Information Systems Archives

A Lifecycle Approach to Portfolio Management

Portfolio management considers the integrated management of the IT assets of an organization and of the projects that produce and modify these assets. In particular, it is focused on making investment decisions in such a way that the portfolio as a whole conforms to the short-term and long-term strategy and goals of the organization. In order to make well-founded decisions about the replacement or maintenance of enterprise applications, organizations need insight into the current and future business value, technical quality, maintenance costs, and replacement costs of these applications, and in particular, how these develop over time: a lifecycle approach. This article describes our first steps towards the ultimate goal, a portfolio dashboard that indicates the current and future value of applications, and the benefits, costs, and risks associated with changing or replacing them. The method for supporting lifecycle decisions on information systems is on the one hand based on cost predictions from benchmark data and on the other hand on architecture analysis of these systems. The approach is the synthesis of three elements: future cost predictions, portfolio valuation, and modifiability analysis.

Using Enterprise Architecture for the Alignment of Information Systems in Supply Chain Management

Using information systems in supply chain management (SCM) has become commonplace, and therefore architectural issue are part of the agenda for this domain. This article uses three perspectives on enterprise architecture (EA) in the supply chain: The “correlation view,” the “remote view” and the “institutional view.” It is shown that the EA in the domain of supply chain has to meet quite a complicated set of demands. Drawing strongly Doucet et al. (2009) attention is given to the consideration on practical alignment and assurance strategies between EA and SCM. A case of an apparel company with a global supply chain using a bespoke ERP system for the supply chain support is presented and discussed. The case outlines potentials for an enhanced alignment and coherence between management, business processes and underlying information system; innovation is led by tighter integration with business partners, higher versatility in the adaption to formal business requirements and compliance. The case study suggests EA with Information Systems approach can work as a platform of comprehending and planning the changes of an enterprise on its own grounds.