For this Assignment, you will examine a case study that demonstrates how an organization’s culture can affect the implementation of information technology as well as its ongoing ma

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Case Study: Organizational Culture’s Role in Information System

Success

The Company Orange is a b2b cellular phone service company that serves carrier, retail, and enterprise customers that offer cellular network services or equipment to retail customers. Orange operates in 60 countries and has an annual revenue of $10B. The Problem Orange experienced frequent system outages that affected their ability to fulfill the service-level agreements they had in place with their customers. These outages had the potential to damage the company’s reputation and lose their enterprise customers. Large cellular carriers in the United States, Europe, and Australia had already expressed dissatisfaction with Orange’s CEO and threatened to terminate their contracts, which would have a potential multibillion-dollar impact on Orange’s bottom line. The Investigation Orange’s CEO asked his CIO to investigate and resolve the problem urgently. The CIO turned to the VP of Infrastructure for answers since the VP of Infrastructure managed all information systems and was responsible for fulfilling the service-level agreements in place with their customers. The VP of Infrastructure responded to the CIO, indicating that his infrastructure group had investigated and tested all infrastructures, including networks, servers, and all networking peripherals. They did not find any problems. The VP of Infrastructure suggested to the CIO that the problem was not from the infrastructure. The problem was caused by the complex, multitiered application implemented and maintained by the application group. The CIO turned to the VP of Application for answers. The VP of Application presented their application test results, which showed high availability and performance of the application. The VP of Application insisted that the problem was with the infrastructure since they had tested the application thoroughly before deploying it to the production environment’s infrastructure. The CIO was getting frustrated and coordinated a meeting with the VP of Infrastructure and the VP of Application to discuss the issue. Nothing was accomplished at the meeting since both the VP of Infrastructure and the VP of Application insisted that their group did not cause the problem and justified it with their test and performance measurement reports. The CIO decided to hire a consulting company to help investigate the issue. They hired UVN Consulting for this investigation. The UVN consultant interviewed the CIO, the VP of Infrastructure, the VP of Application, and a few key staff members from each group. They also reviewed all testing, performance measurement, and outage reports for the

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prior 4-month period. The UVN consultant also interviewed the sales and marketing departments. The Consultant’s Findings The UVN consultant presented their findings to the CIO, indicating the following:

– The multitiered application, which is a mission-critical application, was implemented and tested by the application group in their test environment before deploying to the production infrastructure managed by the infrastructure group. The test and performance report from these tests show no issues.

– The infrastructure group’s continuous network monitoring report shows system outages occur whenever there is network load fluctuation. The consultants observed an unusually high volume of network traffic right before each system outage.

– The UVN consultant suspected the marketing department’s marketing campaigns caused the unusually high volume of network traffic. The infrastructure group was not aware of the marketing campaigns.

– The UVN consultant suspected the system outage could affect the performance of the application and/or the infrastructure.

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Appendix

A Humble Beginning The company found its root in a small cell phone retail store in Chicago. The founder acquired the small cell phone retail store from its original owner without payment. After taking over ownership of the store, the founder not only improved the cell phone retail store’s revenue, but he also transformed it into a $10B b2b cellular phone service company. Company Culture While Orange was transformed from a small retail store to a $10B b2b service company, its owner-centric and retail store management culture has never wholly transformed into an enterprise-oriented organizational culture. Each salesperson operates in a silo in a retail store. The focus is on individual sales performance, and the culture is driven by sales commissions. This retail, individual- salesperson culture significantly influences how the different departments operate at Orange. The company has been valued at $10B for 4 years, and it seems like it has a problem growing from here.

How to Analyze a Business Case Study

Table of Contents

• What Is a Business Case Study?

• Why Use Case Studies in Business Courses?

• The Three Common Types of Business Cases

• Analyzing a Business Case Study

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What Is a Business Case Study?

• Business case studies present complex business issues. They are designed to turn real-world situations into teachable moments.

• The business situation in each case study is presented from multiple perspectives and highlights the interdependencies and non-linear nature of the information.

• Characteristics of a case study include:

• Identifying a significant issue, question, or dilemma

• Presenting comprehensive information to draw a conclusion

• Providing no objective conclusion, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusion(s)—just like in real life

• Presenting facts in a non-linear fashion, unlike a textbook that presents information in a logical or progressive method

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Why Use Case Studies in Business Courses?

• A business case study provides you with a controlled (safe) environment to discuss, practice, and apply the business skills presented to you throughout your course work.

• You can draw multiple conclusions from a case study, which simulates a real-life setting and allows you to present multiple solutions.

• There is typically no “right” decision, answer, or solution.

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The Three Common Types of Business Case Studies

• Decision Scenario Case

• In this type of case study, a critical decision is required, typically from the main character of the case study. After analyzing the case study, you would recommend what decision to make and explain why.

