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98 Part One Organizations, Management, and the Networked Enterprise

Place (location) also inhibits collaboration in large global or even national
and regional firms. Assembling people for a physical meeting is made difficult
by the physical dispersion of distributed firms (firms with more than one
location), the cost of travel, and the time limitations of managers.
The collaboration and social technologies we have just described are ways of
overcoming the limitations of time and space. Using this time/space frame-
work will help you to choose the most appropriate collaboration and teamwork
tools for your firm. Note that some tools are applicable in more than one time/
place scenario. For example, Internet collaboration suites such as Lotus Notes
have capabilities for both synchronous (instant messaging, electronic meeting
tools) and asynchronous (e-mail, wikis, document editing) interactions.
Here’s a “to-do” list to get started. If you follow these six steps, you should be
led to investing in the correct collaboration software for your firm at a price you
can afford, and within your risk tolerance.
1. What are the collaboration challenges facing the firm in terms of time and
space? Locate your firm in the time/space matrix. Your firm can occupy more
than one cell in the matrix. Different collaboration tools will be needed for each
situation.
2. Within each cell of the matrix where your firm faces challenges, exactly what
kinds of solutions are available? Make a list of vendor products.
3. Analyze each of the products in terms of their cost and benefits to your firm.
Be sure to include the costs of training in your cost estimates, and the costs of
involving the information systems department, if needed.
4. Identify the risks to security and vulnerability involved with each of the prod-
ucts. Is your firm willing to put proprietary information into the hands of exter-
nal service providers over the Internet? Is your firm willing to risk its important
operations to systems controlled by other firms? What are the financial risks
facing your vendors? Will they be here in three to five years? What would be
the cost of making a switch to another vendor in the event the vendor firm
fails?
5. Seek the help of potential users to identify implementation and training issues.
Some of these tools are easier to use than others.
6. Make your selection of candidate tools, and invite the vendors to make
presentations.

2.4 THE INFORMATION SYSTEMS FUNCTION IN

BUSINESS

We’ve seen that businesses need information systems to operate today and
that they use many different kinds of systems. But who is responsible for
running these systems? Who is responsible for making sure the hardware,
software, and other technologies used by these systems are running properly
and are up to date? End users manage their systems from a business stand-
point, but managing the technology requires a special information systems
function.
In all but the smallest of firms, the information systems department is the
formal organizational unit responsible for information technology services. The
information systems department is responsible for maintaining the hardware,
software, data storage, and networks that comprise the firm’s IT infrastructure.
We describe IT infrastructure in detail in Chapter 5.

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