Влияние информационных технологи на успех деятельности фирмы

Scientists and practitioners have made great efforts to build a perfect hierarchy of management, but now they are often ready to abandon the traditional hierarchical structures. Among the new organizational models can be identified matrix, network, project-and this is not a complete list of known types. It is generally accepted that an enterprise must respond quickly and flexibly to changes in the environment. Specially formed teams of professionals are aimed to manage the processes of providing products / services, to guarantee high quality, to strive for continuous improvement and training, to direct their efforts to the fullest satisfaction of consumers and to ensure the profitability of production. Business leaders must "think globally and act locally", create strategic alliances and partnerships to expand opportunities and scale, seeking to create «efficient corporations". Finally, the creation of a modern information and communication infrastructure is aimed at obtaining the information necessary for making informed decisions at all levels of enterprise management. It should be emphasized that many of the above-mentioned organizational structures are not new. Matrix and other models of organizations began to appear in the late 50s. Proponents of these models also called for the flexibility, adaptability, information capacity and cooperation that underlie such schemes. Then it was about the need for such schemes only for firms operating in a dynamic environment with high uncertainty or in emerging industries. Such schemes were initially presented as an" obvious organizational response " to the need to solve complex management problems, when it is important to respond quickly to the changing conditions of enterprises and firms, instead of dividing such tasks into simple, implementing multi-level structures. However, most firms continued to use traditional hierarchical structures.

Why did the firms that adopted the matrix model of the organization later abandon it? New structures have been found to generate conflicts, information overload and costly duplication of resources. Top-level executives lost control of their companies. The problem was not that they could not judge the requirements arising from the complexity of the environment and the acceleration of its changes, nor that they were unable to develop strategies to meet the new challenges. The main thing is that companies have been unable to implement the strategies that they have developed, because in the last 20 years, strategic thinking has overtaken organizational capabilities. As managers tried to find a solution to the problem of forming effective organizational structures, they realized the extent to which modern management information technologies allow them to cope with the requirement of processing the increasing amounts of information inherent in the new organizational models. Now it is hardly possible to find a company or enterprise that would not focus on a dynamic and uncertain environment. Today, virtually every company is undergoing significant organizational change.

Information technology is an integral system of methods and methods of collection, transmission, accumulation, processing, storage, presentation and use of information. In 1790, Johann Berkman, an economist at Gottingen, first used the term "technology". In his opinion, only various ways of creating "useful skills" give significant advantages in the development of the economy. Modern it directly affects the quality of management decisions, the development of plans, and often the ways of production of products and services. Global competition forces companies to shape their strategies, paying increasing attention to the quality of products and services. Until recently, quality was usually discussed either from the producer's or the consumer's point of view. From the manufacturer's point of view, quality was defined as conformity of production with established norms and standards (no deviation from norms). The watchmaker can adopt a standard that requires 99.5% of the watches produced to have a high accuracy, without deviating for more than a second per month. Compliance with this requirement is controlled by simple tests. As for the consumer, he interprets the concept of quality much wider. First, it is interested in the physical quality of the product, its validity, safety, ease of installation and use. Secondly, the consumer requires a certain quality of services related to the use of the product: the accuracy and truthfulness of advertising, warranty service of the product and its support in operation. Finally, the consumer is very sensitive to psychological aspects: he appreciates politeness in the sale, the reputation of the product, etc. Today, enterprises are gradually adopting an ideology called "universal quality and management". This refers to the concept that all employees of an enterprise are given responsibility for quality. It is believed that engineers who do not make design mistakes, workers who do not produce defects, and even typists who print without errors contribute to the high quality of products. Information technologies play a significant role in improving the quality of management. They help businesses achieve its goals by automating manufacturing processes, to ensure the implementation of standards and improve products based on the analysis of consumer demand, reduce production time, reduce the development time of projects. Quality improvement programs usually proceed from the philosophy of "the less the better": fewer steps in the process-less time and opportunities to make mistakes. A few years ago, the American company Carrier Corporation faced a reduction in its market share. The main reason was that the error rate in the order system was 70%. Stages of processing of the order was so large that the errors become almost inevitable. Sometimes they could be found only at the end of the production cycle, when the control found that the product is not inserted those components that are needed. As a result, the company went to the introduction of a universal quality management system, in which it played a big role: helped to reduce the number of stages of order processing, the number of errors has declined sharply, production costs have decreased and relations with consumers have improved. In order to effectively use the information about standards, it specialists involve employees of other departments of the enterprise in the analysis of the functioning of existing and design of new information systems.

