Business Information Systems - Case Study Example

?Case Study Business Information Systems Prepared by: Table of Contents Introduction 3 Discussion on the Identified Issues 3 Using Technology to address these issues 5 Merits and Potentials of adopting various Information Systems 6 Process Flow Diagram 7 Conclusion 8 References………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….9 Introduction: Bognor Marine Watercraft is a manufacturing business which manufactures and supplies watercraft and ancillaries to the UK market. Recently, it extended its business from making and supplying wooden pleasure craft and work boats to luxury watercrafts. After some high profile celebrities have purchased their luxury crafts, it has become a status symbol. Covering the events in the lives of celebrities of celebrities has been a focus of the media throughout. This coverage led to the promotion of the luxury watercraft build by BMW and acquired by the celebrities. The company being aware of this scenario has decided to take advantage of this media promotion and expand it’s business. Strategy meetings have been organized. The decision to invest further in the business at this particular time is a wise one, and would prove to be a profitable one in the long run. However, to ensure the success of the expansion plan, certain factors needed to be critically examined and their solutions provided. In this report, the problems that could possibly be a hindrance to the growth of the company are identified, discussed and their solutions stated. The business has nine departments which are interrelated. Each department has it’s separate staff, according to the specific requirements of that department. A study was conducted identifying the areas of concern in each department. Some have more room for improvement while others have less, but it is noticeable that all need to be modernized and up to dated to face the challenges of the competitive market. The company started in late 1800 century now needs to equip itself with the modern techniques to achieve maximum profit. The identified areas of concern in each department are discussed in the following section. Discussion on the Identified Issues: It is a matter of concern for the Bank and the investors whether the company will be able to withstand the effects of expansion and would be able to deliver as desired. For this, a study of the various processes involved within the business is carried out and areas of concern are highlighted. One of the departments is the Warehouse, where deliveries from the suppliers are stored and forwarded when ordered for. The materials stored are of various characteristics. Some can be kept for longer periods of time while others are perishable. One major concern arising here is that proper and timely placements need to be made in order to save stock and ensure no delay in further processing using these materials. Secondly, there is lack of knowledge regarding the arrival time of the raw material to the warehouse. The storage capacity cannot be anticipated due to this issue as well. The manufacturing department is the core of this business setup. However, it is not the most well-managed one, according to my findings. Orders are made to the suppliers when a particular material is in demand by the manufacturing department. There is no information kept by the manufacturing department on the availability of a material or its transportability prior to the placement of it’s order (assumption). This can result in a delay in manufacturing and ultimately, delay in delivery to the customer. For a company of such magnitude and reputation, this should not be acceptable. There is also uncertainty as to the availability of skilled staff for increased manufacturing. As highly skilled personnel are required in the manufacturing department, a provision in the form of apprentice scheme is in place to fill for any shortages. Whether the trainees would meet the shortfall if it occurs and whether there is information present on the current skilled workforce is another concern. As for the HR department, there is no hierarchical structure. Two employees of the same designation share jobs. This results in mistakes in the form of unattended jobs and repetition of jobs due to communication issues between the two. The financial department also lacks inter and intra-department communication resulting in mishaps. The sales department is centralized with sales manager placed in the main office. The Business Development Executives are responsible for sales of ancillaries and components to national distributors. The sales orders are phoned weekly to a sales admin. This is not a reliable source of communication as no record is kept of what is said and a verbal miscommunication can lead to mistakes. The client liaison communicates the ship sale order to the sale manager via fax or hands over the order to him. This is a slow process and does not meet the demands of today’s world of business. Moreover, the client liaison being mostly busy with clients does not get much time to discuss the orders with the sales manager or visit him. This indicates another communication gap. The means of presenting their product by the business development executives and client liaison is glossy brochures, which is not suitable for the product of such value. The marketing department has to rely on a third party for it’s expertise. This department not being developed to the extent of delivering on it’s part independently is a concern. Furthermore, the communication gap between sales and manufacturing departments results in a sudden unexpected order for the manufacturing team which is not prepared to take the task. The design department sends files of the old or failed designs to the head office where they are kept in cabinet files. Looking for a specific design stored this way can get time consuming. This approach of storing date was practical back in the days when this company started it’s operation, but in this modern era of technology relying on such systems to deliver would result in a loss. Another major concern is the lack of information availability to the design department. What components are readily available in the market and what not to include in the design due to their unavailability, the department sometimes even lacks such vital information. Same is the case in the support department where conventional ways are adopted to keep record of the visitors. Using Technology to address these issues: The above discussed issues will be addressed and their solutions presented in this section. As I am an expert in the field of Information Systems, I can see that most of the concerns can be eliminated using Information Systems. As for the warehouse issues, a possible and feasible way to tackle the problem would be to set up a data warehouse database system. This would contain the present and the previous data of the warehouse, the data coming in from the sales, marketing department etc. Not only this, it is also used to study the trends to predict the future activity the warehouse would go through.