The case study presented in Case 4 is about the South Australian Water company trying to align information technology in a publically owned organization. This case describes the experience of a CIO and the need to drive a wide range of business applications as well as the IT infrastructure to improve the quality of water as the corporate goal. The main challenge confronting the management team is to add value to the business through IT and outsourcing arrangements. The student will analyze the case in six sections in the order followed. Also, these sections must be used to format level 1 heading titles in the case report.

1. Give the case background and organizational environment.
2. Describe the case situation and structure of the organization.
3. Identify the key problems and issues in the case.
4. Describe how the organization responded to those issues with technology and leadership in terms of successes, failures, or unforeseen results.
5. Provide and assessment and reasons for supporting those solutions.
6. Review the case finding and conclude how the solution could be improved or propose something different.

This case was available free to read and download from the Palgrave McMillan Journal of Information Technology site. Cases for free change every week, but the journal offers this disclosure “Palgrave Macmillan and the editorial team have selected this set of papers from the archive of the journal to give a representative sample of the best of our content. These papers, listed in chronological order, are available free to read and download.” The case is included in this page for easy access.

Torogoon, A., Jetton, P., Vlasic, A., & Spiller, J. (2004). Raise your glasses – the water’s magic! Strategic IT at SA Water: a case study in alignment, outsourcing and governance. Journal of Information Technology. 19, 130-139.