Case Studies Questions & Answers

GE and the Industrial Internet

1. What is the Industrial Internet aka the Internet of Things. How does it work? What is different about it than the regular Internet? What kinds of data are we talking about? What can we do with it?

2. Compare outcomes-based services with pure equipment sales and CSAs.

3. Is moving to outcomes-based services a good idea? Why (or why not)?

4. What are the cultural implications of the centralized platform approach for a decentralized (autonomous business units) company as GE?

Adidas:

1. What was the process by which Adidas made a decision as to what to keep doing internally and what to outsource? What were the key considerations?

2. What were the internal challenges as they moved from internal to single vendor to multi-sourcing vendors?

3. What are the dangers of leaving the multi-sourcing arrangements at arms’ length (e.g., to naturally handle themselves)? What are some of the practices that Adidas Global IT put in place in order to make sure they worked correctly?

4. Moving forward, what are the key issues faced by Adidas as they seek to continue refining their approach to multi-sourcing? What are the challenges involved?

SAP/Hospital:

1. What is different about implementing an ERP in a hospital setting (compared to a more traditional business)? What is the same (or similar, to a traditional business)?

2. What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of different go-live options (e.g., direct, phased, parallel, pilot)? How do you choose which one is more or less appropriate for a given scenario?

3. What did VLF do well?

4. How successful was this project? How would you assess the post-implementation stage?

Zara:

1.What are the key elements of the business model of Zara, and how is it different from that of its competitors? What is unusual or unique about it?

2.How well is this business model working? How would an investor or financial analyst determine how well this business model is working?

3.What information does this business model require for smooth operation? Is this information already available to the company? What, if anything, are they missing?

4.What would you recommend for the four key IT decisions in the case (upgrade POS systems, install networks in store, allow same-store lookup, and allow across-store lookup)? Why?

Air Canada:

1.What are the objectives of the different outsourcing approaches employed in each period? How well did the different IT department structures supported the different outsourcing modes?

2.What are the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative IT department structure?

3.How well is IT aligned with the business at the time of the case?

4.What challenges did the IT department face in its search for alignment, and how were those solved? What are some of the challenges moving forward?

Bombardier

1. What are the current challenges faced by Bombardier? To what extent is Bombardier an integrated company (beginning of the case)? What are some of the challenges associated with integration? What are the expected benefits from increased integration?

2. What were the good points in the implementation process for the Mirabel roll-out and what points need improvement? How was the project team managed as is the project team’s pace sustainable in the long run?

3. What were the good points in the second implementation process and what areas needed improvement? What was the main difference between the two phases with respect to roles? What was the role of the plant manager? What were the challenges faced by the project team?

4. How can we assess whether a project is a success or a failure?

TPA

1. What is the organizational environment in which this case takes place?

2. There are 3 distinct stages through which TPA progressed over the years. For each of those, describe the technologies employed, challenges faced, and progress (or lack thereof).

3. What should have been done differently to improve the chances of success of the implementation of the SharePointProject at TPA?

4. If you were to put in charge of this process from now on, what would you do?

5. What are some of the important lessons we can derive from the TPA case, such that those would be helpful as we face future implementations of KMS (or future discussions about the need for a KMS)?

Madras Cements

1. Describe the first ERP implementation. What were the goals? How was the decision made that an ERP was needed? What was the selection process? What did the implementation look like? What went wrong and why?

2. Managers and employees were quite resistant to the first ERP implementation. Why would that be the case? More generally, why are people resistant to change, and what can/should be done about it?

3. What was done differently in the second implementation? Why did that implementation succeed where the first one had failed (considering the same ERP was implemented in both cases)?

4. What was the IT situation after the second implementation was completed? What was possible now that was not possible before? How was the company transformed as a result?

5. How well is the company doing after the ERP implementation? Is it doing better than its competitors? What is the source of this competitive advantage?

HCL

1. What does the case mean by Digital Life? How has it impacted the life of employees? What is the overall value proposition for employees? What is the overall value proposition for employers?

2. What were the main goals of the Starting Point project? What problems was HCL trying to solve with this new development? What opportunities (if any) were they trying to take advantage of? Did the company need Starting Point (was it already an industry-standard) or was it an innovation? How did HCL expect Starting Point to provide them with an advantage over competitors?

3. What else (if anything) was changed once Starting Point was implemented? What are the necessary complements that should be thought about in order to take full advantage of this new technology?

4. How can we measure whether Starting Point was a success? What would be the right measures in this case? How can you disentangle measuring the success of the technology from that of the other complements put in place?

5. Where should HCL go from there? After the initial onboarding is completed, what should day-to-day life look like for the new hires? What else can be done once Starting Point is pervasive and everybody has been trained on it?