Ipremier Case Study

Section 1 - Introduction

Overview

iPremier is an online retailing store founded in 1996 by Blake Carleton and Rajive Narayandas while both attending Swarthmore College. In 1997, they moved their base to Seattle and have been running the company operations from Seattle since then. iPremier generally sells products ranging from $50 to a few hundred dollars with a small number priced in the thousand dollar range. The company's values are based on three principles: discipline, professionalism and partnership.

On October 16th, 2008, the company hired Mr. Bob Turley as their CIO to take their operations management to the next level. He learned the day he joined the company that their data center had been outsourced to Qdata. He also learned that their services were not up to par and should have been changed; however, the company thought the investment in such a change would hurt profits. In addition, one of the founders of Qdata was friends with one of the owners of iPremier. This seems to be the foundation for the choice of using Qdata for iPremier's hosting facilities. With this knowledge, Mr. Turley still moved forward with other projects. Six months later there is a DoS cyber attack on the website and the IT department did not have a current contingency plan or disaster recovery plan. They failed to get any form of support from the Qdata as promised. Everything started falling apart.

Business Strategy

iPremier is in its maturity stage and is looking for ways to grow the profitability of the company by increasing revenue and cutting costs. The company is currently making a thin profit and as a result is looking to make their operations more robust. They are currently focusing on the less expensive products that range between $50 to a couple of hundred dollars. The customers of the company are upper middle class people who can afford to and typically use credit cards. iPremier has a policy of doing whatever it takes to finish the project.

IT Alignment

IT plays a huge role in supporting the business, since the core competencies of its business are low inventory and low overhead. The company's goal is to provide convenience to their customers supported by its online model. IT is critical in insuring the show runs smoothly. For example, customers experiences with ease of browsing and using the website to make purchases falls within IT's domain. Moreover and just as important, security of sensitive customer data such as credit cards information falls under IT as well.

Other IT Management Issues

Since the company's business strategy is to focus on low cost, IT helps the business achieve its goal by providing better management of information within and outside the organization. Though IT is currently operating without open issues, there is room for improvement. The company can cancel the contract with Qdata and move to a data center that fits their requirements, or alternatively, they could set up a data center in-house. The company is also lacking a strong disaster management standard protocol. By improving their partnership with its third party provider and establishing a living disaster protocol document then, in case of emergency, iPremier can better handle issues such as a DoS attack.

Theme

The iPremier case shows the importance of managing security in the online business world. The company faces a cyber attack of type called Denial of Service (DoS). United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team defines DoS as when an attacker attempts to prevent legitimate users from accessing information or services (http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST04-015.html).

In the case of iPremier, the DoS attack was caused by script kiddies. iPremier was fortunate in that sensitive customer data was not breached due to their poor security. With e-commerce being one of the fastest growing industries, IT security has gained a significant interest among IT groups around the world. MIT broadly defines IT information security as keeping electronic information private and protected from falling into the hands of those without authorization to see or use that information (http://ist.mit.edu/security/whatis). It is the responsibility of the organization to secure information of the company. Organizations have started taking online security quite seriously, as any breach of security could lead to monetary and non-monetary losses such as reputation to the company.

Section 2 - Integration

(Each Integration Element must have a title that describes it)

These integration points are common elements found in multiple cases. Each of these common elements should be discussed using examples from the other cases. Be sure to tell me in reasonable detail how the integration relates. Don't simply say "This is similar to the experiences of Proctor & Gamble." Tell us how this is similar to the experiences of Proctor & Gamble. The better your integration, the better your grade. Give the integration element a meaningful name. These subheadings help the reader understand what the integration element is. You need to have 4 integration elements (no more or less!). This section should be a maximum of 6 pages long.

Integration Element 1

IF IT AINT BROKE, DON'T FIX IT?

(If it Ain't Broke, Why spend Money?)

The Walsham Hotel is a luxury hotel that caters to customers who expect a high standard of eloquence and service. As a result, Walsham tended to renovate and redecorate its property on a five year cycle. Changing customer expectations, current fashions and technologies usually drove such renovation. Recognizing that happy satisfied customers was one of its keys to profit making or success, the Walsham hotel management team did all that was in their power to keep their customers happy and went a step further to anticipate the needs of their customers. As the new Director of Rooms for the hotel, Darren Matthews is looking to keep up with technology by introducing the Mechatronic Kool Nitro 346 Mini-Bar, which was recently installed in a prestigious Canadian hotel. Even though the current bars at the hotel are working fine, Matthews realized the importance of upgrading to serve customers better.

In comparison to the Walsham Hotel, iPremier also catered to a high-end customer base. Unlike the Walsham Hotel, iPremier didn't take into consideration what was best for its customers or what could