Report for security mangment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Report for security mangment - Essay ExampleThis 40-year old come with was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 which dominated the local trade of the United States, and began to trade stocks on the New York Stock Exchange. Along with the caller-ups growth in revenue is the growth of its expenses in information technology (IT). According to Wal-Mart IT executives, the company is adopting expensive technologies that is why its investment in IT is considered to be their single largest capital expenses with approximately $500 genius thousand thousand dollars over one five year period (Beard, 1996, p.78). The company demonstrated its preparedness to invest heavy on these technologies because it strongly believes that IT is a powerful tool in achieving efficiency goals and in creating economic economic value for stakeholders. In order for Wal-Mart to know how these technologies will support the transmission line in obtaining implicit and explicit objectives, it mustiness develop IT govern ance strategies (Schwalbe, 2009, p.136). To provide competitive advantage, these strategies must be integrated and aligned with the companys strategic and operational plans, this is to make the process more comprehensive (Papp, 2004, p.27). The main focus of this base is to recognize the IT services of Wal-Mart and whether these services are aligned to the needs of the business and the customers. In the process of assessing strategic alignment, this paper will be using the conceptual levels of strategic alignment maturity model developed by Dr. Luftman and some measures in order to improve the strategic business-IT alignment of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart IT Services Aligned to the Needs of the clientele and Needs of the Customers Linda Dillman, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Wal-Mart noted that, We do not want to be cognise by our technology, but we do want to be known by what our technology has done for the business (cited in Luftman, 2004, p.275). She also added that the busin ess is performing favourably in terms of improved revenue and market share, cost and time reduction, customer satisfaction, and many more because of business-IT alignment maturity through metrics performance. Wal-Mart was one of the first companies to introduce computers to track store sales and inventory and was the first to develop a computerized entanglement to share this information with suppliers (Fottler & Malvey, 2007, p.267). However, because IT changes daily and becomes outmoded, the company needs to continuously seek for upgraded technologies (Eisenberg et al., 2004, p.265). The information technology/ outline of Wal-Mart is classified as strategic and focused on how to meet customers needs wherein it relies on most circulating(prenominal) information to sustain the minimum cutting of cost in retail. In order for Wal-Mart to lower their costs, maximize return on capital, and streamline their operations, the company is using the operational excellence strategy. For severa l decades, IT is considered to be an inborn part not just of Wal-Mart but to some large suppliers in the world particularly in dealing with customers. Recently, Wal-Mart is using the standard transaction formats and protocols called the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) capabilities in order to govern operations in the sharing