Case Analysis for Cirque du Soleil Case Essay

1. Describe how the touring show life cycle is supported by IT. While reading the case, you can access Cirque’s website and see actual applications (e.g. casting, ticket sales, and Cirque Club). According to this case, every step of the touring show life cycle is supported by IT. With regard to creation stage, IT plays an important role to improve this process. There is an application whose name is Open Eyes developed by IT. All of Cirque’s employees could access to Cirque’s Intranet and share interesting or surprising discoveries to others. Moreover, sharing this kind of information is significant to Cirque du Soleil because it keeps Cirque du Soleil staying top of the newest artistic rends. With regard to design stage, there are several applications created by IT to make those activities of design stage more effective and convenient. A costume application can save a lot of different measurements to costume patterns for every artist and keep this information in a database. The more important point is that this application connects with other applications to manage diverse sides of costume-making process. With regard to preparation stage, there is a Kin-Cirque application developed by IT to help artists practice reinforce their training experience. Physical fitness specialists could know how every artist’s physical condition develops. In addition, Kin-Cirque application connected with other applications to provide the exact physical measurements and needs of artists to equipment department. Then the equipment department can complete their jobs more easily. With regard to the diffusion of Cirque shows, IT has great influences on improving customer’s experience. There is an official website created by IT. People can access to this website from various parts of world. Especially the online forum where people can find special promotion, press galleries, and employment opportunities and so on was built up by IT. What is more, customers can purchase show tickets, select the seats, get the direction and so forth through an online box office. With regard to logistics stage, an e lectronic document management system and linguistic software are created by IT. They can coordinate and calibrate more than 150000 terms which depict countless equipment used at Cirque. Also they are stored in the Cirque’s databases. In addition, â€Å"IT roadcases† and VoIP technology which help Cirque du Soleil reduce a great  amount of time of touring infrastructure were developed by IT. Finally with regard to resource management, IT is widely applied to increase efficiency. IT developed an application which can assist the casting department to manage the artist bank and projects that could be old one, present one and future one. Applicants could submit their videos or performances via this application to conduct the recruitment process and their application materials would be stored in the databases. And that the Virtual Talent Scout was developed in Sep 2007. The pool of talent was enlarged by the Virtual Talent Scout. This increases Cirque’s abilities to deal with artist injury, increasing demand and accidents. In a word, to a large extent the whole touring show life cycle is supported and ameliorated by IT. 2. What was the level of alignment at Cirque du Soleil in 2008? According to the introduction of the case, the level of alignment at Cirque du Soleil is quite high in 2008.   First of all, the touring IT experts work closely with each other, even they are not in the same location. Everyone in the IT team performed as an integral and can resolve a big problem effectively and corporately. Secondly, there are a lot of servers all over the world. Employees can be easy to access to the applications and communicate with others, company, related department and so on very well. In short, in 2008 people at Cirque du Soleil can work together tightly and complete a great number of successful performances around the world. So it is a very high level of alignment at Cirque du Soleil in 2008. 3. What was the level of tension between the business needs and IT capacity? Through reading the whole case, I think the level of tension between the business needs and IT capacity is low. Because IT has improved the whole touring show life cycle and make the business effectively. Moreover, the most important point is that IT has help Cirque du Soleil to increase its customers and reduce the time of setting up the touring infrastructure which means cost of time. According achievements of IT, I could say there was a low level of tension between the business needs and IT capacity. 4. What are the key requirements, in terms of the IT architecture, of the support provided by IT at Cirque du Soleil? IT group needs to integrate the data from diverse activities. The design, ongoing improvement, growth of business, applications should meet the company’s business requirements. Moreover, IT group needs to do their best to make Cirque du Soleil operate efficiency  through information integration and management. Of course, IT group should maintain the databases and ensure all information is updated.