Nexteer Automotive is an Automotive company that has many systems that it uses. Some of the systems that Nexteer uses are Service Anywhere, Proofpoint, Encryption, and Okta. Service anywhere is the ticketing system that Nexteer uses for IT related issues. Proofpoint is an email encryption software. Drive encryption is system that locks down your hard drive and you must have a key to unlock it. Okta is a single sign on system that allows people to only remember one username and password.
Many people deal with the different software that Nexteer has. IT, Security, HR. Customers like ford and gm use Nexteers systems. There are many securities in place to keep Nexteer safe.
Nexteer has many different people that have many different roles in the company. From people that handle violations in company policies to handling the business and how it operates. There are also people at Nexteer that are brokers.
Keywords: brokers, organizational policies, encryption, Software-as-a-Service
Nexteer Automotive is an automotive company that makes the steering and driveline columns in cars. Nexteer is a multibillion dollar company that has over 13,000 employees globally including employees in India and China. (Nexteer) Nexteer has many systems in place to help align their business strategies.
The main way for the end user to communicate with IT is through a ticketing system called Service Anywhere. Service anywhere is an out of the box cloud-based service desk solution. It is a Software-as-a-Service management solution from HP. (Wong). Software-as-a-service is a business software that is owned, hosted and managed by external providers, in the case of Service anywhere it is hosted and owned by Micro Focus. The Service-as-a-Support is usually rented and usually used in a multi-tenant architecture. (Loukis) At Nexteer Automotive Service Anywhere is used by DXC (previously HP), Nexteer, and its Joint Ventures.
Service Anywhere is an out of the box ticketing system solution that doesnt have many custom changes that can be made to the system. An out of the box ticketing system means the software is made ready to be installed and used right away. There are pros and cons of an out of the box software. Some pros are that it is ready to be installed, improved updates, customer support lines and online forums. Some cons are changing process to meet software, and never meet all the needs of the company. (Custom) In the case of Service anywhere the pros are that it is an out of the box system, that is ready to be implemented. The biggest down fall is that you can not make anything customizable. Meaning that the tickets have to be basic and cant contain a lot of information. There is not a lot of code changes that you can do, things can not be deleted after they have been created.
Service Anywhere does what most ticketing systems would do, the end user puts a ticket in triggering the ticket to go to someone that can support and help the end user with the issue at hand. Since service anywhere is an issue tracking software there are mechanisms in place to help track issues, track where a ticket is at, track dates, create reports for many different issues. Service anywhere can also be an inventory tool to track who a pc belongs to.
Service anywhere support offerings is away to track underlying events. When multiple end users put in a ticket for a specific issue, the tickets all go to a certain group that is created on the back end. Service Anywhere also has a dash board when each person logs in that an admin can add different news articles to let people know what is going on within the organization. Service Anywhere can create reports for issues, if you see a lot more of a certain ticket, a report on the dashboard will tell you what tickets there are a lot of.
The flow of information is very important. Nexteer is a customer of DXC. We share a lot of information with DXC and must have ways to share all our information with them. Nexteer uses a DXC service desk in Costa Rica to gives Nexteer IT support globally. Nexteer also has many suppliers like GM and Ford and information needs to be shared with all of them. The information is sometimes shared through Service Anywhere. Service anywhere has knowledge articles as part of its system. These articles if kept up to date can help a company share IT knowledge and information with anyone that has access to it. The knowledge articles are created by both DXC and Nexteer and range from information and different types of help sheets.
There are many security mechanisms in place at Nexteer Automotive. Legally I am not a loud to share Nexteer’s security policies. Some systems that I can tell you about are Okta, the badge system, and Proofpoint. Okta is a single sign on software application. That means that through Okta you can open web apps without having to sing in with your id and password on ever app. (Overview) Also Proofpoint is used at Nexteer for email. All email goes through Proofpoint before the mail ever goes to an end user’s pc to make sure they aren’t getting scammed. Also, Proofpoint can encrypt an email that is being sent to someone else, so your data will not be compromised. Proof point is an email encryption software. Nexteer also has a badge system for clocking in and out, no one can come into the building without either going to the front desk, check in, and then be escorted into the building by an employee or employees must badge in at any one of the turn stiles Nexteer has.
