Outsourcing IT

Perhaps one of the most critical contemporary issues facing the management of information is whether or not to outsource either some or all technologies associated with information to service firms that are specialized in various information technology aspects. This particular issue is not a phenomenon that is transient the move from management computing within a company to outsourcing is increasing very fast. The decision of how, where and when to outsource, is an issue that is likely to become one of the few issues of information management that will have to be reviewed by several multinationals in the near future. Up to now, only one explanation is good enough since it is applicable in all information technologies outsourcing The outsourcing that multinationals are attempting to become more profitable through reduced employment (Murray  Crandall, 2006 Sparrow, 2003).

Outsourcing IT   
Research in IT outsourcing is mainly aimed at establishing the real and tangible benefits that are likely to accrue to a firm once it starts outsourcing. This therefore means that a feasibility study has to be carried out in order to determine whether or not IT outsourcing is viable as far as the firm is concerned. Once the feasibility is conducted, the management of the firm evaluates the benefits of IT outsourcing and weighs them against the costs and demerits that are likely to arise from IT outsourcing. The feasibility study report should also contain various alternatives that are applicable giving the merits and demerits of each alternative. This will enable the management objectively evaluate the proposed method of IT outsourcing and therefore choose the best as far as the firm is concerned (Williams, 2001).
   
IT outsourcing research is mainly aimed at increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of a firm. The research should establish the actual time that will be saved as a result of outsourcing IT as opposed to carrying it out within the organization. Cost reduction is an overall objective in several decisions that are to be made by the management of any firm. There is no difference as far as IT outsourcing is concerned and therefore research should be carried in order to implement the best IT outsourcing policy that will enable the firm to save as much finances as possible (Tipton,  Krause, 2007). 
   
The actual play with IT outsourcing in simple terms is applying it as an instrument of driving the strategic value of the company, transforming the business of the company and finally changing the dynamics within the industry fundamentally. IT outsourcing enables managers to carryout the main tasks within their organizations while the non core functions that are expensive since it is hard for the company to experience economies of scale and thus benefit economically, are forwarded to a third party (Lee, 2008 Tho, 2005).
Offshore and inshore IT outsourcing
   
The IT needs have grown exponentially in the past one decade this growth has taken place in an economy that is highly competitive and fast. Therefore, in order to develop several other new projects or products as well as upgrade the new technologies in a cost effective manner and with increased pace, there are several organizations that have decided to create and invest in solution centers offshore. At the same time some organizations have opted to use the locally available IT solution centers (Tipton  Krause, 2007).
   
In offshore IT outsourcing, an organization places the IT business processes to nations that are geographically distant from the country in which the outsourcing company operates from. This enables the outsourcing enterprise to great reductions in operational costs. Better costs calculability and reduced costs are therefore very crucial aspects of offshoring IT outsourcing. It becomes easier for the outsourcing company to convert its fixed costs into the variable ones. The outsourced IT project may need several experts and staff who may not be required once the project is over. In order to avoid the costs of retrenching such workers, companies can outsource such IT projects to firms that have specialized on them (Gordon  Zimmerman, 2007).
   
Some companies outsource inshore from the local firms, just like in the case of offshore outsourcing, the objectives of outsourcing remains unchanged. Companies outsourcing inshore mainly outsource to regions where the cost of labor is cheaper so that they can reduce the operating costs. This type of outsourcing results into enhanced distribution of income with a country and at the same time creates more job opportunities locally (Hormozi et al, 2003).
   
The private and public sectors in one way or the other complements each other there are some services that are offered by the public sector that are required by the private sector and vice versa. This therefore means that the public sector can easily outsource IT projects to the private sector instead of hiring experts to do such work for only a short period of time. Such a move would benefits the government through reduced costs of operating. The reduced cost benefits would then be transferred to the public in the form of reduced tax burdens. The private sector would also benefit through increased employment opportunities in the country (Murray  Crandall, 2006 Burnett, 1998).

Advantages of IT outsourcing
One of the major reasons why corporations outsource IT is reduce their overall operation costs. This involves decreasing the scope, re-pricing, re-defining the quality levels, cost restructuring and re-negotiation. IT outsourcing enables a corporation to access less cost economies known as labor arbitrage, which is arises from the wage difference between the developing and the industrialized nations. Outsourcing IT enables the outsourcing corporation to focus on its core business. The corporations resources such as infrastructure, human and investment are mainly focused on developing and expanding its core business. Cost restructuring of a corporation can also be achieved effectively through outsourcing IT to service companies specialized in the field of IT. The operating leverage is basically a measure that is used organizations in order to compare variable and fixed costs. IT outsourcing greatly alters this ratios balance by providing a shift from fixed costs to variable ones. Furthermore, outsourcing IT makes the variable costs of a company to be more predictable, which is very essential as far as planning is concerned (Ryans, 1996 Burnett, 1998).

Outsourcing IT leads to quality improvement, this is possible since the company can concentrate on functions it can do best while contracting the ones in which it does not have the capacity to operate effedtively to specialized IT firms. Knowledge base increases through IT outsourcing. Outsourcing leads to increased access to wider knowledge and experience as well as increased access to the intellectual property.

Operational expertise is usually enhanced since it might be very costly or difficult to fully develop all IT requirements within the company while it is not the core business of the company. IT outsourcing is a very essential factor in improving the capacity management of technology and services. In this case, the risk that is involved in offering extra capacity is taken by the supplier. In the recent past, IT outsourcing has emerged as a significant change catalyst. A corporation can make use of an IT outsourcing agreement to bring about major changes within the organization in which case the change agent is actually the outsourcer (Rucker, 2003).

Enhancement of capacity for creativity and innovation is a key factor in management of dynamism in the business world. This is effectively achieved via IT outsourcing whereby the corporations are increasingly applying externally sourced knowledge in supplementing the limited internal innovation capacity of the organization. IT outsourcing enables a corporation to accelerate the production or development of its products through the application of the extra capability which results from the supplier. IT outsourcing enhances the tendency of standardizing IT services, business processes, and services applications that enables corporations to purchase IT services at favorable prices, permits businesses to access various services that were previously available only to the large multinationals (Gordon  Zimmerman, 2007 Cullen  Willcocks, 2003).

In order for corporations operating in the current business environment to minimize as much as possible they have to consider outsourcing some of their services such as IT. A risk management approach for some forms of risks faced by corporations around the world requires the use of the services of an outsourcer who is in a position of offering mitigation for the various risks. This enables business enterprises to increase their benefits in their core business functions and at the same time reduce the risk involved in their undertakings (Edginton  Jiang, 2000).

Disadvantages of IT outsourcing
There are risks involved with outsourcing such as compromising the quality of the services and products offered by the corporation. Quality risk involved in IT outsourcing is basically the tendency for a service or product to be substandard due to issues related to operations. In outsourcing IT, the risk of quality is as a result of several factors. One of the major factors is suppliers opportunism as a result of incentives that are misaligned between the supplier and the seller. Other factors include asymmetry of information, high switching costs of the supplier or high costs of asset specificity. Quality risk can also arise as a result of poor communication between the supplier and the buyer, lack of suppliers resources, capacity or capabilities, lack of supplier-buyer contract enforceability. There are two basic concepts which have to be put into consideration in regard to observability as far as risks involved in IT outsourcing is concerned. These concepts include criticality and testability (Quinn  Hillmer, 1995).

Another major criticism that is faced by the general aspect of outsourcing is social responsibility. It is a fact that outsourcing leads to a scenario where jobs are sent to areas of lower income. Despite the fact that the outsourced work increases employment opportunities in such areas, there are some people who argue that such outsourcing leads to exploitation of the workers who are lowly paid. A contrary perspective is that there are more people who are employed and thus benefit from such work. However, there is hope that most of the issues raised by this criticism will be addressed over time as outsourcing becomes more streamlined in future since it is becoming competitive and this will in future compel the outsourcing corporations to adequately remunerate their suppliers. Furthermore this is an ethical issue and the ethics of a corporation cannot be dealt with in only one aspect that is outsourcing, but rather in a more comprehensive approach (Innocenti  Labory, 2004 Strassmann, 1997).
   
IT outsourcing is largely influenced by the need for corporations to transfer the execution of IT services that do not constitute their core business to firms specializing in offering IT services. In this case, both organizations are in a position of enjoying economies of scale since they concentrate on the tasks they can do best and hand over the others to be done by experts in other firms. IT outsourcing is also largely influenced by the need of companies to reduce their costs of operating. IT is usually outsourced to regions of lower income and hence the outsourced work is charged less as compared to the cost that could have been incurred if the work was done within the company (Sparrow, 2003).

In order for corporations to not only remain relevant but also excel in the current highly competitive and dynamic business world, management has no alternative but to outsource some of the non-core functions. One of such functions that have emerged very strongly is the IT outsourcing. Virtually all corporations have to use IT services whether or not such services form the core operations of the business. While it might not be wise for a corporation whose main function is offering IT services to outsource them, other corporations that use IT in order to achieve their main objectives, can consider outsourcing such services in order to enhance their capacity of managing their core functions. In the recent past, IT outsourcing has emerged as a significant instrument of strategic management and therefore organizations has to use it in order to plan their future activities more effectively. However, corporations intending to outsource IT have to be extra careful and ensure that they outsource the right services, to the right people and at the right time in order to get value for the outsourced services.

