Generating premium returns on your IT investments, 47(2), pp. 39-51.

Weill, P. S. M. a. B. M., 2002. Sloan Management Review. Building IT infrastructure for strategic agility,, 44(1), pp. 57-65.