Reference no: EM131713863

The CEO of your organization has asked to you to conduct a technology audit to help him understand and manage his information technology tools and processes as a strategic business resource. "Our existing IT systems have not always met expectations," he explains. "Unfortunately, some of these suboptimal systems could still be in use because we haven't fully explored suitable alternatives." "Our technology team and tech company vendors have briefed me on several new technologies and their capabilities, but I'm worried they don't fit into an overall strategy for our organization. If we invest in these technologies and don't recoup the costs, it could be a disaster." "I want you to become familiar with the current mission, objectives, and operations of the organization. Then I want you to perform an inventory of the current IT infrastructure, development, user-support, and system security, and assess how much they support the business strategy. Finally, research some of the latest technologies and how we could potentially use them." "I'd like you to a prepare and give me three things: a summary of our organization's business objectives and our effectiveness in meeting them, an assessment of our existing technology, and a technology audit with your specific recommendations for changes to our organization's technology infrastructure. You'll have three weeks to complete this task. I'll e-mail you some additional information later today." You return to your office and begin research into your organization's mission and objectives. A few hours later you receive an e-mail from the CEO. "I went to a conference last month," the CEO has written, "and heard about some interesting ways to analyze large amounts of data.” “Apparently, big data analytics,” he continues,”“is one of the fastest growing emerging technologies for business, and it has applications in finance, human resources, supply chain management, and engineering. Maybe we should be thinking about this? Or maybe there is other new tech we should learn more about? I’ll leave it to you to pursue what you think would work for us.” As you read his e-mail, you wonder what other emerging technologies you will learn about after a little more research. You also begin to ponder the word audit: it implies a complete and careful examination. For this technology audit, you know you'll need to examine all of the important factors that impact your organization's current legacy systems and future technical capabilities, including hardware, software, networks, databases, security and people. You have a lot of work to do in the next three weeks. What are the strategic goals of the Department of Transportation.