GlobePort Faces Global Business Challenges – Assessing the Organizational Side of Information Systems Projects

Published studies have reported that Information System (IS) projects succeed or fail based on how effectively the organizational issues were understood and addressed in the specification, development and implementation stages of the project. This is particularly true in the design and delivery of Inter-Organizational Systems (IOS) that can affect the power structure among several stakeholders and impact their established business relationships. Systems analysts act as the “facilitator” for IOS projects, and the need to effectively leverage a variety of stakeholders who have a diversity of interests and expectations to build a global view of the problems to be solved by the system and get all the stakeholders “on-board”. This case study presents a business problem of global scope that touches multiple organizations and functional areas. GlobePort’s inadequate information systems for product registration in one of their product distribution channels1, that involves business partners – distributors and resellers, has created problems in several areas of the company, leading to excessive administrative costs, poor customer service and impact to their financial performance. The global scope of GlobePort’s dilemma requires a thorough analysis of the organizational issues that can confound any technology solution. Several frameworks from existing IS research literature are presented to develop the student’s critical thinking and analysis capabilities in performing problem definition, stakeholder analysis and organizational feasibility. Students are called upon to analyze the problems and propose an IOS solution for GlobePort’s situation