Business Information System IT Write-Up

1.Why do you think the Previous CIO, Davies, Created Slush fund slack for Budgeting IT Projects? Under Davies, whose neck is in the noose if a Project goes bad?

2. Do you think Barton's approach of providing the best Information at the time is a better approach than Davies' approach? Under Barton, whose neck will be in the noose if a Project goes bad?

3.Should Barton try to take control of the entire IT budget? Should he ask for a percentage of the overall Budget to be placed under his control? Or should he try to fix the Committee Structure put in place by Davies?

 

 

Reason why the previous CIO created slush fund stack for budgeting IT Projects and who to be blamed if anything goes wrong.

He created the slush fund stack so that he can use it for some other illicit purposes. The main purpose of implementing slush fund stack was when there were no important projects that needed to be approved. This would help them to account their expenses more correctly but if there were any IT projects then the company should be ready to pick that up and make it worth it. The CIO wanted to keep the slush fund because he wanted to use it for political bribery in order to make the company more recognizable (Baltzan & Phillips, 2016). He also proposed that it would not be a lot of money but whatever gets collected would be stored in reserve for crisis and also the amount would be enough that it would definitely help the company to focus more on other project. He created this slush fund stack for budgeting IT projects which did not have correct authorization and also did not come from standard decision process (Austin, Nolan & Shannon, 2009). Another reason for creating these slush funds were that if ever company runs into any crisis state due to insufficient IT projects, with the funds in reserve can be used to stabilize the company.

If somehow anyone comes to know about this slush fund stack, the whole company and company’s reputation will be at stake. Many people will have to lose their job due to this illicit practice of creating slush fund stack and all their tie ups will come to an end and no other company will ever give any project to them and company would have to face severe loss and finally the company had to be closed (Galliers & Leidner, 2014). Due to this practice, many employees have to lose their job at the end. So in short, everyone’s neck is in the noose if anything goes bad.

Barton’s approach is more reasonable and if applied who is going to be trouble.

Barton’s approach of providing the best information system is much better than the previous CIO as Barton’s approach is more methodological than the CIO as the CIO wanted to create slush fund stack without any backup plan whereas Barton wanted to close all the security holes so that no one can sniff into their information system but the problem with doing so is that no information system is fully secured and if they manage to block all the communication then it would arise a level of doubt from the data analysts also to make the system more secure, it would cost twice for setting up the system and to make it more secure (Austin, Nolan & Shannon, 2009). At least this would prohibit others from peaking into the system and the company still can manage the slush funds for which they do not have to give any explanation whereas if they had gone with the CIO’s plan then there would be a chance of getting caught as someone could look into their systems and steal the information which can be avoided by making the system more secure as it a onetime investment to make the system secure (Bednarz, 2013).

The problem of doing so is that if they make their systems secure all of a sudden then everyone around them will be a bit suspicious that there must be something that they are trying to hide because there is no system that is fully secured so if they are spending too much then all eyes will be on them. The ones who are to be in trouble because of this would be Barton. Fenton, Geisler and Davies that they are supporting such acts and helping them in hiding the money by making slush fund stack.

Barton should be placed in charge of the entire IT budget and ask for the percentage in order to make efficient decisions.

Yes, Barton should be placed in charge as Barton is well positioned in the company he knows the company pretty well from inside and is quite experienced so he should be put in charge of the entire budget as he represent the interests of both the business and IT department (Cassidy, 2016). Declaring Baron as fixer, he could be given plenty of scopes to do the fixing but only problem with this is that in this process the noose will be in his neck only and no one else’s (Austin, Nolan & Shannon, 2009).  

Barton should be given the liability to ask for the percentage for IT budget so that he can discuss about the proposed budget and also to keep them under his discretion in order to save the confidential information from getting leaked (Ward, 2016). This would also help Barton to lose the noose over his neck as others would be under an impression that Barton is doing well for the company.

References

Austin, R. D., Nolan, R. L., & Shannon, O. ’Donnell.(2009). The Adventures of an IT Leader.

Baltzan, P., & Phillips, A. (2016). Business driven information systems. McGraw Hill Education.

Bednarz, T. F. (2013). Ethics in Business. Practical Ethics for Food Professionals: Ethics in Research, Education and the Workplace, 75-91.

Cassidy, A. (2016). A practical guide to information systems strategic planning. CRC press.

Galliers, R. D., & Leidner, D. E. (2014). Strategic information management: challenges and strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.

Ward, T. (2016). Civil society perspectives on corruption and human rights. The Routledge International Handbook of Criminology and Human Rights.