Running a Company with an iPhone

For this assignment, you will review four case studies. Then, in a PowerPoint presentation, you will evaluate the studies and respond to each of the questions below, using both critical thinking and theory as well as supporting documentation.

Based on your reading of the case study “Can You Run the Company with Your iPhone?” on pages 9–10 of the textbook, discuss how emerging trends in technology are helping Network Rail improve railway performance and safety.

Can You Run the Company with Your iPhone?

Can you run the company just by using your iPhone? Perhaps not entirely, but there are many business functions today that can be performed using an iPhone, iPad, or Android mobile device. Smartphones and tablets have become all-in-one tools that help managers and employees work more efficiently, packing a powerful, networked computer into a pocket-size device. With a tap or flick of a finger, these mobile devices can access the Internet or serve as a telephone, camera, music or video player, an e-mail and messaging machine, and, increasingly, a gateway into corporate systems. New software applications for document sharing, collaboration, sales, processing, inventory management, scheduling, and production monitoring make these devices even more versatile business tools.

Network Rail runs, maintains, and develops the rail tracks, signaling, bridges, tunnels, level crossings, and many key stations for most of the rail network in England, Scotland, and Wales. Keeping trains running on time is one of its top priorities. To maintain 20,000 miles of track safely and efficiently, skilled workers must be equipped with appropriate tools and work across thousands of sites throughout the rail network, 24 hours a day. Network Rail uses a group of custom apps for its 22,000 iPhone and iPad devices to streamline maintenance operations, quickly capture incident data, and immediately share critical information.

Several apps help Network Rail improve railway performance and safety. The Close Call app helps employees report hazards as they are found so problems can be addressed quickly. The MyWork app gives maintenance teams all the information they need to start and complete repair tasks. The Sentinel app allows field managers to electronically scan ID cards to verify that workers are qualified to perform specific tasks.

The iPhone and iPad apps provide maintenance technicians with current technical data, GPS locations, and streamlined reports, replacing cumbersome reference books and rain-soaked paperwork that slowed the repair process. Many service calls start with hazardous conditions reported by Network Rail employees themselves. Rather than waiting hours to fill out a report at the depot, workers can take pictures of dangerous situations right away, using the Close Call app to describe situations and upload photos to the call center. Once provided with the hazard’s GPS coordinates, the call center will usually schedule repairs within 24 hours.

MyWork gives maintenance workers a simple overview of all of the jobs each team needs to complete during a specific shift. This mobile app clusters jobs by location, skills required, and opening and closing times. Using precise map coordinates, workers can find sites easily and finish jobs more quickly. By electronically delivering daily job schedules to over 14,000 maintenance staff members, MyWork has enabled them to complete over a half a million work s to date while minimizing interruptions.

British Airways is the largest airline in the United Kingdom, with operations in more than 200 airports worldwide. The airline has found many ways to use the iPad to improve customer service and operational efficiency. The airline has created more than 40 custom apps for over 17,000 iPads for its workforce that have transformed the way it does business.

Unforeseen disruptions can create long lines of passengers seeking flight information and rebooking. The FlightReact app used by British Airways mobilizes agents to scan a boarding pass, review the customer’s booking, look up alternate flight options, and rebook and reticket passengers—all within four minutes. iBanner allows agents to identify passengers transferring onto a specific flight, while iTranslate enables staff to communicate easily with travelers speaking any language.

Inside the airport, iPads and iPhones communicate with low-energy wireless Bluetooth signals from iBeacon, notifying customers of Wi-Fi access, gate locations, and flight updates. Beyond the terminal, mobile apps are helping British Airways to improve the aircraft turnaround process. British Airways has more than 70 planes at London Heathrow Terminal, five turning around at once, and each requiring a team of around 30 people. To shorten and streamline this process can generate huge business benefits.

Loading luggage and cargo onto an aircraft is one of the most complex parts of the turnaround process, requiring detailed communications between the turnaround manager (TRM), who coordinates and manages the services around the aircraft during departure and arrival, the offsite Centralized Load Control (CLC) team, and the pilot. With iPads running the iLoad Direct app, turnaround managers are able to monitor the aircraft loading process and share data with pilots and back-office staff in real time. TRMs can receive and input real-time data about the aircraft load’s contents, weight, and distribution. These data are essential to help the pilot calculate the right amount of fuel and position the plane for take-off. By streamlining communications between the ground crew, the CLC team, and the pilot, iLoad Direct and iPad speed up the pace at which aircraft become airborne. These mobile tools have helped British Airways achieve an industry-leading benchmark for aircraft turnaround.

In addition to facilitating managerial work, mobile devices are helping rank-and-file employees manage their work lives more effectively. Shyft is one of several smartphone apps that allow workers to share information, make schedule changes, and report labor violations. Thousands of employees at chains like Starbucks and Old Navy are using these apps to view their schedules and swap shifts when they’ve got a scheduling conflict or need extra work.

