INTERACTIVE SESSION: ORGANIZATIONS Case Study #1 DENVER GOES ALFRESCO Most of us have never contemplated the totality of services provided every day by our local or city gov-ernments. From administering elections to maintaining a court system, a coroner’s office, birth and death records, and deeds of trust, to managing trash pickup, recycling programs, and hazardous waste disposal, local governments are document repositories extraordinaire! The consolidated city-county government of Denver, Colorado, is a striking case in point. With a combined population of over 600,000, and encompassing 155 square miles and 80 defined neighborhoods, this fused governmental entity oversees nearly 140 schools, over 200 parks, 29 recreation centers, 14 public libraries, 34 fire stations, over 1,000 buses and five light rail lines, Denver International Airport (DIA), an animal shelter, a Department of Motor Vehicles, and hundreds of other governmental departments and services. The amount of documentation in the varied and yet often interconnected departments is staggering. Nearly $1 billion and over 10,000 employees are needed to keep Denver’s services running and to record, verify, and compile all of the supporting documentation. In 2005, the more than 70 agencies of the con-solidated city-county government used 14 different document management systems, none of which could communicate or interact with each other. The Information Technology department supervised multiple autonomous IT units with their own systems and standards. This decentralization created problems not just with document sharing, but also with document security and the ability to audit record keeping functions, particularly scanned contracts and financial records. Employee productivity was negatively impacted through time wasted in locating required documents from other agencies, duplication of IT functions, and cumbersome document scanning applications. Mayor John Hickenlooper, a proponent of government transparency and efficiency, created a centralized IT group and assigned it the task of conceiving an integrated strategy to unify and streamline IT functions. Scrapping the 14 document management systems was an obvious first cost-saving action. The enterprise content management (ECM) system adopted would need to revamp the city’s contract record system so that it no longer needed a nightly reboot, met security standards, and was easily searchable for employees across agencies. Described by Al Rosabal, Deputy CIO Denver City and County, as an “end-of-life” system, the existing system had poor search capabilities and overall feeble performance. Initially, the Technology Services Group was stymied in locating a cost-effective solution that could be implemented without any interruption in service. Then it discovered Alfresco. Alfresco’s all-Web-based, open source ECM system was not only affordable to implement, but would conservatively save Denver approximately $1.5 million over five years. CIO.

1. INTERACTIVE SESSION: ORGANIZATIONS
Case Study #1
DENVER GOES ALFRESCO
Most of us have never contemplated the totality of services
provided every day by our local or city gov-ernments. From
administering elections to maintaining a court system, a
coroner’s office, birth and death records, and deeds of trust, to
managing trash pickup, recycling programs, and hazardous
waste disposal, local governments are document repositories
extraordinaire! The consolidated city-county government of
Denver, Colorado, is a striking case in point. With a combined
population of over 600,000, and encompassing 155 square miles
and 80 defined neighborhoods, this fused governmental entity
oversees nearly 140 schools, over 200 parks, 29 recreation
centers, 14 public libraries, 34 fire stations, over 1,000 buses
and five light rail lines, Denver International Airport (DIA), an
animal shelter, a Department of Motor Vehicles, and hundreds
of other governmental departments and services. The amount of
documentation in the varied and yet often interconnected
departments is staggering. Nearly $1 billion and over 10,000
employees are needed to keep Denver’s services running and to
record, verify, and compile all of the supporting documentation.
In 2005, the more than 70 agencies of the con-solidated city-
county government used 14 different document management
systems, none of which could communicate or interact with each
other. The Information Technology department supervised
multiple autonomous IT units with their own systems and
standards. This decentralization created problems not just with
document sharing, but also with document security and the
ability to audit record keeping functions, particularly scanned
contracts and financial records. Employee productivity was
negatively impacted through time wasted in locating required
documents from other agencies, duplication of IT functions, and

