Analysis of BIT Company - Case Study Example

Business processes/IT in operations This report seeks to illustrate the relationship between information and strategy, and looks at how enterprise architecture can be applied as a methodology for strategic enterprise development. We will consider a case study of the Bond Industrial Technology and come up with a report for management that shows Business and Applications architecture in the contemporary situation and how this can be enhanced to meet the needs of the enterprise (Allweyer 79). As-is model Bond Industrial Technology (BIT) was established in the early 1970s by one energetic businessman known as Stapleton- Bond, to supply a variety of specialized tools and machines for the medium and small scale businesses trading in the plastic industry. However, as the company rapidly expanded, it started importing huge molding machines from Germany so as to meet the growing demands from the local industry. A number of other business units were also established to deal with the specific matters of the rapidly expanding business. One of the business units is BITCON, BIT’s consulting arm, mandated to provide consulting services to the local manufacturers with regard to plastic related issues such as design, distribution, process re-engineering and manufacturing. This business unit is headed by one of Stapleton-Bond’s son known as Davos. The other business unit is the BITI, headed by Basil, and charged with the responsibility of importing from Plastik GMBH in Stuttgart, Germany, large engineering equipment. Lately, this agency has been importing high speed plastic injection molding and finishing equipment from the Great Wall Industries, based in China. This unit is basically an importer and ensures the importation and installation of equipment at the customers work sites. It also ensures that customer order specifications are correct and the received machinery is in line with the customers’ specifications. The unit has also to ensure that the customs are cleared appropriately, and then convey, install and ensure a satisfactory operation is conducted. BIT Engineering (BITE) was set up under the leadership of Cedric Stapleton-Bond and manufactures machinery and equipment to order. It basically deals with the production of specialized routers, lathes and milling machines. To run these responsibilities, the unit has a team of specialist sales staff who possess strong skills in engineering manufacturing and design. The raw materials and components are sourced from both local and international suppliers. The unit keeps an inventory of the frequently used components and raw materials to ensure continuity (Decker and Weske 56). The other business unit under BIT is the BIT-Sales (BITS) that is mandated to supply all kinds of plastics such as polystyrene, polypropelene and PVC’s to the industry. These materials are basically sourced from Australia. The unit is headed by one of Stapleton-Bond’s son known as Edgar, who spends most of his time maintaining a sales staff to ensure a smooth running of the supply chain. Since the unit services a variety of both large and small customers, it has to maintain substantial inventories of stock. In 1997, Stapleton-Bond retired and Alfred, his oldest son took over the leadership of BIT, since this had to be maintained as a holding company that could draw the family together to offer centralized support and strategic guidance. However, competition grew between the units and due to the fear of the potential decline in the plastic markets and the Global Financial Crisis, the sons accepted Plastik GmbH to take over the operation of BIT in 2007. The company structure was retained though the name was changed to BITA, and was now under the leadership of Franciscus Karsunke. The management of the business units has also been changed, while extending its branches in each of the states in Australia. A sales office has also been opened in New Zealand and basically draws support from the business units in Australia. BITCON, BITA, BITS, BITE and BITI function as individual units; each is having its own staff, operational and administrative processes. They all manage their information technology support from a range of PC based networks and stand alone servers such as MS Office mainly for administrative support, Vista operating systems and Microsoft Windows XP, 2007. In addition, each of the business units has its own suite of specific software. Today, BIT (A) employs a ten year old, extremely personalized version of the Micro Extensions Pty Ltd (MXP) software to carry out its sales financial reporting and inventory management. This is often installed into the Business Units and transfers data between the business units and BITA through standard DSL links. The system handles most of the daily inventory management and sales data. However, one major challenge this system faces is its inability to produce exception reports promptly and thus, it requires a couple of days to do so. Another challenge this system faces is the fact that it is incompatible with the contemporary versions of MS Office, thus all Business Unit data for both special and periodic financial inventory and sales reports have to be manually uploaded to MXP, which are then transferred into spreadsheets and databases and finally summated into reports for management (Grosskopf and Weske pp. 77-79). Modeling business unit’s operating models A business operating model can be defined as the way the organization produces its products or services and considering the ways in which these products and services reach the final consumer. It describes the necessary activities and tasks the organization requires to follow so as to achieve its objectives and goals. Below is a diagram that shows the role of the business model: All business units operate as individual business units, with each having its own staff, operational and administrative processes. Their information technology support is based on a variety of PC based networks and stand alone servers using Vista operating systems Microsoft Windows XP, 2007 and MS office. Each unit has its own specific software. For instance BITA employs PERS for human resource, DOLA for finance and accounting, SELA for basic sales, PROJ for project management, MXP and contract management. BITI employs PERS for human resource, DOLA for finance and accounting, SELA for basic sales, MOVA for distribution and transport, AUSTCUST for customs interface, PROJ for project management, contract management, freight forwarder management, MXP (Lite), CAD and customer database ((Allweyer pp 106-124). BITE on the other hand applies PERS for human resource, DOLA for finance and accounting, SELA for basic sales, MOVA for distribution and transport, STAX for inventory management PROCURE for procurement, AUSTCUST for customs interface, CAM, contract management, customer database, Freight forwarder management, PROJ for project management and MXP (Lite). BITCON applies PERS for human resource, DOLA for finance and accounting, SELA for basic sales,PROJ for project management, CAD, customer database, contract management and MXP (Lites) Finally, BITS employs PERS for human resource, DOLA for finance and accounting, SELA for basic sales, MOVA for distribution and transport, STAX for inventory management, PROCURE for procurement, AUSTCUST for customs interface, customer database and MXP (Lite). BIT/BU strategic alignment in respect to its IT applications From the case study, it is apparent the BIT employs a ten year old highly customized version of the Micro Extensions Pty Ltd (MXP) software for financial reporting, inventory