Business Intelligence Software at SYSCO - Coursework Example

 Business Intelligence Software at SYSCO 1 Introduction 1 Implementation of Business Intelligence (BI) Software 2 Considerations for the Business Intelligence (BI) Software 3 Effectiveness of Business Intelligence (BI) Software 5 Conclusion 7 Works Cited 8 Business Intelligence Software at SYSCO Introduction SYSCO is a well-established and expanded organizational network active for the procurement and distribution of food items to restaurants, hotels, health care organizations, educational organizations and food outlets present in the cities of US and Canada (McAfee and Wagonfeld 2006). As the business of the company is wide spread, the administration has always showed interest towards the betterment of information systems all over the organization. According to a survey conducted in 2003, the organization has sixty-two specialty companies and eighty-three regional operations (McAfee and Wagonfeld 2006). The company has also employed thousands of workers in its branches of companies. The companies under governance of SYSCO are given enough autonomy and the administration allows the management of companies to invest in business, as they consider suitable. All the companies under the supervision of SYSCO had employed various different information systems for collection of data and information regarding the business proceedings but with the passage of time, the administration of SYSCO felt a need to install a system that provides opportunities to assemble likely information from all companies (McAfee and Wagonfeld 2006). Initially there were problems regarding the information assemblage related to the business transactions and annual revenues. Afterwards, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) System was introduced and all the companies were asked to implement it so that they can record similar information related to customers, business transactions and financial transactions (McAfee and Wagonfeld 2006). The administration of SYSCO has also established a data warehouse for the assemblage and analysis of information related to the performance of companies. The administration felt a need for the implementation of Business Intelligence (BI) software because they are interested in upgrading their current procedures and they want to gain access to all the data of all the companies under them. Implementation of Business Intelligence (BI) Software The organization, SYSCO, is interested to gain access to Business Intelligence (BI) software to upgrade the proceedings of the organization and to allow the organization to gain access to all the data of different companies associated to the organization. Before implementing the software, the administration has allocated Twila Day to identify the full requirements and the needs of the total number of software needed (McAfee and Wagonfeld 2006). She is also asked to make a proposal for the implementation of the software. While implementing the Business Intelligence (BI) software, the organization can have many obstacles such as when the companies will be required to pay or bear the costs involved in implementing the new Business Intelligence (BI), they can be existence of some opposition from their side. Requirements of costs for the BI software can be considered an overly expensiveness by some of the supervised companies and they can abstain from implementing the new system. The organization, SYSCO has to inform and persuade all the supervised companies whether they are operation companies or specialty companies in order to implement Business Intelligence Software. Another obstacle that is there is the full establishment and completion of the data warehouse project that is still not complete (McAfee and Wagonfeld 2006). It is thought that the IT sector should first pay attention to this project and then it should move forward to Business Intelligence (BI) software implementation. The organization can also face an obstacle because of the incompetence of the workers of the companies, as the implementation of the new software will involve some training, which can be considered problematic by some of the workers of the organization. For the employees that are working with the organization, the new software will be like a challenge and they will be required to learn the new technology. They can create obstacles in the implementation. The organization, SYSCO has to make sure that it has considered all the issues and risks involved in implementing the software. SYSCO should make sure that all the supervised companies are fully involved in the implementation procedure with full agreement. Considerations for the Business Intelligence (BI) Software For the implementation of Business Intelligence (BI) software, SYSCO has decided initially to address only two questions, which are: What additional products could we be selling to each of our customers and which of our current customers are we most likely to lose (McAfee and Wagonfeld 2006). SYSCO has set up only these two questions for the analysis of Business Intelligent software because these two are the core issues that help the organization to proceed and develop. In addition, because of a short criterion for evaluation of the new system, the organization will have the overall acceptability of the new software because it will inform the organization about the efficacy of the new software. According to Twila Day, with the answers to the two questions that are asked, the organization will be able to make a resolution about the implementation of the software. She was also interested in the fact that if the software becomes reliable and authentic in delivering information about these two crucial issues, they will include other issues in the software later on. The basic purpose of employing only these two questions was to make sure that the Business Intelligence (BI) software is going to be effectual for the organization. In case of a more general analysis tool, the organization will not be able to check the efficacy of the new software in true terms so the questions that were needed to be answered were related to the organization development and dealt with