Questions

1. ?Explain how the components of IT policy are significant to IT purchasing.

2. As Deputy Director for IT Procurement, you need a process for approving or disapproving unplanned IT expenditures. Differentiate between planned and unplanned expenditures? What process should be implemented for unplanned expenditures? How might ‘commitment accounting' be implemented to support this process?

3. You have been promoted to Associate CIO for your organization. One of your responsibilities is to administer all IT suppliers of hardware and software. Historically, your predecessors directly managed these hardware and software suppliers. Explain a few alternative strategies you might use. How will these alternative strategies change your supplier management relationships?

4. You have applied for a job as Executive Director of IT for a mature business. Your interviews include both IT managers (who would be working for you), and business managers (who would become your customers for all IT systems and services to be provided). During your interviews with the business managers, you learn that they believe that IT budgets and expenditures are growing significantly faster than the business as a whole. They believe that their budgets, while increasing slightly, are actually declining as a percentage of the business as a whole. And they believe that is adversely impacting potential investments that can and should be made in their areas of the business. They believe that IT expenditures either need to be cut, or that future IT investments need to be limited to a level that is more consistent with the business as a whole. Respond.

5. You are the director of the IT Project Office. In that role, you oversee all IT projects and project managers. You report to the CIO. In a private meeting with the CIO, he states: "Yes, we should do a TCO for all candidate projects. But I believe that we should only include incremental costs. Why? Because non-incremental costs are already budgeted; therefore, including them in a TCO gives our customer an overly inflated sense of the cost. That inflated cost might even lead them to withdraw support for the project before it even begins. Respond.

6. Your CIO has called a meeting of all of her direct reports. Yesterday, she met with her superior, the CEO, and he indicated that because of the current economic downturn, sales and profits have declined. The shareholders are insisting that costs be reduced accordingly in order to improve profitability. The CEO believes that IT expenditures can be reduced, but he is also concerned that essential IT service levels be sustained. Your CIO has called the meeting to discuss the implementation of implementing a chargeback strategy for IT. She believes that she can convince the CEO to continue funding infrastructure at the current levels, but that she wants to accept the elimination of the remaining IT budget in return for authority to charge back for those IT services that would no longer be centrally funded within the IT budget. Help her understand the pros, cons, and considerations for implementing her chargeback strategy.