MANAGING FINANCE

Managing Finance and Information

Table of Contents

1. Introduction3

1.1. Background4

1.2. Objective6

1.3. Methodology6

1.3.1. Methods and data7

1.3.2. Participants Role7

2. Information Management8

a. General infromation8

b. Information Management9

c. Critical analyses of issues11

3. Financial Management12

a. Numerical investigation12

b. Findings - analysis and interpretation of results18

c. Research problem19

d. Conclusion and Recommendation20

4. Critcis20

5. Summary21

Managing Finance and Information Assignment

1. Introduction

The process-oriented holistic enterprise is a new organizational form in which the business process may be perceived as the basic organizational construct. Process management on an enterprise-wide scale implies a complex integration of business processes. The functionally oriented organizational form? with its characteristic hierarchical control 'structure'? is now commonplace. However? the increasing intensity of business competition? particularly with respect to the global market-place? has put unprecedented pressures on the functionally oriented form.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s? 'organizational flexibility' received much attention as being the key to business survival (De Leeuw & Volberda? 1996). In parallel? information technology (IT) has been identified as a major agent of change and is considered by many practitioners as the solution to new organizational flexibility (Willcocks & Smith? 1995). The dramatic advances in IT during the 1990s have allowed new? previously unimaginable? organizational forms to develop.

Central to this has been the convergence of computing and telecommunications technologies and the vast improvements in intersystem compatibility and connectivity.

It would appear that the process-based organization (Hammer? 1990) is emerging as the 'new organizational form' (MIT? 1996) with the 'business process' as the basic organizational construct. Management of the functionally oriented business form requires an emphasis on mechanisms for control. The management of a process-based enterprise? which exploits distributed self-governance or empowerment and is explicitly more complex? also requires an emphasis on mechanisms for co-ordination.

The research that is reported here was conducted in collaboration with a senior manager at Xerox Limited (XL) - the Xerox operating company that trades in the European? African and Middle Eastern markets. Most of the field work was conducted at the XL headquarters in the UK. Xerox is a large multinational which was forced to adapt its working practices in the 1980s in order to survive international competition: 'From 1976 to 1982? Xerox's share of world-wide copier revenues dropped by half? from 82 to 41 %. Japanese companies? led by Canon? Minolta? Ricoh? and Sharp? were mostly responsible' (Jacobson & Hillkirk? 1986? p. 3). In 1988? XL's management instigated a radical re-engineering programme and by 1995 the entire firm was organized around 'business processes' (Seltsikas? 1999).

1.1. Background

Xerox Ltd? is a company that has adopted a holistic approach to process management? the information management process is key to supporting this method of organizing. The main finding is that? in order to support process management? a particular type of information management is required. This includes a need for enterprise-wide information systems and the centralization of systems development and maintenance.

However? the process management is made possible by this type of information management. This may be referred to as the duality concept of information and process ...