Managing Human Resources: TPG Telecom and Atlassian Case Analysis

This case study analyzes the human resource management practices of TPG Telecom Limited and Atlassian Corporation, two prominent IT companies. The study begins with an abstract and introduction that highlights the importance of information technology (IT) and IS planning in contemporary organizations. It provides background information on both companies, including their founding, core values, and IT department structures. The analysis explores the IS planning strategies of each organization, with TPG Telecom emphasizing simplicity and Atlassian using a portfolio management approach through software like Jira. The case study includes a literature review on IS planning, organizational processes, and the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO). It compares the approaches of TPG Telecom and Atlassian in terms of software usage and IT capabilities. The report concludes with a comparative analysis, highlighting the differences in how each company manages its IT systems and human resources, providing valuable insights into the management of human resources within IT companies.

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS - INFORMATION SYSTEMS DISCIPLINE
BCO6653  Management of Information Technology
Semester 2, 2014
ASSIGNMENT #2
Case Analysis for
TPG Telecom Limited and Atlassian Corporation
A study of issues in:
Managing Human Resource
Submitted by:
Place your student numbers and names here; these match the topic order above
Group # (place your group number here)

MANAGEMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Place date submitted here
IT Manager Interviews for TPG Telecom Limited and Atlassian
Corporation
Bree Davies, [e-mail]
Craig Levy, [e-mail]
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Abstract
Information technology is an important aspect of an organization that requires proper
planning and implementation of those plans. To understand various aspects of the information
technology and its impact on the business two organizations are analyzed. TPG Telecom
Limited (http://www.tpg.com.au) and Atlassian Corporation (https://www.atlassian.com) are
two model organizations with good IS Planning strategy that is mostly handled by the IT
department within this organizations (Bruque & Moyano, 2007). TPG Telecom main focus
on the simplicity of the information system that appears to more traditional in nature.
Atlassian Corporation, on the other hand, has well structure information system that conforms
to the current business environment especially in IT industry. The literature review also
provides the importance of IS Planning in an organization, connection between IS Planning
and the strategic plan and also the literature reveals the importance of organizations IS
requirement in IS Planning (Brumec & Vrcek, 2002). The topic of discussion in this paper is
managing human resource and the two organizations have their approach to human resource
management. Both organizationss uses software to manage the human resources though they
show the difference in terms of software used and background idea in the software. Analysis
of the literature also reveals some of the current trending human resource management themes
with respect to IT companies. The paper also compares the literature and the approaches that
the two organizations use to manage human resource (Guetal & Johnson, 2012).
Introduction
Management of the information technology is one of the trending issues in the most
organization in Australia and globally. The document seeks to explore the impact of CIO in the
information system of an IT company. The report gives the background information of the two IT
companies; TPG Telecom Limited (www.tpg.com.au) and Atlassian Corporation
(www.atlassian.com). The IT department is an important aspect of the business and majorly focus on
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the ensuring the information system is organized in line with the objective of the organization. In
order to understand the process of managing the human resource in contemporary IT organization, the
business needs to first explore the IS planning. The paper explores two IT companies with good IS
planning strategy. Literature analysis is also part of understanding the IS structure of the organization
compared with the IS of the two organization. The document also explores the human resource
management in an organization giving literature analysis and comparing with the human resource
management within the two organizations. Literature analysis on human resources management show
the current approaches that the business uses for the human resource management. Moreover, the
literature analysis also provides the importance of the managing human resources in the current
society.
Organisation background
TPG Telecom Limited
TPG Telecom Limited is a telecommunication and IT company and with more than 1400
employees. The organization was founded in 1986 with the original name of Total Peripherals Group.
The organization, therefore, need as strong human resources management. The head office of the
organization is in North Ryde, New South Wales Australia. The human resources manager is also
located within the organizations head office. In addition, the business has a well-developed website
located by the URL www.tpg.com.au. Since its inception, the company has undergone various
changes that include merger and acquisitions that shaped the organization’s management. The
company has larger IT department and by 2015, the company was one of the largest IT companies in
Australia. The company is an IT organization, the IT department forms the dominant department with
more employees than any other department. One of the technical issues that are found in the
organization is the managing of human resources based IT System (Ramli & Hutchison, 2013).
