Case Study: Hefty Hardware

In this interesting case study, I learned what kind of effects IT can have on businesses. Overall, I believe that the partnership between IT and the business at Hefty Hardware has its miscommunication issues. They can be effective with the right help from executives by making sure that each does their attended workload and not mixing and matching by having the IT department work cross functionally. The partnership between both groups does not hold up effectively at all. I personally believe that Hefty should not be making plans for both the business and IT strategy. The reason for this is because they be taking initiative in their own fields rather than creating conflicts between each other. As said by Cheryl and Glen, IT members are not ones …show more content…
First for its financial perspective, I believe the company should consider what field it is having trouble in which is IT. From there the CIO, COO, and VP need to have meetings regarding what needs to be changed. The CIO should take initiative in the meeting and find all the weak links along with the strong and have them try to work together in their own field instead of maneuvering into other business field they have no relevant experience in. The next perspective that needs to be looked at is what is happening internally in the business. After going through the reading of the case study, we tend to notice how the IT department in this company is shaky. What we may not know is what is going on internally in the business and why they seem to hire a new CIO in the company every two years. The corporation may have some issues with giving the IT department direction in what the business is trying to achieve. For this reason, the balance scorecard needs to be linked with its performance measures from an internal business perspective. IT is a department that is always innovating and standardizing software’s, and platforms to make sure that a business is running more efficiently. The reason for the IT department taking such a hit and having conflicts with the business department may be because of the lack of both innovation and learning which is the third perspective of the balanced scorecard. The lack of innovation may be causing the business to stall which then is causing frustration with the other functions of the business. Jenny needs to take initiative and make sure that IT is carrying its own load. The last perspective with the balanced scorecard is the customer perspective. How the customer views the company must be the biggest and most important perspective for