The Information Archipelago—Maps and Bridges

• The vice president of services of a large durables manufacturing company recently faced a dilemma. Her request for a stand-alone word processor to solve operating problems in her fastest-growing sales office had been denied. It had seemed a trivial request; yet having to do without the word processor would cause delays, and she thought that the decision set a dangerous precedent. The reason the accounting department gave for denying the machine was its incompatibility with the division’s information services network. When she questioned this, an incomprehensible series of technical arguments ensued that appeared to have no relationship to her very real productivity problem. Should she fall in line, fight the decision, or resubmit the request as an operating expense instead of a capital expenditure?

• A major manufacturing company has reduced the processing capacity and staffing of its corporate data processing center by 60% over the past four years. The divisional data centers have grown to such an extent, however, that overall corporate data processing expenditures have risen more than 50% during the period.

• After careful analysis, the senior staff of a decentralized insurance company recommended an orderly dissolution of the company’s $25 million data center and the creation of eight smaller diversified data centers over a 30-month period.

These actual incidents are not unusual. Repeatedly over the past ten years, technological change has made organization structures for information services obsolete in many companies and has forced, or will force, major reorganization. There are several reasons for this.