Final Research Paper

BUS7060 Corporate Governance and Globalization

“ACT OF GOD”

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM

PLANNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

RUSSELL AVRE

russellavre@yahoo.com

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM PLANNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

ABSTRACT

Planning for the business landscape is a daunting endeavor; a business has to worry about

customers fleeting perception of their goods or service, the competitor developing a product

to erode their market share and new disruptive entrants coming into the red ocean and

completely changing the game. While this might keep executives and stakeholders constantly

on their toes, the entire industry is thrown into chaos by some random acts of nature like an

earthquake. In this paper we would be using two case studies to show the benefits of

planning strategically

Keywords: Strategic planning, Information systems, Goals, Disaster, earthquakes, act of

god.

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STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM PLANNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

INTRODUCTION

Armson (2011) makes a compelling case when she said humans are problem-solving animals

and, while we do not always welcome problems, dealing with problems is what we do. The

regular grind of business brings with it unique sets of challenges and with some planning in

place, principals and stakeholders can accommodate them, but the game changes when the

disruption is without warning and worse is difficult to protect against?

Events as aforementioned are generally called natural disasters because they are perpetrated

by natural forces or by “acts of god”, or as most literature would like to describe them;

Mother Nature's fist of fury, attributing the wanton destruction of lives and properties to Gaia

of Greek mythology (Ryan, M. 2013). Putting it together, acts of god are those events that

occur due to natural causes, and the sudden and unexpected nature of their occurrence, make

them nearly impossible to carry out any kind of precautionary actions. A few of Events of

this kind are: flood, earthquake, tornadoes etc. If this “scourge” cannot be eliminated, can it

at least be minimized? Yes, and that’s what strategic planning is about.

Strategic planning derives it roots from ancient times, and has been used with great success

in situations as desperate as love and war. Its use in the sphere of business is comparatively

new, and it refers to making decisions on allocating resources in pursuant to a future goal.

The end product of this thinking process is the actualization of a desired future.

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STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM PLANNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

According to Vladimir (2016):

Information system is an integrated set of components for collecting, storing, and processing

data and for providing information, knowledge and digital products. Business firms and other

organizations rely on information systems to carry out and manage their operations, interact

with their customers and suppliers and compete in the marketplace. Information systems are

used to run interorganizational supply chains and electronic markets.

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STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM PLANNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

BACKGROUND

Governments and companies the world over build run their countries and businesses around

the Information technology model for example; the US and the Canadian Government using

E-government solution to administer their duties for the citizens, the giant online retailers

Amazon, Alibaba and eBay using ecommerce or electronic commerce to interface with their

customers. Therefore, it goes without saying that disruptions of any kind especially from

natural disasters could cripple a business and negatively impact employees and customers.

In a Utopia, things would go perfectly, but in reality; the uncertainty of he business landscape

makes it no longer an optional necessity but a priority to “plan for the rainy day”.

A good framework to start the strategic Information system planning is the strategic planning

cycle. The cycle is an embodiment of multiple planning procedures that help the principal or

executive consider the long term.

From a corporate governance perspective, shareholders are more interested than ever to

understand the workings of organizations in which they have a stake, first for ethical reasons

and subsequently the financial returns. The overarching argument in literature is that

organizations with celebrity CEO’s fair better that their competitors, but as this article will

show, they have are successful because of, not despite, properly thought through strategic

plans.

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STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM PLANNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

Image: Strategy planning, (Source:

http://ctlinternational.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/strategic_business_planning.jpg)

Propose Goals

This is the first stage of the planning process and it involves the establishment of the

corporate mission and desired future. The goals in these category falls under the what I

would like to call operational goals, because they are necessary to sustaining the day to day

operations of the business.

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STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM PLANNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

Examine Internal Issues

Every corporation has internal issues or the “thorn in the flesh”, they hamper performance

and could detract from major objectives if not handled with care. At this stage, the company

would have to focus on dealing with internal threats closer to home, i.e. the threats from

within.

Examine External Issues

This is the part of the plan that most tasking, as it forces the executives to look outwardly at

threats on the horizon. This could take the form of disruptive entrants into the market,

governmental regulations, and natural disasters.

Create SWOT Analysis

At this stage of the planning process, the company has crafted their goals, understands her

internal and external issues, now they are ready to analyze the issues in a grid like format. Its

imperative to know that the SWOT tool helps executives in making strategic long term

decisions that can completely alter the business landscape.

