Strategic Planning 

A group may elect to develop a long-range plan for many reasons. The ones that drove the ISP project included:

The last long-range plan had been done four years earlier. It was outdated. Further, the earlier plan had been technically focused and did not address the dramatic impact of the changing business climate on the department Changes in the business were far more profound than the continual changes in technology.

While a Company strategic plan existed, it was broad and conceptual. Short to medium-range financial results were the driving force. The plan provided little specific direction for a technically oriented support function like MIS.

Company sales were not growing. Profit margins were shrinking. Inventories became the company's largest financial asset, exceeding the value of all facilities and other hard assets. Performance to plan and customer service measures were comparable to competitors, but customers were not "delighted." The Company experienced increasing difficulty predicting future operational or financial performance.

MIS spent too much effort maintaining existing "legacy" systems, and too little time developing new ones. System development priorities were set by middle management, and were driven by functional silo-specific needs (not Company needs). MIS' internal customers were generally well satisfied, since they received first priority. MIS costs were relatively high compared to larger competitors.

The pace of competitive change had accelerated greatly. Customers were demanding new services at an increasing pace, and were unwilling to accept the usual excuses and delays from MIS. We struggled to develop Quick Response partnerships with key customers. Delays in setting up EDI linkage with new customers, for example, strained partnerships at the time when they could least afford strain. Competitors were touting aggressive MIS strategies linked directly to their business strategy. Customers noticed. Expected levels of performance in the industry were rising faster than our own capabilities.

World Class Manufacturing Menu

Management saw MIS primarily as a support function, whose job was solely to assist the Manufacturing organization in making product and the Sales organization in selling it. MIS was largely an "expense to be minimized." Since the business value of IT is virtually impossible to quantify in any meaningful way, most senior managers tend to form opinions of their MIS departments based on 1) their own past experience with MIS and 2) the personal effectiveness of MIS leadership^{2. We knew that MIS could be more than just a support function, but only if we changed top management's perception (mindset).}

All of these factors tend to be MlS-specific. One other factor, however, was common to most business organizations. We were addicted to urgency.