The cost controls achieved through IS and other means enabled Alpha's turnaround, fallowing which it made several major changes in business and IS strategies. It started concentrating again on sales growth, expanding its leasing offerings. The company shifted back to a Prospector business strategy, with clear reporting structures and roles being blurred and people being rotated frequently across departments and tasks. The importance of IS was reduced; having made
a strategic contribution to the corporate turnaround, IS became non-strategic again. Although ostensibly insourced, the IS function was largely dismantled and had become decentralized to the business units. The CIO disagreed with these ongoing changes and left Alpha. These changes in business strategy and the IS role, which reverted to their positions in Period 1 (Prospector, nonstrategic, respectively) illustrate uncertain turnaround. In both these aspects. Alpha first went in one direction, and then went back in the opposite direction.