Problems Addressed by Case Study

Churchill’s Adaptive Enterprise

This book takes a fresh approach: it matches the challenges encountered   when managing  the  design and development of large corporate IT projects with  a thorough  analysis  of relevant, historical case study. It mines lessons  learned in  Britain during the Second World War and applies them to the twin  challenges  of information  management and business  process streamlining within  the  modern business  world. Specifically, the book addresses the challenges of modeling the collective  knowledge and business  processes within any modern  business and developing  a strategy for maximizing  competitive advantage  through a modern  infrastructure. The  use of an engrossing  and detailed historical case study reinforces the book’s  business and IT recommendations.

The Battle of Britain was probably one of the most significant victories of World War II, as it was unexpected and against the run of play.  What was achieved in creating an adaptive enterprise in the short time frame available was truly remarkable in its scope, and was ultimately one of the greatest project successes of the 20th century. Within this context the book solves these four problems:               

1. Organizations lack the ability to successfully sense and respond to events, discern “signal from noise,” and make use of all the potential information, knowledge, and intelligence stored around them. They create, collect, and handle huge volumes of data in large warehouses, but are challenged in making use of the most critical information, and in discerning useful intelligence from the glut of information. They are challenged in extracting, aggregating, and presenting the information to the right decision-maker(s) in a relevant timeframe, so it can be actively used as a potent weapon. 

2. There is a huge disparity in the way organizations implement and leverage emerging technologies across the enterprise. For example, some business units fail to buy into an enterprise project. They proceed with their own project with similar technologies, and fail to integrate at an enterprise level. As a result, the enterprise project never achieves the envisioned benefits, the organization presents mixed messages to customers, and the output just further propagates the confusion. 

3. Organizations view emerging technology projects as “technology-only” projects, where the focus is on the implementation of the technology. These projects are not about technology, but about business and communities. Organizations fail to exploit the new technology available, and end up not achieving the desired return on investment because they don’t focus on payback or work within a business-case framework. 

4. Organizations struggle to realign business processes and the organizational structure for the emerging technology project. They fall short in matching the same investment and effort that is usually apportioned to the technology. For example, they fail to establish the communities that can collaborate and create knowledge for their organizations.