management and sales management. This software has been installed on the systems of all the Business Units in order to transfer data between the BIT and the BUs through the DSL links. However, this system is faced by various challenges such as its inability to produce reports promptly and its incompatibility with the contemporary versions of MS Office. This therefore presents challenges to the IT staff since sales, financial and inventory reports have to be manually uploaded into the MXP, which is then transferred into MS spreadsheets and databases and are later compiled as management reports. The reports take quite some time for them to be prepared and thus most of the decisions are based on stale data (Allweyer pp 45-68). The fact that there exists time difference between various offices has even presented further difficulties especially when it comes to data preparation and exchange of the reports as well as handling customer enquiries. This therefore does not enhance a synergistic co-operation between the business units and the BIT. There are plans to modify these systems and adopt the electronic invoicing and payments systems, while shifting to online reporting. It has also started considering the possibilities of adopting e-commerce. To-be models The contemporary business model BITA employs presents it with major challenges. These include incompatibility with the current software, delayed delivery of reports, whereby the management is concerned about making decisions that are based on stale data. To solve these problems therefore, there is need for the company to adopt e commerce capabilities that will ensure online reporting as well as electronic invoicing and payments systems. One of the contemporary e-commerce business models the company can adopt is i-mode: I-mode The most comprehensive and most successful of m-commerce model today is the i-mode, which is a mobile service internet that was launched by NTT DoCoMo in Japan, early 1999. This service had hit a thirty million user mark in 2002, which a resonant success is, basing on the fact that the country’s population at the time was about 126 million people. This offers a variety of internet services such as transaction services which include banking, shopping and ticket reservations, directory services, email services and infotainment services such as games, sports and weather. These services are often provided for a monthly fee of around three US dollars. Its early success is attributed to various factors such as its rapid adoption and the fact that this service is cheap. DoCoMo’s PDC-P network, which is a packet-switched technology, provides always-on functionality that makes it possible for its users to maintain their devices in an online mode, while the pay for the actual traffic only. This has attracted many people to sign up for this service (S. Anwar, 2002). Its original programming environment was developed through Compact HTML (cHTML), which is a division of HTML. However, today, DoCoMo is actually moving towards XHTML. It is necessary to note that cHTML made it simpler for the content providers to establish i-mode compatible services and extended language specification to incorporate suitable tags such as the automatic dial tag, which initiates phone calls through clicking on a the provided links. When accessing a hotel web site, for example, a client can click on the hotel link to book for accommodation without necessarily having to disengage from i-mode (S. Anwar, 2002). Another factor behind the success of DoCoMo’s i-mode service is its ability to transform its services popularity into profitable businesses. While the wired internet services are still facing challenges in trying to develop a workable business model, DoCoMo’s i-mode depends on revenues that are generated from multiple sources, which is one of the key factors promoting the profitability of mobile commerce. The flat monthly fee of about three dollars that is charged for the internet access and moreover, a traffic fee is also charged, whereby DoCoMo allows other sites to charge, on their behalf a monthly subscription fee. This is charged through regular billing cycle and authorizing specific users who have subscribed to access restricted sites. Indeed, some of the factors highlighted that make i-mode a success in the m-commerce arena include interoperability, ease of use and its partnership arrangements with some of the service providers. Below is I-mode diagram: Justification Franciscus, BIT’s Chief Executive Officer frankly admits that there is a fragmented structure in the operation of BIT since the system does not encourage synergistic cooperation between the business units and furthermore, BIT is missing out on business opportunities and overseas. It is also noted that there is no interface between the BIT and Plastik’s global knowledge base (White and Derek pp 56-99). This means therefore that BIT is not in any way contributing to Plastik’s universal knowledge base. Therefore, it is required that BIT comes up with a better business model that could coordinate its sales, design, procurement and manufacturing processes. Recommendations Consider the value of information Successful organizations today rely on information to enable them come up with decisions. In our case study, we have noted that the critical information required for decision making is difficult o obtain because this is fragmented across various business units. In order to attain optimal performance, information has to flow across all the functional boundaries. This also enables the company to manage its customers in an appropriate way since the company has timely information of whatever its customer’s demands are and be able to manage the supply chain (Briol, 58). Need for agility Organizations require being more agile and realize the rapidly changing business environments. In this way the company can be able to adjust its business operations so as to overcome the hardships and exploit the new opportunities and technologies. In this case, the company should adopt contemporary e-commerce models so as to able to coordinate its activities and better its performance. Increase the bandwidth One of the challenges faced today is the limited bandwidth. Thus, mobile and wireless service providers should strive to increase the bandwidth in order to reach a wider coverage. Conclusion This paper focused on an analysis of BIT Company, which basically deals with the manufacture of plastic related products. To meet the rapidly growing demand of its products, the company has established several business units to coordinate its business operations. However, the business model the company employs in carrying out its business operations is not effective enough to coordinate the activities of the business units and is also incompatible with the contemporary MS versions and thus the study recommends that i-mode, a contemporary e commerce business model should be adopted to deal with the challenges the company faces. This is due to its ease of use and covers a wider market, hence making it more profitable than the traditional forms of business (Briol, 22). Work Cited Allweyer, T. BPMN 2.0 - Introduction to the Standard for Business Process Modeling. BoD. 2010 White, Stephen A, and Miers, Derek. BPMN Modeling and Reference Guide. Future Strategies Inc. 2008 Debevoise, Neilson T, et al. The MicroGuide to Process Modeling in BPMN. BookSurge Publishing. 2008. Briol, P. BPMN, the Business Process Modeling Notation Pocket Handbook. LuLu. 2008. Grosskopf, Decker and Weske. The Process: Business Process Modeling using BPMN. Meghan Kiffer Press. 2009. Read More