The movement of Riordan Manufacturing to Shanghai will entail a major shift for the operations of departments within the organization. It is up to the information technology department to use its resources to minimize such disruptions. The information technology department has come up with strategies to ensure less disruption of the operations during the move. The goals behind these strategies are to keep the objectives of the organization intact and ensure that they are consistently met.
A move will require updated systems that will be capable of sustaining the organization during the whole shift (Department of Homeland Security, 2009). The IT department’s first strategy will be to establish secure IT resources that will be strong enough to ensure the organization’s level of preparedness is high, mitigation measures for any unforeseen loses are active and that the organization’s recovery capabilities are boosted. When other departments within the organization are strengthened and better updated in preparation for the move, the initial relocation reasons; to better returns and cut on losses, will start being experienced in subsequence with the movement.
Such preparedness will be offered through fist, simultaneity. This is a big step to ensure that whatever information is needed for the organization is made instantly available for all departments and in all systems. No department is going to be stuck during the shifting process for whatever reason. Enough updates on Shanghai and the new business venture as well as information on current operations will be available. Secondly, IT will deploy resequencing, where databases are going to be in parallel processing with each other. In this case information to all departments is going to be available independent of
other files. No single department is going to be tied because another department is on to the required resources. This will ease operations within the organization, speed up adaptation to the shift and better our performance. Time extension will be availed with 24a hour systems operations.
Any data, information, files and constant internet supply are going to be available for all the departments at all times. This is going to ease coordination, improve work coverage and better operations within all the departments; an unprecedented factor during the move. The department will also boost information reusability, where all the organizational information is going to be reused by all the departments for their own different purposes. These entire ventures by the IT department are going to up the organization’s preparedness during the shift.
Organizational culture to encourage the free flow of information through updated electronic mail and “groupwire,” is an additional strategy by the IT department to offer relevant support to other departments (Nilles, 1999). It is expected that the forthcoming movement is going to further increase workload within the organization. This therefore makes it vital for different individuals within different departments to be in better and constant information sharing position with each other. Meetings and discussions are going to be facilitated at each employee’s desk. Little time and energy will be wasted in room staff meetings and discussions.
Consequently, management processes are going to be made easier and more effective. It is expected that before the shift, different managerial personalities will be making site visits to our new station. Concurrently, work will be going on at the current station and for them to manage it, such systems have to be in place. A new IT business continuity plan is going to be worked out by the Information technology department, initiated and soaked in to other departments within the organization. A new business continuity plan is necessary for the purposes of ensuring that critical service deliveries are still made to the clients even during the shift (Minister of Public Works and government services, 2009).
There calls for updating the plans, reconsidering threats to business, which are at this time going to be brought about by the move and also offering employee support. This continuity plan is going to be based on the findings of the Issue tracking software, which has been the Information Technology tool keeping information or previous challenges that have been arising within the different departments. In this way, potential threats to maintaining clients, brought about by the move, are going to be drafted.
Eventually, reasonable crisis control measures will be worked out by well drafted programs so as to offer a cushion to all the departments during the shift. Additionally, the most relevant resources are going to be worked out, that will ensure business continuity in departmental personnel, information, allocation of finances, protection of infrastructure and the like.
The business continuity measures will at the same time be supplemented by a business resumption plan by the IT department. A business resumption plan will ensure that after the short lived disruption of moving, it is necessary that subject the business continuity plan, a backup business resumption plan is laid down so as to ensure that business picks up to the level of continuity that had been worked out. The most basic approach to work out a business resumption plan is to work out alternate facilities during the preparation. In this case, a new site with ample space for each department is going to be solicited using the online information by the IT department. The best outsourced deals for furnishing and making the cold site to be fully operational and rise to the level of a hot site, are going to be used.
Several technological support measures are going to be offered to departments within the organization. With the plan to shift operations to Shanghai, it is necessary that all departments are catered for during the shift for better running of operations. Logistics Management Systems (LMS) updated tailor-made and adapted for operations from Shanghai are going to be programmed and deployed. This software resource is going to help the finance department with all others to ensure better operations and service delivery.
Furthermore, the Warehouse Management System will also be initiated to increase the quality of work, since the shift to Shanghai is expected to come with new business ventures. This will be very helpful to the warehouse management department. In addition, the Freight Management System is going to be updated as well. As a result, haulage of tanks, international freight forwarding and related processes, are going to be upstaged and made easier and very effective.
Finally, on gathering all the required information and setting up the hot site, the IT departments will finally workout important technological operations that will be favor by the shift. Such will include working out the telecommunication systems and other contact numbers and details to be maintained even with the move so as to retain clients.
Reference List
Department of Homeland Security. (2009). Information Technology strategic Plan. Web.
Minister of Public Works and Government Services. (2009). A guide to business continuity Planning. Web.
Nilles, J. (1999). The Impact of IT on Organizations. Web.