Good IT infrastructure essential

7 November 2013

Good IT infrastructure essential during organisational change

New research has found that having adequate information technology (IT) infrastructure in place is critical to successful restructuring.

The investigation, carried out by Professor Benoit Aubert and Dr Val Hooper from Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Information Management, with co-researcher Anne-Marie Croteau from Concordia University in Canada, shows that firms with adequate IT infrastructure in place improve their performance after restructuring, while those without experience detrimental effects as a result of the organisational change.

“If your data and supporting infrastructure are well-organised and flexible, information will continue to flow effectively, even during a restructure—but to try and implement change with weak infrastructure is just shooting yourself in the foot,” says Professor Aubert.

“Part of it is a matter of effort and rigour in ensuring data and supporting processes are correct. It is not just the money a company pours into IT—at the core it is a management issue that large and small companies have to tackle,” he says.

“If data is wrong, poorly organised or not able to be shared, it won't help you—so even if a company has high-speed broadband, it won’t lead to increased productivity unless other key infrastructure components are there.”

Professor Aubert says essential technical infrastructure should be easy to upgrade or scale, enhance connectivity and be compatible for multiple platforms and interfaces.

Essential organisational infrastructure elements include policies, processes and ownership rules that ensure data remains accurate, unambiguous and able to be shared between different stakeholders; rules and standards to manage internal information flows and IT assets; and competent IT personnel who understand the business context of the organisation.
The research analysed survey data from 425 companies in New Zealand and Canada.

ENDS

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