This type of growth creates unusual, difficult challenges for MIS departments. First, they must meet the challenge of providing their organizations with the means to productively handle new and substantial kinds of data. Second, MIS managers must do this without investing in in-house expertise and resources not critical to their organizations' strategic objectives. They will find that VARs are good resources for this often contradictory mission. Let's look at a couple of examples in which VARs can help meet the horizontal data growth challenges common to many organizations.
Every organization has facilities that constantly change.
New facilities are added, old facilities are dropped and existing facilities are reconfigured. On one hand, businesses must execute facility changes to remain flexible in the face of changing business conditions. On the other, it is critical that these changes be executed with a minimum of cost and disruption. A VAR specializing in this area can be invaluable to the MIS department chartered with establishing an FM capability. The designer must answer some key questions in advance.