Utilitarian Approach Response to Crisis

Based on your concerns about the intended layoffs in the company, the company has looked keenly on the consequences the layoff will bring to your life. It has seen that its action will lead to loosing your house to the mortgager due to lack of finances to pay for the house and it will also affect your childs education may be by causing the child to drop out of college. This will eventually leave you to suffer for lack of a shelter and loss of money that had been paid for the mortgage and this is a form of unhappiness to you .As a parent too, discontinuity of your child education will cause unhappiness both to you and your child and affect the future development of the child. As a result of this, the company has seen that their action will cause more harm than good to your life and has finally decided you will not be laid off.

Pros and Cons of Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is an ethical decision making approach that argues that human action should be to bring about the best possible results from their action. Utilitarian acknowledges only one principle of morality which is utility. The principle state that in all our action, we should focus on producing the best overall consequences for all those who will be affected by our actions. Utilitarian requires that agent to be strictly impartial to their own happiness.

Utilitarianism has both its advantages and disadvantages in decision making. One of it advantage is the attempt it has made to look beyond the individual own interest in deciding which action to take. According to utilitarianism, any individual must always consider the impact their action will have on others with his well-being weighing less than for others. Agents own happiness is not the determining standard of what is right or wrong but that of all affected by the action (Scarre, 1996).
    
Despite this, utilitarianism is not acceptable in moral decision making and especially in the Christian perspective. It is commonly accepted in the Christian realms that we should always stand for the truth or tell the truth. This is contrary to utilitarianism because a utilitarian will promote to tell a lie if telling the truth will cause unhappiness and pain. For example, if telling a married woman that her husband has been trying to have an affair with me will cause more pain to the woman. Then utilitarianism will opt for not telling the truth to avoid the unhappiness. But morally it is good to tell the woman the truth (Scarre, 1996).
Another disadvantage of utilitarianism is that it can easily be used to undermine rights of an individual or minority over the majority. According to utilitarianism, they are concerned with the greatest happiness for the greatest number. This means that if an action will affect a small group of people or one individual for that matter and cause great happiness to many people, then the action is right even if it is causing pain to a few (Scarre, 1996).

Utilitarianism is also found to be wanting in the principle of justice. Principle of justice demands that a person be treated fairly and reward and punishment to people be based on their own merits. In such circumstances, utilitarian can easily be used to violate this principle of justice. If a person did something wrong and deserve to be punished, utilitarian will be against such decision because punishment in it self will bring unhappiness and pain to the person and every action in utilitarian approach is to bring happiness and avoid pain.

Utilitarianism Approach in Decision Making
Utilitarianism approach in my opinion is not the best approach in making moral decision. First, this approach is not practical in the real world. Focusing on other people happiness without considering other factors that may be playing role may not bring the desired outcome or may yield short term happiness to the individual (Scarre, 1996). An example is for our case where the management using the utilitarian approach decided to stop the laying off of its workers to avoid causing them unhappiness. In the long run, the workers will be happy because they will retain their jobs but the future of the company is at the verge of collapsing. The company wanted to lay off the workers because it was going through financial crisis and this action would have saved the company from collapsing. Retaining the workers was only going to put more pressure on the company and the company final will collapse. With the collapse of the company the worker who we did not want to make unhappy will loose their job and be unhappy and it will also cause the unhappiness of the agent and both stand losers.

The second point why utilitarianism is not a good approach is that it ignores our sense of duty. In any given society individual have their own responsibilities which they are supposed to carry out correctly. Doing or failing to undertake such duty comes with a reward or a punishment. In our contemporary society, every individual is expected to behave and respect others. Imagine a situation where a man decides to steal from another. This person is supposed to be punished for he was not dutiful to his neighbor. If it happens that I witnessed this person stealing, then it is my duty to report this person for him to be punished according to his merit. A utilitarian will choose not to tell the truth and rather lie because his action of telling the truth will cause suffering of another person. This then denies him from carrying out his duty as expected by the society (Scarre, 1996).

Another reason of not using utilitarianism is that it has the problem of moral luck. According to this approach, it is the effect that decides whether the action is good or not. This means that even action that are universally good or moral are perceived to be immoral by utilitarian if their effects are not desirable or do ot bring happiness (Scarre, 1996). Telling the truth is universally accepted as a moral or good action. However telling the truth will not in all circumstance bring happiness to an individual. Then telling the truth that will cause unhappiness is considered evil by utilitarian. Suppose a utilitarian is in place where there is racial strives and he witness  a black man raping a white woman. His testimony will bring conviction of the black man. This utilitarian will be have the duty to give a false witness aand avoid causing pain to the black which is morally wrong. This then means that utilitarianism can be used to propagate vice in the society.

Utilitarianism is not also a good approach because it ignores the principle of justice. Justice demands that individuals be rewarded or punished according to their own merit and all people to be treated fairly and equally (Scarre, 1996). In the case that we have cited above of a rapist, a utilitarian will ignore the principle of justice to avoid causing pain to the rapist. He will also treat the woman unfairly because his false testimony will prevent the woman from receiving any compensation from the perpetrator though she deserve it from justice point of view. The perpetrator on the other hand deserve a punishment to act as a deterrant to repeat the offense but he does not get it.

Another problem with utilitarianism is that it does not consider the long term effect of an action (Scarre, 1996). Failing lay off workers in our case of high-tech company will only produce short term benefit  to the workers but in the future, the individual will be subject to long suffering when the company eventually collapse. May be it would have been better if the company laid off the workers and have time to strategize a fresh and revamp it back. This would mean that the workers would have  been called back thus making their suffering short term. The collapse of the company would mean long term effect to the worker and this is what the utilitarianism approach could have led to.
   
Making decision in life always aims at maximizing happiness to an individual. This fact is well represented by utilitarian approach. But in the rear world, achieving happiness is not always achieved by avoiding pain and suffering but rather by considering other factors that may affect that happiness more so in the long term. This then implies that making decision should not be purely be based on utility but a compromise is necessary among other approaches to achieve long term benefits.

Technology S-Curve

The performance of the product increases rapidly initially and once there is a decline in the slope the productivity doesnt improve in spite of the increase in RD investments. Initially at the beginning of the curve, extra effort is required to extract a high performance from the product. However, once this bit is done productivity advances significantly with marginal input. Later, when a new generation technology is introduced advances to the previous generation technology stays limited and it eventually phases out. This leads to a creation of a new S-Curve which is shifted to the right of the Original S-Curve.

It helps in assessment of a technology in its different stages. It helps in identifying the need to re-align strategy when productivity declines and in turn warn of any technology obsolescence.

The S-Curve framework doesnt provide a roadmap to the managers about how to deal when the technology is no longer exhibiting performance. It doesnt help in estimating the gains one can make from new technologies. As it is a generalization from various technology paths as observed, the size and the structure of the S-Curve can vary so one cant determine the right time to invest in new technology and abolish the existing one.

The S-Curve framework is deduced from studies done on technologyfirm performances and it can be used along with other frameworks to provide a suitable recommendation.

U.S. Bank global wire-transfer system By HP NonStopPayments

James Martin was among authors of information technology books that coined the term telecommunications and the computers in his crimson book. The notion soon evolves into the term information technology that we often hear these days. While the first terminology puts emphasis on the role of infrastructure or hardware in communications, the second suggests that in addition to hardware, contents also play significant part in advanced communications. This includes information technology roles in financial institutions and within the evolution of management practice at any industries as well.

The adoption of information technology in financial industry like banking is critically important as data accuracy, speed, and reliability counts to help a company becoming trusted providers.
In this situation, the information technology presents much opportunity for developers to provide system that is more advanced that deal with the improvement in the three aspects as mentioned above.
Concerning the information technology development in financial industry, this paper will elaborate IT management in the case of U.S. Bank that entrusts streamlined global wire-transfer system to HP NonStopPayments solution.

HP NonStopPayments
In the tagline of HP NonStopPayments, the company display that this service combines reliability, performance, and agility. This tagline asserts the company focuses in serving the multi-billion of fund transfer business that requires the three aspects. In terms of promotion, HP also take a right endorsement as in the first page of report, they excerpt a quote from Steven M. Soroka, Executive Vice President of U.S. Bank, that reveals HP solution in the wire transfer system really help the processing of payment at the right time. Soroka further reveals that in the fund transfer industry, the load usually mounts in the last two hours where half of that occurs in the last 30 minutes. This condition highlights the important to have reliable technology and system installed.