2. cumbersome document scanning applications. Mayor John
Hickenlooper, a proponent of government transparency and
efficiency, created a centralized IT group and assigned it the
task of conceiving an integrated strategy to unify and streamline
IT functions. Scrapping the 14 document management systems
was an obvious first cost-saving action. The enterprise content
management (ECM) system adopted would need to revamp the
city’s contract record system so that it no longer needed a
nightly reboot, met security standards, and was easily
searchable for employees across agencies. Described by Al
Rosabal, Deputy CIO Denver City and County, as an “end-of-
life” system, the existing system had poor search capabilities
and overall feeble performance. Initially, the Technology
Services Group was stymied in locating a cost-effective solution
that could be implemented without any interruption in service.
Then it discovered Alfresco. Alfresco’s all-Web-based, open
source ECM system was not only affordable to implement, but
would conservatively save Denver approximately $1.5 million
over five years. CIO Rosabal estimates that, over time, the open
source model could save the city up to $1 million a year in
recurring licensing, deployment, and maintenance costs as
opposed to a proprietary system. Alfresco’s ECM capabilities
include document, record, and image management, document
versioning, multi-language support, support for multiple client
operating systems (Windows, GNU/Linux, and Solaris), Web
content management, and integration with MySQL, which
Denver used for its relational database management system.
With a browser-based graphical user interface and integration
with the most commonly used Microsoft Office suites, Alfresco
ECM was a perfect fit to economically meet Denver’s needs.
Implementation began in 2009 and took place in 6- to 12-week
cycles over 15 months’ time. Each cycle also included employee
training. This gradual phase-in encouraged employee
cooperation and allowed time for feedback before the next
learning curve began. For the auditor and controller offices,
Alfresco was integrated with the current PeopleSoft Financial

3. Management software so that employees could view contracts
and associated content within the familiar interface. Complete
automation of the contract requisition, writing, and
authorization processes resulted in accelerated contract
approval time and enhanced contract and financial document
auditing. The procurement process had the same structural
problems as the IT department; it was spread throughout
multiple autonomous or semi-autonomous agencies. To
centralize and standardize the procure-to-pay process (which
includes the initial decision to make the purchase, the process
of selecting the goods, and the transaction to pay for the goods
purchased), the existing PeopleSoft Financials system was again
leveraged. Elements of the workflow and the I
document repository were handled by Alfresco, and a Web
service was used to communicate and move requisitions,
purchase orders, receiving documents, accounts payable
invoices, and associated documents between Alfresco and
PeopleSoft Financials. In addition, an Alfresco content
repository maintained all data retention policies. According to
Rosabal, another important part of the long-term strategy was to
improve citizen engagement. A key element was to extend the
document repository to citizens. While many documents could
be obtained at government offices, Denver wanted to provide
citizens with online access at a reduced cost. As with the
contract record system and the procure-to-pay process, Oracle
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) was used to integrate Alfresco
with PeopleSoft and other key applications. This enabled data to
be routed as Extensible Markup Language (XML) messages
between multiple applications. Documents could now be moved
between Alfresco and PeopleSoft and made available to citizens
on the Web. Another initiative to better serve citizens was an
upgrade to the 311 service. 311 is a special non-emergency
phone number in many communities that connects citizens to a
Citizen Service Center. Residents can call to report community
concerns such as pot-holes, barking dogs and other noise

4. disturbances, graffiti, roadway debris, and dysfunctional street
and traffic lights. Denver migrated the 311 service online by
reusing newly created Web services and incorporating Alfresco
with the call center and customer relationship management
(CRM) software. Citizens can now use an online form to submit
complaints and concerns from their computer or through iPhone
and iPad apps. With the Alfresco ECM, PeopleSoft, and Oracle
ESB infrastructure in place, Denver can now reuse the 311
application technology to proceed to new initiatives such as
migrating various licensing, permitting, and inspection
programs online and making them accessible to mobile devices.
If the projected cost savings are fully realized, Denver can look
for-ward to not only improved employee productivity, superior
document access, auditing, and security, and enhanced service
to its citizenry, but the ability to strategically invest in future
technology.
Sources: “The City and County of Denver Automate Business
Processes and Improve Citizen Engagement with Zia Consulting
and Alfresco Software,” www.alfresco.com, accessed June 10,
2012; www.denvergov.org accessed June 15th, 2012; Paul
Hampton, “Why We selected Alfresco — City of Denver,”
Alfresco Video Blog, http://blogs.alfresco.com/wp/videoblog/,
August 12th, 2010; and Global EDD Group, “Video: Alfresco
Document Management at City of Denver — Customer Case
Study,” http://www.legaltech-today.com/2010/10/24/video-
alfresco-document-management-at-city-of-denver-customer-
case-study, October 24, 2010.
CASE STUDY QUESTIONS
1.
What types of problems was the consolidated city-county
government of Denver, Colorado, experiencing with document
management before instituting the Alfresco ECM system?
2.
How did the Alfresco ECM system provide a solution to these

