In the light of continuing financial troubles, a new CEO was hired and the company shifted to a Defender business strategy. Alpha stopped growing and started cutting costs. The new CEO centralized the business structure, instituted clear lines of reporting, and took a greater role in all major decisions. The changes in top management, strategy, and structure on the business side were accompanied by major changes in IS. Realizing thai IS could play a strategic role in offering new opportunities, particularly in cutting business costs, IS's role shifted to seeking efficiency, thereby increasing alignment with the new Defender strategy. IS continued to be insourced. A new CIO was hired, who stopped most of tbe ongoing IS activities and focused on major cost-cutting initiatives.
However, he shifted the previously centralized IS to a more shared form
by moving many IS personnel to user areas. This was a paradoxical decision,
since the previous centralized IS structure was more suitable for the new business
strategy and tbe IS rt)le. The shared structure was intended to improve the
quality of IS services, which would have been appropriate for an IS role emphasizing
comprehensiveness, but not for the new efficiency orientation.