Based on the case study, we see that HP, as leading providers in computer industry, already done right in the preparation of IT project for global wire transfer. This is inline with the suggestion from several literatures regarding how to avoid failure in the information technology (IT) projects.
Make sure the IT project possess clear and measurable objectives
Employ suitable risk management tools and method
Stick to the determined constraints of cost, time and quality
In case of offshoring IT Project to another country like India, pay attention to cultural diversity issue in the country

Ensure to conduct planning before starting the implementation stage
Pay attention to critical tasks during the implementation
Obtain the support from the management
Always report the progress to find out whether there are overlook steps
Involve the users in design and implementation of the IT project
Ensure that we have enough resource in planning, communication, and technology skills
In the case of U.S. Bank that entrusts streamlined global wire-transfer system to HP NonStopPayments solution, we see that HP already sets the objectives, approach, IT improvement plan, and display the business benefits for those that employ the HP NonStopPayments solution.
One technical issue in the provision of wire transfer business that HP offer is as following
Streamlining of high-speed processing environment for customers domestic and international wires
Improvement in the transaction turnaround and quality
Better system security and payment routing
Faster processing with 24x7 availability

Competitiveness of HP NonStopPayments
Although in the report, HP has displayed several issues that highlight the advanced system that HP NonStopPayments provide, still, there is not exact explanation of costs of doing the wire transfer by using the HP solution. This is also important from customers point of view, as costs of transaction become key considerations for customer when deciding mode of fund transfer.
Below is one example of comparison of two fund-transfer method between Xoom and Western Union. This figure highlights that online payment services like Xoom, PayPal etc become a competitive offering for users.
   
According to a statistic, there is only 16 percent of IT development project that occurs within acceptable constraints of cost, time and quality (Ryan, 2000). This condition highlights the need to carefully plan any IT project. In addition, it suggests that in order to become successful IT-based services, costs of transaction should be taken into account when the service is planned to be commercialized publicly (Sommer, 2004).
Because customers only know that security issue, speed of transaction and reliability is mandatory. What they know is they can obtain in without costly charging. This complies with the reasons underlying the factors lead to IT projects failure as following
IT Project is launched without appropriate strategy
The IT project has unclear goals and objectives
Objectives change during the implementation of the project
The project has unrealistic time or resource estimation
The project has no enough support from executive
IT Project does not take into account input form users or customers
The project fails to set up communication among team members
Inappropriate technical consideration
The project does not employ planning and risk control across the project life cycle
The project is costly that beyond the budget
(Al Neima, 2010 CGI, 2001 Leitao, 2003)
   
Currently, to succeed in wire transfer business, HP NonStopPayments should also inform regarding the costs of transaction, features, availability in large number of countries etc since it becomes killing features when this is fulfilled. Among several providers of money transfer, below is a summary displaying the total costs of transaction. Therefore, HP NonStopPayments should also allow banking and payment intermediaries to provide low costs transactions to customers.

In conclusion, the money transfer mode that HP NonStopPayments offer is technically convincing. However, it is still lack of informing customers about the efficiency and effectiveness. They become key considerations for customers when deciding the mode of fund transfer they would use.

In the given situation, my stand is that a best reply would be I have heard that the firm is in a huge financial situation but I am not sure about the lay-off issue.

This is the most qualified answer for two reasons (1) it allows for the greatest good for everybody (i.e. subordinates, management team, and the firm as a whole) and (2) the answer provides enough flexibility to deal with the underlying issues intrinsic in the utilitarian perspective.
The discussion is divided into two parts to provide a clearer understanding of the premises give to support the conclusions put forward here a brief discussion of utilitarianism and the actual premises that support the conclusions. The first part briefly lays out my understanding of what utilitarianism is, as well as the problems possibly encountered in using its approach. The second part provides the support to why the stand put forward in this paper defines the best utilitarian solution.     

I. Understanding Utilitarianism
To judge a moral situation from the utilitarian point of view entails pursuing the greatest happiness principle. To determine the proper course of action from this perspective is to reflect on the idea of whether a particular action can bring the greatest amount of good to benefit the highest number of people. If the action indeed pursues the highest amount of good to benefit the many, it is justified by the utilitarian approach.
Analyzing the dilemma in this fashion may sound so simple. But it is important to consider the fact that the theory itself suffers from observations that can undermine the strength of its arguments. Thus, to judge a situation from the utilitarian point of view entails giving a solution that can adequately address every possible loophole in the theory.  

Certain notions that require clarifications are what it means to be happy, how do you measure happiness (if it can be measured in the first place), is the view on what happiness is the same for everyone, if what people perceive as happiness amounts to something good (or morally right) as well, etc. Attempts to resolve these internal issues within the theory resulted to the existence of the different sub-theories that are nevertheless, utilitarian in nature. Each theory has its own underlying presumptions and beliefs.

Thus, it is necessary to identify the categories and considerations that form the specific utilitarian framework of the moral solution to a particular situation. Jeremy Bentham argues that happiness is quantifiable and so the amount of happiness a particular action can bring about can be measured. Bentham developed a calculus for it. On the other hand, J.S. Mill differentiates among the kinds of pleasure and argued that what is considered pleasurable for one person is not necessarily for the common good of everyone or of the greatest number. This difference between the utilitarian theory advocated by Bentham and that of J.S. Mill are just one of the most remarkable points of view made under the utilitarian perspective. 

The greatest challenge in using the utilitarian approach is perhaps on the definition of happiness. How one should define happiness is a prior issue that needs to be resolved before anyone can maintain that a certain action brings it about. In trying to answer this, a person will have to face another set of issues like what determines the qualifications or authority of a certain thing to be called the happiness. Further, it can also be asked, where does the authority of a particular set of standards that is applied to determine what is good come from Basically, Mill tried to resolve those by saying that the happiness should be what will be for the betterment of the society, or in a particular group. On first glance, it sounds good enough. But to take that for an answer, it will bring us again to the question of whether in the end, the good will simply be determined by a certain elite opinion.

Admittedly, in reality, the power or significance of an opinion is determined by how influential the person is who utters them. Further, in reality, there are political and business considerations that should be taken into account. By doing so, we might end up serving the interest of a particular elite group no matter how smaller their number is against other groups because of those limitations. Point is, the good may not be determined by the greatest number but instead, by the good of a smaller number because of those important considerations. To cite some instances, instead of cutting out on advertising or status style (lavish business trips, etc.) costs, a firm may opt to terminate services of some employees instead. Further, the firm may also opt for a lay off than minimize the companys profits.      

II. The Arguments
Seemingly, I have given an answer that is bordering between I know something and I do not know anything fields. Basically, to understand the argument it is essential to note that there are three factors that I have considered here which influenced my judgment. These factors include psychological, legalities or formalities in a business structure, and the differences existing among the theories under the utilitarian perspective.
Premises Based on Legalities or Formalities in Business Structure
It seems that, in this context, the lay-off is still under consideration by a particular committee and is not yet scheduled to be released to the public domain.
There are certain policies and ethical standards that govern the management team as well about how they make employees know about certain issues.
As the lay-off is a sensitive matter, it is something that should be handled following the firms standard procedures.

It seems that, in this case, the manager is no position to answer any queries about lay-off despite the fact that the he already knows because the announcement has not been made official yet. The manager is not in any position to announce a lay-off because the options are still under review.
Speaking about the lay-off may be pre-emptive. It may create certain apprehensions and misapprehensions that may impact how subordinates performance or functionality.

Premises Based on Psychological Considerations
Whatever response the manager will have, it surely will elicit certain reactions from his ex-coworker- this is basically a human nature.
As we cannot control how others will show their reactions into words and actions, extra caution must be exercised over whatever reaction stimuli we provide for another.

Telling the person the manager knows that a lay-off is called for, and more so that it will affect the department, can cause two different possible reactions from the employee. For one, the employee can work more efficiently, in the course of him trying to save his job. The other is that, it can cause him a sufficient amount of worry, if he does not have enough confidence in himself that he will be retained. To make matters more complicated, whichever of these reactions might it be, certainly if the co-worker has known that the manager knows a lay-off is planned, the co-worker has the possibility to form certain expectations.
A subordinate might expect the manager to defend them and save them from being laid-off. Again, this is just a possibility. But indeed, it happens in real-life that subordinates might take it against the manager in the end with the thinking that the manager cannot defend his subordinates well enough.

It is important to note now that more than the level of authority the manager exercises over his subordinates, a manager has the responsibility of piloting his team. This simply means that the manager is to oversee individual performance and to ensure the welfare of the whole team every time. Sometimes the mindset towards such responsibility, at least on the level of the subordinates, goes up to the extent that the idea becomes such that whatever happens in the team, the manager is always someone to get blames no matter what- this is an impression readily adapted to by people.

The worry that may result from knowing that chances of getting laid off is there, specifically the panic, of a subordinate can be transformed into possible deliberate inefficiency (some employees who think they will be terminated just stop performing) and can affect business operations (some people who think the company will terminate them start to act revengefully and may resort to doing an anomaly that can hurt the company to show the firm that he can also do something that can affect the company so it will belike power tripping in some sense.

On counter-arguments
Lying to the employee and telling him that there are no plans, just to appease him, can expose the manager-subordinates relationship to possible conflicts. Thus, it may be considered wrong in the utilitarian perspective because it brings more harm or damages, than good, in the end. As part of the management team, it is reasonable to expect that whatever plans the corporate management may have a team manager is informed about it before the plan is executed. Every employee knows this and lying can result to a bigger consequence of losing an amount of confidence and trust your team may have on you.