5. problems?
3.
What management, organization, and technology issues had to
be addressed in selecting and implementing Denver’s new
content management system?
4.
How did the new content management system change
governmental processes for Denver? How did it benefit
citizens?
Case Study #2
INTERACTIVE SESSION: TECHNOLOGY
FIREWIRE SURFBOARDS LIGHTS UP WITH CAD
Nev Hyman had been building surfboards in Australia for 35
years. In 2005, he teamed up with Mark Price and a group of
longtime surfing friends in Carlsbad, California, to form
Firewire Surfboards. This company thrives on innovation and
was responsible for the first major change in surfboard
composition and assembly methods in 40 years. Rather than
polyurethane resin and polyurethane foam, Firewire’s boards
were composed of expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam and epoxy
resins. Hyman and Price believed that this composition for the
surfboard core, along with aerospace composites for the deck
skin and balsa wood rails (the out-side edge), created a more
flexible and maneuverable product that would attract top surfers
and set Firewire apart from its competitors. Firewire is
competing in a crowded field that includes Isle Surfboards,
Surftech, Aviso Surf, Board works Surf, Channel Island, and
Lost Enterprises. Firewire is alone in the reintroduction of balsa
wood to the board rails for added flex response time and the

6. ability to maintain speed during precarious maneuvers. Firewire
believes it can compete success-fully because its surfboards are
far lighter, stronger, and more flexible than those of its
competitors. An additional selling point is the reduced
environmental impact: Firewire’s materials emit only 2 percent
of the harmful compounds of traditional boards and recycling
excess expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam has earned Firewire
international awards and acclaim. But that isn’t enough. To
make sure it stays ahead of the competition, Firewire decided to
start making custom surfboards instead of just the usual off-the-
rack sizes. For the everyday surfer, the durability and flexibility
of Firewire’s materials was a key selling point. However,
custom boards made to surfer specifications are critical in the
elite surfboard market, and the ability to claim top-level
competitive surfers as customers drives the broader surfboard
market as well. Traditionally, skilled craftsman, called shapers,
designed and built surfboards by hand, but Firewire started
doing some of this work using computer-aided designs (CAD)
sent to cutting facilities. The company’s computer-aided
manufacturing process returned to the shaper a board that was
85 to 90 percent complete, leaving the artisan to complete the
customization and the lamination process. According to Price,
who became Firewire’s CEO, there are 29 time-consuming and
labor-intensive steps in the surfboard manufacturing process.
Initially, the multifaceted manufacturing process made it
impossible to offer personalized CAD to the average consumer.
Customized boards could only be produced for elite competitive
customers. There was no way to offer customization to a wider
market without overburdening Firewire’s CAD system.
Moreover, most custom boards had to be ordered by filling out a
piece of paper with various dimensions for the requested
changes. There was no way to see a visual representation of
these adjustments or assess their impact on the board’s volume,
which directly affects buoyancy, paddling ability, and
performance.

7. Firewire needed a system that would allow customers to
experiment with established designs, feed the CAD process, and
integrate it with its
computer numerical control (CNC) manufacturing process.
Enter ShapeLogic Design-to-Order Live! For NX, which
provides an online customization system with a Web-based user
interface and advanced 3-D CAD tools. Firewire started
working with the ShapeLogic NX software in 2009 to develop
its own Firewire Surfboards’ Custom Board Design (CBD)
system, which allows users to easily manipulate board
dimensions of established models within design parameters.
Any registered customer can choose a standard Firewire model
and use drag-and-drop tools to adjust the board’s length,
midpoint width, nose width, tail width, and thickness, as long as
these changes don’t degrade the board’s design integrity. CBD
generates a precise three-dimensional model of the stock model
used as the base design along with a 3-D portable document
format (PDF) file of the customized board. The PDF file
documents the board’s dimensions and volume. A customer can
manipulate the model from all angles and compare the
customized board to the standard board to fully understand the
design before placing an order. When the customer uses the
system to order a custom board, CBD generates a precise solid
CAD model of the board that is transmitted directly to the
Firewire factory for driving the CNC machines that manufacture
the board. This combination of technologies results in a board
that is 97 percent complete, minimizing the manufacturing time,
finishing process, and thus, costs to the consumer. In contrast to
the earlier CAD assisted, 10 to 15 percent hand-finished boards,
once a surfer has designed the board of his or her dreams, it can
be remade to those exact specifications time and again. Neither
the ideal handmade board nor a shaper-finished board can be
replicated with this degree of precision. An additional benefit of
Firewire’s online design system is the social networking
engendered by the sharing of customers’ unique design files.

