Majlis Alam is a city authority, who are responsible to administers environmental, social care, housing and cultural services to the city of Kenanga Alam. The city itself has many social problems and a recent report from the local government auditor criticised the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Majlis Alam for not spending enough time and money addressing the pressing housing problems of the city. Since 1990 the authority has had its own internal Information Technology (IT) department. However, there has been increasing criticism of the cost and performance of this department. The CEO has commented that 'we seem to expand the department to cope with special demands (such as the millennium bug) but the department never seems to shrink back to its original size when the need has passed'. Some employees are lost through natural wastage, but there have never been any redundancies in IT and the labour laws of the nation, and strong trade unions within the authority, make it difficult to make staff redundant In the last few years there has been an on-going dispute between managers in the IT department and managers in the finance function. The dispute started due to claims about the falsification of expenses but has since escalated into a personal battle between the director of IT and the finance director. The CEO has had to intervene personally in this dispute and has spent many hours trying to reconcile the two sides. However, issues still remain and there is still tension between the managers of the two departments. A recent internal human resources (HR) survey of the IT department found that, despite acknowledging that they received above average pay, employees were not very satisfied. The main complaints were about poor management, the ingratitude of user departments, ('we are always being told that we are overheads, and are not core to the business of the authority') and the absence of promotion opportunities within the department. The ingratitude of users is despite the IT department running a relatively flexible approach to fulfilling users' needs. There is no crosscharging for IT services provided and changes to user requirements are accommodated right up to the release of the software. The director of IT is also critical of the staffing constraints imposed on him. He has recently tried to recruit specialists in web services and 'cloud computing' without any success. He also says that 'there are probably other technologies that I have not even heard of that we should be exploring and exploiting'. The CEO has been approached by a large established IT service company, Avnet, to form a new company Avnet Axon that combines the public sector IT expertise of the Majlis Alam with the commercial and IT knowledge of Avnet. The joint company will be a private limited company, owned 51% by Avnet and 49% by the Majlis Alam. All existing employees in the IT department and the IT technology of the city authority will be transferred to Avnet who will then enter into a 10 year outsourcing arrangement with the city authority. The CEO is very keen on the idea and he sees many other authorities following this route. The only exception to this transfer of resources, concerns the business analysts who are currently in the IT department. They will be retained by the authority and located in a new business analysis department and reporting directly to the CEO. The CEO has suggested that the business analysts have the brief to 'deliver solutions that demonstrably offer benefits to the authority and to the people of the city, using information technology where appropriate'. They need to be 'outward looking and not constrained by current processes and technology'. They will also be responsible for liaising between users and the newly outsourced IT company and, for the first time, defining business cases with users. Required: The CEO of city authority, Majlis Alam has approached you as a business analyst. He asked you to produce a briefing paper which addresses the following issue: (a) Discuss and evaluate whether Majlis Alam should remain in-house or continue to outsource it's IT to Avnet. This evaluation should use Harmon's Process-Strategy Matrix. (20 marks) (b) The CEO interested to understand the strategic development of city authority before considering for internal and external development. He wants a concise assessment of the following strategic development: i) Internal development (organic growth), ii) Merger and acquisition, iii) Strategic alliance. iv) Franchising or licencing. Evaluate the principles of the above strategic development and discuss how appropriate this development to the city authority, Majlis Alam. (30 marks) Majlis Alam is a city authority, who are responsible to administers environmental, social care, housing and cultural services to the city of Kenanga Alam. The city itself has many social problems and a recent report from the local government auditor criticised the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Majlis Alam for not spending enough time and money addressing the pressing housing problems of the city. Since 1990 the authority has had its own internal Information Technology (IT) department. However, there has been increasing criticism of the cost and performance of this department. The CEO has commented that 'we seem to expand the department to cope with special demands (such as the millennium bug) but the department never seems to shrink back to its original size when the need has passed'. Some employees are lost through natural wastage, but there have never been any redundancies in IT and the labour laws of the nation, and strong trade unions within the authority, make it difficult to make staff redundant In the last few years there has been an on-going dispute between managers in the IT department and managers in the finance function. The dispute started due to claims about the falsification of expenses but has since escalated into a personal battle between the director of IT and the finance director. The CEO has had to intervene personally in this dispute and has spent many hours trying to reconcile the two sides. However, issues still remain and there is still tension between the managers of the two departments. A recent internal human resources (HR) survey of the IT department found that, despite acknowledging that they received above average pay, employees were not very satisfied. The main complaints were about poor management, the ingratitude of user departments, ('we are always being told that we are overheads, and are not core to the business of the authority') and the absence of promotion opportunities within the department. The ingratitude of users is despite the IT department running a relatively flexible approach to fulfilling users' needs. There is no crosscharging for IT services provided and changes to user requirements are accommodated right up to the release of the software. The director of IT is also critical of the staffing constraints imposed on him. He has recently tried to recruit specialists in web services and 'cloud computing' without any success. He also says that 'there are probably other technologies that I have not even heard of that we should be exploring and exploiting'. The CEO has been approached by a large established IT service company, Avnet, to form a new company Avnet Axon that combines the public sector IT expertise of the Majlis Alam with the commercial and IT knowledge of Avnet. The joint company will be a private limited company, owned 51% by Avnet and 49% by the Majlis Alam. All existing employees in the IT department and the IT technology of the city authority will be transferred to Avnet who will then enter into a 10 year outsourcing arrangement with the city authority. The CEO is very keen on the idea and he sees many other authorities following this route. The only exception to this transfer of resources, concerns the business analysts who are currently in the IT department. They will be retained by the authority and located in a new business analysis department and reporting directly to the CEO. The CEO has suggested that the business analysts have the brief to 'deliver solutions that demonstrably offer benefits to the authority and to the people of the city, using information technology where appropriate'. They need to be 'outward looking and not constrained by current processes and technology'. They will also be responsible for liaising between users and the newly outsourced IT company and, for the first time, defining business cases with users. Required: The CEO of city authority, Majlis Alam has approached you as a business analyst. He asked you to produce a briefing paper which addresses the following issue: (a) Discuss and evaluate whether Majlis Alam should remain in-house or continue to outsource it's IT to Avnet. This evaluation should use Harmon's Process-Strategy Matrix. (20 marks) (b) The CEO interested to understand the strategic development of city authority before considering for internal and external development. He wants a concise assessment of the following strategic development: i) Internal development (organic growth), ii) Merger and acquisition, iii) Strategic alliance. iv) Franchising or licencing. Evaluate the principles of the above strategic development and discuss how appropriate this development to the city authority, Majlis Alam. (30 marks)