Leadership Trends in Information Technology

Leadership Trends in Information Technology Case Study Case Study CASE ASSIGNMENT 2 OPTION-1: Use Social Network to Out-reach Customers The Ethics textbook covered 3 business applications of social network: – Post advertisement to outreach customers – Background check in recruiting – Improve customer service Assuming you are a marketing specialist in the company you currently work with (for real), and you were asked to investigate how the company should use online social network to improve its business. Given the limited budget, the company will select only one service provider. Can you select a popular social network site (Facebook, Twitter, etc) to investigate the following aspects: – Profile of the site, such as size of user base, key features, advertisement product profile (both web & mobile based) – Demographics of existing advertisement clients, and their success (or failure) stories – Your company’s existing channels to out-reach customers. – Any companies in the same of similar business as yours are using social network in their marketing effort. – Recommendation about marketing product selection and projected cost. – Potential downside, or any other issues related to this online social network based customer out-reach. – Another other issues related to the decision your company is to make about this social network initiative. Here are some sketch notes from my recent reading on Facebook IPO. Just FYI. Facebook.com just went its IPO, after about 10 years being a private business. Most of the company’s income came from its advertisement revenue. What kind of advertisement products or service lines the Facebook has for its customers? What are the top users of the service line? Its claimed reason of going IPO is seeking extra fund to support its business expansion. Does the company so badly need investment – given its $2b profit last year? • eHow. How to Advertise on Facebook. Web. • Facebook. Success Stories and Best Practices. Web. • Marketing Pro. Top Brands on Facebook: Coca-Cola, Hyundai, MTV. Web. October 27, 2011. • Niall Harbison. Meet the Top-20 Brands on Facebook. Social Media. Web. July 4, 2011. • Ben Kunz on. Why GM and Others Fail With Facebook Ads. Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Web. May 22, 2012. Since its introduction, facebook.com has been in the center of online privacy debate. There is some coverage in this respect. • Chunka Mui. Facebook’s Privacy Issues Are Even Deeper Than We Knew. Forbes. Web. Aug. 8, 2011. • Len Boselovic. Facebook stock troubles rattle investor confidence. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Web. May 24, 2012. Your delivery in this project is a 7 to 10-page document (350 words per page). CASE ASSIGNMENT 2 OPTION-2: If I Were My Company’s CIO 25 points maximum If you have good observation and/or descent knowledge about IT leadership in your organization, use Barton & IVK as a benchmark to evaluate the performance of your organization’s IT leadership in the following dimensions: • Maintain efficient operation of the existing systems, • Manage application portfolios, • Manage projects, • Hire, retain and motivate top talent, and train employee, • Manage vendors, • Manage security & respond to IT crisis • Facilitate & support business operation reengineering • Add IT-value to the organization’s product offering • Select & execute IT innovations It will be good enough if you can evaluate 5 items on the list – no need to do all of them. A few suggestions: • Acquire calendars of a few IT executives to find how they distribute their time. Where they spend their resources, where their heart is. The most precious resource of business executives is their time. • Collect IT strategic plans in your company. • Interview IT executive(s), and their direct reports. • Survey the web to find industry average and best practice in the concerned respects. At the end of documentation, draft an improvement recommendation proposal as your “pay-back” to your interviewee(s). The report shall cover the following elements: Your delivery in this project is a 7 to 10-page document (350 words per page).