Sources: “British Airways: Transforming the Travel Experience from Start to Finish,” Apple at Work, www.apple.com, accessed February 7, 2018;  www.networkrail.co.uk ,accessed September 2, 2018; “Network Rail,” iPhone in Business, www.apple.com, accessed January 4, 2017; and Lauren Weber, “Apps Empower Employees, Ease Scheduling,” Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2017.

Based on your reading of the case study “Enterprise Social Networking Helps Sanofi Pasteur Innovate and Improve Quality” on pages 41–42 of the textbook, discuss how information systems influenced the company’s organizational strategy. Critique their core information system applications from a business perspective. Analyze how information system projects are aligned with organizational goals and strategies.

Enterprise Social Networking Helps Sanofi Pasteur Innovate and Improve Quality

Sanofi Pasteur is the vaccines division of the multinational pharmaceutical company Sanofi and the largest company in the world devoted entirely to vaccines. It is headquartered in Lyon, France, has nearly 15,000 employees worldwide, and produces more than 1 billion doses of vaccine per year to inoculate more than 500 million people around the globe. Sanofi Pasteur’s corporate vision is to work toward a world where no one suffers or dies from a vaccine-preventable disease. Every day the company invests more than € 1 million in research and development. Collaboration, sharing information, ongoing innovation, and rigorous pursuit of quality are essential for Sanofi Pasteur’s business success and commitment to improving the health of the world’s population.

Until recently, the company lacked appropriate tools to encourage staff to have dialogues, share ideas, and work with other members of the company, including people that they might not know. As a large, centralized firm with a traditional hierarchical culture, initiatives were primarily driven from the top down. The company wanted to give employees more opportunities to experiment and innovate on their own, and adopted Microsoft Yammer as the platform for this change. Ideas for improvement can come from anywhere in the organization and through Yammer can be shared everywhere.

Microsoft Yammer is an enterprise social networking platform for internal business uses, although it can also create external networks linking to suppliers, customers, and others outside the organization. Yammer enables employees to create groups to collaborate on projects and share and edit documents, and includes a news feed to find out what’s happening within the company. A People Directory provides a searchable database of contact information, skills, and expertise. Yammer can be accessed through the web using desktop and mobile devices, and can be integrated with other Microsoft tools such as SharePoint and Office 365, to make other applications more “social.” (SharePoint is Microsoft’s platform for collaboration, document sharing, and document management. Office 365 is Microsoft’s online service for its desktop productivity applications such as word processing, spreadsheet, electronic presentations, and data management.)

How has Sanofi Pasteur benefited from becoming more “social”? Employees are using Yammer to share updates, ask for feedback, and connect volunteers to improvement initiatives. A recent project involving Yammer resulted in a 60 percent simplification of a key quality process at one manufacturing site, saving the company thousands of Euros, and reducing overall end-to-end process time. Through Yammer, employees spread the word about this improvement to other locations around the globe.

Using Yammer, Sanofi employees set up activist networks for change in large manufacturing sites. Each group has attracted more than 1,000 people. These networks help create a more collegial, personal culture that helps people feel comfortable about making suggestions for improvements and working with other groups across the globe. They also provide management with observations about policies and procedures across departments and hierarchies that can be used to redesign the firm’s manufacturing and business processes to increase quality and cost-effectiveness. For example, a building operator shared his ideas about how to reduce waste when managing a specific material in his production facility. The new procedure for handling the material saved his facility more than 100,000 Euros per year and became a global best practice at all Sanofi Pasteur production sites. Yammer-powered communities raised awareness of health, safety, and attention to detail, and more attention to these issues helped reduce human errors by 91 percent.

Sources: “Yammer Collaboration Helps Sanofi Pasteur Improve Quality, Make More Life-Saving Vaccines,” www.microsoft.com, January 24, 2017; www.sanofipasteur.us, accessed February 4, 2018; and Jacob Morgan, “Three Ways Sanofi Pasteur Encourages Collaboration,” Forbes, October 20, 2015.

Based on your reading of the case study “Meltdown and Spectre Haunt the World’s Computers” on pages 309–310 of the textbook, discuss the ethical and security issues that could result from flaws in central processing unit (CPU) chip design. Assess their procedures for securing information systems.

Meltdown and Spectre Haunt the World’s Computers

In early January 2018, computer users all over the world were shocked to learn that nearly every computer chip manufactured in the last 20 years contained fundamental security flaws that make it possible for attackers to obtain access to data that were thought to be completely protected. Security researchers had discovered the flaws in late 2017. The flaws arise from features built into the chips that help them run faster. The vulnerability enables a malicious program to gain access to data it should never be able to see.

