Incorporation of Strategic Management Systems in Decision Making of an Organization - Research Proposal Example

Research Proposal: Incorporation of Strategic Management Systems in Decision Making of an Organization Problem Statement The modern world has become a global village in which no one can survive alone. Everyone has to be up-to-date with the happenings in their environment, otherwise they are left behind. Businesses around the world are also faced with this challenge of being equipped with the current information about consumer needs, changing business trends etc. Consumers’ demands are changing more than ever in the current times and they do not take much time to shift to another brand if their needs are not satisfied. This creates the need for efficient planning tools and updated information. The companies who have this updated information tend to make good use of it to gain competitive edge in the market. With the advent of computer technology, processes and procedures have changed for every field. The systems and procedures of business organizations are no different. Nowadays, all successful business organizations are equipped with reliable information systems and strategic information systems to provide them with up-to-date information about the market, consumers etc and to provide basis for effective decision making. There are many other ways in which organizations gain benefit from information systems and thus strategic management systems; which is to reduce man-hours by automating their processes. Lederer et al (1996) described strategic information systems as a set of modules that assist the organization in the implementation of their functional plans and thus meet their business objectives and goals. These systems also help the top management to make effective plans so that they can overcome their weaknesses and change their processes towards improvement. Another problem has become apparent since the management executives have realized the importance of deploying strategic management systems in their organizations. It is very common for organizations to make use of systems that are not aligned with the direction of their business and thus do not agree with the business objectives. It is very necessary to identify if the strategic management system is working in accordance with the aims and direction of the businesses. Incase of failure in this regard, the system will become a burden for the organization instead of benefitting from it. 2. Literature Review The most important thing about a strategic management system is that it should cater to the needs and direction of the organization. Pant et al (1995) stated that when the system is developed, the company’s objectives, goals and priorities should be well understood by the people developing it. This way the system will be able to generate more reliable results for the organization. The future plans and direction of the organization should also be kept in mind so that the system is flexible enough to cater to the needs that might arise later. Robson (1997) explained that if a suitable strategic management system is deployed in an organization then the planning and decision making application may assist in making the business model. The business process modeling can be very helpful for the top management who can base their decisions on the simulation of real life problems. These business process models can simulate many possible ways of targeting a problem and enable the concerned people to visualize the effects of a solution to a certain problem. Such systems can simulate a situation in seconds which would otherwise require years to materialize. Variables can also be changed on demand to reach better efficiency and effectiveness. Turban (2005) described another use of the business process models; these can be used to simulate what-if analysis to calculate the number of risks that may be involved in a certain solution. Goldberg (2008) classified organizational decisions into three types; these are categorized on the basis of their decision volume. Fig.1: Goldberg (2008) High Value and Low Volume Decisions Osborne (1994) explained that these kinds of decisions take place at the corporate level like what business should be done by the company, where major investments should be done, what new range of services or products should be launched in the market, decisions regarding their corporate level strategy etc. Medium Value and Medium Volume Decisions Osborne et al (1994) described that these types of decisions take place at the business level i.e. they focus on how the individual business entities should be managed to maximize efficiency and profits. It is also analyzed as to how these entities should compete in the market with their competitors and try to gain competitive advantage. Product development, pricing and tactics to satisfy their customers are some of the other things that constitute this type. Low Value and High Volume Decisions Osborne et al (1994) stated that these types of decisions constitute the functional and operational level decisions in which the execution of their plans and objectives is discussed and analyzed. The responsibilities and job descriptions are clearly laid down to achieve the objectives so that there are no ambiguous or overlapping roles found later. All of these categories of decisions have their own importance and strategic management systems play an important role in each one of them. Fig.2: NASA (2000) NASA (2000) described the process of strategic management with the help of the above figure. They describe