Considering the context that the manager has been part of the team prior to promotion, it sounds reasonable to assume that there is a certain level of relationship and friendship that has been formed between the newly appointed manager and his previous co-workers. This results to a different level of expectations on loyalty- it may be the case that, and is usually is, that co-workers expect that their co-workers will be loyal with them. Something in that loyalty is retained even though he manager has been transferred already to a different or higher position. Lying violates that sense of loyalty and can damage the managers relationship with his subordinates. Possible consequences of lying include the subordinates holding back against the manager, which then brings about terrible and uncomfortable situations. It may not be enough to assume that you have the situation under control in the sense that only one employee asked you the question. Co-workers do talk to one another and it is impossible to assume that the others will not get to know about the lie that you have given as an answer to that particular question

Wikis for everyone with Wikispaces

Coined from the two words, Wiki meaning a website that permits easy creation of interconnected web pages using the current capabilities of HTML, and spaces pertaining to the web pages itself, Wikispaces.com is one of the groupwares out in the internet that promises collaboration with anyone you intend to work with your web page. Makers of Wikispaces offer their services to businesses, to non-profits organizations and to academes.

Summary description of its structure and purpose
    Wikispaces claims to have a flexible interface for its users by permitting them to do many things, whether it is for their classroom, company or community group. Wikispaces caters educators, parents, professionals and members of non-profit organizations with a wide variety of functions fit for their work needs.

Overall look and feel and its apparent target audience
    The look and feel of Wikispaces site has a sleek and simple design that I think in general would be easy enough to navigate by first time visitors. Wikispaces made a very clear and well understandable documentation all over the website just like in their front page and help section. They had made the Get Started division in the right side of the front page with emphasis so to make logging in easy for those who had already registered their wikispace accounts that signifies their membership. Because of their use of large fonts and vibrant color of blue match with large image clips in white makes it suitable for view in mobile phones that do have internet access. Their apparent target audiences in my opinion do range from those children who are just starting to learn the basics of modern education up to those businessmen and professionals including the teachers who do want to systematically setup their way of collaboration with the people they work with.

Usefulness of Wikispaces   
Wikispaces is a great tool to make an organize work environment through the use of modern technology brought by the Internet. Paper trail will lessen as this would promote electronic transfer of documents such as memos and agreements for whether for profit or non-profit businesses. Teachers could upload their handouts while children could submit their home works thus saving money we used to pay for printing. Professionals could upload their resume CVs and work related stuffs such as schedules and drafts. Added to the upload functionality is the offered way of interaction with other people by allowing them to access and edit ones files.

Personal application
Just like what the site front page tells, Wikispaces are built for everyone. Since I am student, I can avail of their features they offer as a package specially designed to meet my needs. I may opt to become a member to access my teachers uploaded handouts and course assignments. After that, my teacher may ask me upload rather than print my answers. Checking could be done automatically for multiple choice questions using the template Wikispaces provides. It would be easy then for me and for the teacher to communicate with each other even at great distance since online learning is now possible.

Other things that I find interesting 
An added feature of Wikispace is what they call as a Private Label. It permits one member to create any number of self contained wiki environments. Its owner can make it as public, protected, or private depending on who wants to access it thus providing it security.
    
Now that I had explored the capabilities of Wikispaces as a groupware, it is then proven that its use would provide an edge in organizing ones collaboration with other people.

Summary description of the websites structure and purpose

At a glance, this website is rather well organized, having been broken down into a number of useful, non-complex links and tabs that the average technologically-savvy individual will find quite beneficial. For instance, there are all manner of items regarding both realms of hardware and software, ranging from current affairs of the websites that are the entire rave in the market, to a critical analysis of the trendiest gadget set to be on everyones wish list in the next couple of months (Bayan, 2004). Thus, this can be said to be a website entirely dedicated to the techno-buffs in the global village, from whence they can keep abreast with the real-time goings on in the wonderful world of electronics and information technology (Gulledge, 2007).
In addition, the site can be said to be geared towards addressing issues to do with the easement of peoples technological welfare, as tit-bits are offered as a form of assistance for a number of topical subjects, for example, the link on Mobile wireless which gives a thorough breakdown of useful phone applications and related comparisons, so as to ensure that, were an individual stuck somewhere in the valley of decision, he she would, a few clicks later, be in a position to make an informed choice.

Websites overall look and feel and target audience 
The site is relatively user-friendly, not to mention quite easy on the eye as a visitor quickly scans through its array of contents. The choice of red, black, blue and white as the thematic colors goes a long way in ensuring one takes a keen interest in the items on offer.
The target audience can be said to be the young people aged between 16-29 years of age, coupled with the new generation of technologically-conversant business people (30-39 years of age) and also the burgeoning selection of IT-(information-technology) liberal business organizations that are already established but also open to the idea of venturing into the virgin territory by way of employing the internet as a mode medium of communicating with their customers or stakeholders.

Usefulness of the site
The site, as aforementioned, is useful in a world of ways for starters, not only are the target people kept up-to-speed regarding the latest technology and information technology news (Gulledge, 2007), an end facilitated by the capability of the site to disseminate such information to a very wide audience through the application of the multiplier effect of sharing links on the already established social networks, including the widely popular Facebook and Twitter utilities, but also, links are available to aid in the navigation to accessing downloads for white papers, e-books, newsletters, to mention but a few (Finney, 1999).

Links 
As a background to this analysis, I personally followed up the subscription link to CIOs newsletters (Schuman, 2005), which was not that much of a hustle, only requiring a legitimate e-mail address to which the electronic newsletters would be sent on a regular basis. The download link to white papers was also of particular interest, in a bid to assess the practicality of the site itself to fulfilling its intended purposes. Additionally, some riveting articles also tickled my fancy, such as the one on the I-pad, Apple technologys new gadget, and another on IT Managements seven (7) deadly sins The link to betterment of business set-ups is among the few I intend to delve into on a later date though.

Interesting bits of the website  
The thing that mostly caught my eye regarding the site is its modest level of simplicity, whilst upholding the utmost quality standards of presenting and analyzing information in a manner that is both user-friendly and practically applicable to any Tom, Dick and Harry. Additionally, the depth of the content there-in is incredible, offering valuable insights that would make a geek out of the average user with even minute interest (Strassman, 2005).

Bottom-line evaluation of the website    
On a personal level, the site is of enormous value, shedding light on a variety of topics which serve to not only enlighten one on current affairs, but also actively educate regarding a myriad of issues, more inclined toward technological advancement (Bayan, 2004). The low down on an appropriate choice for an Operating System to use on ones personal computer, to troubleshooting networking problems and assessment of career options is unparalleled, while keeping users connected on the afore-mentioned social utility websites. Thus, this website can be said to have met the needs intended for on a range of scales (Schuman, 2005).

Information Politics

It reaches a situation when information has to be considered political in the manner in which it is managed. 
The effective control of information gives an organization power. It can be argued that information is kind of a medium of exchange or currency which is passed from one department to another in an organization and between organizations. Like currency, information is bound to rise or decline in value and can generate resources for IS professionals. Information is first processed as data which are mere raw facts and after the raw facts attain the state of information, it is used as knowledge which can be applied in solving various problems (Gulledge, Haszko, n.d.).    It should always be perceived that information is a political processes and failure to do so can be limiting in career for the nave IS professional. It is however important for companies, departments and even individuals to create various political structures in order to control and protect the management of information assets (Finney, 1999). The politics of information is a general perception on how information is managed, allocated and distributed as a scarce resource.  

 As a good organization politics, the Overstock.coms Chief Information Officer, would not have been too apologetic. It is important to recognize the information management as a political system serving various functions in an organization. It is not right to ignore them just the way Shawn Schwegman, the CIO of Overstick.com did and made excess admission to the mistakes which himself was not directly involved in. failure in the information systems can be caused by an array of factors beginning with the basic hardware and software for managing information resources (Paul, n.d.). Problems may even arise from any stage of the information processing and the CIO should be ready to identify where these weak points all begin.   

The analysis of these loose points should help in blaming appropriately on the cause of system failures. The problems of Overstocks failure are all related to updates which Shawn considers to be caused by himself since there was a failure to architect a system able to handle real-time updates appropriately. The interactions of Vcommerce database and the Oracle database are said to be horribly architected and the system handling inventory updates, images, orders, status changes and data are written to very small files that are sent to and fro between different systems. It is the sending mechanism which Shawn blames to assume that the received file was actually processed (Schuman, 2005). This problem, Shawn puts the blame on himself and he admits that he is the one behind Overstock.coms failure.

The CIO, embarrassed on what happens to the Overstock.com, sends an open note to main business partners taking to himself all the blames on the failure of a number of technology failures at Overstock.com.    Prior to making such a decision to humbly be sorry for a mistake himself did not commit, Shawn would have taken sometime to study the political structures of information systems. It is however not time to say I wish I knew, it is time to correct the mistakes which Shawn did and what any CIO might be exposed in during the process of automating the roles as a CIO. The learning of the political information structures will by far avoid the blunders which arise in the management of information system. Russ (1999) identifies different forms of these political information structures which exist in different organization. After learning which structure exists in a given organization, one can execute functions as per the stipulated codes.    Perhaps the most common paradigm of political information structure in organization is the technocratic utopianism where there is a heavy concentration on data categorization and information modeling. The political structure focuses on giving value to the utilization of the emerging hardware and also attempts to address the whole information inventory of an organization. In technocratic utopianism, the IS department considers itself to be the owner of data and no one else has control over it.

