B & S Security Ltd - Business Project Analysis - Case Study Example

Name of the Student Name of Institution Date of Admission Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 1.0 INTRODUCTION 2 1.1 Introduction and Background 2 1.2 Aim 3 2.0 Business overview 3 3.0 Business Project Analysis 4 4.0 Business Analysis Team 5 4.1 Finance 6 4.2 Management Information System Experts 6 5.0 Business Analysis Team ICT (Information Communication Technology) 6 6.0 Business Process Analysis and Management (BPM) 6 7.0 Business Process Management ICT Design 8 8.0 Customer Relationship Database Design 10 9.0 Project Budget 10 10. Conclusion 12 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction and Background Following the acquisition of B & S Security Ltd which is a security company based in Australia, the company had an inadequate management system in place which rendered the operations of the company impossible. The company relied on outdated office equipment to run its operations thus proving to be difficult to track the basic concepts of the business. Therefore, as the new manager of the company, I want to establish appropriate mechanisms to bring sanity and reenergize the company once again. To start with, I want to acquire a new management information system that will help the company track all its operations as well as control them effectively. Prior to the acquisition of the information system, I intent to do a little bit of research so as to have a clear understanding of the market situation. In addition I want to outline strategies to bring in professionalism in my business. 1.2 Aim My main priority is to expand this business to at least six more cities and states, that is, Sydney, Northern territory, Adelaide, Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria by 2016. Therefore in order to achieve this goal, I have to source for at least $100,000 from my bank in order to be able to establish an information system that will help my company manage its operations adequately. 2.0 Business overview B & S Security Ltd is a security firm that was established in the year 1975 by two brothers namely Mr. Bashir Luke and Mr. Sryat Luke in Melbourne city. The firm has branches in Healesville, Warragul and Geelong. Following the demise of the two brothers, the running of the firm was taken over by one of the family member known as Mr. Edward Luke. The management of the firm proved to be cumbersome as a result of the inadequate management information system in place. B & S Security Ltd under the management of Mr. Edward Luke still relied on the previous management style of his predecessors in running the company. The office machineries and equipment that were bought as early as 1975 were still being used in the company. In addition, there was no enough capital in place to re-strategize and improve the operations of the business. Following these challenges, the family decided to sell off the company to me in the year 2014. I acquired the company with all its assets and liabilities. After taking over the company in 2014, I have managed to offset all the outstanding debts that had accrued to $115,000 by that year. Therefore, with an amount of $100,000 I will be able to restore the company back to its feet once again and make it a real competitor in the security industry. The company deals with provision of security services that includes guarding, security alarm installation, motor vehicles’ tracking & fuel monitoring and providing escort services. My main goal is to make this company be the leading security services provider in the entire country by the year 2020 through involving a dedicated team of experts at all levels. Currently the company has a total of 355 employees spread across the four branches of the company that located within Melbourne city. The company being a security oriented organization, our employees work full time so as to maintain a desirable satisfactory service to our 218 customers within the Melbourne city. Figure 1: The diagram below shows our supply chain Supplier (B&S Security Ltd) Payments Services (Guarding, Alarm Installation, tracking& escort Customers (Schools, Homes, Companies & Hotels) 3.0 Business Project Analysis Having scrutinized the weakness that this company was undergoing, I realized that there was no an appropriate accounting system in place, the company was relying on cash registers which cannot adequately manage accounting information. Likewise, there was no proper filing taking place in the company hence tracing relevant documents of the company is a bit challenging especially to the new staff members that the company is in the process of employing. The identity of all the vendors that the company used to procure supplies from is not known as well as their locations. Therefore, I have to outline strategies that will help me identify them and have their records in place so as to help me even during taxation period. Meanwhile, the aspect of placing for orders manually is tedious and may not be accurate. The marketing strategy that the company was employing seems not to be the best, the company relied mostly on TVs and Newspapers which may never reach every targeted party as expected. In addition the company had not created a website of its own; this is clearly the most challenging thing since there is no established identity of the company in place. The payroll management system is one of worst since the maintenance of the