Ford Mondeo

This case weighs the advantages and disadvantages of going global. Ford presented its 1993 Mondeo model, sold as Mystique and Contour in North America, as a ‘world car.’ It tried to build a single model for all markets globally to optimize scale of production. This required strong involvement from suppliers and heavy usage of new information technology. The case discusses the difficulties that needed to be overcome as well as the gains that Ford expected from the project. New technology allowed Ford to overcome most of the difficulties it had faced in earlier attempts to produce a world car. IT was flanked by major organization changes within Ford. Globalization did not spell obvious success though. While Ford may in the end have succeeded in building an almost global car, it did not necessarily build a car that was competitive in various markets. The Mondeo project resulted in an overhaul of the entire organization under the header of Ford 2000. This program put a heavy emphasis on globalization although it perhaps focused too little on international cooperation and too much on centralization. In terms of Ford’s own history, the Mondeo experience may not be called a new Model T, but does represent an important step in Ford’s transformation as a global firm.

Identifying Supply Chain Management and E-Commerce Opportunities at PaperCo Australia

Established supply chain management techniques such as Quick Response (QR) or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) have proven the potential benefits of reorganizing an organization’s processes to take advantage of the characteristics of electronic information exchange. As the Internet and other proprietary networks expand, however, organizations have the opportunity to use this enabling infrastructure to exchange other, more varied types of information than traditional electronic data interchange (EDI) messages. This is especially true of companies with global operations and interests, which lead to a more diverse set of trading activities. This case presents the experiences of a large Australian paper products manufacturer in implementing an electronic document exchange strategy for supply chain management, including the drivers for change which spurred their actions, and describes the issues associated with trying to support existing and future requirements for document exchange across a wide variety of trading partners. The experiences of PaperCo will be relevant to organizations with diverse trading partners, especially small to medium enterprises (SMEs).

Barriers to IT Industry Success

Information technology (IT), which has evolved from the merger of computers, telecommunications and office automation technologies, is one of the most rapidly growing industries in the world. In Bangladesh, IT use is still in a backward stage in terms of information generation, utilization and applications. A dependable information system has not been developed for the management and operation of the government machinery and large volume of data transactions in the public/private sector organizations. There is a lack of locally and externally generated information needed for the efficient performance of the government, production, trading, service, education, scientific research and other activities of the society. This case study of the IT scenario in Bangladesh discusses the challenges, analyzes the key issues that may be barriers to thesuccess of its IT industry and discusses the inherent strengths which can be used as the launching pad for making Bangladesh a potential offshore source of software and data processing services. Recommended actions have been proposed under ‘short term’ and ‘medium term,’ depending on the priority and importance, and categorized by the fiscal, human resource development, infrastructure and marketing functional areas. The necessary ingredients to become a potential exporter of computer software and data processing services do not currently exist in the required quantum in Bangladesh. If Bangladesh wants to enter into this market, it needs to cross a number of hurdles within a very short time span. Concerted efforts from everybody concerned have to be put in on a war-footing basis, as this sector has the potential to generate the highest revenue for the country.

Geographical Information System (GIS) Implementation Success

Geographical Information Systems (GISs) are becoming more prevalent for retailers in their use for both day-to-day and strategic long-term decision-making. Given the array of internal and external databases they use, as well as the amount of organizational development, systems implementation is a most opposite picture of how GIS support retailing decision-making. This chapter presents the results of in-depth case studies, reflecting upon the GIS implementation experiences of a key UK food retailer, Highway Stores PLC. The company is one of the strongest contenders in UK food retailing (fourth in rank). More sites throughout the country are being explored and considered for development, and the implementation of GIS has supported Highway in determining locations where new stores can be built-up that fascinate new customers and ensure that existing customers are retained.

LXS Ltd. Meets Tight System Development Deadlines via the St. Lucia Connection

LXS Ltd., a Toronto software house, has identified high market demand for their proposed new product called Estitherm, a Web-based software tool that supports heat loss calculations for architectural engineers designing structures. Estitherm’s development requires sophisticated Java programming skills, however, and the project stalls when LXS is unable to hire enough additional programmers to be able to meet the development deadlines dictated by competition. Through lucky coincidence, LXS’ Chief Scientist stumbles onto a pool of Java talent while vacationing on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. Negotiations follow, a contract is signed and the project is quickly brought to successful completion with the aid of Caribbean programmers, working via the Internet. Similar contract arrangements hold the promise for improved economic conditions in Caribbean nations and can reduce software backlogs for companies in developed nations, but better mechanisms are needed to bring together buyers and sellers of IT services.

