Strategic Plan Review You are a member of the finance organization of a midsized manufacturer, with two years of experience with the firm. Your manager serves as a liaison between the finance group and the IS organization for budget review. The IS organization has just completed its annual strategic planning and budgeting process. Their plans, which include a $25 million budget (a 6 percent increase over last year), were forwarded to your manager for review. Your manager shared the IS strategic plan and budget with you a week ago and scheduled a meeting today to get your input and perspective.

Review Questions

1. What do you think are the hallmarks of a good strategic plan?
2. Would you expect to see more funds allocated to system development or to buying existing software and using software service providers? Why?

Critical Thinking Questions

1. Your manager shocks you when she announces that she has recommended you for promotion and that one of your new responsibilities would be to serve as the new finance liaison with the IS organization. She asks, What do you feel needs to be done to help prepare you for this new responsibility?
2. Finally, she asks, What steps would you take and what resources would you use to review the current IS strategic plan and budget?

Robo-Advice for Millennials Your investment firm has been working hard to develop a robo-adviser service that uses computer algorithms to provide financial planning for its millennial clients. There is widespread consensus across the investment community that millennials raised in an environment of video games and social networks are looking for just this kind of investment robo-advice service.

You are a member of a field test unit for the robo-advice service. Your team of 12 people has trained some 250 people (in the 25 to 35 target age range) in the basics of investing and how to take best advantage of the robo-advice service. The trial results have been discouraging. Many of the trial clients ignored the robo-advice completely and simply turned into hyperactive traders, executing multiple trades per week. Alarmingly, even those who followed the robo-advice did not fare well, losing an average of 5 percent on their investments even though the market (as measured by the S&P 500) increased nearly 4 percent during the six-month trial period.

Review Questions

1. What other fields besides investing might benefit from the use of a roboadvice system?
2. What sort of legal, ethical, and social issues are raised when creating a roboadvice type of system? Do the builders of such a robo-advice system owe a special duty or responsibility to its users?

Critical Thinking Questions The members of the field trial team are gathered to discuss their findings and develop conclusions in advance of a meeting next week with the firms senior management team. Just 10 minutes into the meeting, it is clear that none of the field trial team members feels confident that the new service is offering sound advice.

However, some members of the trial team argue that the roll-out of the service should commence as planned; they maintain that problems can be identified and fixed as more users come on board and the firm gains more experience working with investors and the robo-advice system. Their rationale is based at least in part on self-survivalto recommend against roll-out is probably a career-ending move, as the firm has already invested so much in the program, which it has already begun promoting to customers. Others members of the team argue that the product is simply not ready for large-scale use. They argue that the current system should be scrapped and the firm should forget about the idea of a robo-advice service.

1. Are there other alternative strategies for the robo-advice service that make sense? Which approach would you recommend and why?
2. How might you present your approach to senior management in such a way that it has a good chance of being acceptedand that the risk to your future employment is minimized?