The most recent security that Nexteer has put in place to keep our information safe is drive encryption. Encryption helps save all the companies’ data from hackers. Drive encryption is a system that encrypts the data stored with mathematical functions. Only someone with the key can get the data that has been encrypted. (Rouse) This is a good thing for Nexteer but can also be a pain if something happens to the pc and we cannot unencrypt the computer to get the data off of the computer.
Depending on the security breach depends on who in the organization deals with the issues at hand. If the issue is email related or Okta related the issues go to the IT Security manager, who then talks to our Security team and they decide what needs to happen. If the issue is with our badge system, the issues go to Nexteer corporate security.
Nexteer has what they call shared folders to handle our information flow. Right now Nexteer has many shared folders that anyone in Nexteer can go to get some of our applications, directions on how to install applications, help sheets for applications and the information is all over the place. Some of the information is in Service Anywhere, some of the information is in the Shared folders, and some information is in SharePoint. When someone in the help desk finds a new issue, The issue gets documented and sent over to the Service Anywhere admin to get the knowledge added to Service Anywhere.
Everyone in the organization is responsible for following organizational policies. Organizational policies let you communicate to your employees what the boundaries and best practices are for the company. Knowing the companies’ culture and mission statement, helps set the tone for the company, and helps set the tone for the policies. (Kokemuller) Nexteer’s mission statement is be a model global company that achieves profitable and balanced global growth and develop a positive culture. HR managers are the people at Nexteer that are responsible for handling violations of organizational policies. The range of their role in handling people that violate organizational polices is creating training to keep everyone safe when it comes to workplace safety, they also do the disciplinary steps to employees that violate organizational policies.
At Nexteer our board of directors oversee the operations of the business. There are eight different people that are on the board of directors at Nexteer. Three of them are executives and the rest are independent. The shareholders vote on a person to be the director and one of the eight people on the board. (Driving)
Brokers are people that buy and sell goods and services for others. The broker is usually licensed and trained in the field they are working in. Some precautions to take in order to establish minimum trust with a broker is to fin out how much they cost, what they will do for you, and knowing how your investment will grow over time. (Geier) Nexteer has their own brokers. We call them the GSM department. They approve all of our ereqs, make sure we got the best deal for our money and that we followed the right policies on the things that we have ordered. When we submit an order, we have to get approval from four or five different people before we can get our money for whatever good or service we are trying to buy. WE have to have multiple quotes for them also.
There are two different committees that oversee the operation of Nexteer. They are the Audit and Compliance committee and the Remuneration and Nomination Committee. Both committee’s report to the board of directors. Nexteer’s parent company that oversees the operation of our organization is called AVIC. AVIC stands for Aviation Industry Corporation of China.
Nexteer Automotive has a lot of different systems that they use, from Service anywhere to Okta, to Proofpoint just to name a few. There are many security policies in place that include badge systems, Okta, drive encryption and so much more. Nexteer has policies in place from HR to make sure that no one violates the organizational policies. The board of directors’ deals with the business polices. Nexteer has their own brokers that sell goods and services for Nexteer.
References
- Custom Development vs. Out-of-the-Box Software. (2014, November 19). Retrieved from https://www.clarity-ventures.com/articles/article/1576/custom-development-vs-out-of-the-box-software
- Driving Forward, (n.d.), Retrieved from http://www.nexteer.com/
- Geier, B., & Geier, B. (2018, November 19). What is a Broker? Retrieved from https://smartasset.com/investing/what-is-a-broker
- Kokemuller, N. (2018, Octoner 22). What is the Purpose of a Workplace Policy? Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/purpose-workplace-policy-41601.html
- Loukis, E., Janssen, M., & Mintchev, I. (2019). Determinants of software-as-a-service benefits and impact on firm performance. Decision Support Systems, 117, 38-47. doi:10.1016/j.dss.2018.12.005
- Rouse, M. (2008,April). What is hard-drive encryption? – Definition from WhatIs.com. Retrieved from https://searchenterprisedesktop.techtarget.com/definition/hard-drive-encryption
- Overview of Managing Apps and SSO. (2019). Retrieved from https://help.okta.com/en/prod/Content/Topics/Apps/Apps_Overview_of_Managing_Apps_and_SSO.htm
- Wong, D. (2012, October 22). HP Unveils Cloud-based Service Desk Solution. Retrieved from https://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/press-release.html?id=1314512
