Strategic Information Systems Planning at Cfcu

Memo

To:            Esther E. Klein, Ph.D.

From:            Frank Rizzuto

Date:            4/22/16

Re:            CFCU MINICASE

Strategic Information Systems Planning at CFCU

Campus Federal Credit Union (CFCU) has retained my consulting firm to develop a strategic information systems plan for their banks. The client is a small, regional bank with a long history of serving the community with operations based primarily in personal banking and related products for their leading market of local residents.  After the first day with my new client I begin to ponder the challenges that lay ahead.  

What do you see as the major pitfalls of the current manner in which the information systems budgeting and prioritization process is run?

The CFO of the organization appears to hold the financial reigns with regards to budgeting for Information Systems.  The director of technology services is clearly frustrated with the budgeting process. The current Information System is described as archaic and I clearly sense that budgeting more money towards modernization is going to be difficult without a buy-in from the CFO. The benefits of Information Systems sometimes cannot readily be realized with calculations on ROI and net present valuation numbers.  For example, enhanced customer support leading to higher satisfaction ratings can have huge monetary implications that cannot readily be quantified by a NPV formula. In addition, the budgetary prioritization is   completely lacking.  There is no accounting for modernization under the current system.  How can upgrades transpire if two-thirds of the budget is spent on the bare essentials needed to operate the current system and the remaining third is spend on individual executive projects?

What do you believe are going to be the major challenges you will encounter on this assignment?  

The executives at CFCU have very different ideas of what the role of information systems should be in the organization.  The SVP of marketing has already made up his mind and decided that targeting business intelligence (BI) and customer relationship management (CRM) is paramount for success (and survival).  The CEO, quite frankly, does not appear to have any decisive input and seems comfortable following any strategic planning I devise. I sense the driving force behind the CFO’s thinking process is based solely on cost.  The major challenge I see is that these executives do not have a unity of purpose.  There are major decisions that require managerial involvement for strategic information systems planning. For example, decisions including cost, budgeting and allocation of funds, degree and depth of service the organization needs, standardization versus flexibility for efficient operations and importance of security and privacy for clientele are questions that I, as the consultant, need answered to make the planning process successful. The lack of congruence that I sense will make this difficult.