Critical Analysis of CIO Strategy in Information Systems (IMAT5206)

This report provides a critical analysis of a CIO's strategy, focusing on the case of Helena Theakstone, head of digital at Oasis Fashion. It examines the role of information systems and the IT/IS department in enhancing a company's performance and customer service. The report delves into the themes and views presented in an interview with Theakstone, highlighting the importance of data privacy, GDPR compliance, and the adoption of cloud-based services. It also reviews the company's IT history before the interview, identifying areas for improvement and the CIO's strategic approaches. The analysis includes an appraisal of the CIO's views, strategies, and the positive and negative points associated with the implemented themes. Furthermore, the report identifies the issues and problems within the company's information systems, such as the lack of a clear strategy and the challenges associated with integrating new technologies. The report underscores the importance of customer service, data governance, and the need for a well-defined IT strategy to drive business growth and meet regulatory requirements.

Running head: INFORMATION SYSTEMS
INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author note

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Introduction
Information systems have been effective in boosting a company’s performance along
with its productivity. Throughout the world organizations are relying on these so that they
can research as well as develop new ways that in turn can help in generating revenue. This
will help in engaging customers as well as help in streamlining various time consuming tasks.
With the help of an appropriate information systems, the businesses can not only save their
time but can only save money by taking smarter decisions. Information systems help a
company’s internal departments such as the marketing and sales to communicate in a better
way and enabling them to share information in a better way (Bichler et al. 2016). In this
paper, the purpose of information systems and the IT/IS department in an organization will be
discussed. The interview of Helena Theakstone, head of digital, Oasis Fashion has been
considered to understand the importance of IS/IT departments. The themes as well as views
of CIO’s interview will be identified in the paper. The IT history of the company prior to this
interview will also be discussed so that the changes that the CIO wants can be understood.
Themes and views from the interview
Helena Theakstone is the head of digital at Oasis Fashion that is a retailer and
according to her in order to render customer service the company needs to understand the
power of modern technology. The digital head is of the opinion that the company needs to
have a strong grip on information management and governance. The main theme that can be
identified in the interview is that customers are worried about their data and its
confidentiality. Every organization needs to take proper steps so that they can safeguard the
customer’s data. It is a fact that customers of a company trust the company their personal data
hoping that their data is kept safe from cyber criminals. It is the responsibility of the IT
departments of various organizations to keep the firm updated with all new rules and

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regulations related to data privacy. Being the digital head of Oasis fashion, Theakstone was
helping the firm prepare itself for EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that was
to be enforced since May 24, 2018. The GDPR places new obligations on the firms that
relates to the storage as well as processing of information (Bitar and Jakobsson 2017). The
coordination in between the digital team and IT department is being considered in the
organization to follow the ongoing trend and bring in advancements in the business
operations. The organizations are required to be transparent as well as upfront with the
informations that they hold to be active in this digital world. The other important fact is that
the workforce especially the IT staffs should be well versed with the technical stuff so that
the customers can get satisfactory answers when they are asking technical questions
(Rosemann and vom Brocke 2015). The view of the digital head is that handling the
customers of an organization properly helps it in its growth. The theme is upgrading
information management and bringing in necessary changes in the business operations as per
the new rules and regulations. Adopting new technologies such as cloud based services to be
updated with the technology.
IT history of the company before this interview was conducted
Prior to the interview, the company was newly adopting the cloud services. There was
a close interaction in between the digital and IT department. There was no decentralized
procurement that is it was difficult for individuals to buy their own individual services on-
demand. The company wanted to adopt decentralization in their operations. The tight
interaction in between the digital and the IT teams was not present. The company was not
using any internal legal department instead Oasis was working with a law firm named
Fieldfisher that ensured compliance as well as governance within the organization. The
company had no such provision of passing the contract of the suppliers to the legal team thus
there were high chances that the service providers could lead the company into losses