strategic management as a continuous process of strategic planning, performance and budget planning and lastly performance evaluation. At first strategic planning will be done to develop a strategy, then budgets and responsibilities will be decided. After all the planning, the real execution will take place which will be later evaluated for its performance. If the performance is not up to the required level then strategic planning will be initiated again. Comptroller’s Handbook (1995) explained that a good strategic management system will provide a good foundation on the basis of which these decisions can be made easily and will also reduce a significant degree of manual work of the employees. Since these decisions are made on the basis of latest data therefore they prove to be effective for the company. Rockart (1979) explained that information systems were thought to be useful for data processing and routine operations only. This prevailed for number of years. It was after many years that businessmen realized that they could benefit from more features in it and could use them to develop better strategies for their businesses. 3. Research Objectives The research shall be aimed at achieving the following objectives; 3.1 Informed Decision Making Those aspects of the strategic management systems shall be researched that enable the companies to make informed decisions and make their products, services better for their customers. This way customer’s needs and feedback can be incorporated in the decision making with the help of strategic management systems. 3.2 Competitive Advantage It shall be researched as to how the strategic management systems help the companies in achieving competitive advantage in the market and gaining a better market share. It might be done by exploring new markets or launching new products. 3.3 Guideline to Ensure Productivity of the System It is very important for a company to ensure that their strategic management system is working in accordance with the direction and objectives of the company. All the aspects that should be ensured in this regard will be researched and analyzed to devise a guideline. This guideline shall help companies ensure that their strategic management systems are producing effective outcomes and not only being an overhead for the company. 3.4 Strengths and Weaknesses of the Company It shall also be researched how strategic management system help in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of an organization i.e. which products should be given more attention to make them better or which areas would give the company better revenues. 4. Research Procedure 4.1 Information Material Good quality content shall be researched to gain a comprehensive understanding of the background and basic aims of strategic management systems. Then, research shall be pursued to analyze the different areas of how these systems help in achieving competitive edge in the market and devising better strategies for the betterment of the company. The chosen material shall be evaluated for the authenticity of its source and its quality. It shall also be tried that most papers chosen for the research should not be published more than 15 years back. This way the literature findings will not be obsolete. Sources of material shall be discussed later in the proposal. 4.2 Choosing Subject Two organizations shall be chosen to analyze their strategic management systems. These systems shall be analyzed with respect to their productivity, reduction of manual work and ability to provide up-to-date information to the company. Background research regarding the chosen companies shall be done to ensure that they have commendable strategic management systems deployed for their use, so that we can get useful information from them. The data and findings from these companies shall be analyzed and included in the research to support the hypothesis. Two other organizations shall be identified as a backup plan, incase there is an availability issue among the concerned personnel of the chosen organization. 4.3 Identification of Case Studies Different case studies of companies shall be researched to analyze their existing systems and the advantages they have gotten from them. 4.4 Time and Scope Management Time and scope are very important to any research. The time allocated for the researched will be utilized in the most efficient manner. It will be ensured that the direction of the research is always focused towards the hypothesis and resolution of the problem statement, so that time is not wasted on irrelevant research. This shall be achieved by regularly monitoring the research processes and methods. Scope of the research will be finalized at the beginning of the research so that one does not feel lost in the ocean of literature available. Only minor changes in the scope might be done so that the research is consistent and does not loose focus from the hypothesis and main purpose of research. It shall be ensured that the strategic management systems are only studied for their advantages and features that they offer to the companies rather than their technical implementation or development. The guideline which will be made to assure companies of the productivity of their systems will be made with respect to the strategic management systems only, as it will not cater to any other systems like financial systems etc. 5. Population and Sample Two organizations shall be chosen as a sample to support the research. The chosen companies’ portfolio shall be studied in detail and it shall be aimed to choose companies that are well known names in their respective market so that their competitive edge can be assured. Two more organizations will be selected to get information about how strategic management systems have affected their decision making. These other organizations shall be identified to handle the risk of the chosen company’s unavailability. 