How IT Governance Could Help FeneTech, Inc. Emily Baumgartner Muskingum University. IT Governance and FeneTech 1

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1 How IT Governance Could Help FeneTech, Inc. Emily Baumgartner Muskingum University IT Governance and FeneTech 1

2 IT Governance and FeneTech 2 Introduction As the CIO of FeneTech, Inc., it has come to my attention that we are not using information technology (IT) to its full advantage. We are not creating much value from IT, and we are not using it in a way that can help our company succeed in the future. As a company that relies on IT for their everyday job tasks, it is important to take into consideration a platform called COBIT, which is a leading framework for managing IT value. There are many things in our IT infrastructure that work, but at the same time there are many things that could be improved to help the company continue to grow and maintain their status as being the best software provider for the glass and window manufacturing industries. Company and Project Structure FeneTech thrives in creating software for window and glass manufacturers. We develop software pertinent to the needs of the customers and make modifications to our existing software if the customer requires it for their production. Our software starts with a base where no special modifications are made. The customer specifies what their processes are and all of these special changes are documented in the whiteboarding stage of the project. All of these documents are stored internally in our system called

3 IT Governance and FeneTech 3 SubVersion, which keeps track of all documents pertaining to a customer s project. The customer sets up a server that will host the FeneVision database on Microsoft SQL and Reporting Services for generating reports within our software. The customer is to set up the server according to the guide we provide. After the server is set up, someone from FeneTech is in charge of setting up the FeneVision database and reports, as well as installing FeneVision software onto the server. After the software is installed, the configuration can start. FeneTech employees help the customer to set up the system to meet the customer s needs. This includes setting up all the parts in the system, helping with importing their customers, importing their vendors, helping train on pricing and work routing, and setting up their bill of materials (BOM) for their ordered products. FeneTech is also responsible for training the customer on the features of the software and ensuring they understand how the software is run. IT is invaluable to this process as it is used to remote into the customer s server, communicate directly with the customer, and save all documents required for configuration and testing. It is not only important that we have a working IT infrastructure, it is also imperative to our company that it is easy to access the customer s server and that our internet is quick enough that we can do our everyday jobs. COBIT 5 and How It Can Help

4 IT Governance and FeneTech 4 COBIT 5 (Control objectives for information and related technologies) is a business framework for IT governance and management of IT. According to the COBIT 5 website at the ISACA website, COBIT 5 helps enterprises of all sizes: Maintain high-quality information to support business decisions Achieve strategic goals and realize business benefits through the effective and innovative use of IT Achieve operational excellence through reliable, efficient application of technology Maintain IT-related risk at an acceptable level Optimize the cost of IT services and technology Support compliance with relevant laws, regulations, contractual agreements and policies COBIT has 5 principles that are useful for enterprises of all sizes. They are meeting stakeholder needs, covering the enterprise end to end, applying a single integrated framework, enabling a holistic approach, and separating governance from management. Right now, management and governance are one in the same. There is no difference between them. According to the ISACA website, Governance ensures that enterprise objectives are achieved. Management builds, plans, runs, and monitors activities in alignment with the direction set by the governance body to achieve the enterprise objectives.

5 IT Governance and FeneTech 5 FeneTech is in need of a better way to document risk, to use IT to its fullest, and to optimize the IT infrastructure in the best way possible to reap benefits for the future. Creating value from IT is something that FeneTech has room to improve in. One of the main focuses COBIT explores is information. Information is a key resource of all enterprises and is invaluable to FeneTech. Technology plays a key role in information as it is created, used, retained, disclosed, and destroyed. So much information is given to FeneTech that is hold in confidence. Information is stored in our servers for companies, is used to configure software, and is critical to the success of the company. According to the ISACA website, enterprises and their executives strive to maintain quality information to support business decisions, generate business value from IT-enabled investments, achieve operational excellence through reliable and efficient application of technology, maintain IT-related risk at an acceptable level, and optimize the cost of IT services and technology. A large part of COBIT is delivering enterprise stakeholder value. This means to create value from IT and increase value in other areas of the company. COBIT provides a framework that assists enterprises to achieve their goals. This framework could be very beneficial to FeneTech as it helps deliver value through effective governance. Goals cascade helps to take stakeholder needs and create goals from them within the enterprise.

6 IT Governance and FeneTech 6 FeneTech also needs to have a better system in place to define and manage risk. When projects are started, it seems that we go into them blindly. We will not know the issues until they start happening. For example, sales promised a customer a program that was not fully developed yet and the customer was disappointed and cancelled their contract when they realized that the software was not done nor working to their standards. FeneTech needs to define the risk with selling a program that does not exist and how that risk can be mitigated so that we do not lose a customer.cobit helps to maintain a balance between realizing benefits and optimizing risk levels. What Works There are many ways that our company uses IT already to create value and many things that we do now that are working. These are building blocks that could help to start the changes to start improving IT even more. In the past few years, measures have been taken to improve the IT infrastructure and use IT more in daily activities. FeneTech has a program called GrandView that is used for tracking expenses, timesheets, and hours for management. It is a great program and is used for many parts of projects including invoicing, and project notes. It also has a built-in Roving application where employees can reserve conference rooms at the click of a button. Having standard procedures over the internet for