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(Pearlson, Saunders and Galletta 2019). The providers were still struggling with data policies
and Oasis was not that interested in knowing the background of these service providers. The
company did not focus much on the customer services. The IT services present did not give
priority to customer satisfaction. The front-end development was not that focussed on and the
team did not focus on the way how products were displayed on the online platform. The
company had no such initiative to align itself to GDPR principles. There was no such audit
done on the plans that were being undertaken for aligning the company services to GDPR
guidelines (Zerlang 2017). The company did not have any such plans for making use of the
customer data smartly. The company did not have any loyalty card system but it has the
provision for offering e-receipts so that the customers could receive notifications for the
purchases they were making electronically (Gronwald 2016). The company did not have any
customer relationship management software. The digital head wants to make use of Big data
but is of the opinion that the IT team and the organization as a whole must have a good
understanding of the information management as well as governance. The previous
operations for adopting new technologies were not successful as the decisions were taken
hastily. In order to get hold of the new opportunities there was not any such balance in the
system and services. The company was still working with the traditional data centres
consisting of various hardware that are connected to a network via the medium of a remote
server (Bharati and Chaudhury 2015). The business thus needs to adopt and implement cloud
based services to scale up their customer services along with data storage.
Explanation of themes and recent IT history of company
The main theme of the interview is bringing in improvisations in the customer
services. The digital head is of the opinion that in order to provide good customer services
that company requires having a good hold on the information technology management and
associated governance. The company needs to focus on safeguarding the data of its customers

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and maintain the confidentiality of the same. The recent IT history of the organization
suggests that it is steadily moving towards adopting cloud based services. Cloud adoption is
considered as a strategy that is made use of by enterprises to bring in improvements in the
scalability of the Internet-based database capabilities at the same time reducing the costs and
the associated risks. The business wants to engage itself in cloud computing and make use of
remote servers that in turn are hosted on Internet for storing, managing as well as processing
the critical data (Kasemsap 2018). The company is facing a problem from the service
provider’s side there are some providers those who are reluctant to update their privacy
statements. There are many providers that are struggling with the data polices thus the
company can opt for Private IT infrastructure that is developed for a specific organization.
The company can get the benefits of these strategies including the ability to store data in the
private cloud. Retail businesses require cloud computing so that they can get hold of a sound
internet strategy. By making use of cloud computing, companies such as Oasis can market to
the customers thus saving the data related to their products for less money. Oasis is a small
firm and thus adopting cloud computing can help the organization in efficient as well as cost-
effective scalability. From the interview it is clear that the digital head wants to focus on the
customer services. She is specific about bringing in cooperation in between the digital and IT
department. The adoption to the cloud based services is an important thing for the digital
head. In order to boost customer satisfaction, the digital head wants to increase the range of
collection options and many more such services (Sadiq and Governatori 2015). The GDPR
rules and regulation must be adhered to in the context of handling customer data. The main
goal of this needs to be understood by the companies so that the existing data protection
protocols can be aligned to and this in turn will provide the customers with greater level of
control over their personal data.

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Critically appraise the view of the CIO, the strategies and approaches spoken about
The CIO has a clear concept that in order to ensure growth of a business there is a
need to focus on the customer services and providing them with satisfaction. Being the digital
head of the company she is well aware of the importance of laws and regulations that need to
be there for safeguarding data privacy of the customers. The strategies that she is having for
preparing Oasis for EU’s General Data Protection Regulation are appropriate enough to help
the firm advance with the new laws (Tankard 2016). It places new obligations on the firm
that is related to the storage and processing of volumes of information. The digital head is
serious enough with her work and this can be understood from the fact that she reports to
company’s customer director on a frequent basis. She works simultaneously with the IT
director ensuring that primary targets related to data, governance as well as experience is met.
The non-IT specialists especially in the marketing domain are to take responsibility for
growing proportion of the IT budget. Instead of isolated cloud services, the digital team is
helping create joined-up approach. According to her there should be a good level of
interaction in between the digital and the IT teams. She made it clear that the service
providers need to be specific with their privacy statement and the providers struggling with
data policies should not be considered. The digital head and her team have made many efforts
to redesign and redevelop the website of the firm. An external systems integrator has been
appointed so that he can help the business to make most of the front-end developments. Many
new supportive initiatives have been launched. Multi-channel operations are being given
priority considering social media as the key element in the communication plan.
Positive and negative points about the theme
The positive points about the theme are that the digital lead is well aware of the
importance of Information management and its contribution to the growth of the

