Enabling Business Strategy with IT at the World Bank
Posted by busi6517 on June 19, 2006
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.
This entry was posted on June 19, 2006 at 2:27 pm and is filed under Module Four.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Catherine Hackett said
I thought I’d start the discussion by stating my position on whether or not I agree with the Bank’s decision to move towards decentralization as part of their overall business strategy. I think that this was a wise idea especially in regards to managing IT. The case of World Bank provides a great example of a global company with presence in developing countries. It is critical to appreciate the differences in infrastructure, accessibility, domestic policies, etc. when determining whether to move towards a centralized or decentralized business strategy especially in the area of IT. Having a presence in over 140 countries means that WB needs to understand the IT capabilities of all countries and stakeholders and offer support to all end users but work within the limitations that exist in each geographic area. I see IT as a support mechanism for their decentralized business environment by offering a tool to bring people together in real time that are thousands of miles apart.
Mona Lynn said
Here is a high level summary of the discussion. Feel free to express your views as comments in this forum.
********
Initial discussion focused on how best to manage expectations. Some of the suggestions made were as follows:
- set realistic timelines for IT implementations;
- clearly define scope;
- manage change to reduce scope creep;
- continually update and receive feedback from employees/stakeholders through out the project life cycle;
- Communication geared to specific audiences (a.k.a. high level for management more granular for technical staff);
- develop clear framework for evaluation;
- enduser involvement from beginning to end.
Applying quantitative and qualitative measures to evaluate success was also seen as important but difficult to define. Suggestions were made on type of measurements that might be beneficial. In the end, the participants agreed that establishing a benchmark, as a starting point, was important and that the capturing of quantitative measures should be done both before and after the change to provide a delta for analysis.
The discussion then focused on centralization vs. decentralization. Some participants advocated a decentralized decision-making model to support the diverse cultures. It was suggested that a mandate be set for each local office by Head Office but that local offices should be relatively autonomous when carrying out the work needed to support this mandate. Discussion fluctuated between establishing measurements that were meaningful and the pros and cons of centralization vs. decentralization. It was difficult to ascertain if any consensus was reached from reading the remainder of the submissions.
******
Peter Milne said
I didn’t get a chance to talk in this discussion room very much, so I will give my two cents regarding the World Bank and IT.
I think that feedback is always important from end users, all the way to senior executives. To ensure that a system is feasible, it is necessary to gauge as many opinions as possible. As mentioned in the case, the movement toward a more decentralized orientation gives the World Bank the ability to engage more stakeholders in the feedback process. With greater feedback, and sharing of ideas, the decentralization allows for more efficient systems to emerge. Thus, I think the World Bank will capitalize upon these efficiencies by decentralizing.
With regard to benchmarking, I am interested to hear ideas as to who the World Bank can benchmark against, as their role is quite unique.
Neha Ummat said
I think that World Bank is a corporation that needs to understand how IT implementation would help their company strategically.
A part of their Organizational Evolution is to transform the Bank from a Hierarchical to a matrix organization. An established and large firm like this needs innovation and entrepeneurship but at the same time they need to retain their power and efficiency.
Coordination of IT activities and employee feedback are important. This will help to avoid having conflicting information regarding the planned corporate strategy and what the managers are doing for overall organization performance.
Decentralization would help to improve the local decision making but along with that technology tools but be implemented to ensure enterprise wide information sharing, and adequate and reliable communication. This will help to communicate decisions taken to the other parts of the organization.
A good way to ensure proper implementation of IT activities would be to clearly specify how control and authority are to be maintained once the traditional systems have been distrupted. Developing guidelines that clearly allocates responsibility to individuals within the organization regarding various controls is important. for example: one person is responsible for personnel controls, to see right people are hired with the desired IT skills and they are recruited, developed, motivated and retained. Moreover, few people can be given resposibility to take specific actions if the system goes down. Few people must be responsible to ensure system security and few people must have access to the company databases.
Analysis of both the failure and success can help them build “sense and respond” capabilities required for today’s volatile business environment.
External audits along with regular review by senior managers can ensure risk and asset management.
Further with time, incremental adjustments can help to solve problems and update systems without much hassle.
Greg Blacklock said
Just wanted to add in my two cents as i agree that their should be a combination of both quantitive and qualitative to evaluate success of programs developed or being developed. It is easy to use a quantative measure like return on investment to evaluate a program where there can be a financial return. But since some of the world banks programs are seen as humanitarian projects these often do not have financial returns or are difficult to measure in a quantative measure and a qualitative one would be best, i would suggest satisfaction surveys from countries or people who benefit from these programs.
I believed in the decentralized decisions for some decisions particularly in regards to implementation as the local offices would know best. I think head office should remain in charge of decisions in relation to the business strategy. Also to take advantage of economies of scale perhaps purchasing of materials should be done in bulk at this level.
