Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Info 563 Case Preparation : Harley Davidson


Problem/Issue Statement

-          (In the early 2000s) Harley Davidson had only rudimentary IT internal controls

o   Difficult for end users and created potential opportunities for hackers

o   No defined change management process to capture information about who made changes to IT infrastructure components or why

o   Seemingly trivial changes could unexpectedly cause chain reactions and affect several other components

o   Backup and recovery processes were not fully tested and are unreliable

o   Not meeting the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley

-          Managers were not well versed in implementing and managing internal controls

Situation Assessments

-          Goal: to improve internal controls and mitigate the risk of noncompliance to federal mandates

-          Criteria:

o   Avoid hurting product quality

o   Avoid slowing down production

o   Cost

o   Effectiveness with working with the corporation

o   How unproblematic it is to implement

List of Plausible Alternative Courses of Action

-          Converting to the COBIT control framework

o   Since it is already has internationally accepted standard for IT governance and control practices, it may be reliable to go with COBIT control framework

-          Keep using the rudimentary IT internal controls

o   This will not solve the problem of closing the gaps that H-D have, but they are the IT internal controls that they are most familiar with

-          Look for other internal control frameworks that may improve H-D’s system better than COBIT

o   COBIT may be internationally accepted, but that does not guarantee that it would be the best fit for H-D. Looking for other frameworks might close the gaps that H-D might have, but at the same time, it is easier to implement its current IT internal controls

-          Outsourcing

o   Rather than forming a new IT compliance department within the company, maybe H-D can outsource the problem to a more experienced company that can handle the problem better

Evaluation of Alternatives

-          H-D must find an alternative that works best with the criteria that H-D is concerned while also allowing for H-D to accomplish its goals. Since the alternatives are laid out, H-D must do their research to see which of the alternatives fits them best.

Recommendation

-          Quality Recommendation:

o   H-D may rely on COBIT control framework since it is proven to work and is an acceptable standard for IT governance and control practices.

-          Logical Recommendation:

o   H-D should look for other alternatives and compare them with COBIT control framework to see which fits them the best and works well with H-D’s given criteria.

No comments:

Post a Comment