Reference no: EM132468459
Case: The Farm Bank
The Farm Bank is one of the state's oldest and most solid banking institutions. Located in a regional marketing center, the bank has been active in all phases of banking, specializing in farm loans. The bank's president, Frank Swain, 62, has been with the bank for many years and is prominent in local circles. The bank is organized into six departments (as shown in Figure below). A senior vice president heads each department. All six of them have been with the bank for years, and in general they reflect a stable and conservative outlook.
The Management Information System
Two years ago, President Swain felt that the bank needed to "modernize its operations". With the approval of the board of directors, he decided to design and install a comprehensive management information system (MIS). The primary goal was to improve internal operations by supplying necessary information on a more expedited basis, thereby decreasing the time necessary to service customers. The system was also to be designed to provide economic operating data for top management planning and decision-making. To head this department he selected Al Hassier, 58, a solid operations manager who had some knowledge and experience in the computer department. After the system was designed and installed, Al hired a young woman as his assistant. Valerie Wyatt was a young MBA with a strong systems analysis background. In addition to bring the only woman and considerably younger than any of the other managers at this level, Wyatt was the only MBA. In the time since the system was installed, the MIS has printed thousands of pages of operating information, including reports to all the vice presidents, all the branch managers, and the president. The reports include weekly, monthly, and quarterly summaries and include cost of productions, projected labor costs, overhead costs, and projected earnings figures for each segment of the bank's operations. The MIS Survey Swain was pleased with the system but noticed little improvement in management operations. In fact, most of the older vice presidents were making decisions and function pretty much as they did before the MIS was installed. Swain decided to have Wyatt conduct a survey of the users to try to evaluate the impact and benefits of the new system. Wyatt was glad to undertake the survey, because she had long felt the system was too elaborate for the bank's needs. She sent out a questionnaire to all department heads, branch managers, and so on, inquiring into their uses of the system. As she began to assemble the survey data, a pattern began to emerge. In general, most of the managers were strongly in favour of the system but felt that it should be modified. As Wyatt analysed the responses, several trends and important points came out: (1) 93 percent reported that they did not regularly use the reports because the information was not in a useful form, (2) 76 percent reported that the printouts were hard to interpret, (3) 72 percent stated that they received more data than they wanted, (4) 57 percent reported finding some errors and inaccuracies, and (5) 87 percent stated that they still kept manual records because they did not fully trust the MIS.
The Meeting
Valerie Wyatt finished her report, excitedly rushed into Al Hassler's office, and handed it to him. Hassler slowly scanned the report and then said, "You've done a good job here, Val. But now that we have the system operating, I don't think we should upset the apple cart, do you? Let's just keep this to ourselves for the time being, and perhaps we can correct most of these problems. I'm sure Frank wouldn't want to hear this kind of stuff. This system is his baby, so maybe we shouldn't rock the boat with this report." Valeries returned to her office feeling uncomfortable. She wondered what to do.
As an OD, you are required to fill in the Case Analysis Form and provide at least one recommendation based on the scenario above with the format below:
Case Analysis Form Name: ____________________________________________
I. Problems
A. Macro
1. ____________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________
B. Micro
1. _____________________________________________________
2. _____________________________________________________
II. Causes
1. _____________________________________________________
2. _____________________________________________________
3. _____________________________________________________
III. Systems affected
1.Structural ____________________________________________
2.Psychosocial__________________________________________
3.Technical______________________________________________
4.Managerial _____________________________________________
5. Goals and values __________________________________________
IV. Recommendation(s)
1. _____________________________________________________
2. _____________________________________________________
3. _____________________________________________________