Enjoyed this case.
Mostafa said
From my point of view decentralization of WB is a must (as many of my fellow students agreed). With the world of rapid technological changes, organizations require greater flexibility and decentralization is one of the key element to achieve the objective of decentralization. In addition, decentralization will allow WB to tailor their policies according to the local environment, scio-politcal situation etc. IT wise, Decentralization can be beneficial in the fact that it allows for local experts to take control of specific functions of a WB projects and easily convey information back and forth. In this way , WB is not only able to cater to local market better but at the same time is able to have direct contact and relationships with local people.
Again some of the pitfalls include, one of the major problem of decentralization may require to change your whole organizational structure, such as from hierarchical organization to a matrix form. This becomes more relevent when we talk about decentralization of function involving IT.
Angelika Allgaier said
I would like to comment on the issue of decentralization and Mona’s comment related to communication.
In my opinion decentralization in this case is appropriate and beneficial. Centralization/ decentralization is also discussed under the headline of IT dominance (or innovation)versus user dominance (or innovaton). Drivers towards user dominance are among others users’ desire to control their own destiny and fit with the organization. In the case of WB a main objective was to move WB’s operations and activities closer to clients to improve responsiveness, strengthen collabaoration, and country ownership of development programs. Decentralization is an appropriate means to achieve such goal. Given the digital divide between rich and poor countries such IT turnaround affords besides the support of the top management clearly defined objectives and a thorough assessment of the possible complications. Otherwise management of disappointments will replace management of expectations.
I appriciate Mona’s comment on communication and I agree. As communication was an issue in a variety of cases I just want to add one of my personal experiences related to terminology. Working within an organization demands communication with different departments. As lawyer I avoid using my legal terminology to make sure that people can understand what I am saying. In discussions with non-experts I am talking about the concepts behind the terminology. However, at the end of this class and after return to such German organization I am looking forward to having some technical discussions with our IT experts.
Majed Jandali said
Decentralization was definitely the best strategic plan done at World Bank since it tailors decisions/flexibility to each separate market resulting in efficient and effective decision making in the long run. Consequently, drawbacks exist in this strategy since higher cost will be incurred to change the organizational culture and infrastructure. But, this can be overcomed through educational programs and awards to encourage the restructuring (reforming) process. Moreover, a feedback system will monitor and enhance the performance of strategies pursued by the World Bank.
As interesting point on their website, is that they established a program “Financial Sector Assessment Program” to evaluate countries’ financial sector/system such as banks, mutual funds,etc. Hence, if they were capable of measuring a country’s’ performance, I believe they are capable of evaluating quantitvely the success of programs developed or being developed since expertise already exist. In other words, a country’s financial system is unpredictable to an extent but “FSAP” overcame this
obstacle, hence evaluating programs quantitvely and qualtitvely is possible if sufficient resources are allocated.
Sarah Sabri said
About the world Bank Case,
i think almost all of us in the ChatRoom agreed in decentralization. Although centralization has some benefits such as uniform corporate image, standard of space allocation, etc, i think in the WB, decentralization is a better approach bacuse WB has different branched in different countries which lead into a different cultures. therefore, i suggest that complete corporate culture analysis should be done before assigning special strategy for each property. Decentralization would enhance the communication and interaction among employees in the WB and create less formalized communication. it will also assist to a comprehensible understanding of each units. also it increase the inputs from local branch so that many issues could be addressed among senior managmers.
finding measurement to evaluate the value of services which WB is offering was another topic we discussed in the chatroom. i think that the bank should have both quantitave and qualitative metrics. but an important point is that the metric should be unique all over their places to evaluate the services consistently. This will arise an other problem, having different economical situation in each country, the unique metric doesn’t represent the real value of services. for example for “return on investment”, different values might be suitable in different places. i suggest to come up with some relative values based on other parameters such as economical situation, background experience of WB in each places and use it as a base factor for comparing the servies in each place. through this, they can assess the services consistantly.
Gerard said
First of all, my appologize to the moderators because i wasnt able to participate in their chatroom.
As many of you agreed on, decentralization is the best choice for WB according to me too, since having as much feedback as possible from different and as many as possible end user will be benefitial for their system. And since world bank is through the world what means different countries with different level ( i mean 1st, 2nd and 3rd world countries) what means decisions and ideas taken in those countries and including IT activities should not be the same neither compared to eachother, unless they are from the same level. from here we can see why decentralization should be the best choice for the WB to go with.
Finally i want to thank everyone, and especialy Mona for all the information and knowledge she shared with us, I was really looking forwad for this course, and now i can see that i was not wrong.
Thanks,
Gerard
amanda said
alguno tiene el articulo digitalizado o la traduccion a español