6. Research Design A research survey shall be conducted on the importance of strategic management systems in a company. The scope of the research shall cover the effects that are witnessed in a company after the incorporation of strategic management systems in their decision making. The literature survey and the hypothesis of the research shall be supported by a cross-sectional survey in which two organizations shall be personally visited to understand and analyze the relevance of the systems in their infrastructure. The chosen companies shall be contacted well in advance to setup a meeting according to their availability. The concerned authorities shall be asked a list of prepared questions, face to face. Correspondence will continue with the concerned people in the company via phone as well. More face to face meetings might also be setup if desired outcomes are not achieved in the first session. Face to face interaction has been chosen for the research survey because the sample size is small. This choice will not prove to be very time consuming due to the small sample size. Response rate is always better in a face to face interaction. Since we need to analyze the relevance of their strategic management systems, therefore we shall request them to let us view the operation or reports from the system. If we are granted the permission to view the deployed systems in the company then our personal interviewing approach will prove to become more worthwhile. 7. Instrumentation and Data Collection Along with the research findings, the response from the organization will hold importance to prove the research hypothesis. A comprehensive questionnaire shall be made which shall constitute questions pertaining to the relevance of strategic management systems in the decision making of their organization. It shall also be analyzed if the systems prove to be productive for the company or just being an overhead for them. The questionnaire will be given to them and will be requested to be filled out during the interview so that their queries can be answered right there. However, some employees might wish to fill out the questionnaire in their own time. In such cases, questionnaires can also be e-mailed to the employees who shall reply with a filled out questionnaire. It shall be tried not to put too many open ended questions in the questionnaire so that the data from the two companies can be compared with each other. Since it will be a questionnaire regarding their business decisions based on strategic management system, the element of privacy regarding their company’s infrastructure shall be respected. The concerned authorities shall be contacted in advance to be assured of their availability so that data can be collected in a timely fashion. The company will be repeatedly assured of the proper usage of data. 8. Planned Method of Analysis First of all, some data preparation actions need to be performed on the data so that it can be used for analysis. Data should be cleaned and organized to give it a structured form. These activities may include checking the data for any incorrect or null values, checking data for accuracy and consistency. It should be ensured that the final cleansed data should be consistent enough to be compared with each other. Since the amount of data in the respective research will not be of a great volume therefore cleansing activities can be done manually. Later, descriptive statistics will be used to define the main aspects and features of the data that is received from the two organizations. Salkind (2008) stated that descriptive statistics are useful in producing summaries of the data and relevant results about the sample. Descriptive statistics help in describing what the data is showing therefore it will be productive for the research survey to reach a conclusion. 9. Time Schedule 9.1 Phase based Schedule March April May June Introduction ** Literature Survey of Issues ** * * Literature Survey of Solutions and Advantages ** * * Data Acquisition ** Data Analysis ** Draft Report * * * Meetings with the Supervisor * * * * Final Submission * 9.2 Monthly Activities based Schedule Process Priority March April May June Time Ongoing Process * * * * Scope Ongoing Process * * * * Literature Review of Problems and Solutions Ongoing Process (Pace will alter with respect to High Priority tasks) * * * * Generate Questionnaire High ** Accessibility of Interviewees High ** Requirements from Organization High ** Analyze Results High * ** Identify Organization Case Studies Low * Time and scope management will be considered as ongoing activities since these two elements should be monitored regularly. If either of these things go out of the planned estimated outline then the research is likely to be affected. Literature review is also an ongoing activity in the research; however its pace will be affected with respect to the data collection activities in the project. The activities that involve the participation of a third party are given most importance and high priority since we have minimum control over these instances. We are dependant on the concerned authorities for their availability and response rate. Another reason for giving high priority to these activities is that if we don’t get the desired results or participation level from the chosen companies, we should have enough time to start correspondence with some other company. Therefore some literature review will be done in the beginning of the research survey to gain a basic understanding about the strategic management systems. Then a questionnaire shall be prepared on the basis of this knowledge. It is aimed to identify real life case studies in different sources to gain a better understanding of the effects of these systems in real life. However, this activity is given low priority as the literature review and findings from the chosen organization shall be enough to reach a useful conclusion. 