Reference no: EM134044383

SCENARIO BASED

Angela is an IT manager at Furnco, a company in Cape Town that designs, develops, and supplies customised office furniture. Furnco's main clients are large corporate companies, with some smaller businesses making use of their modern furniture solutions from time to time.

Angela began working at Furnco four years ago as a junior IT technician. Her role predominantly involved ensuring the effective running of Furnco's computer systems through identifying IT issues, and repairing and maintaining hardware and software. She enjoyed solving complex and highly technical problems, and the fact that she didn't have to attend many meetings or regularly engage with colleagues. Angela's manager, Jen, provided her with ongoing guidance and support, and plenty of opportunities for professional development.

Angela had excellent technical ability, with her knowledge of hardware and software being superior to that of her peers. She was always professional, showing dedication to her job and a willingness to work as much overtime as was needed. This led Jen to promote her to senior IT technician within Angela's first two years at the company. This was a good strategic decision, as Jen relied heavily on Angela's technical knowledge and her ability to solve Furnco's software issues.

Additionally, the IT department played a key role in supporting the company's high-level strategy to streamline customer experience by expanding into the online space. Jen's strategy for the IT department, in line with Furnco's wider vision, was to implement an up-to-date and easily accessible online system for viewing, ordering, and paying for furniture. Angela played a key role in this and developed a new online payment system for clients, helping to update Furnco's outdated analogue system that required frequent fixes.

When Jen left Furnco to start her own IT company, Angela was the obvious choice as her replacement. Having exceptional technical knowledge and an outstanding work ethic, she was chosen for the role after a series of interviews.

The first few weeks as IT manager at Furnco were an adjustment for Angela. Her job was now much less related to dealing with technical problems, with almost no solitary focus time. She was finding herself in more and more meetings, her schedule full of strategy sessions, people-management training workshops, and she had to navigate her way through project management techniques, as she was now coordinating several projects. On top of this, she needed to develop a strategic employee engagement plan for the IT department, due to the recent staff turnover being higher than ever before. Angela had heard that the long working hours, lack of work-life balance, and low salaries were some of the major reasons for this.

In recent weeks, Angela has started to miss deadlines, telling senior management that the employees in her team don't respect her and ignore the tasks she assigns them. The company has received complaints from her team that Angela is rarely available to meet with them and offers little guidance in terms of what is expected of them. Angela has struggled to understand the IT budget, especially as Jen failed to leave comprehensive records and details of her financial strategy discussions with senior management. Jen also spent a large amount of the budget on new monitors for the finance department and new laptops for all employees who had been at the company for over two years as part of her employee retention strategy. Jen didn't, however, keep up-to-date records of the employees that had received a company laptop. This has left Angela in a difficult position, as she cannot easily discern the current extent of the IT department's assets.

With this overview of Angela's situation in mind, answer the following questions related to her role as Furnco's IT manager.

QUESTION 1

Which of the key responsibilities of an IT manager are difficult for Angela to fulfil in this scenario? Select two

a. Implementing a strong talent strategy to develop the strengths of the team and increase employee engagement and job satisfaction.

b. Creating a plan to align the IT department's workflow, daily operations, and goals with Furnco's high-level vision.

c. Understanding the business processes across the organisation and provide IT services to support these processes.

d. Optimising the costs and resource use of the IT department.

QUESTION 2

One of the problems Angela needs to solve is the low level of motivation among employees in the IT team. Which two of the following options best represent an EBM approach to solving this problem?

a. Angela could implement a staff retention strategy similar to the one implemented at the company she previously worked for, a small app-design start-up with only 10 staff members in total.

b. Angela could survey customers about why they chose to buy their furniture from Furnco, gather additional information by looking at the online shopping habits of customers, and then use this information to create and implement a strategy for staff retention.

c. Angela could survey employees about why their motivation is low, gather additional information as to how other departments engage their team members, then use the survey and additional information to implement strategies for staff retention.

d. Angela could implement strategies for staff retention, gather feedback on the strategies implemented, and then use the feedback received to adjust the strategies.

QUESTION 3

One of the central roles of an IT manager is to plan and implement an IT strategy that aligns with the organisation's high-level vision. Which of the following two suggestions could Angela implement to help her departmental strategy align more closely with Furnco's wider vision to streamline customer experience and expand their online platform?

a. Continuing Jen's employee retention strategy and focusing on the purchasing and integration of better hardware for employees who have worked at Furnco for an extended period of time.

b. Developing a new section of the website where customers can customise their furniture online.

c. Establishing a mini-team within the IT department whose focus is to ideate new ways to improve Furnco's online platform and ensure that the website is always functioning efficiently.

d. Focusing solely on providing excellent IT support for the employees at Furnco by developing a new system where employees can log issues related to IT resources for the IT department to respond to.

QUESTION 4

How can Angela work on the team morale in the IT department? Select two.

a. Develop more training programmes so that all IT employees have as much expertise as Angela.

b. Develop her communication skills so that she is able to mentor and guide the members of her IT team effectively.

c. Develop workshops so that the IT team can learn to be independent and not rely as heavily on Angela.

d. Develop a better project management strategy to alleviate employees having to meet unrealistic deadlines.

QUESTION 5

In the scenario, Angela developed and implemented a new online payment system for clients where they will have to enter their personal details and confidential information. In light of this, which of the following business management processes would Angela need to be most aware of as IT manager of Furnco?

a. Data management

b. Operations processes

c. Project management

d. Information systems (IS) processes

QUESTION 6

What strategies could Jen, the previous IT manager, have used to improve her budget management skills during her time as Furnco's IT manager? Select two.

a. Optimising the cost of hardware, such as the monitors and laptops she secured as part of her employee retention strategy

b. Taking a service-based approach to IT services at Furnco

c. Creating a comprehensive and clearly recorded financial strategy

d. Implementing IT financial management models (ITFM)