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organization. The digital head has taken the responsibility of range of activities that include
customer’s services, design and development, digital marketing and website analytics. The
digital lead will take the help of the IT organization to deal with primary business issues that
include orders and processing. She considers all the aspects important for ensuring that
customers of the firm are satisfied with the services provided by the firm. According to the
digital lead legal concerns about the services and data should be given maximum priority.
The service providers struggling with data policies should not be approached for the services.
The digital lead is trying to provide new dimensions to the company that include a
subscription-based delivery service along with the creation of Oasis Unlimited that is a
subscription-based delivery services along with the creation of click and collect strategy for
its customers. New project involving installing new checkout system across the firm’s stores
and is to be flagged off in March. The negative point about this is that the digital lead at a
time is focussing on many different domains and thus this can lead to a failure of such
projects.
Issues and problems in the information systems of the company
The issues with the information system of the company are:
1. Lack of proper strategy- There needs to be a pre-planned strategy for implementing new
technologies in the company. The information systems of the company are still not updated
as per the rules and regulations.
2. Lack of integration of digital and IT departments- In order to cater to the needs of the
customers there is always a requirement that the digital and the IT heads come together to
bring in new technologies and aid the company in its growth.

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From the above discussion it can be said that in order to provide good customer
services a company requires adhering to the new data policies and governance put forward by
the local authoritative bodies. The company has been working towards applying the GDPR
principles so that it can provide the customers with satisfactory services. The contribution of
a digital head in the growth of the company can be well understood from the different
decisions being taken by her and the way she is considering every intricate detail that will
help the firm in providing the customers with the services they are demanding for.
Implementation of GDPR will provide the customers of the firm with many advantages such
as obtaining consent, portability of data, right to access data and many more. The company
can save itself from paying unnecessary fines if they comply with the GDPR regulations. The
positive and the negative points discussed above give an idea that the digital lead wants to use
her prior experience to bring in new improvisation in the existing information technology
framework. In order to implement GDPR regulations the company can take the example of
different firms that have been successful in aligning themselves to the GDPR regulations. In
order to successfully shift their firm to the cloud platform the firm should follow certain
steps:
1. Analyzing whether the applications can run on the cloud platform.
2. Is appropriate technical support available?
3. Proper details about the cloud infrastructure that has been outsourced or subcontracted.
4. The analysis of the cost that is the budget that needs to be invested in order to provide good
services.

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References
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systems. Bharati, P. and Chaudhury, A.(2009),“SMEs and Competitiveness: The Role of
Information Systems”, International Journal of E-Business Research, 5(1).
Bichler, M., Frank, U., Avison, D., Malaurent, J., Fettke, P., Hovorka, D., Krämer, J.,
Schnurr, D., Müller, B., Suhl, L. and Thalheim, B., 2016. Theories in business and
information systems engineering. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 58(4),
pp.291-319.
Bitar, H. and Jakobsson, B., 2017. GDPR: Securing Personal Data in Compliance with new
EU-Regulations.
Gronwald, K.D., 2016. Integrated Business Information Systems (Vol. 20). Springer,
http://www. springer. com/us/book/9783662532904. Accessed.
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impact on business performance. In Global Business Expansion: Concepts, Methodologies,
Tools, and Applications (pp. 1078-1102). IGI Global.
Pearlson, K.E., Saunders, C.S. and Galletta, D.F., 2019. Managing and using information
systems: A strategic approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Rosemann, M. and vom Brocke, J., 2015. The six core elements of business process
management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Springer,
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Sadiq, S. and Governatori, G., 2015. Managing regulatory compliance in business processes.
In Handbook on Business Process Management 2 (pp. 265-288). Springer, Berlin,
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Tankard, C., 2016. What the GDPR means for businesses. Network Security, 2016(6), pp.5-8.
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