10. Resources Needed The main sources of information and research methods that shall be used include the following: Case Studies: Primary data will be collected and information systems shall be analyzed that are adapted by various organizations. Literature review/ Desk research; using secondary data of published papers and statistics. Online and offline articles: Online and offline technological magazines shall be studied for the respective research topic. Personal observation: It is one of the objectives to visit two companies where strategic management systems are successfully incorporated in the organization’s decision making and providing benefits to the organization. Their system shall be observed personally and findings will be stated in the report. 11. Personnel Four students shall be involved in the research; two students will be responsible for researching necessary material for understanding the respective topic of research and developing a guideline that will help the companies’ access if their systems are giving them or being a burden on their infrastructure. The other two students shall take care of the analysis of the organizations’ systems to analyze the real life situations in which these systems play their role of providing the necessary foundation to make decisions. However, these two groups of students shall be fully informed and well aware of each other’s activities and progress so that they have a good understanding of the entire project and not just a single part of it. The personnel at the company are also indirectly part of the research and their participation will be very important in deducing valuable conclusions. 12. Budget No special equipments shall be required to pursue this research. The expenses that shall be incurred in the execution of this research are as follows: 12.1 Travelling Expense The companies shall be visited personally to witness the strategic management systems and interview the concerned authorities regarding the level of incorporation of these systems in their decision making instances. At least 3 to 4 employees shall be aimed to be interviewed at both of these organizations therefore 3 to 4 visits might be made to each company, depending on the availability of each of these resources. 12.2 Access to a Digital Library It has been observed that many good sources of information on the internet are not available free. Membership to the digital content repositories is necessary to access the good quality papers. Guest membership will be desired so that quality content can be included in the research. 13. Need Assurances The company shall be assured that the information that has been received from them shall be responsibly used for the report and will not be used outside the boundary of the report. Neither will it ever be used to harm the company in any respect. They will also be assured that the data will be destroyed after the report is completed so that there are no chances of it being used for malicious intent. The company shall be informed in advance about the things that we require from them so that they can get confirmations and permissions from their authorities to let their data be visible to outsiders. It is also assured that the content in the research proposal and thus the final report will not be copied from any source and will merely be an output of comprehension of literature that has been consulted for the research. Due credit is given to all the authors at every instance in the research proposal and will be done in the same manner in the final report. References Comptroller’s Handbook, (1995), Management Information Systems, www.occ.treas.gov/handbook/CoverLetter/MIStrans.pdf Goldberg, L., (2008), Strategic Decisions, Knowledge Partners International, http://www.bpminstitute.org/articles/article/article/strategic-decisions.html Lederer, A. L., Sethi, V., (1996), Key prescriptions for strategic information systems planning, Journal of Management Information Systems: JMIS v13n1, p.35-62 NASA, (2000), NASA Strategic Management Handbook, http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/codez/plans/Handbook00/chap1.html Osborne, D., Gaebler, T., (1994), Improving Mission Performance through Strategic Information Management and Technology, http://www.gao.gov/special.pubs/ai94115.pdf Pant, S., Hsu, C., (1995), Strategic Information Systems Planning: A Review, Information Resources Management Association International Conference, May 21-24, Atlanta, Robson, W., (1997), Strategic management & information systems, Second Edition. England: Person Education Limited. Rockart, J.F., (1979), Chief Executives Define Their Own Information Needs, Harvard Business Review, March-April 1979. Salkind, N. J., (2008), Exploring Research, Pearson Learning, Seventh Edition, ISBN 0-13-601137-3 Turban, E., Rainer, R., Potter, R., (2005), Introduction to Information Technology. USA: John Wiley & Sons Read More