Mr. Shawn might have to choose this system in order to have enough control over the information processing.    Anarchy is another structure where everyone has to fend for his or her own self and there is a very high usage of individual PCs. In anarchy, there is a limited data sharing capacity which makes information to be restricted on one department or individual and employees consider their stash of data as something like a personal asset which should not be shared with anyone. Anarchy structure shares some similarity to the feudalism type where information is restricted to a department although it can be shared and controlled within a department. The only information which is regarded as unique can be broadcast outside the department otherwise information is kept with utmost strictness. 

The other characteristic of feudalism is that the data vocabulary is often unique. The two systems, anarchy and feudalism may not compare with monarchy in the strictness (CIO.com, n.d.). In monarchy, the rules for management of information are only dictated by a single executive and the control of information is tightly centralized. Federalism underscores the need for information sharing to be through negotiation which might not work so well with the modern role of CIO.    Basically, a competent CIO should have a keen eye to determine the environment he is working in so that to establish the working criteria in managing the information system of an organization and avoid failures.
  

That advances in technology in the last few decades has revolutionalized nearly every aspect of life is not in contention. Productivity has increased significantly and automation has made it possible for few people to do the work previously done by scores of people. Technological breakthroughs in engineering, medicine, and other important fields have made life much easier than it was at the turn of the 20th century. Importantly though, technology users are not equally competent or skilled to use the technology yet they cannot isolate themselves from the technological progress (Rubens, 2005). A successful company must be able to not only sell its products, but to also help its customers use the products. On numerous occasions, customers have enquiries about products while others have complains to lodge over purchases. Companies are thus expected to put in place mechanisms for handling customer feedback. In fact, the presence of an efficient customer feedback handling mechanism in an organization can draw the line between world leaders and mediocre companies. This paper discusses some of the important strategic steps that companies should take to ensure that their IT users can access adequate and reliable technical support.

Set up a technical support desk
One of the first steps that a company should take to ensure that users have access to technical support is to have a team of competent and knowledgeable workers to deal with customer in need of such support. Secondly, the company must make it its responsibility to inform the users of the existence of the technical support team in the company. It should also make it easy for the users to reach the technical support team and relay their concerns (Microsoft Corporation, 2009). For instance, there should be telephone extensions or dedicated lines to improve users access to the technical staff. This will encourage more and more users who have problems with the system to pass their concerns promptly so that prompt action can be taken.

Train the Customer service staff
While customer service desks and customer feedback hotlines are now part of almost every company, few companies have invested in educating and training the faces behind their customer service desks. Customer service staffs provide the all-important link between customers or products users, and company managements or the departments responsible for the products. This being the case, it follows that customer care staff should be well-educated and trained to handle the users feedbacks. Equally importantly, they should be empowered sufficiently to deal with some of the customer feedback without having to necessarily raise the attention of the management (Bayan, 2004 Hoffman, 1996). Most customers will be more comfortable discussing their problems with knowledgeable, confident and competent staff members than with ignorant workers who have to consult their bosses on the slightest issues. It is prudent for companies to employ qualified and motivated workers. Proper training and empowering of customer care staff reduces the length of time required to solve most problems.

Understand the users
It is difficult for any individual or company to satisfy their customers needs fully without understanding the users and their needs.At any given time, a company deals with a wide diversity of customers, all of whom it must aim at satisfying and retaining. Different customers come with different needs and have different ways of expressing these needs. Due to the diversity of their needs for example, different users may make different recommendations or may make different complains in relation to the services they are getting. It is the responsibility of the customer care staff to make note of the complaints and recommendations to the technical staff so that those responsible can explore and implement necessary changes. It is almost impossible to satisfy these customers without making deliberate efforts to understand the customers or the users.

Solve problems promptly
Users will mostly complain about a problem and expect a quick response (Kay, 2007). The technical support team should respond to the users complaints as soon as the problem is reported or at the nearest available opportunity. Letting complaints pile up before taking action can be detrimental to the organization as the users will lose faith the in technical support team, and the organization in general. The technical support team should therefore take action as soon as it is reported. Having solved the immediate problem, the team should then explore further to look for ways of preventing the particular problem, and related ones from happening in future. The technicalk support should not just react to reported problems, but should be proactive enough to identify and fix problems before they occur (Spolsky, 2007).

Upgrade systems
Technology is never static. Instead, technology keeps progressing, at a pace which has been increasing significantly in the recent past. The implication of this technological development is that new opportunities and new problems are arising every day. The technical support team must thus be quick to harness the new opportunities, as well as to develop solutions to the new or more advanced problems which characterize the technological progress.If it is slow to grab the opportunities, then it will be of little help to the users. If it cannot handle users complaints, it again becomes useless to the users. The company must therefore continously update its system while investing in training the technical support staff and arming them with the latest skills.

In the section about targeting markets, the main point of the tutorial is to teach its learners how to choose their customers. It identifies the market as all entities qualified to procure a companys products or services. The chapter then goes on to describe how to identify the right market. It also teaches how to segment a companys markets through different variables depending on the need of the company, identify and choose which from segment the company would benefit most, developing a marketing strategy in order to get to their target markets, and finally, how to position a product in order to have more appeal to the consumers with the perception that they hold about the productservice the company has.

Product decisions discusses about product decisions. It categorizes consumer products according to convenience, shopping, specialty, emergency and unsought products. As for business products, it categorizes them as raw materials, processed materials, equipment, basic components, advanced components, product components, and maintenance, repair and operating products. The tutorial tells the learner that decisions are often based on core benefits, actual product, and augmented product. Designing the product in order for it to become sellable is seen in the consumable product features, branding, packaging, and labeling. These bases of decision are tied to the consumers psychology that entices them to buy.

Finally, managing products deal with the roles of those involved in product management, branding strategies, product development, and adjusting product decisions. Those in product management are separated into four levels according to the number of items they are responsible for (product item, brand product line, category product line, and product mix). The process in developing new products (idea generation, screening, concept development and testing, business analysis, product and marketing mix development, market testing, and commercialization) is also discussed as well as how they are obtained. Finally, the topic ends with managing existing products, which deals with adjusting the products marketing strategy with reference to customer tastes, domestic and foreign competitors, economic conditions, and technological advances.

The tutorial is effective in a sense that it takes the learner through a step by step process in understanding the definitions of terms, what the different topics are about, and gives the learner an idea on how to apply the process in real marketing situations. The tutorial is also effective because it is simple and easy to understand. It also breaks down complicated topics and lays them out in an easy-to-understand manner. However, the only problem with the tutorial is that it lacked examples of real life situations to which the approaches were used, especially since examples often makes everything clearer and makes the whole presentation have more real life applications and not just theoretical things that can be skipped in the whole process of marketing a productservice.

In relation to information and information systems, and the issues associated with it, there are a few I found. The tutorial, though focused on marketing also has aspects that involve the production side of business. In this case information exchange and communication is very valuable between these two departments. Also, it is apparent that any decision by marketing is communicated to the whole organization since, apparently, they set the tone for the direction the whole company takes when it comes to bringing in money for the company.
Advice related to marketing and communication passed onto an IT manager would be to integrate a database and communication scheme between marketing and production. It is also advised that IT managers have a system that would tie information from different teams of marketing into one large database for easy access among its members. Finally, a sophisticated tracking of products for the purposes of research that will aid marketing decisions is important in carrying out the different methods discussed in the tutorial.

Product Management Information Systems

In 2006, Microsoft one of the worlds biggest software makers introduced a new operating system into the market, Windows vista. Company officials claimed that Windows Vista had come at the right time and that it would help individuals and organizations to enhance their performance especially in the area of information management. This paper will examine lessons learned from the product management of Microsoft Vista, and how to apply the lessons in managing digital products.

Differences between digital product and a physical product
It is imperative to note that digital products are different from physical products. First, while physical products can be touched, digital products are formulated in a non-physical format. Secondly, the cost of production and sharing is very high for physical products than for digital products. This is because physical products require time to transfer while digital products are delivered immediately and at a minimal cost or no cost at all. In addition, there are no warehouse costs for digital products while for physical products the storage costs are usually high. A digital product uses data technology to create discrete values. Digital technology is applied together with physical communication media transmissions like the fiber optic or the satellite (Lemley et al, 2006).

New product development for a digital product
New product development (NPD) for digital products, describes the innovation and creativity efforts made by manufacturers to come up with new products with superior attributes. New product development efforts focus on improving business performance in key interest areas through the delivery of relative content in user- friendly formats. The core activities are aimed at manufacturing new products and commercial models, testing and experimenting with new digital products, mapping and the production of models. The process involves effective management of the product life cycle, which is a careful management of the product design and production details (Bolter, 2001).

