Enterprise Systems at Icl

5 Pages Posted: 21 Oct 2008

See all articles by Brandt R. Allen

Brandt R. Allen

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business

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

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Keywords: international Late IS project, global systems, client-server, distributed computing, mandatory project, SOA, matrix organization

Suggested Citation

Allen, Brandt R., Enterprise Systems at Icl. Darden Case No. UVA-C-2251, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1276992 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1276992

Brandt R. Allen (Contact Author)

University of Virginia - Darden School of Business ( email )

P.O. Box 6550
Charlottesville, VA 22906-6550
United States
434-924 -4842 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.darden.virginia.edu/faculty/allen.htm

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