Discussion $-$ Global Consultants

Last edited: May $10,11$:$25$

Global Consultants

Jane Phelps is the chief information officer $($CIO$)$ of Global Consultants $($GC$),$ a very large consulting firm with offices in more than $100$ countries around the world. GC is about to purchase a set of several Internet$-$based financial software packages that will be installed in all their offices.

There are no standards at the application layer for financial software but several software companies that sell financial software $($call them group A$)$ use one de facto standard to enable their software to work with one another$$s software. However, another group of financial software companies $($call them group B$)$ use a different de facto standard. Although both groups have software packages that GC could use, GC would really prefer to buy one package from group A for one type of financial analysis and one package from group B for a different type of financial analysis. The problem, of course, is that then the two packages cannot communicate, and GC$$s staff would end up having to type the same data into both packages. The alternative is to buy two packages from the same group$$so that data could be easily shared$$but that would mean having to settle for second best for one of the packages. Although there have been some reports in the press about the two groups of companies working together to develop one common standard that will enable software to work together, there is no firm agreement yet.

What advice would you give Phelps?