New product development process and the role of information in such a process, Microsofts Windows Vista is a good model of the new product development process. This product was launched in 2006 and included Vista, Exchange Server 2007 and 2007 Office System. These flagship products of Vista are said to have cost the manufacturer about ten billion US dollars in research and development. Vista will change the way businesses operate in the management of information. In addition, it will develop the way people communicate, use and share information. Those adopting the Vista system expect to save on cost via process work- flow automation, access information more easily as well as lower the cost of compliance. Similarly, Windows vista has enabled new capabilities like advances in graphics and pervasive for XML technologies hence creating a new experience for end users. By incorporating XML and Web services technology, the product will help organizations to utilize online services and enhance the selection mix of on- premise and other applications to ensure that there is a balance of security, convenience and productivity. Moreover, the 2007 Office system is a powerful platform for the development of business applications that focus on eliminating the barriers between companies, systems, processes and information (Fried. 2006).

New Product Development and sustainable competitive advantage
New product development can enhance the competitive advantage of organizations. It is important to note that successful launching of a product requires good management of the product development process and methodologies. Product lifecycle management focuses on meeting organizational goals like reducing the time to the market and reduction of production costs. To beat the competition, organizations reduce the lead times to get the product to the market before the competitors. This rewards the organizations with a bigger market share, higher revenues and increased profits. The other benefit of product lifecycle management is the reduction of prototyping costs and the enhanced ability to forecast accurately on potential sales opportunities and revenues. Likewise, it reduces wastage through the re-use of data, which leads to improvement in the quality of the product.

Application of lessons learned from the product management of Vista
The lessons learned from the product management of Vista are useful in the management of other digital products such as digital television and cameras.

Digital television
Digital television refers to the use of discrete signals to send and receive images and sound in their motional state. In the older technology, television sets used analog signal technology. However, by the end of 2009 more than ten countries had migrated completely from analog television transmissions to digital transmissions. This technology is changing the broadcasting systems around the world, with many broadcasters switching to high definition television and standard-definition digital signal. This means that the lessons learned from the product management of Vista can be successfully applied in the management of the digital television product life cycle.

Digital camera    
In the photography sector, digital camera is a product whose management can be enhanced by the lessons learned from the Microsofts Windows Vista. The Canon Corporation makes the PowerShot D10. It is a playful camera, water proof and stylish. This makes it the digital camera of choice for outdoor clients who spend time in dusty areas and rainy seasons as well as divers and skaters. This was unexploited market niche hence the need to reach the market quickly to avoid competition from rival digital companies.

Based on the above analysis, it is evident that management of digital products is very significant in enhancing profitability. Product development should always focus on adding value to the customer and that is why organizations should invest in innovation and creativity. The product lifecycle management is also very critical since it ensures that the manufacturer has control over the product processes and is able to respond to market dynamics more effectively.

Overview of Marketing and Information Systems

Marketing is the game for any businesses. This involves the processes that a product or service of a business that includes its packaging and promotion. As the market of different countries converge because of the current trend to turn out to being global, the competition is getting stiffer on how a companys product could get sold at the most profit and at the least cost. Tapping the industry of Information Technology is the key for successes of those companies that had been able to withstand the challenge. To reach out the customers, companies do research first on how their customers behave, what are their needs, wants, their hobbies and way of life. This research should be as sensitive as possible to the real situation but it should still keep the sense of privacy that each prospective customer is entitled with.

 Consumers do prioritize their needs such as food, shelter, education and clothing and if they do have spare money to spend, it is the only time where a consumer would think about buying his wants. There is no defined line on what is the needs and what is the wants of customers since it may be possible that one really needs to buy for example a car to use for his business, while another one really dont need it since he just walk to attend to his office work. This top consumer behavior should be the one that companies should research about.

Companies explored how they would get to know their customers. They used surveys, product test run, tracking cards in disguise of discount and loyalty cards. Some even had to resort to tracking ones internet surfing habits in order to know who should they first give product offers or not. Tracking ones buying activities is also not clearly defined whether it is legal or illegal but businesses should still make a good judgment if they would still do such kind of business strategy subject to the communities ethical standards.
  
Knowthis.com had been able to broaden my idea on what marketing is. It had given a wide range of real situations that one who would just start out to have a business could really learn of. It had defined the overall business cycle of marketing including its use of Information Systems to conduct its research. Basing on what I had learned on this website, if I would own a business and I would hire an IT manager I would suggest to him that

He should be first clear on who my desired customers are and how I could get in touch with them.  Whether I wanted to own a restaurant or a plant processing, he should know first basically what my market is.
He should offer market research strategies to me only those that is acceptable to the ethical standards of the community. To know if it is acceptable or not beside of ones own pre judgment, the implementation of the strategy should be informed to the prospective customers that they were being surveyed so that they know what they can share for my research and what should they just keep into secret.

Lastly, the IT manager should be able to come up with a recommendation that is supported with facts from the survey of prospective customers. He should be able to visually generalize what would they behave if they will be offered with my product or service. He should present me tables and figures of percentages to summarize the result of the survey better yet if he could make it as interactive as it could be to maximize his being an IT manager.

Cloud computing report summary

Our main strategic focus in this project has been how companies can use cloud computing to reap from their market and improve on business processes. Information Technology has been the main driving force in the industry. Many companies are setting up their systems to make sure that they tap into this new computing technology. It has the potential to bring transformation in a large of computing industry this trend is making software even more attractive as a service and has really been instrumental in shaping the way IT hardware is designed and purchased. Those innovative technologists who have new ideas for new Internet services no longer require expensive hardware or even human expense to operate it. Companies have been saved the concern of over-provisioning for a service which does not meet their predictions, in the end wasting resources, or on the other hand under-provisioning for a service which becomes very important in the long run thus making them underutilize the potential of the service. In addition to this, companies which have large tasks to be performed get results very fast because their programs can scale due to the reason that using a server for 1000 hours is costs the same as using 1000 servers for 1 hour. This type of elasticity in IT has not been experienced in history. Cloud computing refers to applications being offered as a service and hardware in the data centers that provide cloud computing services. 

When a major technology arrives in information technology, there is anxiety as it is not so clear what the effects will be positive or negative. It is due to this anxiety that big organizations will take the wait-and-see attitude towards new technologies for fear of ruining their businesses or being left by their competition if they ignore the said new technology. There are occasions where the shift will offer cost benefits and will bring improvements to operations. It may even bring new ways of tackling business problems that offer important strategic advantage. The higher the benefits the higher likelihood of a company to quickly embrace them.
Cloud computing, and by extension Web 2.0 applications at large, is developing very fast and is shaping businesses. The technology is showing both considerable interest and momentum in the space.
There are some benefits though, of cloud computing which by far outweigh the risks and challenges. These benefits will be to those companies which are proactive in managing the down-size that may come with cloud computing. These benefits will include the availability of an easier change management of the information technology infrastructure which includes upgrades and maintenance. The economics of scale will also be achieved because with a private cloud, the many clients in a company will be able to access the application software that is installed on the server machines without the need to buy individual software for the many client machines in the company.

The good side of new technologies, more so cloud computing, is that innovative companies will have the opportunity to come up with solutions that were hitherto impossible to come up with. It will offer small opportunities for companies to enjoy the economies of scale that come up with this new technology. What is more, business ideas which required more computing  power, scale, or new business models like Global Service oriented architecture but could not be effected because of technical bottlenecks can now be achieved. Every improvement that is directed towards storage, processing speed, or technology were hard to be achieved at initially but cloud computing has made this achievable. It is only smart companies who will notice this irresistible move.

There is a new awareness and leverage of the greater Internet particularly Web 2.0. The Web has advanced especially with the introduction of Web 2.0. The challenges in scale, and performance has created solutions for businesses, both large and small, and has come up with infrastructures that can address challenges in a powerful and economical ways that many companies have found no equal. The employment of SaaS, non-relational databases will in the end serve companies well in the new company cloud. This will enable companies to gain new skills and perspectives that are needed to compete well in the 21st century.
Cloud computing has been a good match of SOA. With cloud computing, SOA will be improved and changed for the better. Web Oriented Architecture has been found to fit well with cloud technologies which are based on the Web. Traditional SOA will not suffice with the development of cloud computing because it will be moved to a place where new business and technical requirements with faster rate of changes will be achieved. It will be common to see the phasing out of traditional SOA and the emergence of new technologies that will bring more efficiency to businesses.

More on the business, there will be advantages to businesses when they adopt cloud computing because more users will not require IT personnel in order to get the service. There will be more self-service IT from the business side. There will be less and less involvement of the IT department because it is more about Software-as-a-Service. Many business users will be in a position to adopt future cloud computing by the use of self-service.

With new technologies like cloud computing and particularly private cloud, there will be more tolerance for innovation and a lot of experimentation form businesses. There will be fewer barriers to creating new ways of doing businesses. It will pave way for prototyping and market validation of new approaches in a much faster and less expensive than before. The other sectors of the organization like branding, legal, and compliance will struggle to keep up the pace with the other sectors and thus the gradual change of the organization will be seen as cloud computing bring business possibilities to be possible in the world of cloud computing. Although this will not fix broken innovation mechanisms in businesses, but on the other side, cloud computing is accessible which enables new internal entrepreneurs to use the cloud computing tools to create new solutions anyway.

