Enterprise Systems at Icl
5 Pages Posted: 21 Oct 2008
Abstract
Senior management of a large company learns that its largest and most important information systems project will be eight months late. The developers used the latest technology (web-based, distributed, client-server, networked) and architecture (SOA). Some new parts were up and running but many old, legacy pieces were carrying a heavy part of the daily demands and risks of outages were increasing. There were staffing problems and challenges with conversions, and it appeared that some organizational units were resisting adoption of the new systems.
Excerpt
UVA-C-2251
Rev. Apr. 21, 2011
Enterprise Systems at ICL
Late in March 2006, the chief information officer (CIO) of International Chemicals Limited (ICL) sent an e-mail to a short list of executives alerting them to an announcement he would be making the following week: The completion date for version 1 of COPADS—the company's largest, most important information systems (IS) project—would be delayed an additional eight months. The CIO, Dan Evans, received some pretty blunt replies that afternoon including: “Tell me this is some early April Fool's joke, Dan. Why wasn't I informed before now?…Our plans are based on having that thing up and running by midyear.” It was not a happy day.
With corporate headquarters in London and operational headquarters in New Jersey, ICL employed more than 60,000 people and posted 2005 revenues of (British pounds) GBP22 billion. Beginning from its base in chemicals, ICL had grown and diversified to the point where it operated research and development (R&D), manufacturing, and distribution facilities in 75 countries spread across the Americas, Asia, and Europe. The COPADS project was critical to ICL's operating plans and cost reduction initiatives throughout the world. The e-mail set a number of people to wondering just what had gone wrong and questioning whether Evans and his team would meet the new delivery date.
Company Organization
. . .
Keywords: international Late IS project, global systems, client-server, distributed computing, mandatory project, SOA, matrix organization
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation