An Analysis of Du Pont's Global Information System

The global marketplace requires corporations to manage highly complex networks of business information. These information networks cover every aspect of a company's activities, from technology to planning and personnel. This is so because "the interaction among markets, firms, and technology is a complex socioeconomic and technical process." The key to managing this technical process is information technology (IT). This fact is especially true for a firm attempting to sustain its competitive position across multinational and transnational boundaries.

If a corporation is to compete and prosper globally, its success will depend, not on its performance within individual national markets, but on its ability to integrate and manage its worldwide systems. "These systems involve partnerships with independent corporate entities that may entail the interchange of information and management processes across both legal organizational and national boundaries."

Information technology optimizes both the integration and management of global networks in four essential ways: it enables the tracking of routine activities; it helps to create information networks that share important data; it promotes better decision-making through the use of expert systems; and it provides decision support for planning and problem-solving. Companies that have entered the global marketplace have learned that designing an effective information sys

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on flow, but a higher degree of coordination, and a more standardized information flow. What was needed was to develop a global information system (GIS) to replace the old multinational one. Du Pont is now in the process of reorganizing itself along transnational business lines. Corporate operations have been divided among nine integrated departments which form a worldwide matrix of companies. This entire structure, which enables the company to retain its flexibility and decentralized organizational approach, depends upon Du Pont's newly devised GIS information management system. This system is being designed to respond both to the needs of Du Pont's foreign operating subsidiaries and to the needs of its central management hierarchy. We will examine this new information system in some detail. Du Pont has set four overall goals for its information system strategy: 1) to create a worldwide, reliable and secure information network at less cost that its competitors, 2) to promote a more efficient use of the company's information technology, 3) to introduce new information technology faster than the competition, and 3) to create a management group dedicated to IT services. To accomplish these goals, Du Pont determined to rep
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Approximate Word count = 2256
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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