Question:

(a) A large multinational is planning to implement a new Information System which will integrate all operations involved at its head-quarters and fourteen branches out of which six are external. The CIO of the company would like all information to be centralised at the headquarters for confidentiality and consistency reasons. The telecommunication costs of the system is however extremely high and might not justify the investment. Provide some alternative scenarios and illustrate the advantages and disadvantages.

(b) In the above example, the multinational is also going for a business process re-engineering (BPR) exercise. Briefly explain the reasons which have motivated the multinational to go for this exercise.