Company Profile QUIKDISTRIBUTE is a logistics company that transports and distributes many different products all over S

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Company Profile
QUIKDISTRIBUTE is a logistics company that transports anddistributes many different products all over South Africa for manyclients. For example, QUIKDISTRIBUTE transports soft drinks fromthe soft drink manufacturers to small shops throughout SouthAfrica. QUIKDISTRIBUTE has over 1000 transport vehicles that makeabout 20 000 deliveries every week. QUIKDISTRIBUTE is completelyreliant on its Information Technology (IT) to operate and manageits business, collections and deliveries.
External environment
The logistics market is very competitive because there are manybig and small companies offering transport services. Business hasbeen satisfactory at QUIKDISTRIBUTE, but the company knows that itneeds to improve to survive. Thus, QUIKDISTRIBUTE is concentratingon customer service improvements, cost reductions and efficiencygains by doing the same work with less resources and reducingwaste, duplication and rework.
Information Technology at the company
QUIKDISTRIBUTE operates its Information Technology (IT) in anuncoordinated and haphazard manner, with very little planning andcontrol. As a result, QUIKDISTRIBUTE is experiencing challenges intheir daily IT operations. Often, their systems, such as theircustomer relationship management (CRM) system, collectionscheduling system, vehicle tracking system, product deliveryscheduling system and client invoicing and receipts systems, godown for no apparent reason and no-one in IT knows why or how toget them back online quickly. When they eventually get the systemsback, delivery data and information are sometimes missing orincorrect.
In addition, the IT people are always running around franticallytrying to fix IT problems, so there is never anyone available totake client (internal and external) requests for access to systemsand information, especially for new business and even general ITneeds. The current IT team structure in the IT department is shownin Figure 1.
Figure 1: The current IT team structure in theIT department
These IT problems have a negative impact on QUIKDISTRIBUTE'sbottom line. When these IT problems occur, collections anddeliveries get delayed and even sent to the incorrect addresses,clients get very upset, and some have even taken their valuablebusiness away.
Significant IT problems/issues/circumstances at thecompany
The IT executive had heard about the practice of combining ITdevelopment and IT support teams to improve the entire softwarelifecycle but was unsure what a typical combined team would looklike where an IT development team was combined with an IToperations team. In particular, the IT executive needed tounderstand what typical roles were required for the combined teamthat she wanted to establish.
The IT executive wanted to put together a combined team becausethe current IT team structure in the IT department created problemsfor the IT executive. The IT team structure in the IT departmentresulted in an inability to quickly take advantage of new ITservice opportunities, resulted in suboptimal resource use, baddecision making, lack of transparency, hidden silo agendas andincreased problematic organisational politics.
The IT executive has a dilemma about how to speed up ITdevelopment so that the company can become a leader in the market,but still have stability in the IT operational environment toprevent negative impact on the business and customers. Currently,the business requirements for new developments change all the timeand when the development team hands over a new IT service to the ITservice operations staff there are always incidents, problems,disruptions and conflict. She would appreciate some general,high-level guidance to help her solve this dilemma.
Question 02:
With reference to the IT team structure that created problemsfor the IT executive, what answer option providesthe BEST way forward from an ITSMprinciples perspective and is LOGICALLYCONSISTENT (logically consistent means that all partsin a paragraph are true in relation to all other parts in theparagraph)?
A. Approaching these problems from a Service Value System (SVS)perspective would discourage the technology silos and beginaddressing the resulting problems. Specifically, using therevolutionary operating model emphasises the important activitiesnecessary to meet customer demand and cocreate value with ITservices. The important activities in this operating model areplan, improve, engage, design and transition, obtain or build anddeliver and support. The deliver and support activity is central toan IT operations environment and ensures that IT services aredelivered to customers according to agreed specifications and valueexpectations.
B.Approaching these problems from a Service Value System (SVS)perspective would discourage the technology silos and beginaddressing the resulting problems. Specifically, using the servicevalue chain operating model emphasises the important activitiesnecessary to meet customer demand and cocreate value with ITservices. The important activities in this operating model areplan, improve, engage, design and transition, obtain or build anddeliver and support. The deliver and support activity is central toan IT operations environment and ensures that IT services aredelivered to customers according to agreed specifications and valueexpectations.
C. Approaching these problems from a Service Value System (SVS)perspective would discourage the technology silos and beginaddressing the resulting problems. Specifically, using the servicevalue chain operating model emphasises the important activitiesnecessary to meet customer demand and cocreate value with ITservices. The important activities in this operating model areplan, do, check (study) and act. The act activity is about takingaction to standardise or improve a service or process and iscentral to an IT operations environment and ensures that ITservices are delivered to customers according to agreedspecifications and value expectations.
D. Approaching these problems from a Service Value System (SVS)perspective would discourage the technology silos and beginaddressing the resulting problems. Specifically, using the servicevalue chain operating model emphasises the important activitiesnecessary to meet customer demand and cocreate value with ITservices. The important activities in this operating model areplan, improve, engage, design and transition, obtain or build anddeliver and support. The deliver and support activity is a generalmaintenance function involving minor software patches and similarupgrades that are necessary to keep things going but not central todelivering value to customers.
E. Approaching these problems from a technical perspective woulddiscourage the technology silos and begin addressing the resultingproblems. Specifically, using the technical operating modelemphasises the important activities necessary to meet customerdemand and cocreate value with IT services. The importantactivities in this operating model are technical management,application management, IT operations management and service desk.The IT operations management is central to an IT operationsenvironment and ensures that IT services are delivered to customersaccording to agreed specifications and value expectations.