8. Before placing an order, customers can show their modifications
to fellow surfers and ask for opinions and advice. After placing
an order and using the product, they can report their experiences
and (hopefully) tout their design or suggest improvements to
other customers. Interactive communication such as this drives
customers to the Firewire site, creating a marketing buzz that
boosts sales.
Sources: “Case Study: NX CAD technology drives custom surf-
board design,” http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us,
accessed June 14, 2012; “Firewire Surfboards by Nev Hyman,”
www.allaboutsurfboards.com, accessed June 14, 2012;
“Firewire Partners with NanoTune ‘Board Tuning Technology,’”
www.surf-newsdaily.com, February 22, 2012; William
Atkinson, “How Firewire Surfboards Refined Its 3D Order
Customization,” www.cioinsight.com, November 21, 2011;
“Firewire Surfboards Custom Board Design Blends
Replicability of Machine Made Boards With Uniqueness of
Custom Boards,” http://surfingnewsdaily.com, October 12,
2011; and “Firewire Surfboards Garner Recognition for
Technological Advances,” www.surfermag.com, July 22, 2010.
CASE STUDY QUESTIONS
1.
Analyze Firewire using the value chain and competitive forces
models.
2.
What strategies is Firewire using to differentiate its product,
reach its customers, and persuade them to buy its products?
3.
What is the role of CAD in Firewire’s business model?
4.

9. How did the integration of online custom board design software
(CBD), CAD, and computer numerical control (CNC) improve
Firewire’s operations?
Case Study #3
INTERACTIVE SESSION: MANAGEMENT
COLGATE-PALMOLIVE KEEPS MANAGERS SMILING
WITH
EXECUTIVE DASHBOARDS
Colgate-Palmolive Company is the second largest consumer
products company in the world whose products are marketed in
over 200 countries and territories. The company had 38,600
employees worldwide and $16.734 billion in annual revenue in
2011. Colgate has been keeping people smiling and clean
around the world, with more than three- quarters of its sales in
recent years coming from out-side the United States. Colgate’s
brands in oral products, soap, and pet food, are global names,
including Colgate, Palmolive, Mennen, Softsoap, Irish Spring,
Protex, Sorriso, Kolynos, Elmex, Tom's of Maine, Ajax, Axion,
Fabuloso, Soupline, and Suavitel, as well as Hill's Science Diet
and Hill's Prescription Diet. The secret to continued growth and
stability for the past two decades has been Colgate’s ability to
move its brands off shore to Latin America, Europe and Asia. In
the past, Colgate divided the world into geographic regions:
Latin American, Europe, Asia, and North America. Each region
had its own information systems. As long as the regions did not
need to share resources or information this patchwork system
worked, more or less. This all changed as global operations
became more integrated and senior management needed to
oversee and coordinate these operations more closely. Colgate
had been a global SAP user since the early 1990s, but it was
running five separate ERP systems to serve its different
geographic regions. Over a period of time, disparities in the
data developed between different geographic regions and
between the data used at the corporate level and the data used
by an individual region or business unit. The data were