staff records is not up to date; the company was basically relying on paper work which may give room to in appropriation of funds as well as introduction of dummy workers in the payroll. The process of employees’ recruitment and training especially for the security guards needs to be reviewed and appropriate steps taken into consideration. The Security guards that were initially employed were never given adequate training thus posing as major challenge when it came to managing security matters. The other area that I realized needs to be fixed is the control room which is responsible for coordinating and responding to emergencies from customers. The control system radio gadget was out dated thus kept going on and off. 4.0 Business Analysis Team According to business analyst, prior to acquisition of a new information system, there should be a dedicated team of experienced staff in place to help me implement the new information system once acquired. Therefore, I have outlined plans to review the employment qualification of my staff members so as to redeploy them accordingly based on their qualification (Vergidis & Majeed, 2008). Meanwhile, we are planning as the executive to employ additional experienced staffs especially in senior management positions to undertake management in the following departments:- 4.1 Finance The finance department is the backbone of any given organization and lack of adequate team to monitor and control an organization’s finances may hinder the performance of the organization. Therefore, once the new system is in place, the accounting practices involving invoicing, placing orders, receipting, bank reconciliation and making payments will have to be done through the new transaction operating systems. Information Technology (IT) The new information system to be instituted in the company will definitely require maintenance and monitoring since a few challenges will have to be encountered before employees get acquainted with the new information system hence the need to hire IT experts such as:- 4.2 Management Information System Experts These are the IT experts who will be involved in the maintenance of the information systems used by the managers. 5.0 Business Analysis Team ICT (Information Communication Technology) Based on the feasibility studies that I did regarding the installation of the new information system, I have decided to look for professional information technicians to spearhead the whole process. Likewise, I will incorporate the services of programmers to help in processing the computer data and feeding into the system. During installation phase, the team involved will be guaranteed free usage of company telephone phones and radio call gadgets while testing their functionality in the course of set up. However, the programmers mandated with processing data will be furnished with written information of the basic information required to be fed in the system. 6.0 Business Process Analysis and Management (BPM) According to Weske (2012), the success of any business venture depends on the ability of the management to create common understanding ground of the business through outlining goals and objectives of the company. For instance, B&S security Ltd has since established itself by outlining its expectations as follows:- To be the leading security provider in terms of collaborating with and supporting other organizations in setting up performance measures through developing industry standards and benchmarks for homeland security. To work together with other private security organs and other relevant key stakeholders to initiate the ethics and structure for a new regulatory regime To integrate advanced technological devices such as sensors and video surveillance while ensuring wide coverage of the locations when offering security services, this intends to help the company be more effective in service delivery while reducing the operation expenses involved in the entire process, for instance video surveillance will lead to reduction of the number of staffs to be deployed at a given location (Rebuge & Ferreira, 2012). The company intends to offer value added services to its customers, for instance surveying the customers’ premises and recommending on the initiatives to be taken to improve the security around the place. Likewise, our security guards will be encouraged to assist in the event of fire or accidents within the locations they are based. The company desires to have quality workforce to ensure the customers receive a satisfactory service delivery. This will be made possible through provision of adequate training to our security personnel so as to enhance their physical fitness and increase their logical skills. In addition our security personnel will be encouraged to vigilant and respectful to our customers as well as adhere to the policies and protocol of the company as stated in the employment contracts (Mukherjee, 2013). The diagram below represents a BPM portal Figure 2: Business Process Analysis Management (BPM) portal 7.0 Business Process Management ICT Design In order to achieve the previously stated objectives, B&S Security Ltd intends to install the following information communications technologies:- Executive Support System (ESS): Accorsing to Jeston & Nelis (2014), this is software that will enable us to be able to make strategic management decisions pertaining to the internal and external aspects of the company. The top