two crucial issues. The organization is currently consuming much time in the solution of the first question and Business Objects inform that with the implementation of Business Intelligence (BI) software, the organization will be able to access all the needed information related to this problem within a very short span of time. In a business, the customers are considered the most important with the slogan, “the customer is always right”, so the second question with customer attachment is proposed. The above-mentioned questions were proposed by Business Objects, as they wanted to inform the administration of SYSCO about the efficacy of the new software. These two questions are considered to be effectual because they deal with the progress and future establishment for the organization. Business Objects recommended these two options because they judged the fact that the organization is interested in future success and is closely attached to its business and customers. The tradeoffs of this approach (the employment of the questions that need to be answered by the software) are that Business Objects will get quite a full-fledged chance to sell their product and they will get not only financial benefit but they will also be able to establish their image further in market. Effectiveness of Business Intelligence (BI) Software For determining the efficacy of the Business Intelligence (BI) software, the organization should run a pilot version of the software. The organization is given three ways for the implementation, out of which, Twila Day has to opt for the most appropriate one. First option is of “Bare Bones”, in which only a small amount of software will be implemented for checking the effectiveness of the Business Intelligence (BI) software. In this approach, the organization has to pay a small amount in the beginning and they will gain access to some licenses for the software implementation but after six months of implementation, the organization has to pay for much more amounts for the accessibility of more Business Intelligence software (McAfee and Wagonfeld 2006). Another option is “Middle of the Roads” in which, a broader accessibility to the software will be provided to the organization and more licenses will be there (McAfee and Wagonfeld 2006). The third option is of “Volume Discount” in which, Business Objects offers discount to the organization and the organization is asked to implement all the Business Intelligence (BI) software at once (McAfee and Wagonfeld 2006). With the two questions that were offered by Business Objects for the analysis of effectiveness of the Business Intelligence (BI) software, SYSCO can analyze the effectiveness of the new systems. They can also evaluate the effectiveness by running a pilot version of Business Intelligence (BI) software. In implementing the new software and to analyze the effectiveness, there are some difficulties. The Bare Bones option for the implementation of Business Intelligence (BI) software that is offered, is with restricted features and allows only some features to be employed by the organization due to which, the organization can not analyze the full working efficacy of the new software. The other two options offer more features but they are cost effective and offer a wide range of software implementation. Some companies supervised by SYSCO have incomplete versions of Business Intelligence (BI) software and they are not ready to buy new licenses. They just want some amendment in the current usage of Business Intelligence (BI) software. All the companies may not show readiness for analyzing the efficacy of the new system as they can claim that they are satisfied with the current systems and are not interested in spending more money towards this new IT opportunity. According to my opinion, Twila Day should go for the first option, that is of “Bare Bones” because initially, the new system should be analyzed and decisions related to the further implementations should be made afterwards. She should only employ that number of software that are needed by her at this juncture. The organization should give a chance to analyze the performance of the new Business Intelligence (BI) software and then should proceed towards more implementation options. This option will also be considered efficient by other companies supervised by SYSCO because they are not ready to pay for the new system at this juncture. Business Intelligence (BI) software is likely to be a competitive differentiator for SYSCO because as from the case study, it is shown that the organization in interested in further expansion of its business procedures and branched network. They are interested in gaining access to new technology to increase automation of their business procedures and to their working more efficient and reliable. Business Intelligence (BI) software will facilitate them in their search for more established information systems that will be more reliable, less time consuming and effectual. Conclusion After analyzing SYSCO and its need for the implementation of Business Intelligence (BI) software, it is clear that the food business organization is interested in the development of its business transactions. They are having some problem in assembling and accessing all the data from various companies under their supervision as they have employed not fully developed information systems for their data recording and processing. After the implementation of Business Intelligence (BI) software, the organization will get benefit, as it will have access to the technology that is much more reliable, less time consuming and efficient as compared to its current processing. The Business Intelligence (BI) software will help in procedures such as financial transactions, customer data recording, stock control and many other procedures of the organization. Back Bones option will work best for SYSCO, as for every new change in the organization, first the change should be analyzed by implementing it to a smaller area. Works Cited McAfee, Andrew and Wagonfeld, Alison Berkley. Business Intelligence Software at SYSCO. California, Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2006: 1-19. Read More