Westcon’s Management System - Case Study Assignment

Management Case Study Assignment

Part A: Theory review and application

1. If information is one of modern businesses’ most important resources, what advantages can good quality information provide to your organization?
2. What are some of the benefits of the information or knowledge management systems in your organization or an organization you are familiar with? What are some of the potential drawbacks that can be associated with it?
3. What are some critical points to consider while assessing the effectiveness of a knowledge or information management systems? Using the areas of economy, accessibility, safety and environment, identify some measures you could apply to your organization’s KMS.
4. Identify what type of KMS your organization uses, either demand – or supply side. Using the AAR model, develop a list of strengths and weaknesses and report your recommendations for improvement.
5. Business planning and operational planning should include the control and monitoring of the information systems or an organization. Research and identify some of the performance measures used in your organization for the monitoring of information systems. Prepare a report for your KMS manager. In your answer, identify gaps between system performance and planned objectives. If the objectives are not clear, suggest improvements.

Read the case study then complete the task that follows:

Westcon’s information system was managed by the same records offices for almost forty years. Because it had been working well for this period the company felt no need to update as more and more computer technology became unavailable. The records officer retired and Westcon was unable to find a suitable replacement; this resulted in chaos. Westcon had suffered a critical knowledge system failure. Some of the outcomes included reduced cost effectiveness, increased workload for staff, and reduced effectiveness or information and data analysis. The firm was at a standstill. Westcon closed its doors for two weeks, upgraded to computer technology and employed a group of specialists in data retrieval. It was both costly and time-consuming.

1. Critical knowledge system failure can be avoided. Identify and describe some of the steps you would take to avoid such a catastrophic event. Perhaps a short report to the CEO of Westcon outlining the steps the manager should take to prevent this risk from reoccurring.

Introduction

Records and information system management play a major role towards every businesses smooth operations. This makes it important for the businesses to properly manage record keeping and best achieved by hiring professional record keepers, training and distributing record keeping responsibilities and investing in the latest technologies. By analyzing the case study, it is clear that Westcon has not properly managed its records and information department, leaving the department vulnerable to one manager, leading to long-term complications (Kale, n.d.). While it’s imperative for every business to retain the very best talent, it’s also important for the business to hire and begin training younger professionals. This will help distribute the workload as well as reduce dependency on a single individual to performing a specific task.

Reasons for Chaos Being Experienced by Westcon

Westcon has made a fatal mistake with regard to its records and management department by placing all the responsibilities on a single individual. This may not have seemed dangerous due to the records officer having worked with the company for 40 years, but it also demonstrates the businesses failure to develop long-term plans. Rather than develop to being fully dependent on a single individual, the business should have adopted other approaches to avoid experiencing chaos. It is also likely the business has grown dependent on other officers in different departments (Santo, 2012). The business heads must take appropriate actions immediately to avert chaos being experienced in another department in the future.

Protecting Against Departmental Chaos in the Future

Westcon is currently experiencing chaos in the records and information department due to the business having places all department operations on a single individual. This led to serious laps of information leading to serious operational problems within the department after the official retired (Collins & Hansen, 2011). To prevent this from happening in the future, Westcon must implement the following procedures to prevent future complications occurring with any of the departments.

Training, Distributing and Sharing of Departmental Responsibilities

The Chaos being experienced by Westcon is directly associated with placing full responsibilities on a single individual. This may have been the preferred approach in the past due to safeguarding company information and secrets, but modern business must avoid making themselves venerable to a single professional. Instead, it is imperative that Westcon begins recruiting fresh minds into each of the departments and distributing the work responsibilities among the different staff members. This will reduce the department’s dependence on a single individual and allows the department develop independent functionality (Larence, 2011). This further ensures the department continues functioning as normal even in the absence of a senior staff member of the department.

Practicing Of Rotational Employment Responsibilities

While it’s important to introduce, train, distribute and share responsibilities between different department staff, it’s also important to share and evenly distribute the responsibilities. Rather than place an individual staff member responsible for a specific duty, it's best to practice rotational employment within the department or branch. Rotational employment helps reduce the departments or businesses dependence on a single individual by training and distributing each of the responsibilities to all the department staff members. This results in developing stability since the department staff members master the different department responsibilities, helping any individual step in and manage a position in the absence of any staff member. In addition to creating stability, it also promotes responsibility within the department. This is due to each staff member requiring to manage and account for the work done and keep in order and ready to hand over to the next staff member at all times.

Rotational employment has also been noted to promote accountability and maintain auto staff performance due to the staff members manning a position requiring meeting the set targets. While the set performance targets have been identified to be average, the staff member manning the position is responsible for maintaining that level of performance set by previous staff members working in the same position. The maintenance of a daily log also documents the staff member’s performance helping identify staff members who may be underperforming on the position and alert staff taking charge of the position in the future.

Investment on Modern Management Technologies

Another major cause of the chaos being experienced by Westcon is associated with the businesses failure to invest on and use state of the art information and digital technologies. Today there is a myriad of technologies which can be utilized to help a business manage different departments and operations. IT, computer software and mobile applications have grown into powerful business management tools which must be integrated into the business to help smooth operations.

Westcon is noted to have placed all its faith and managerial responsibilities ion a single individual without backing up the information or operation on computers of using specialized digital technologies (Wen-Chen, 2013). This resulted in creating a huge information and record management vacuum after the official responsible for record keeping retired. Being reliant on a single individual utilizing traditional approaches to managing records is also likely to have resulted in major information volumes, which a replacement records and information manager is unlikely to manage to understand. If the official had used an IT solution, computer software of mobile application a standard and universal record management approach would have been implemented making it easier for future managers or officials understand work previously done.

IT also results in the officials, managers and staff requiring following a standard format for sharing and contributing information and data input. This helps making is considerably easier to identify approaches the official has utilized to reach specific conclusions or store materials. As businesses grow larger and more competitive, it’s vital that every business adopts modern technologies to manage the different operations. Failure to recognize and utilize modern technologies to the management of the business will only threaten to damage the businesses operations and performance. This is due to the management of different functions being customized to specific individual’s style and with no trainee learning those approaches; a business can easily find itself suffering from a major information and operation laps.

Conclusion

Westcon has failed to manage its information and records department effectively by distributing the work responsibilities between different staff members. This has resulted in the business experiencing serious lapses in information management after the retirement of the record keeping and information officer. While it may be too late to fix the damaged caused to the information and records department, it’s important for the business to learn from this experience and implement the three points discussed above. This would help train, share and distribute the department’s responsibilities and work with different team members reducing the businesses and departments dependence on a single staff member. This approach requires being implemented immediately to prevent similar complications being experienced in the future (CTR, 2012). This also ensures the business and brand continue registering constant growth and functionality and not developing a full dependence on a single individual.