ICT Management and Strategies: Section 3

Section 3 of AQA ICT A2 - Management and Strategies

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Contribution of ICT Management to Business Strateg

  • Strategic level needs to establish long-term aims
  • The Chief Information Officer (CIO) can influence organisation strategies
  • Decisions need to be made early so that there is no compromise rather than an ideal situation
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Factors Influencing ICT Strategy

  • An ICT strategy needs to meet its business goals
  • Business goals need to provide benefits to users, clients and the organisation.

ICT Strategy:

- Business Goals

- Finance

- Legacy

- Geography

- Legislation

- Assests overtime

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Internal and External Influences of an ICT Strateg

- Legislative Bodies e.g. Government

- Customers

- Standards and Protocols

- Competitors

- Technological change

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Available Finance

  • Cost Benefit Analysis.

Costs could include:

- Development of database

- New software licenses

- New server hardware

- Upgrading operating systems to be able to run new software

- Improvemed communication networks

- Importing data from legacy systems

- Training users and support staff

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Legacy Systems

  • The hardware, software and data that make up the existing system need to be considered
  • It may not be feasable to replace legacy systems - an ICT strategy must consider how the old and new systems can work together

- This could involve transferring data from the old system to the new system

- Data potability should be considered, so that data can be transferred between both systems

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Geographical Factors

  • Communication networks are important if officies/clients are spread over a wide area

- LAN, WAN, leasing communication lines

  • Ecommerce may not be justifiable if customers live in a local location

- An org with a wider client base is likely to benefit from Ecommerce. Good customer support will need to be in place that do not involve direct contact.

  • International companies may need to consider security arrangements due to legislation of other countries
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Compliance with Legislation

  • Any org that stores customer data is liable to the Data Protection Act, and an ICT strategy must take this into account
  • This could affect whether an org could pass on personal details to other countries for offshoring
  • A company must take care of its employees health and safety
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Management of Information Assets Over Time

- The volume of data that an org needs to store increases over time

- Some financial data needs to be kept for a certain amount of time, to comply with legislation

- The DPA states that personal data must be kept no longer than is necessary, so data should be purged regularly

- Some data needs to be kept accessible for people to refer to quickly

- Some data should be archived 'just in case', but is not needed immediately

- This data should raise awareness of storage methods, backup procedures, and hardware and communciation systems

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Future Developments

  • An org needs to consider how it will keep up with new technologies
  • Costs need to be considered - may be beneficial to wait for prices of new technology to fall
  • However, the disruption of a new system should not outweigh the benefits
  • The ability to upgrade hardware and software of the system should be considered
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Information Management

  • Access to information must be defined at a coporate level
  • Security and confidentiality of information should be considered

- Information access levels should be set e.g. Straetigc: full control. Tactical: full control/read, create write. Operational: read only

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People

  • How human resources within ICT staff are managed
  • Recruitment qualities - qualifications and experience can be demanded

- Ensures a level of competence. This must be done fairly for every employee

  • Staff an be a security issue - highly valuable data must have enforcements to ensure data cannot be accessed by general staff
  • Each department will be responsible for its own ICT systems, and buying applciations, equipment or services they may need.
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Standards and Protocols

Standards and protocols must be considered for an ICT strategy

Communications protocol - an agreed set of rules to ensure proper data transfer between devices

Open system - a protocol allowing different types of computer to be joined together

Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (http) - a set of rules for the WWW for communicating between sites

Https - must be used for websites with online payments, to ensure it is secure. Appropraite levels of encryption to protect finacial data.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) - rules that govern hardware and software settings when transferring files over the internet. Allows users to download patches and updates

IP Address - uniquely identifies a physical computer linked to the internet

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Comments

Mr A Gibson

Report

A good set of succinct revision cards hat will help you organise your thinking and revise for ICT management strategies. Includes the full range of relevant factors.

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