The Role of Virtual Organizations in Post-Graduate Education in Egypt

Learning, education and training using traditional class methods and/or emerging online techniques are all leading to improved ways to investing in people, leveraging their capacities and reaching out to remote masses while cutting down on cost, time and efforts. Thus, the role of virtual organizations and virtual teams is rapidly spreading worldwide in the related aspects to learning and human resources development. This has led to the establishment of a large number of regional and global learning consortiums and networks aiming to provide quality knowledge and information dissemination vehicles to an ever-growing community of seekers that is online, active and eager to increasingly learn more. However, most of the publications address the theoretical foundations of virtual organizations; as for the actual practices, they are not extensively reported in the literature. This case addresses the experience of Egypt’s Regional IT Institute in the field of education and training. Today, the learning process is becoming a vital factor in business and socioeconomic growth where the role of information and communication technology is having a growing and an innovative impact. The Regional IT Institute was established in 1992 targeting the formulation of partnerships and strategic alliances to jointly deliver degree (academic) and non-degree (executive) programs for the local community capitalizing on the enabled processes and techniques of virtual organizations. The case provides many lessons to be replicated that demonstrate the opportunity to expand in exchanging the wealth of knowledge across societies using a hybrid of forms for virtual organizations and virtual teams.

Enabling Electronic Medicine at Kiwicare

Telemedicine emerges as a viable solution to New Zealand health providers in reaching out to rural patients, in offering medical services and conducting administrative meetings and training. No research exists about adoption of telemedicine in New Zealand. The purpose of this case study was to explain factors influencing adoption of telemedicine utilizing video conferencing technology (TMVC) within a New Zealand hospital known as KiwiCare. Since TMVC is part of IT, tackling it from within technological innovation literature may assist in providing an insight into its adoption within KiwiCare and into the literature. Findings indicate weak presence of critical assessment into technological innovation factors prior to the adoption decision, thereby leading to its weak utilization. Factors like complexity, compatibility and trialability were not assessed extensively by KiwiCare and would have hindered TMVC adoption. TMVC was mainly assessed according to its relative advantage and to its cost effectiveness along with other facilitating and accelerating factors. This is essential but should be alongside technological and other influencing factors highlighted in the literature.

Implementing and Managing a Large-Scale E-Service

This case concerns a recently launched retirement protection scheme, the Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF), in Hong Kong. Service providers, employers, employees and the government are the four main parties involved in the MPF. The service has been implemented in two versions, i.e., a bricks model and a clicks model. The former is based on conventional paper-based transactions and face-to-face meetings. The focus of this case, however, is on the latter, which introduces MPF as a service in an e-environment that connects all parties electronically and conducts all transactions via the Internet or other computer networks. The case discusses the MPF e-business model, and its implementation. We analyze the differences between the old and the new model and highlight the chief characteristics and benefits of the e-business model as they arise from the emerging digital economy. We also discuss some major problems, from both managerial and technical perspectives, that have occurred during the phases of implementing and launching the new service.

The Australasian Food Products Co-Op

This chapter tells the case story of a Food Products Co-op from ‘Australasia’1 and their attempt to create a global information system. The Co-op is among the 20 largest food enterprises in the world, and international information systems (IIS) have taken on increasing importance as the organization expanded rapidly during the 1980s and even more so as the enterprise refined their global operations in the last decade. Set in the six years since 1995, the story demonstrates the many pitfalls in the process of evolving an IIS as it follows the Co-op’s global business development. Two key findings stood out among the many lessons that can be drawn from the case: first, the notion of an “information system migration” following the development of the Global Business Strategy of the Multi-National enterprise through various stages; second, the failure of the IIS to adapt to the organization’s strategy changes set up a field of antagonistic forces, in which business resistance summarily killed all attempts by the information technology department to install a standard global information system.

IT Industry Success in Small Countries

Given the importance of the information technology industry in today’s global economy, much recent research has focused on the relative success of small countries in fostering IT industries. This case examines the factors of IT industry success in small developed countries, and compares two such countries, Finland and New Zealand. Finland and New Zealand are alike in many respects, yet Finland’s IT industry is more successful than New Zealand’s. Three major factors that impact on the development of a successful IT industry are identified: the extent of government IT promotion, the level of research and development, and the existence of an education system that produces IT-literate graduates.