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Figure 1: Screen dump for homepage for TPG
Atlassian Corporation
Atlassian Corporation is a software developing company with strong IT services
placing the company in a good strategic position in IT industry in Australia. Atlassian
corporation was founded in 2002. The head office of the company is situated in Sydney
Australia from where the organization manages its operations. The website of the
organization is accessible at www.atlassian.com. The organization has more than 2200
employees by the end of June 2017. Being 15 years old the company has developed its IT
department growing in size and it has lead to accumulation of revenue of more than $620
million as at July 2017. Being software developer the company has a well developed human
resource management system. Most of the organization’s resources are under control off the
IT department of the organization (www.atlassian.com, 2017).
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Figure 2: Screen Dump for homepage of Atlassian
IS Planning
Information system planning (IS Planning) include the structure and strategies that an
organization uses to receive, process and relay information. IS Planning offers the basis of
planning the information system that supports the organization’s capability and IT processes.
This implies that the IS Planning that the organization uses to show the approach that the
organization has towards the information technology.
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TPG Telecom Limited
The chief information manager indicated that the company has a simple approach to IS
planning. IS Planning has a strategic framework that is based on the core value of the business.
The company has a simplicity approach to an information system with its core value grounded
in simplicity, affordability, and reliability. The goal of IS Planning for the organization is to
make the system simple and easy to understand for both employees and staffs. The
telecommunication nature of the business assists the IT department of the company to simplify
its human resource management system. This is also the main source of the success of the
organization's information services (Colley, 2010).
Atlassian Corporation
Atlassian Corporation approach to IS Planning is based on the portfolio management
approach that is done through softwares. The IS planning of the organization is grounded on
its strategic plan and works for the attainment of the organization goals and objectives. The
company mainly specialize in software development and this the company has exploited for
the company’s own use. For instance, the main approach that the company uses is the software
called Jira software. The organization also uses its software to offer teamwork self-services
accessible to all employees and stakeholders. Within the organization, Jira software offer
platform for receiving, processing and display of information (Douglas, 2014).
IS Planning Literature Analysis
IS Planning is core the organization especially the IT company that provides IT services to
clients. The literature provides various aspects of the IS planning that are also useful for managing
human resources. Organizational process and objectives is an important aspect of the IS planning.
According to Brumec and Vrcek (2002), learning and understanding the organizational processes
gives the direction that is required when planning the company’s information system. Business
objectives highlight the main aim of the IS planning that is utilized for designing the system. The
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goals for the IT department as indicated by Rainer and Cegielski (2009) is very crucial for IS
planning.
A study by Bruque and Moyano (2007), shows that the information system requirement for
each organization forms part of the IS planning for that organization. This is not contradicted by
Newkirk, Lederer and Srinivasan (2003), that also explains that the information system process that is
required for the organization will lead to finding the alternative systems that are used for planning.
Brumec and Vrcek (2002) give the model of IS planning as defining the organizational requirement,
development of sub matrix and evaluation of organizational IS requirement. The model of the IS also
the organizational infrastructure capability that ensures the flexibility and expandability of the
information system (Mak, 2001).
Rainer and Casey (2012) explain the importance of information system planning in fulfilment
of the organization's strategic plan. In this sense, the IS gives the competitive advantage between the
organization, stakeholders, and the competitors. Information system planning offers the IT company
ability to plan or organize its resources for the better accessibility by both stakeholders and
management. For instance, application of software in the current organization is important for
management of resources and information itself. This gives the IS planning and the IT department an
important role in the organization’s management or performance (Pollack, 2010).
Newkirk and Lederer (2006) advance two main approaches to IS Planning in an
organization and these are comprehensive formal and incremental informal planning.
Comprehensive IS planning is the most successful approach as compared to the informal
approach that has always lead to failure of the business. This is similar to Lewis (1993a) that
explores the success of an information management based on a good comprehensive IS
Planning. Informal IS Planning, on the other hand, is more of a traditional information system
that does not put much consideration including the contemporary business environment.
With the increasing use of enterprise resource planning (ERPs) in managing the
resources the IS Planning, IS Planning is part of the ERP systems used in the organization.
Ass explained by Alter (2006), every organization applies software often ERP in nature to
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manage its resources. In contrast, an organization can also choose to use simple information
system planning that meets its business requirement (Costa, Ferreira, Bento & Aparicio, 2016).
Many companies project the future utilization of the IS Planning in management and general
operation of the organization.
