Pros And Cons Of Alcan Technology - 1253 Words

The pros and cons of the current Alcan technology infrastructure seemed to be heavier on the con side than the pro side. While the intent was to better the organization with the functions that were required on the IT side, however the result was something much different than what they anticipated. â€Å"Should you spend most of your technology budget on infrastructure, hosted applications, custom line-of-business applications, or what? It depends on the industry that the business is in. Generally, most businesses spend around half of their technology budget on infrastructure—computers, networking equipment, and Internet Service Providers† (I.T. in Business, n.d.). Mistakes were made in decisions concerning the technology infrastructure of†¦show more content†¦The issues that Alcan was facing were numerous to say the least. The fact that the leadership in the IT side had been vacant for more than a year was very problematic. Another large chunk of the infrastruc ture issue revolved around how decentralized the business groups that made up Alcan were. â€Å"Every business group was completely independent, with its own strategic IT plan, infrastructure choices based on its specific needs, and IT applications and services. Each group had its own IT organization that pursued its objectives based on the group’s needs and orientation. Groups’ needs, like their activities, were highly diversified. Over the years, this culture of autonomy had been reinforced by mergers and acquisitions† (Bernier Dube Roy, 2009). Another issue that was identified was that Alcan had more than one thousand information systems, and many of these systems managed information that was financial. It completely makes it difficult to comprehend how you would even attempt to be able to work with over 1,000 systems within Alcan. Another identified issue was that there was a problem with accessible skills which were insufficient, and crudely positioned to meet requirements of the information technology infrastructure. This also resulted in these needs not being evaluated, identified, or even compensated in a similar way as other various business groups. Instead the outsourced providers instead minimized the deficienciesShow MoreRelatedAlcan Case Study1414 Words   |  6 PagesAlcan Case Analysis Executive Summary Like many of its competitors and comparable manufacturers in the discrete and process metal production, process metal and service-related businesses, Alcan is continually challenged with how to unify their diverse business units and processes to gain competitive advantage. 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