10. constantly changing. For example, every time a sales report was
run, it showed different numbers for orders and shipments.
Colgate wanted more usable data to drive business decisions
and all of its managers and business units worldwide to use the
same version of the data. Colgate chose to solve this problem by
creating a single global data repository using SAP NetWeaver
Business Warehouse, SAP’s analytical, reporting and data
warehousing solution. Colgate’s regional ERP systems feed
their data to the warehouse, where the data are standardized and
formatted for enterprise-wide reporting and analysis. This
eliminates differences in data across the enterprise. One of the
outputs of the warehouse for senior managers is a daily HTML
table showing a series of financial and operational metrics for
the day com-pared to the previous month and quarter. The data
the executives see is exactly the same as what their peers in all
Colgate regions and business units see. However, the data were
not being used by enough employees in their decision making to
have an impact on business benefits. Colgate’s power users had
no trouble using the reporting and analytical tools provided by
the warehouse, and they were satisfied with the matrix reports
from the system. Colgate’s senior managers and other casual
users, on the other hand, did not feel comfortable running ad
hoc reports or drilling down into the layers of data to answer
questions the data brought to light. They did not have much
time to spend developing reports, and the standard reports
produced for them by the warehouse lacked navigation and drill
down capabilities. Tables had no color coding so users could
only interpret the data by scrutinizing the numbers on the table.
Eventually Colgate’s senior managers and other casual users
began requesting deeper access to the warehouse data in a more
timely and user-friendly format. They wanted reports that were
easier to run and where the data could be interpreted faster.
Senior management requested customizable, real-time
dashboards that could be more easily used to drive performance
improvement. Colgate’s information systems specialists then
implemented SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator to speed up data

11. loads and improve user perception and adoption and SAP
BusinessObjects Web Intelligence to build customized reports.
SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence provides a powerful,
intuitive interface that enables business analysts and non-
technical business professionals to ask spontaneous questions
about their data. Casual business users can use simple drag-and-
drop techniques to access data sources and create interactive
reports that drill, slice and format information based on their
needs. Tools for cutting edge visualization allow end users to
view two- and three-dimensional charts and hone in on specific
areas of focus. Colgate started using SAP’s Business Objects
tools to build user-friendly dashboards, and quickly created
dashboard prototypes for management to review. Once
management approved the dashboard design, the dashboards
were populated with production data. Now Colgate’s senior
managers are running the
dashboards to monitor the business from a high level. Employee
training was essential to the dashboards’ success. Members of
Colgate’s global information systems development team created
customized courses for Colgate’s 65 business intelligence
experts and ran the classroom training. The training identified
people that could be used as resources for developing the
reporting tools. When word spread about the dashboards’
capabilities, Colgate’s power users signed up for the classes as
well. For Colgate, better reporting tools that can sup-port
different kinds of users have greatly expanded the use of
business intelligence throughout the company. Currently about
4000 users interact with Colgate’s SAP systems daily but this
number is expected to expand to 15,000 to 20,000 users in the
future. People who are accustomed to seeing reports stuffed
with numbers are finding that they can use the information
presented in dashboards to make faster decisions. For example,
managers can determine positive or negative financial
conditions by simply looking for where dashboard reports use
the color green, which reflects improvements in Colgate’s

12. financial position. Executives who formerly relied on other
people to obtain their custom reports and data are able to access
the information on their own. They can see real data from the
system much more easily and quickly.
Sources: Paul Ziobro,
“Colgate Shows Improved Growth,” Wall Street Journal, April
26, 2012;
Colgate Palmolive Corporation,
“SEC Form 10K for the Fiscal Year Ending December 31,
2011,” Colgate Palmolive Corporation, February 26, 2012;
David Hannon, “Colgate-Palmolive Empowers Senior Leaders
with Executive Dashboards,” SAP InsiderPROFILES, April–
June 2011; www.colgatepalmolive.com, accessed July 22, 2012;
and SAP, “Placing Relevant Business Content within Business
User Reach,” 2011.
CASE STUDY QUESTIONS
1. Describe the different types of business intelligence users at
Colgate-Palmolive.
2. Describe the “people” issues that were affecting Colgate’s
ability to use business intelligence.
3. What management, organization, and technology factors had
to be addressed in providing business intelligence capabilities
for each type of user?
4. What kind of decisions does Colgate’s new business
intelligence capability support? Give three examples. What is
their potential business impact?
**For each of these, only answer the case study questions
associated with them found at the end of the discussion. You do
not need to answer the "MIS in Action" questions.