The firms which are slow in adopting new technologies will find it hard to compete with the fast-adopters. The failure to adopt cloud computing does not bring immediate fall to these companies but it will instead pile onto the more recent advancements and make it even harder to compete in the fast-moving technology world. In the end, the slow adopters will face serious and growing economic and business disadvantages.
The investigative approach that we undertook is to look at the current working system of the companies that we were interested in analysis their weaknesses, their strengths and their potential in the market. Each of the companies that we investigated portrayed the potential of making better in their areas of expertise in that they had a lot that could be done better with the use of information technology. Kinderworld, for example has the potential to offer uniform examinations throughout all their campuses. With cloud computing, the vision and mission of the establishment will be well catered for. The fact that this organization believes in offering western education with Eastern values is reason enough to embrace the use of information technology for this goal. The use of cloud computing will enable them to achieve their dream. This is true because with this technology, applications used for education in the Western countries will be accessed throughout the world for all and sundry to have a look at. The era where developers from the Western countries were to be hired in order to come up with those solutions is no longer there. With tools now readily available thanks to cloud computing, developing of systems to be used will be easier. Good systems of education used in the West will be readily available with low cost. It is becoming clear that good systems used in schools can have a positive impact on the students and will add more value to time for the teachers. Teachers will find more time than before by doing some other tasks instead of doing tasks that could be easily achieved through the use of the computing. The teaching materials can be archived in some folder in the system and this material can be accessed throughout all the campuses. This is better than the traditional way where teachers had to make this material year in year out.  There is now more time to do other things.

DSL on the other hand saw the opportunity in cloud computing and offered this service to their clients. The response from the clients was overwhelming because many clients are warming up to this new service. This is a sign that cloud computing is offering food services to most of the companies around the world. Most clients of DSL are warming up to this new technology due to the fact it is cheaper in its implementation and reduces costs in the companies which are implementing it. There is also improved network reliability. This is because the network is outsourced to some third party entity which will be concerned with network management. There is also reduced dependence on geography and arbitration of labor. This is because cloud computing can be implemented from anywhere without a bias on any location. As long as there is reliable Internet connectivity, companies that are using this technology are assured of ripping from this technology. The time taken to recover from a disaster is also reduced. This is because the confidential information for any company will be stored in an offshore location. The security will also be improved as this will be handled by the professionals in the offshore location. The monitoring of the whole process will also be improved.
The case of Yaoting Company is no different from the other companies. This is a food company that deals with food and is widening its market to include other countries like China, and Philippines. Sake Japanese food has a very conservative management who has no confidence at in putting confidential information to a cloud as a way of offsite backup. This is posing a challenge to the implementation of cloud computing in this organization.

With the evolution of the software as a service model, Sake Japanese Food has switched its office productivity software to Google Suite to be used by the outlet staff so they might use the word processing, spreadsheets and presentation software and additional licenses are not required. The outlet staff often uses the software when their outlet is closed and they have to write the daily sales report and weekly sales presentation.

Vijay presents another example of a company which we did our research on. Prestines system is a market leader in networking and cloud computing is just about the best move they can make. This is because they have a network of clients who are present in many locations. There is therefore a need to have cloud computing in this company so that all the branches can have a common abstracted view of the resources within the network.

The key findings which became evident in all our groups is that cloud computing is the way to go for companies to remain strategically ahead of the competition. Cloud computing technology will help the companies with licenses of their software because they no longer need to purchase many licenses for all the computers in the network. They will be required to purchase the license which will be installed in the remote server.

In conclusion, cloud computing will be the next big investment that companies will consider putting their effort to because of the potential it has for them. It will soon be history for large purchase of licenses for the reason of installing them on many client machines. Technology has been proved to bring profitability to businesses. The use of it has seen companies gain competitive edge above their competition. As companies shift towards the use of new technologies factors such as security should be looked into before jumping into the boat. For organizations which are slow in technology adoption, they will find goal posts shifted.

Strategic focus of our project
Our project is about cloud computing and how it can be applied to business processes to effect change in companies and organizations. We strive to look at the various ways in which cloud computing can be utilized in this fast-moving technological world to bring out good returns and to improve the business processes.
Companies are positioning themselves in this fast-moving world to get the best of technology for the better leverage of their businesses. Organizations have shifted to the use of technology platforms to compete and not the availability of new markets anymore. Clients are looking for companies which use state-of-the-art technologies. The world over, it is clear that the use of advanced technologies is the main source of competitive advantage for many growing manufacturing and service industries. Although this is a fact, many companies, especially small to medium sized enterprises often miss out on pretty good opportunities for advancement because they dont have good systems and structures coupled with the fact that they dont have the right people to monitor and follow every step of the moving technology that is available.

It has been argued out that the companies which are slow in adopting new technologies will pile their lack of tapping into the benefits of new technologies and they will, in the end, be disadvantaged and miss out on great opportunities. It is not expected that they will fall immediately but they will add on to their past failures.
Cloud computing is one of the latest technologies that is the buzzword in the technology sector today. Many companies are bracing themselves for the use of this technology to leverage their operations and come up with cheaper storage solutions for their businesses. Companies have gone a notch higher to set up their own clouds and thus the coming up of private clouds in companies. The following sections will look into the structure of private cloud as compared with other cloud computing systems like the public cloud and hybrid cloud. It will also look into how companies are using this technology to leverage their businesses for more profitability.

Our strategic focus is how the use of cloud computing can be used to reduce costs in organizations and how the use of cloud computing has improved on the security of companies. Security has been left for experts to manage it.

Significantinteresting part of the project
One of the interesting parts of the projects is the fact that applications are no longer required to be installed in each individual machine. It is interesting how applications access the server application that is installed in the server and still function very well just like desktop applications. It is interesting to see where this technology will be developed up to. When services are offered as a service, it is interesting and forms one of the milestones in the development of the future computer systems. It will be interesting to see how proprietary will come out of this madness. Open source companies are taking this opportunity to make sure that they get more clients who will use their product. It is significant to carry out this research because the findings will be used to improve the services that are being provided in the companies that we are looking at. This research could not have come at a better time such as this because companies are now downsizing and the use of cloud computing to cut down on cost is the surest way to cut down costs for most business.

Real-world motivations
Cloud computing is interesting and fun to research on. There are some applications and companies that have really been instrumental in this research. First on the list are the popular Google applications. You can now work on a Microsoft Word document on your computer even if you dont have office installed, thanks to Google apps. Google has cut its name as a search engine and is the leader in this field. It has the applications like presentation and MS Excel application which are located in documents link in either Gmail or search engine interface. Google has an option for their clients to integrate their own on-premise applications. A client can develop an application and upload to the server. The technology used in Google is Python. It is highly portable and very much reliable. It has security policies which have been set up in place that will ensure maximum security. 

Microsoft offers the Microsoft Azure as the cloud computing technology which uses the Windows Live platform. The framework used is the Microsoft .NET framework. It promises high reliability. For security, it uses SDL technology to protect their clients. It also has other technologies that ensure security like Forefront and Morro.
Sales force offers the force.com platform for cloud computing. It does not allow the integration of on-premises applications by their clients because they are developing their cloud computing into purely cloud applications. They use the technology of APEX to build their applications. It is not portable and is reliable. They enforce their security measures by ensuring that their clients observe security measures that are generally accepted.

Objectives
The objectives of this research include the following.
To find out the challenges that organizations face in their business models and how cloud computing can be used to solve.
To look into ways in which organizations can employ cloud computing to improve business processes.
To look into ways that costs can be reduced with the use of cloud computing.
To explore the methods that security can be achieved when organizations fully move to cloud computing.

Organizations in the study
The organizations that are involved in this study include Kinderworld group of schools, Vijays Pristine systems, Yaoting company and DSL Company. Each is described in detail below.

Kinderworld group of schools
Kinderworld group of schools is an academic organization which is tasked with offering education to pupils from Kindergarten to offering pre-university programs. This organization is located in Australia but has extended its tentacles to Hong Kong, and the neighboring countries. This organization believes in offering western education with Eastern values is reason enough to embrace the use of information technology for this goal. The use of cloud computing will enable them to achieve their dream. This is true because with this technology, applications used for education in the Western countries will be accessed throughout the world for all and sundry to have a look at. The era where developers from the Western countries were to be hired in order to come up with those solutions is no longer there. With tools now readily available thanks to cloud computing, developing of systems to be used will be easier. Good systems of education used in the West will be readily available with low cost. It is becoming clear that good systems used in schools can have a positive impact on the students and will add more value to time for the teachers. Teachers will find more time than before by doing some other tasks instead of doing tasks that could be easily achieved through the use of the computing. The teaching materials can be archived in some folder in the system and this material can be accessed throughout all the campuses. This is better than the traditional way where teachers had to make this material year in year out.  There is now more time to do other things.