TPG Telecom Limited
TPG Telecom chief information officer explains that the impact of CIO in the
organization is to design and evaluate the information system pathways within the
organization. Furthermore, the organization has all the capability and IT network
infrastructure to meet the customer’s need. This the manager elaborate based on their intended
end to end corporate responsibility to the customer for their services. This ensures that the
organization work towards the set objectives. In addition, the CIO is expected to make
decisions concerning the applications of the IS within the organization (Khosrow–Puor, 2006).
The information officer is also concerned with innovation within the department that ensures
high customer satisfaction. Finally, the manager also pointed out the ongoing intention of the
organization to implement other IT management system that will take the form of ERP system
with limited human interventions (Yusuf, Gunasekaran & Abthorpe, 2004).
Atlassian Corporation
The chief information officer in the organization explains that the impact of the CIO in the
business is mainly to monitor information flow according to the strategic plan of the business. The IT
manager indicates that their main information system planning takes advantage of their many planning
softwares the organization has developed (www.atlassian.com/about-us). The information system
planning in the organization softwares that are used in the organization are two mainly Confluence
and Jira. The idea behind these two softwares is to apply portfolio management in the IS planning.
This is based on the organization core values that are geared towards teamwork made possible by
softwares (Rynes, Barber & Varma, 2000). In order to ensure to offers smooth services to both staffs
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and other stakeholders, the IT department is in continuous updating and developing softwares that are
used to run information system.
Comparative analysis
TPG Telecom and Atlassian Corporation reveal some significance in software usage
and the information system capability in general. TPG Telecom mainly focuses on connecting
the overall performance of IT system and organization’s objectives. This is enhanced by
monitoring capability of the CIO that mainly evaluates the functionality of the information
system that the business uses (Kroenke, 2015). Atlassian Corporation, on the other hand,
dedicates the responsibility of software evaluation to the CIO and the IT department. This is
different from the broader focus of the IT department in TPG Telecom. Similarly, the two
organization has their IT departments in charge of the information system and this department
forms the backbone of the organization since both organizations are IT organizations. The
literature, on the other hand, highlights the various connections between Information System
planning with other organizational structure such as human resource management. TPG
Telecom concurs with the literature on the alignment of IS planning and organization’s
objectives or goals (Nijssen, 1989).
Issues studied
Managing human resource
Managing human resource in an IT organization is a dynamic issue that currently
affects most organizations in Australia and globally. Managing human resource as an issue
was selected since it acts as the uniting factor that brings together various aspects of
management such as between IT management and executive management. In the current
business environment, managing human resource factor in the advanced technology and play
a significant role in the IS Planning (Collings & Wood, 2009). Managing human resource is
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important in the contemporary IT companies mainly in three different ways. These are human
resource management forms core to the strategic plan of the organization, the success of the
organization is also connected to the success of the human resource management strategy and
finally, effective human resource management leads to the overall accomplish of
organization’s goals. Managing human resource, therefore, has a critical role in any
organization and need to be properly examined for a better outcome of the organization
(Kovacs & Paganelli, 2003).
Literature Analysis
Managing human resource especially in the technological time remains tricky since every
organization struggles to update its human resources management system. According to Paauwe and
Boon (2009), a good human resource management should consider the scope of the IS plan for the
organization that is willing to adopt the system. This implies that the organization needs to put its
information processing scope first before deciding on the human resource management system to use
in an organization. This is similar to the findings of Costa, Ferreira, Bento & Aparicio (2016) that
explains the articulation of the human resources management to the main IS platform of an
organization.
As explained by Fryling (2010), managing the human resource in the current business
environment need to take into consideration the organization’s strategic plan, vision and core value as
this act as the guidelines for selecting a good human resource management system. Kovacs and
Paganelli, (2003), when assessing the current human resource structure indicates that managing a
human the resource in an IT company requires robust IS system with the capability to organizes
various resources together in a harmonized manner. This, therefore, gives ground for softwares that
can do the coordination and organization of human resources comprehensively. This has also left the
human resources management in the hand of IT department since the department also manages the
organization’s software and information system.
Finally, Collings and Wood (2009) explain that human resources management plays a role
that can be traced to the overall performance and this is properly managed then the organization is
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most likely to survive in the tough environment (Guetal and Johnson, 2012). Managing human
resources, therefore, should be handled with the most care to avoid any underperformance in the
business. Platforms that offers human resource management services, therefore, remains the linkage
between management and the overall management of the organization (Dostal, 2007).
