Question

Dazzling Company manufactures women jewelry. The company began operations several years ago and has experienced rapid sales growth. The company is organized by business function, with vice-presidents for manufacturing, marketing, finance, accounting, and general administration. The firm operates a computer network, which supports a variety of applications for manufacturing, marketing, finance, accounting and general administration. The manager of information systems (IS) reports to the vice-president of general administration. The company’s rapid growth has strained the firm’s computer resources, and the number of complaints concerning inadequate support and services from IS has increased dramatically in the past year. The voce-presidents for both manufacturing and marketing have taken their complaints about IS directly to the company presidents. Citing inadequate IS support of the online computer applications relating to inventory control and shipment information, manufacturing and marketing have requested that the firm purchase a computer that would be used exclusively to support these systems. The president is somewhat perplexed by this request because she recently received a request from the vice-president of general administration to fund a significant upgrading of the firm’s mainframe computer system. The president is also aware that the finance and accounting divisions have recently began using cloud computer services for several tasks and are planning to request funds for additional cloud computing applications in their next budget submission. The president realizes that importance of adequate computer resources to firm’s operations, but given the recent complaints about IS support and these seemingly contradictory requests for additional computer hardware and cloud computing services, she has begun to wonder whether there is sufficient control and adequate planning for acquisition and use of computer resources at Dazzling Company. The president thinks forming a steering committee might help solve these problems.

Required:

i. Explain the steering committee.

ii. Discuss the FIVE (5) roles of a steering committee in planning for acquisition and use of computer resources at Dazzling Company.

iii. Discuss several accounting-related decisions that you feel might be made by the following personnel in Dazzling Company:

a) President of company

b) Controller

c) Accounting manager.

Answer 1

Steering Committee: Steering committees are advisory bodies that are made up of senior stakeholders or experts that provide guidance on a lot of different issues that could face companies such as budgets, new endeavors, company policy, marketing strategies, and project management concerns.

Roles of a steering committee in planning for acquisition and use of computer resources at Dazzling Company:

1. Providing advice on the requirement of New resources (Cloud Computing)
2. Providing advice on budget of New system.
3. Analysing and providing details of use of present computer system at Dazzling Company.
4. Identifying the success of new project as there are some problems in old sysytem.
5. Identifying the reasons for inadequate support from IS Department.
6. Monitoring risks.
7. Monitoring timelines.

Accounting related decisions:

1. Decisions to be taken by president : Immediate support to Accounts department in IS aspect, Analysing reasons for acquisition of cloud computing services, Check whether staff are sufficient as the organisation is growing and depute staff based on request.
2. Decisions to be taken by Controller : Controller has two roles - Support role and Control role. In Support role his duty is take decisions on implementation of decisions by Management. Control role is to provide information to management on timely basis relating to Finance. In this regard, Fixing timelines, resolving their queries by escalating to senior management.
3. Decisions to be taken by Accounts Manager : Accounts manager duty is to comply with the decisions of Management and Controller. In this regard, he has to exercise control over Internal Controls and staff for ontime delivery of information.