Datacom Systsems Ltd. (DSL)
DSL is a company that is concerned with communications and offering solutions to companies. The solutions that it offers are DSL on the other hand saw the opportunity in cloud computing and offered this service to their clients. The response from the clients was overwhelming because many clients are warming up to this new service. This is a sign that cloud computing is offering food services to most of the companies around the world. Most clients of DSL are warming up to this new technology due to the fact it is cheaper in its implementation and reduces costs in the companies which are implementing it. There is also improved network reliability. This is because the network is outsourced to some third party entity which will be concerned with network management. There is also reduced dependence on geography and arbitration of labor. This is because cloud computing can be implemented from anywhere without a bias on any location. As long as there is reliable Internet connectivity, companies that are using this technology are assured of ripping from this technology. The time taken to recover from a disaster is also reduced. This is because the confidential information for any company will be stored in an offshore location. The security will also be improved as this will be handled by the professionals in the offshore location. The monitoring of the whole process will also be improved.

Yaoting Company
This is a food company that deals with food and is widening its market to include other countries like China, and Philippines. Sake Japanese food has a very conservative management who has no confidence at in putting confidential information to a cloud as a way of offsite backup. This is posing a challenge to the implementation of cloud computing in this organization. With the evolution of the software as a service model, Sake Japanese Food has switched its office productivity software to Google Suite to be used by the outlet staff so they might use the word processing, spreadsheets and presentation software and additional licenses are not required. The outlet staff often uses the software when their outlet is closed and they have to write the daily sales report and weekly sales presentation.

Vijay Prestine System
Prestines system is a market leader in networking and cloud computing is just about the best move they can make. This is because they have a network of clients who are present in many locations. There is therefore a need to have cloud computing in this company so that all the branches can have a common abstracted view of the resources within the network.

Approach taken
The approach that we took includes visiting the organization and looking at the systems that are already in place. The systems that are in place are then looked at into critically to find out what they are lacking. This approach is effective because with the knowledge of the existing systems, it is easier to know where one will start when bringing changes and solutions to a particular organization.

Specific plans for each organization
Kinderworld Group of Schools
The plans that we took for this organization is that we tried exploring the collaboration systems that has been put in place for communication. Most of the reports that we got from this organization were from email that we sent to the teachers and the administrators asking them the questionnaires. We then analyzed the reports that we got from the various respondents. The plans that specific to this organization was to get the views from both the staff and the administration. The administration was to give their views on the various ways they faced challenges especially now that they were going international. We managed to get these views through the communication departments where the email addresses of the concerned respondents were acquired. This exercise was made easier with the cooperation of the administrators and the management of the organization.

Yaoting Organization
This is a company that deals with food. It is based in Australia but it has extended its operations so that it now operates even in Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, China, and the US. Given that this company is not willing to invest in information technology, there has been a lot to be done to get the management invest in technologies like cloud computing. The method we used to do the research is action research. We have had to have meeting with the management and all the minutes from all the meeting are well documented and all the interviews were stored as confidential data by the company. Most of the data that was collected cannot be presented here because of the nature of the agreement we made with the management. The data that was collected was meant to be confidential to the two entities involved. We collaborated with the information technology department of the company so that we could get all the issues that relate with IT that needed to be implemented.

Datacom Systems Ltd (DSL)
This company is concerned with providing IT solutions to client companies. Our work was supported by the management here because they have been looking for ways of reducing costs in their organization. They have set up cloud computing architecture that they are using it for their in-house purposes. They were exploring other ways of optimizing the use of cloud computing to further simplify their business processes. We discussed with the management some of these ways so that at the end of the discussion we reached a conclusion to look for them some ways in which they can outsource most of the tasks to public cloud because of the pool of expertise that is available with the use of public cloud.

Vijays organization
This is an organization which is the leader in networking. They have developed cloud computing and have been striving to provide the best services in to their clients through the use of information technology. The specific plan that we had for this company is that we were to get history of how cloud computing has been developed from ashes up to the present state. The company started with virtualization which, though proved to be very important, but posed some challenges in backup system. Cloud computing is the real solution to backup especially offsite backup where confidential and sensitive data can be sent to the remote site.

Stakeholders involved
The stakeholders that were involved in this project involved the management of the various companies that we visited. They are discussed in the sections that follow.

Kinderworld Group of Schools
The stakeholders that were involved in this organization include the administration of the institution. The principals of the various campuses were very cooperative in the whole process. The IT departments from all the campuses in all the branches were also involved and instrumental in the whole process. It is them who suggested the ways that information technology can be used to improve the academic performance of the schools and the management.

Vijays organization management
The management of this organization was also very instrumental in the project. They gave a lot of insights into how information technology can be used to improve the processes of the company.
DSL and Santosh information technology departments were very instrumental in this project. They gave suggestions and also discussed with us the ways that we could improve the information technology departments in both organizations.

Resources used
The resources that were used in this research include the following.
Laptop computers  these were used for data collection from the companies and organization that we visited. Every member of our team had to have a laptop so that they could collect information easily from the respondents.

Printing papers  these were used to print out the questionnaires that were sent to companies that we managed to visit their premises. The questionnaires were instrumental in getting the required information from the users.

Printers and printer cartridges  we have had to have at least one printer so that we can do our paperwork from.

Findings in the organizations
Kinderworld Group of Schools
The findings that we found in this organization is that cloud computing can be used to improve the certification programs. Student details can be stored in the cloud so that they are secure. Most of the applications that have been running in the various campuses have been running in the client machines. This has been costly to the finance department because currently, the cost of application licenses is still unmanageable for an organization like this. The use of cloud computing has been the best solution for this organization. We found out, together with the administration, that cloud computing will pave way for online applications like online learning. Cloud computing in this institution will become handy in the implementation of online exam system.

Vijays Organization
This organization was the most interesting to do research on. We found out that cloud computing was the best solution to the various challenges that have been encountered in the implementation of workable systems in the premise. With this organization having tried out the various information technology solutions starting from virtualization, there have been wide ranges of experience that have been achieved. It is now evident that cloud computing provides better solutions to the problems that are associated with optimization of information technology resources.

Yaoting Organization
This organization initially used old and archaic ways of business processes. There has been a lot of rebellion from the management because they do not agree on any investment that will involve technology. They have not been willing to invest on building better infrastructure. We found out that the use of cloud computing will solve the software costs on the management. The main reason why there has been rejection of new technologies in this organization is that the management fears the effects of having technologies which are hard to manage and which could cause havoc to the IT department just in case there is a disaster. We found out that by investing in a public cloud, the management of the organization can have confidence in this technology. We therefore advised the management towards the implementation of this technology and they were receptive of the idea.

Santosh Organization
We found out that because this company provides solutions for ERP management, they can integrated well with cloud computing. This is because the implementation of cloud computing is the surest way of reducing costs for the clients who are keen on improving the infrastructure of their systems without necessarily causing financial constraints of finances. We found out that enterprise tools can all be located in the cloud so that they could be accessed from any place and thus reducing license costs.

Significance of the findings
The findings from the research were important because it shows how cloud computing can be used to add value to companies in all sectors. Different cloud computing are configured in different setups. We found out that Kinderworld Group of Schools for example needed private could setups because of the nature of their work. They needed this because the exams needed to be confidential and that they were to be managed by the teachers and tutors who are located in the various campuses. The solutions for applications that are ERP in nature need another way of configuring them. This is true with DSL Company where we found out that ERP applications needed to be configured privately in the cloud.

All in all we found out that cloud computing offers companies better way of managing their networks. What is more, security is improved because the management of the network and the servers is now left for information technology experts. This is a very crucial area because with the current rise in insecurity, it is becoming imperative that companies be very sensitive with their security on the network (Miller, 2008).

Key challenges
The key challenges that we experienced were mainly human in nature. This is because some of the organization like Yaoting were not willing to discuss the information technology because they were risk averse and feared the worst will happen with the introduction of complicated systems in the system.
Accessing the real information for better decision making was also a problem. This is because many of the administrators and managers were not willing to let go of the confidential information. It was therefore hard in getting the real data that was needed for the research to be complete.

Limitations in the research
One of the limitations in the research was the fact that most of the things that we researched on were mainly theoretical. It hard had to do practical experiments. This is because the systems were live and they could not be switched off because of the systems that were running in them.  More so, it could take more time in setting up the system if we were allowed to, not to mention the lack of finances that are required to set up cloud computing.

Another challenge that is associated with cloud computing is the fact that most of the material that is used in this new technology have not been well developed. Cloud computing is still a new technology and there is less that can be acquired form the resource centers. It was therefore difficult getting all the information that we could use in convincing Yaoting management on shifting to it. There were sometime when we were asked about the specific security measures that we were suppose to give after this system is installed and we were not able to give them a comprehensive report because the information on the internet is scanty.
Another limitation is that standards have not been set that are to be followed when implementing private clouds. Currently there are many companies which include Google, Salesforce, IBM, Microsoft, and Dell who are offering cloud computing services. With this technology gaining popularity, there is bound to be chaos in the management of these providers because there are no standards that have been put in place. The lack of standards is causing proving to be hard on new implementations because there are no standards that the providers are following. Every provider follow their own standards and this is posing compatibility issues with the different platforms (Miller, 2008). Open source platform are clashing with those of proprietary platforms. There should be a universal standard being set to manage this.