(Feather and Sturges, 2003) This would enable the warehouse staff to manage the capacity of the warehouse according to the requirements. The evident cause of most of the concerns in this department is the lack of flow of information between departments of the company and within the departments as well. An information system that would cater for these informational needs has to be installed. One such information system is the enterprise system. It is a computer based information system that is used for business processing, information flow, reporting and data analysis in a complex organization such as BMW itself. The company can create its computer based information network which would specifically be designed to meet the needs of the company. The staff of all the departments can log in to it and see all the data of all the departments at one place. The data is analyzed and the results are displayed for the ease of the staff and managers. For example, a demand of a certain ancillary would be entered by the sales department in the information system, which in turn would trigger the manufacturing department to increase its production. This would mean a demand for more raw materials. The warehouse capacity would be adjusted according to this demand. The information system would analyze the data and gives the figures as to how much raw material is required, in what time should it be delivered to the manufacturing unit, how long will the manufacturing process take, when can it be supplied to the market. All these questions will be answered by the information system using the previous and the current data. Coming to the sales department, instead of communicating sales through phone, an electronic mail should be used. In business dealings, it has many advantages over phone. Firstly, a record of it is saved with both the sender and the receiver. Secondly, the one sending it can re-read it to check for any mistakes. Thus, it is a more authentic and a reliable source. As for client liaison communicating the sales order to the sales manager via fax or personally, it is again a more time-consuming and effort-full way. The order can be communicated through electronic mail or through the company’s own set up computer based information network. Another useful information system for this company would be the expert system. It would make decisions based on it’s knowledge. (Klein, 1994) For example, if sales are growing, it would give a decision to increase production. This system is designed to help the management in decision making, and if implemented, can be of good use to BMW. To resolve the issues of using conventional reporting techniques, simply a computer database can be set up. The old design files can be saved in the database no matter how many they are. They can be searched out in no time and only a click away. Same goes for the support team, where visitors’ book and the desk diary can be replaced by a computer database. Not only would the data input be easy, but would also be easily retrieved upon requirement. Merits and Potentials of adopting various Information Systems: The main objective of any business company is to generate more money. Thus, it tends to invest only in those areas where it expects a profitable return. Same is the case for implementing business information systems. A company compares the cost of implementing it to the positive effect it would have on the financial growth of the company. If the investment seems profitable, the company implements the information system (Sieber and Valor, 2008). As for BMW, the company would not be able to out-rival it’s competitors if it continues with its conventional means of communication and information. So for BMW, it’s left with little choice to upgrade its business information system. Up to this point, it is established that the company needs to implement one or more Information systems to survive in the competitive market. Now which information would be feasible for it to adopt is a question I have tried to answer here. Another merit considered during implementing an information system is the cost of switching the system. Switching from one system to another might cost the company a lot of fortune. If the cost is too high, the company gets into a situation called lock-in (Shapiro and Varian, 1988). Now a decision has to be made whether to switch or not. In case of BMW, no Information system is already implemented. This would be first of its type investment and no system would need to be unimplemented. It would make it more economically feasible to go for it. Another important factor while making a decision of adopting a certain information system is to keep the technical skills and capabilities of the organization in mind that will have to run the system. A training program or knowledge of the system has to be given prior to implementing it in an organization. (Fichman and Kemerer, 1997). An embarrassing situation confronts a company when it cannot solve a problem using the implemented information system and the thought of doing without it comes into mind. (Kogut and Kolatilaka, 2001) Process Flow Diagram: A process flow diagram can be made for any department process or even for processes in multi-departments. Here, is a simple process flow diagram for the design process. No Yes Conclusions: From the above study it can be concluded that BMW is in need to implement an information system before it can expand it’s business. The conventional systems which are in place for communication and database need to be replaced by modern information systems which can face the business challenges of the modern era. An enterprise system should be implemented where information would be stored, data would be analyzed and processed and a decision would be made. This would assist the management in decision making. Office automation system should be implemented to get rid of the conventional methods of communicating which are slow and unreliable. Electronic media should be relied on while making important business transactions. Furthermore, to enhance the database of the company, computer database should be used instead of book records. A computer network should be set up which would connect all the departments of the company to ensure better communication between the departments. This would prove efficient in reducing the demand-supply time. The customer needs can also be better attended to using information systems. To make the not-so-easy decision, an expert system should be implemented. It will process the data and information, and will use it’s knowledge to come up with it a decision. This would assist the managers in decision making. Though it might require a big capital at the start and technical expertise all the way to keep the information system running and beneficial, but in the long run it would prove to be the right investment. References: Bidgoli, Hossein, (2004). The Internet Encyclopedia, Volume 1, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 707. Shapiro, C. and Varian, H.R. (1988) “Information Rules: A strategic Guide to the Network Economy”, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA. Feather, J. and Sturges, P. (2003), “International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science” Klein, D.A. (1994) “Decision-Analytic Intelligence System: Automated Explanation and Knowledge Aquisition” Baltzan, P., & Phillips, A. (2008). Business driven information systems. Boston, McGraw-Hill/Irwin Curtis, G. (1989). Business information systems: analysis, design, and practice. Wokingham, England, Addison-Wesley. DE George, R. T. (2003). The ethics of information technology and business. Malden, MA, Blackwell Pub. Laudon, K. 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