Report for security mangment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Report for security mangment - Essay ExampleThis 40-year old company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 which dominated the local market of the United States, and began to trade stocks on the New York Stock Exchange. Along with the companys growth in revenue is the growth of its expenses in information technology (IT). According to Wal-Mart IT executives, the company is adopting expensive technologies that is why its investment in IT is considered to be their single largest capital expenses with most $500 million dollars over one five year period (Beard, 1996, p.78). The company demonstrated its preparedness to invest heavily on these technologies because it strongly believes that IT is a powerful tool in achieving efficiency goals and in creating economic value for stakeholders. In hunting lodge for Wal-Mart to know how these technologies will support the employment in obtaining silent and explicit objectives, it must develop IT governance strategies (Schwalbe, 2009, p.136). To p rovide competitive advantage, these strategies must be integrated and aligned with the companys strategic and operational plans, this is to fox the act more comprehensive (Papp, 2004, p.27). The main focus of this paper is to identify the IT services of Wal-Mart and whether these services are aligned to the needs of the business and the customers. In the process of assessing strategic alignment, this paper will be using the conceptual levels of strategic alignment maturity model developed by Dr. Luftman and some measures in order to improve the strategic business-IT alignment of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart IT Services Aligned to the Needs of the Business and Needs of the Customers Linda Dillman, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Wal-Mart noted that, We do not motivation to be known by our technology, but we do want to be known by what our technology has done for the business (cited in Luftman, 2004, p.275). She also added that the business is performing favourably in terms of improve d revenue and market share, cost and time reduction, customer satisfaction, and many more because of business-IT alignment maturity by metrics performance. Wal-Mart was one of the first companies to introduce computers to track store sales and inventory and was the first to develop a computerized network to share this information with suppliers (Fottler & Malvey, 2007, p.267). However, because IT changes cursory and becomes outmoded, the company needs to continuously seek for upgraded technologies (Eisenberg et al., 2004, p.265). The information technology/system of Wal-Mart is classified as strategic and focused on how to meet customers needs wherein it relies on most current information to sustain the minimum cutting of cost in retail. In order for Wal-Mart to lower their costs, maximize return on capital, and contour their operations, the company is using the operational excellence strategy. For several decades, IT is considered to be an essential part not just of Wal-Mart but to some large suppliers in the conception particularly in dealing with customers. Recently, Wal-Mart is using the standard transaction formats and protocols called the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) capabilities in order to standardized operations in the share