There are two specific variations of these flaws, called Meltdown and Spectre. Meltdown was so named because it “melts” security boundaries normally enforced by hardware. By exploiting Meltdown, an attacker can use a program running on a computer to gain access to data from all over that machine that the program shouldn’t normally be able to see, including data belonging to other programs and data to which only administrators should have access. (A system administrator is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems.) Meltdown only affects specific kinds of Intel chips produced since 1995.

Spectre is not manufacturer-specific and affects nearly all modern processors. It requires more intimate knowledge of the victim program’s inner workings. Spectre’s name comes from speculative execution, in which a chip is able to start work on predicted future operations in to work faster. In this case, the system is tricked into incorrectly anticipating application behavior. The name also suggests that Spectre will be much more difficult to neutralize. Other attacks in the same family will no doubt be discovered, and Spectre will be haunting us for some time.

With both Meltdown and Spectre, an attacker can make a program reveal some of its own data that should have been kept secret. For example, Spectre could harness JavaScript code on a website to trick a web browser into revealing user and password information. Meltdown could be exploited to view data owned by other users and also virtual servers hosted on the same hardware, which is especially dangerous for cloud computing host computers. The most worrisome aspect of Meltdown and Spectre is that security vulnerabilities are not from flawed software but from the fundamental design of hardware platforms beneath the software.

There is no evidence that Spectre and Meltdown have been exploited, but this would be difficult to detect. Moreover, the security flaws are so fundamental and widespread that they could become catastrophic, especially for cloud computing services where many users share machines. According to researchers at global security software firm McAfee, these vulnerabilities are especially attractive to malicious actors because the attack surface is so unprecedented and the impacts of leaking highly sensitive data are so harmful. According to Forester, performance of laptops, desktops, tablets, and smartphones will be less affected. The fundamental vulnerability behind Meltdown and Spectre is at the hardware level, and thus cannot be patched directly. Technology software vendors are only able to release software fixes that work around the problems. Such fixes mitigate vulnerabilities by altering or disabling the way software code makes use of speculative execution and caching features built into the underlying hardware. (Caching is a technique to speed computer memory access by locating a small amount of memory storage on the CPU chip rather than from a separate RAM chip for memory.) Since these features were designed to improve system performance, working around them can slow systems down. Experts initially predicted system performance could be degraded as much as 30 percent, but a slowdown of 5 to 10 percent seems more typical.

Major software vendors have rolled out workaround patches. Cloud vendors have taken measures to patch their underlying infrastructures, with their customers expected to install the patches for their operating systems and applications. Microsoft released operating system patches for Windows 7 and all later versions, which also apply to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Edge browsers. Apple released patched versions of its Safari browser and iOS, macOS, and tvOS operating systems. Google provided a list of which Chromebook models will or won’t need patches and released a patch for its Chrome browser. Older operating systems such as Windows XP and millions of third-party low-cost Android phones that don’t get security updates from Google will most likely never be patched. Organizations should apply updates and patches to browser software as soon as they are available. And since these vulnerabilities could enable attackers to steal passwords from user device memory when running JavaScript from a web page, it is recommended that users be instructed to always close their web browsers when not in use. Forrester also recommends that enterprises should use other techniques to protect data from users and organizations that have not applied the fixes.

However, the only way to truly fix Meltdown and Spectre is to replace affected processors. Redesigning and producing new processors and architectures may take five to ten years to hit the market. If anything good can be said about Spectre and Meltdown, it is that they have focused more global attention on software and hardware security and the need to develop more robust system architectures for secure computing.

Sources: Josh Fruhlinger, “Spectre and Meltdown Explained: What They Are, How They Work, What’s at Risk,” CSO, January 15, 2018; Warwick Ashford, “Meltdown and Spectre a Big Deal for Enterprises,” Computer Weekly, January 9, 2018; Laura Hautala, “Spectre and Meltdown: Details You Need on Those Big Chip Flaws,” CNET, January 8, 2018.

Based on your reading of the case study “AbbVie Builds a Global Systems Infrastructure” on pages 586 of the textbook, discuss the problems that the company was experiencing as a global enterprise and how the company was able to solve them. Explain their information technology infrastructure. Discuss information system solutions that can be applied to this issue.

AbbVie Builds a Global Systems Infrastructure

AbbVie, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, is a global research-based biopharmaceutical company that was spun off from Abbott Laboratories in January 2013. As a separate entity, AbbVie is still a very large company, with more than 29,000 employees in over 70 countries and 19 research and manufacturing sites across the globe. In 2017, AbbVie produced $28.2 billion in revenue. Humira for treating rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease is among its top-selling global products.

