Organizational Structures that Support Strategic Initiatives

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Organizational Structures

• Organizational employees must work closely together to develop strategic initiatives that create competitive advantages
• Ethics and security are two fundamental building blocks that organizations must base their businesses upon

IT Roles and Responsibilities

• Information technology is a relatively new functional area, having only been around formally for around 40 years
• Recent IT-related strategic positions:

         –Chief Information Officer (CIO)

         –Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

         –Chief Security Officer (CSO)

         –Chief Privacy Officer (CPO)

         –Chief Knowledge Office (CKO)

• Chief Information Officer (CIO)–oversees all uses of IT and ensures the strategic alignment of IT with business goals and objectives
• Broad CIO functions include:

–Manager–ensuring the delivery of all IT projects, on time and within budget

–Leader –ensuring the strategic vision of IT is in line with the strategic vision of the organization

–Communicator–building and maintaining strong executive relationships

• Chief Technology Officer (CTO)–responsible for ensuring the throughput, speed, accuracy, availability, and reliability of IT
• Chief Security Officer (CSO)–responsible for ensuring the security of IT systems
• Chief Privacy Officer (CPO)–responsible for ensuring the ethical and legal use of information
• Chief Knowledge Office (CKO)-responsible for collecting, maintaining, and distributing the organization’s knowledge

The Gap Between Business Personnel and IT Personnel

• Business personnel possess expertise in functional areas such as marketing, accounting, and sales
• IT personnel have the technological expertise
• This typically causes a communications gap between the business personnel and IT personnel

Organizational Fundamentals

Ethics

• Ethics–the principles and standards that guide our behavior toward other people
• Privacy is a major ethical issue

          Privacy–the right to be left alone when you want to be, to have control over your own personal            possessions, and not to be observed without your consent

• Issues affected by technology advances

Intellectual property -Intangible creative work that is embodied in physical form

Copyright -The legal protection afforded an expression of an idea, such as a song, video game, and some types of proprietary documents

Fair use doctrine -In certain situations, it is legal to use copyrighted material

Pirated software -The unauthorized use, duplication, distribution, or sale of copyrighted software

Counterfeit software -Software that is manufactured to look like the real thing and sold as such

Security

• Organizational information is intellectual capital -it must be protected
• Information security–the protection of information from accidental or intentional misuse by persons inside or outside an organization
• E-business automatically creates tremendous information security risks for organizations