management will be able access the information relating to the employees, suppliers and customers among others, for instance, I will be able to know the exact number of the security personnel we have, the identity and physical address of our suppliers as well as our customers. Therefore, tracking down revenues and operating expenses will be much earlier than before (Coutts & Dove, 2011). Management Information Systems (MIS): As reported by Sousa & Oz (2014), this is basically software that will be responsible for processing information data from the transaction processing system into understandable management reports, that is, the summarizing information into debtors’ summary report and creditor’s summary report among others. Transaction Processing Systems (TPS): This is a system that basically processes the data entered into the computer into the desired output, for instance once a customer’s premises has been installed with a security alarm, the details of the customer will be fed into the TPS system and an invoice generated thereafter ( Laudon, 2013). The diagram below shows the structure of the company’s information system Figure 3: information system structure 8.0 Customer Relationship Database Design The fundamental aspect in any organization is to have good relationship with its customers. Understanding of the customers and responding to their queries normally promotes customers’ confidence thus maintaining healthy relationship (Kerzner, 2013). Therefore, an organization should involve every staff member in supporting and responding to the requirements of the employees. The following information will be vital for the organization:- The name of the customer The Location of the customer The telephone and cellphone contacts of the customer The type of service offered to a customer in a given period of time The identity and location of the company’s vendors The quantity and price of the units supplied to the company 9.0 Project Budget Budget is the estimated expenditure report pertaining to a given project. The budget preparation steps include:- Writing down financial goals: This involves outlining the objectives of the installation process so as to track down the progress of the information system installation (Mitton & Donaldson, 2014). Recording the expenditures: All the expenses in relation to the information system installation have to be accounted for, thus need to be included in the budget (Mitton & Donaldson, 2014). Creation of spending categories: The funds have to be allocated appropriately, for instance the cost of procuring the gadgets and the installation fees payable to the technicians (Mitton & Donaldson, 2014). Holding a budget meeting: There has to be a budget committee in place that will meet and discuss the estimated budget (Mitton & Donaldson, 2014). Budget Approval: As management we will meet and review the budget plan and accept or reject depending on the findings (Mitton & Donaldson, 2014). Cost Estimates Hardware: These are the physical parts of the information systems, they cost approximately $40,000. Software: These are the programs to be incorporated in the new information system, estimated to cost $20,000 Networking: these are data packets that that permit exchange of information online platform, estimated to cost $7,000 Staff: the workforce to be involved in the installation process will consume approximately $15,000 Training: The new information will require the staff members to undergo training so as to have proper understanding of the new system; the training cost in this case is estimated to cost $15,000 Other expenses: other additional costs that might be incurred in the installation phase have been budgeted for, that is an extra $3,000. 10. Conclusion Following my consultative research, I learnt that in order to attain the desired objectives, a proper information system acquisition was necessary to be able to track the operations of the company adequately. Therefore, I found it necessary to borrow an amount equivalent to $100,000 so as to enable me set up the new information system. BIBLIOGRAPHY Coutts, M. G., & Dove, L. G. (2011). U.S. Patent No. 7,912,914. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Jeston, J., & Nelis, J. (2014). Business process management. Routledge. Kerzner, H. R. (2013). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons. Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2013). Management Information Systems 11e. Mitton, C., Dionne, F., & Donaldson, C. (2014). Managing Healthcare Budgets in Times of Austerity: The Role of Program Budgeting and Marginal Analysis.Applied health economics and health policy, 12(2), 95-102. Mukherjee, D. (2013). Attributed Metagraph Modelling to Design Business Process Security Management. International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, (06), 41-48. Rebuge, Á., & Ferreira, D. R. (2012). Business process analysis in healthcare environments: A methodology based on process mining. Information Systems,37(2), 99-116. Sousa, K., & Oz, E. (2014). Management information systems. Cengage Learning. Vergidis, K., Tiwari, A., & Majeed, B. (2008). Business process analysis and optimization: Beyond reengineering. Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part C: Applications and Reviews, IEEE Transactions on, 38(1), 69-82. Weske, M. (2012). Business process management: concepts, languages, architectures. Springer Science & Business Media. Read More