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STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM PLANNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

SWOT table (Retrieved from: https://www.quora.com/What-is-SWOT-analysis)

Formulate a Strategy

This is the melting point of the process, as the aforementioned planning processes come

together to form an implementable working document, that would shape the direction and

scope of the organization over the long term, build agreement and commitment among key

stakeholders, produced decisions and actions and finally help the company establish her

business priorities.

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STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM PLANNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

CASE STUDIES

Amada, M of the silicon Expert Blog(2016) opens with her article with a shrilly statistics:

On Thursday, April 14, 2016 a magnitude 6.2 earthquakes struck north of Kumamoto,

on the island of Kyushu in southwest Japan. With the country still suffering from the

effects of Thursday’s deadly earthquake, Japan was hit by another massive magnitude

7.0 quake just two days later, April 16, 2016. This second quake did hit the very same

region as the Thursday’s initial area of impact. (April 19)

The article went on to detail the level of damage suffered by companies within the fault line,

noticeable in this story as well as news paper reports covering the level of damage suffered

by Sony and Toyota. From the report, Operations at Sony Semiconductor Manufacturing

corporations Kumamoto Technology center located in Kikuchi Gun, Kumamoto Province

was brought to a complete halt when the disaster struck, as it damaged buildings, finished

product inventory such as image sensors as well as the business operations of the Mobile

communications, Game Network Services and Home Entertainment. This event, which lasted

for just a few minutes cost Sony, a whopping one billion dollars in lost revenue.

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STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM PLANNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

semiconductor-companies-japan-earthquakes-768x629.jpg. Retrieved from

http://www.siliconexpert.com/blog/japan-earthquakes-2016/

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STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM PLANNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

Automobile-Companies-Japan-Earthquakes.png; Retrieved from

http://www.siliconexpert.com/blog/japan-earthquakes-2016/

Not too far away was Toyota, who was equally affected but to a lesser degree. As its loss

was mostly due to the shortage of parts, leading to a suspension in production. Craig Trudell

of Bloomberg (2016 April) pegged Toyota loss at 277 million dollars.

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STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM PLANNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

Retrieved from: http://michelbaudin.com/tag/metrics/page/2/

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STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM PLANNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

World costliest natural disasters Retrieved from:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/03/natural_disasters

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STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM PLANNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

Graph of Sony Segment and location retrieved from : http://docplayer.net/2866177-Sony-

corporation-griffin-consulting-group-hao-tang-rahul-misra-ellie-shanholt.html

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STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM PLANNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

CONCLUSION

The cases above shows the benefits of strategic planning, as Toyota was able to cut her losses from

implementing a strategy they pioneered, called “just in time” This philosophy is simply an inventory supply

system that operates with very low inventories requiring less resources, but requires fast, on time delivery

(Cherie, S. 2011). Therefore, Toyota keeps only a week to a month worth of inventory on sites prone to disaster,

thereby minimizing expensive losses.

So borrowing the words of the elder states man Benjamin Franklin, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”

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STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM PLANNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

REFERENCES

Amanda, M (2016, April 19) Effects of the Japan Earthquakes on the Electronic

Industry. Retrieved from http://www.siliconexpert.com/blog/japan-earthquakes-2016/

Cherie, S. (2011, April 12) “Just in Time” & Today’s Global Uncertainty Retrieved

from http://blog.pcb.ca/2011/04/just-in-time-todays-global-uncertainty/907

Craig, T. ( 2016, April 17) Toyota Seen Losing $277 Million as Quakes Halt Japan

Output. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-

18/toyota-seen-losing-277-million-from-japan-earthquake-stoppages

HIROKO, T. (2011, MAY 23) Sony Swings to Big Loss After Natural Disasters

Retrieved from

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/technology/24sony.html?_r=0

Legal Information Institute (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/act_of_god

Reuters, (2016, May 24) Sony Says Earthquake Damage Will Cost it $1 Billion in

Profits Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2016/05/24/sony-earthquake-

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damage-profits/

Ryan H. Murphy (2013, October 30) Gaia’s Vengeance: The Caustic Cliché of

Environmentalism. Retrieved from http://www.acton.org/pub/commentary/2013/10/30/gaias-

vengeance-caustic-clich%C3%A9-environmentalism

Rosalind Armson (2011) Growing wings on the way. Axminster, Triarchy Press (p.

15)

Vladimir, Z (2016 February 10) Information System. Retrieved from

https://www.britannica.com/topic/information-system

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