• Problem-Diagnosis Case

• In this type of case study, you would perform a comprehensive diagnosis that identifies the root cause of the problem described in the case and recommend corrective action.

• Evaluation Scenario Case

• In this type of case study, you would perform an in-depth evaluation to determine the pros and cons or strengths and weaknesses of the subject of the case study and then make appropriate recommendations.

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Analyzing a Business Case Study

• A case study analysis is not merely a summary of the case. Instead, it is a systematic analysis of the evidence within the case in order to identify the dilemma and then develop recommendations to answer, mitigate, or resolve it.

• When asked to analyze a case study within your course work, you will typically be provided with assignment instructions and a list of questions and/or prompts to help guide your analysis. You should begin your case study analysis by carefully reviewing these requirements, along with accompanying rubrics or other guidelines, to understand the objective(s) of your analysis.

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Analyzing a Business Case Study

• Important Disclaimer: The following slides provide some tips or guidelines for basic case study analysis. The purpose of each step described is to ensure you are equipped to analyze the information in the case in a way that will support your work on any academic case study assignments you encounter. The following guidance is not meant to replace or take precedence over any specific assignment instructions. You should always ensure that you adhere to the requirements for any assignments and use the information in this document for additional support.

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Analyzing a Business Case Study

• Case study analysis can be broken down into the following five basic steps:

Step 1: Find and highlight the most important facts surrounding the case.

Step 2: Find the cause and effect of the dilemma.

Step 3: Consider the course(s) of action.

Step 4: Evaluate the alternative action(s) to answer, mitigate, or resolve the dilemma.

Step 5: Recommend the suggested course of action based on the evaluations (i.e., your best solution).

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Analyzing a Business Case Study: Step 1

Find and highlight the most important facts surrounding the case.

• Read through the case several times to become familiar with the information it contains, paying attention to the information in any exhibits, tables, or figures. You may find that the case study provides a great amount of detailed information. As in real life, some of the information is more relevant than others in identifying the dilemma. Your job in this step is to determine what is relevant and what is not.

• As you read through the case, you may want to underline, highlight, and/or list the most important facts and/or figures that will help you understand and define the dilemma. You can assume all of the presented facts and figures in the case are true; however, some of the statements, judgments, and/or decisions made by individual characters may be questioned. (Remember, these are opinions and observations of individuals—just like in real life, they can be biased.) Note: It is good to compare and contrast individuals’ statements to help you determine facts.

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Analyzing a Business Case Study: Step 2

Find the cause and effect of the dilemma.

• This is the main analysis step of the process. (Note: You will be applying many of your learned business knowledge and skills to help you to determine cause and effect of the identified dilemma.)

• In this step, you can use the facts you highlighted in the previous step to identify the key issue(s) of the case. As case studies may present multiple issues associated with the main dilemma, you will want to be able to identify the most relevant, always referring to the assignment instruction prompts and the business topic(s) being studied for guidance.

• Next, you should be able to understand how and why the dilemma occurred and how it affects the organization in the study. You may want to jot down some facts from the case to help you substantiate your position as part of your assignment. (Items to consider: Is this the result of management or leadership issues, technology issues, systems or process issues, market or external issues, etc.?)

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Analyzing a Business Case Study: Step 3

Consider the course(s) of action.

• You may want to create a list of the actions that can be taken to answer, mitigate, or resolve the issue(s) that led to the identified dilemma. These actions should be validated, not only by the evidence within the case study but also through credible sources beyond the case study. Remember to consult your assignment instruction prompts and the business topic/skill being presented for guidance.

• Some questions to determine the course(s) of action might be:

• Are new technologies, business processes, organizational structures, or management behavior required?

• What changes to organizational processes would be required by each alternative?

• What management policy would be required to implement each alternative?

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Analyzing a Business Case Study: Step 4

Evaluate the alternative action(s) to answer, mitigate, or resolve the dilemma.

• Evaluate each of the identified actions you listed in Step 3. Ask yourself: What would be the likely outcome if this corrective action were implemented?

• Identify the challenges/risks and benefits of each of the actions. Consider whether each action is feasible from a technical, operational, and financial standpoint. Be sure to note any assumptions on which you have based your decision and validate these assumptions.

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Analyzing a Business Case Study: Step 5

Recommend the suggested course of action based on the evaluations (i.e., your best solution).

• From your evaluation of your potential corrective actions, select your choice for the best action to be implemented and make some notes as to why you made this decision.

• Your final recommendation should flow logically from the rest of your case analysis and should clearly specify what assumptions were used to guide and shape your conclusion. (Remember, there is typically, by design, no single “right” answer.)

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References

• Ellet, W. (2007). The case study handbook : How to read, discuss, and write persuasively about cases. Harvard Business School Press.

• Wienstein, A., Brotspies, H. V., & Gironda, J. T. (2020). Do your students know how to analyze a case – Really? Harvard Business Publishing-Education.

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