When AbbVie separated from Abbott Laboratories, the company had inherited 50 or 60 disparate legacy systems that were supporting mission-critical processes in over 100 worldwide locations. The legacy systems were supported by Abbott under a transitional services agreement (TSA) and were due to be terminated at the end of 2015. AbbVie’s management had to make a choice: Should the company continue to run these legacy systems on its own or should it invest in a more up-to-date platform for supporting business processes across all of its global affiliates and manufacturing locations?

Complicating the decision were time pressures: AbbVie had only until the end of 2015 (three years) to implement a solution and slightly over two years to establish an infrastructure stipulated by the TSA. AbbVie decided to create standard business processes for all its affiliates and manufacturing facilities and to support these processes with a single instance of SAP ERP across the globe. The project was very ambitious: The new system had to be globally operational in more than 150 countries within 3 years. AbbVie designed a new operating model that included many organizational changes, including business process outsourcing, centers of excellence, and regional shared services.

AbbVie didn’t waste any time. It selected IBM Global Business Services consultants to guide the global SAP deployment. Starting in August 2013, AbbVie rolled out SAP ERP to 110 affiliates and manufacturing sites within 18 months. The company standardized end-to-end processes using a global SAP template, and allowed the software to be customized only for country-specific requirements. These requirements were identified in advance by teams creating local implementation guides.

AbbVie business process teams hammered out standard definitions for end-to-end processes such as procure-to-pay, -to-cash, record-to-report, and warehouse management. AbbVie made the template usable globally by extending the functionality for multiple currencies and languages and updating it on a country-by-country basis depending on local regulations or legal requirements.

Each time an affiliate requested a customization, the AbbVie project team reviewed it against the list of local legal requirements it had collected. AbbVie then determined if the customization was required by other countries or was for only one, and it pushed back on one-of-a-kind requests. Testing and confirming with several affiliates helped ensure that the template met the requirements of most countries, so the need for future customization was minimal.

AbbVie tested the effectiveness of its global template during development, capturing metrics around adoption—number of adoptions, adaptations, additions, and abstentions. The project team compared the percentages of those metrics from country to country and reported the results to AbbVie’s business unit leaders. If, for instance, the metrics showed that Germany had adopted 82 percent of the template and France 70 percent, business support could investigate to see if there was a process that needed to be changed in France. This was key to deploying the entire global instance of SAP ERP in 18 months.

The project team was also tasked with migrating data from different legacy applications to the data structure for the global SAP ERP system. For each stand-alone legacy system, the team extracted raw data, stored them in a secure data warehouse, and then identified any missing or inaccurate fields and other data cleansing requirements. While the team was consolidating and cleansing the data, it taught business users about SAP-specific data fields, how the fields were used, and how they changed previous business processes. The team would obtain data from the business, put it in a data mapping template, and load the data in various test environments. Once business users verified the accuracy of data, it would be ready to go live in production.

These activities facilitated change management by placing a high value on both system transparency and training. About six months before rolling out a new location, country-specific transition leaders would train users on the template and familiarize them with any process changes. The transition leaders were liaisons between AbbVie’s technology team and its business process team, helping the company to quickly address change management issues as they arose.

AbbVie also took the time during implementation to verify it was in compliance with all local data privacy regulations. In May 2015, the company completed the global rollout of SAP ERP. The company was thus able to successfully standardize global processes and meet the TSA. Other major benefits of the new global system were unprecedented levels of agility and transparency.

AbbVie now has a set of key metrics that are measured at the end of every month, such as the length of time to create new customers, vendor payments, payment terms, or fulfillments. The global system features dashboards for managers to look at every country, measure results, find the root cause of problems, and take corrective action more easily. Reporting from the system is more accurate.

AbbVie was able to pull off a major global system implementation because it was far-sighted and well organized and did the difficult work of streamlining processes on a global scale at the project outset. The global SAP project team questioned existing processes and found it could streamline many of them, making the enterprise much more agile. AbbVie’s business efficiency also improved because corrective actions often led to additional process improvements. By looking at the metrics, the project team can suggest measures to improve a process to get more out of the company’s investment. AbbVie can now operate as a single business across countries.

Source: “AbbVie Builds a Global Pharmaceuticals Company on New Foundations with SAP and IBM,” https://www-01.ibm.com, accessed January 6, 2018; Ken Murphy, “Biopharmaceutical Startup AbbVie Receives Healthy Long-Term Prognosis,” SAP Insider Profiles, September 19, 2017; and www.abbvie.com, accessed January 6, 2018.

When formatting your PowerPoint presentation, do not use the question-and-answer format; instead, use bullets, graphics, and/or charts in your slides to identify important points, and then discuss those points in the speaker notes of each slide.

Your PowerPoint presentation must be at least 12 slides in length (not counting the title and reference slides). You are required to use a minimum of three peer-reviewed, academic sources that are no more than 5 years old (one may be your textbook). All sources used, including the textbook, must be referenced; all paraphrased material must have accompanying in-text citations.