7 IT Governance and FeneTech 7 reserving conference rooms and setting out of offices makes everyday functions very easy for employees to do everyday tasks. FeneTech has one standard login for every program that an employee uses, which is very beneficial. This means that a user only has to remember one password to get into their , computer, GrandView, and the servers that we use daily. Our infrastructure works very well in this way. FeneTech also has a sister company, RoviSys that we used to share a building with. RoviSys is in charge of the IT infrastructure of FeneTech, but they work together in a way that makes it easy for employees. For instance, if an employee needs to go over to the RoviSys building, the wireless works in the same way and there is still access to all the same servers as the building FeneTech is in. Goals and Improvements to IT There are several different changes and goals that can be implemented to improve IT value management at FeneTech. Many of these goals and improvements can help to use IT to the fullest potential and increase value from it. Also, it will greatly improve the work efficiency of all of the employees at FeneTech. 1. The largest and most important improvement and goal is to improve the governance of the enterprise IT. There is a large need to drive more value from IT investments and managing risks better will help lead to more

8 IT Governance and FeneTech 8 benefits within the company in the future. This also means separating governance from management, which FeneTech currently is not doing. 2. Upgrade internal servers. The servers at FeneTech are currently running at a slow rate. Many internal processes take much longer to do. Our servers are used for a host of things, such as storing test databases for customers, creating upgrade scripts for new upgrades with customers, hosting our SVN program, storing our documents and files, running our issue tracking software, and storing our build scripts for new builds of the software. When these servers run slowly, it affects much of the efficiency of the work that developers and application engineers do. Sometimes the slowness of the servers also cause scripts and items to crash while in the middle of them. Improving the quality and RAM of the servers can greatly benefit all employees of FeneTech and also cause less problems while working on them. 3. Upgrading the issue tracking software. The support team is a huge part of our company as customers who are already live with the system can and call in their problems with the software. However, the issue tracking software that is used (called Greenmine) is very slow and not very effective. It is very difficult to search for a specific issue within the software because it does not use the keywords correctly. It also take a very long time to search within the software as the server that Greenmine is on is very slow. This causes many issues for the support team who sometimes

9 IT Governance and FeneTech 9 need to find an answer quickly while on the phone with a customer. The positive about Greenmine is that it is very easy to create a support ticket. When a customer s a problem, it automatically generates a ticket and is easy to update when a support team member starts looking at it. It is also very easy when a customer calls to write up a support ticket quickly. The ease of creating and updating tickets needs to flow over to searching for tickets and assigning tickets to support members. Once this is faster, the efficiency of the support group will greatly improve, and more tickets can be solved in a shorter amount of time. This will also lead to more customers wanting to purchase a support contract as they will be satisfied with the quality of service they are getting from FeneTech. 4. Better way to remote into customer s servers. Right now, there is an Excel sheet within our local server that shows how to login to each individual customer s server. Instead of having many different ways to login (such as having to VPN into a customer s site or remote desktop), have one standard system that gives us access to all servers will save a lot of time. There is a support program where a member of another department (QA, Applications, Development) helps support for 3 hours during the afternoon. This would also increase the efficiency of when one of those employees helps with support. Many employees have complained that it takes entirely too long to remote into a customer s server since the login information, VPN information, and RDP information all has to be located.

10 IT Governance and FeneTech 10 Many times, the customer requires a special VPN program to remote in. It is a large hassle can can be alleviated with a system that can improve this procedure by making it one click to login. This will also increase the efficiency of the support team members as they will not have to spend several minutes each time a new ticket comes in logging into the customer s server. 5. Increasing bandwidth. Most of the employees at FeneTech spend a good majority of the day either on customer servers, testing locally on our servers, or developing our software to improve and add more features. Increasing bandwidth of our internet could help make the internet speeds faster, and could also help employees get more done during the day. Many complaints of employees come from slow internet and a hard time accessing what they need to in a quicker time. This will help to become more efficient time-wise and also helps the happiness of employees. Our current IT structure does not allow employees to stream anything during the workday, which helps keep the bandwidth up. However, it could still be improved so everyone can be more efficient. 6. Integrate phone and services. Voice-over-IP phones are becoming increasingly popular within offices and FeneTech could greatly benefit from them. Having a voic sent directly to could really help to create ease within the company. It is also much easier to setup callforwarding and set out of offices when the employee is traveling or on

11 IT Governance and FeneTech 11 vacation. Having the ability to check voic s from could lead to quicker response times, and satisfied customers. Again, this is a features that could help the support department the most as they are answering phones several times during the day. If a support member happens to be away from their desk, they can still check their voic s on their cell phones through . Conclusion COBIT would be a great way to help FeneTech accomplish their IT goals and start creating value from IT. It will help to bring success to FeneTech in the future while keeping the customer s happy with quick, prompt service. It will also help the employees in their everyday tasks, as more work can be done when the IT infrastructure is better. COBIT will do nothing but aid FeneTech in becoming the best software to use in the fenestration industry.

12 IT Governance and FeneTech 12 Works Cited FeneTech, Inc. (2013). FeneTech, Inc. Retrieved from ISACA. (2008, July). ISACA. VAL IT Framework 2.0. Retrieved from Center/Research/ResearchDeliverables/Pages/Val-IT-Framework-2.0.aspx ISACA. (2008a, July). ISACA. Getting Started with Value Management. Retrieved from Center/Research/Documents/ValIT-GettingStarted-Jul-2008.pdf ISACA. (n.d.). Cobit 5: A business framework for the governance and management of enterprise IT. Retrieved from ISACA. (n.d.). Cobit 5: A business framework for the governance and management of enterprise IT. Retrieved from ITGI. (2013). IT Governance Institute. Retrieved from