According to Costa, Ferreira, Bento and Aparicio (2016), with the inception of the enterprise
resource planning, managing human resource has been left for the machines. This has also been
facilitated by the desire to incorporate all the resources of an organization into a system that is
accessible for all. This is also confirmed by Yusuf, Gunasekaran and Abthorpe (2004) that indicate
that there are also ERP that specifically dedicated for human resource management. Other studies
suggest that managing human resource under the new era of ERPs is part of the IS Plan for many
organizations. Similar, Fryling (2010) also confirm that larger organizations prefer running
employee’s affairs through a central enterprise resource planning system.
TPG Telecom Limited
The organization has well elaborated human resource management system that forms
part of the organizations IS plan though appear to be more traditional in nature (Newkirk &
Lederer, 2006). The human resource strategy applied in the organization make use of top-
down communication pathways that concern giving direction from senior management to
junior staffs. This role the company does use software that ensures coordination and
organization of human resources. The TPG Telecom company has software that is built to
organizes and link all the company’s resources. The software takes the approach of a simplicity
management where it works to channels the resources based on the organization strategic plan and
vision of simplicity, reliability, and efficiency. The company's management understands the
importance of human resource management and its applications to business’s overall performance in
the organization. This is of course tied to the IT department of the organization that organizes and
manages information system resources (Ramli & Hutchison, 2013).
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Atlassian Corporation
The organization has its human resource mainly engraved within the software
management system. The organization has softwares that are used to manage the human
resource and this is incorporated into the main IS system that controls most of the
organization's resources. The IT department plays an important role in software that has
human resource attachment within the organization’s main information system. The approach
that the company uses in managing human resource takes into consideration the portfolio
management system. Where the human resource is part of the portfolio and management is
run within the software built to operate all departments of the organization (Finley, 2013). On
the physical structure of the human resource within the organization, the organization has the
overall human resource manager that performs the supervisor role though this is an
inconsistency with the ERP controlling the human resources. This software system, of courses
the organization, manages based on the portfolio management system (Fryling, 2010).
Comparative analysis
Atlassian Corporation sets out an example of a good current IT company with good
portfolio management software as compared to TPG Telecom that is more traditional in terms
of human resource management. Atlassian Corporation uses its two softwares with the ability
to manage both human resources and other resources in a more harmonized manner giving a
deeper insight into the real role of information technology in managing of the human
resources (Douglas, 2014). The softwares Confluence and Jira are more current and perform
all the necessary work that is required for an IT enable human resource management system
with real-time operational IS planning capabilities. TPG Telecom, on the other hand, focuses
on the simplicity of the system without factoring the contemporary measures affecting IT
business organization. This can, however, present some challenges as the organization needs
to apply the system in line with its size and the human resource that need to be managed
(Alter, 2006).
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The literature presents some currents aspects of the human resource management and
the role it plays in business. TPG Telecom is more focus on the business core value of
simplicity as the compared to Atlassian Corporation that is more focus on the enhanced
business environment in line with the contemporary business setting (Kovacs & Paganelli,
2003). Literature provides the relationship between IS planning and the human resources
management giving the central role that IT hold in managing human resources. TPG Telecom
minimally focuses on the application of IS planning in human resource management and
instead conform to traditional human resource management system within the software
setting. Atlassian Corporation, on the other hand, gives clear information system planning
structure that is tied to portfolio management approach. Both Atlassian Corporation and TPG
Telecom agree with the literature on the role play by IT department on human resource
management pointing at benefits of human resource management at the organization
performance level (Rynes, Barber & Varma, 2000).
Conclusion
In conclusion, IT is becoming an important aspect of an organization regardless of the
type of business the organization may be doing. CIO equality plays a critical role in the
management of information system of an organization. The paper focus on two IT
organization exploring the IS Planning approaches that the organization uses. These two
organizations are Atlassian Corporation and TPG Telecom. Managing human resources in the
technological era requires a critical look into various softwares that assist in organizing and
coordination the various resources that the organization have. The two companies take
advantages of their information system structures and the infrastructure available for offering
services to both staffs and customers. The different organization has different approaches for
human resources management. Analysis of companies shows that their human resources
management has incorporated into the software.
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