Integration of information technologies in the enterprise has a variety of implementation options and opens up various strategic opportunities. The following concepts are important to assess how well it can be applied. The strategic impact of information technology varies widely across industries and firms, and even within a single enterprise. In the 1990s, the number of enterprises for which it is particularly expanding their strategic development opportunities is growing more and more noticeably. The notion of strategic differences in compliance is very important to understand the needs of the diversity of approaches to the management of information technology. Corporate culture is embodied in the values of the organization and reflected in its strategic processes. The rapid evolution of it increases the requirements for managing their implementation. Neglect of this issue leads to inefficient sets of "Islands of technology" that are poorly compatible with each other. Since the introduction of new information technologies often directly affects the efficiency of enterprises, success comes only where people are able to learn and change their behavior accordingly. Therefore, it is considered as a tool to expand the intellectual capabilities of people within the enterprise. Without concomitant changes in the behavior of individuals, any technological advances are likely to be accompanied by failures at the organizational level.

In analyzing the activities of the enterprise relating to the use of it, it is advisable to consider the following issues:

1. Do failures in it implementation affect the competitiveness of the enterprise? How important is it for success in the industry? The failure to use technology in priority areas for competition is a significant problem, while errors in none — strategic areas are often less relevant to the overall state of Affairs. In foreign practice, it is customary to distribute reviews of the state of the industry among the company's managers, which compares the it costs of leading competitors. Usually attention is drawn to those figures for which the company is significantly different from competitors, and often — those areas where it spends more than competitors are. Naturally, such information is alarming management. However, after analysis, it may be that the enterprise uses a different method of calculating it costs than competitors, and therefore the figures cannot be compared directly (for example, telecommunications costs are excluded from these figures, while the other firm includes them). Another option is possible: the company has its own special strategy, location, management structure, and therefore what competitors do in the field of it should be compared with great caution. It is even worse when the decision on expediency of introduction of it is made under the influence of advertising or fashion.

2. Is information technology management effective? Sometimes a company spends a lot of money on hardware and software, but does not get the desired results. Possible reasons include a shortage of qualified it management professionals and increased competition from other companies.

3. Are business leaders able to meet the challenges of it management? Experience shows that often the top leaders of business very easily dismiss the heads of it departments due to issues of efficiency, but as a rule, it only leads to the increase in the number of problems. The new team has to identify and correct other people's mistakes, which can be very difficult, and the company enters the next "cycle of inefficiency". It is clear that the skills and experience required managing information resources change over time. What was arranged yesterday does not correspond to the current situation. In many cases, the problem is compounded by the lack of clear performance indicators and objective data for their calculation.

Over the past decade, firms have increasingly relied on external sources of software. The increasing costs of large-scale projects, limited staffing, availability of standardized databases and networks, application software packages and the huge increase in the number of potential applications are factors that drive the use of external sources. Faced with the growing complexity of it management, the need to focus on key points of action, many managers are wondering "is it Worth it to do it themselves or sub-contract external experts for infrastructure operations to concentrate on creating applications of it?» The factors to be taken into account in answering these questions are summarized in table 1. The preference to buy the production "on their own" significantly influenced the practice of it management. In the mid-1990s, less than 1% of the software used was developed by specialists of it departments of enterprises. Firms specializing in the creation of it clearly began to perform integration functions, so there was a need for new enterprise management processes. For example, it departments need to be tested to see if they have an incentive to plan for unnecessary development when the right product can be purchased. If the main source of technology is external developers, then inter-organizational management systems and audit procedures are needed to ensure that both parties are able to meet their obligations.