Information Systems for Managers - Article Example

Information Systems for Managers Name: Roll No: Class: Subject: Teacher: January 3, 2008 University Introduction: The implementation of the internet technologies and the need to set up the traditional businesses is impacting every business around and is seen as the latest stage in the evolution of the ongoing progress. The changes have been so rapid and inevitable that the shift therefore must take place as early and quickly as possible in order to keep yourself up with the pace with the competitors around and with the customers who are now more knowledgeable and does know what they want and others have to offer. The information system management has step up as the need of the today’s market and nevertheless has the same importance level as some any of the field related to business. So its importance is now is very high as it was never before, and it is lot better for our company as well because of the current high involvement of the internet and computer technologies around. I, as appointed by my team to lookup and provide critical result oriented information, I provide you so. Software Based Solutions: The company needs very high class software information system in order to track down the transactional changes taking place all over the globe. We know that we are progressing towards a global community and therefore must take steps to keep up as so from now on. The real time information should be acquired to anywhere the company’s headquarters exist, so that the persons responsible to keep up the data update are updated as required (O’Brien, 2003: 47). The real time solutions must be the key points in the implementation of our software based information system. I recommend a software package that provides real time information. The software package first includes the daily office products for the routine works. That will include the MS Office applications to work out best. But if we are looking for the cost effective solution we might use the Linux operating system as our first choice as it has no license costs. The Open Office Org will replace the MS Office. The real time software will have to be GUI. It must be user friendly with a good amount help available by the company which provided it, so that we can have a replacement on urgent basis. The software should be connected to the head office in Malaysia, and keep the head office informed of what is happening in the UK. The software will provide sales and the remaining stock, the situation of the raw materials and the progress on the shipments which are inbound and outbound (Gray, 2005:73). IT Solutions: The networking side of the computer field has evolved with so much progress that it was not expected to be like this. The progress throughout the world solely depends upon the connections that are made to bound different companies and departments together. With the evolution of information technology structure, we have come to point that the company must keep its IT infrastructure strong in the UK as well as in the head office in Malaysia. With different technologies awaking here and there we have a lot of choices to choose from. The WIMAX technologies and the VPN structural feature to interconnect various sub offices together is a very good option to start with. The VPN provides the Virtual Private Network where the offices have the opportunity to communicate with each other and also being the part of the internet. The resources of the company are kept safe and no one is authenticated to share the network resources if he is not on the network which comprises in different areas (Pearlson et al., 2005:210). Moreover, to provide a better telephonic structure, it is advisable not to use the POT system. The Plain Old Telephone has been the major deal for the industry, but now it’s better to move on to other alternatives. IAD devices are a considerable a better choice. The Integrated Access Device provides us the solutions to our problems. It gives us the LAN connections and simple telephonic connection as POT system provides us. VPN The input to this IAD is the WAN management connection. Now we are having a very safe and sound solution to out internet concerns and the connectivity concerns. This system is relatively cheap and provides with us with the very effective solutions. Hardware Information System: Client Server relations are not new in the telecom industry and the business community. The servers are considered to provide the backbone of the company which provides that company the resources on the internet by working as a gateway and also providing all the information about the company resources. There are many servers in a big company, each one dedicated for its own functions (Gray, 2005:265). Clients are those system end users who have to share the resources from the servers. The hardware system of the company should be hard enough to work out with the deals. By doing so we are sure to have a separate dedicated server for a single application. That will decrease the whole lot workload and only those users will share the space that needs them at that time. This will provide us the sharing of the resources and the servers will provide good results as they are only used when they are required. Our LAN infrastructure therefore should be based on the Client Server module rather than the old legacy systems where a single server has to be the backbone of every application and solution and provides a very slow connections and queues for the end users. Data Resource Management: Data is considered to be a very vital resource for an organization. Whether the organization is a small one or the large, the data resource management is the backbone of the company. The data is the information of the people who are related to the company. Now as we are opening our new franchisee in the UK, therefore we have to keep the information about our customers in tact. The customers of a company are the mast valuable asset of a company and must be preserved very well. In order to have better management solutions we have to keep in mind various options that are presented to us. The DBMS is a user interface between the users and the database. This makes the easy accessibility of the customer in any case it is needed. This management system consolidates the records and objects placed in them can be accessed by various applications (O’Brien, 2003: 146). A single DBMS can provide you with a database which can be easily available for different applications and any changes made will be easily met by other applications that might be using it for their own purposes. DBMS The Database development is another important step. We have heard about the MS Access application to provide the backhand database management system. But we will employ the dedicated database management software that should fit to our needs and requirements. Being a large company with sale records going high we must do that. A separate database management team should be employed so that it can provide with the solutions whenever they are originated. In the development of the database management software we possibly have Oracle as the best choice available as it is largely employed by many large organizations and we cannot doubt its workability and dedicated ness. The database will include the Operational Database, Distributed Database and the External Database (Pearlson et al., 2005:156). The operational database stores the detailed information which supports the business operational. Theses will include the customer database, human resource database, transactional database etc. The distributed database is the exact backup copies of the databases that are situated at different sites that is, different servers. By application of this, we are sure that in case if any of the servers goes down we have a backup server to take up the action and will provide unharmed source of the database. The external database is one which is not under the control of the entity. We will have to pay a fee to access this database. This is important in the sense that we will only have to pay a fee for the information we require. This will save us lots of pounds. Thus in order to produce an efficient database management system we will be employing the basic aspects of database which include Data Administration and Data Planning to suit our needs. Business Solutions: We are new in the UK market. Though we have a lot of experience working in an international environment and we have done our research at the highest level to become adjustable to the environment of the required market. For this reason we have to first employ the human resource from the UK itself. The ones who have been living here and know the business environment and trends will provide us with the lot of information and a lot of results output as compared to the staff which we would have hired from Malaysia. The management off course has it genesis to Malaysia and the working team still belongs from there, but what we need are the effective field and management personals who can achieve our targets. In order to do so in keeping the touch with information technology, we will be providing our system in UK with a lot of stuff (Sumner, 1995:112). The informational business solution e-system is the answer for this. As we know that e-Business Architecture will help to give our new staff a lot of easy breathes that it will become manageable to move ahead at high speed. This architecture will consists of interrelationships and the interfaces with the potential customers, employees, potential business opportunities and others who in one way or the other are good for the health of the company. e-Business Solutions Customer Relationship management will be playing an important role in its field. We all know that how much a customer costs to us. The knowledge of an existing customer will bring us more customers, but by thinking this, we also have to keep in mind that we can have new customer, but it is difficult to keep it. And if we keep it we win. So our services to the customers which are new to us should be groundbreaking and up to standards so that they should always be satisfied to us (Bidgoli, 1997:88). By stating and doing so we will be having a lot of more potential business in our pockets shortly. The information e-Business System strategies should be kept in contact. Supply Chain management system should be employed from start. As we all know that now recently all the industries are looking forward to transfer themselves strategically over supply chain management principle, so it’s better for us to start our business with concepts of supply chain management as our sole priority. Collaboration: No matter how much we plan and provide paths for the success, the main stage of the success still lies in the group of people working in the company. We might get some idle and non networking staff in Malaysia as this might not affect us there, but in UK, it does so. The new market is the one we have to keep an eye on. Urging the employees is not enough, we have to provide them with their ethical values, so that whatever they do, they should know that they are leaving something behind. The teams should be working closely. The incentives should be higher for the pioneering staff. Apart from the basic salaries they must be given a lot of bonuses and they should not feel that their struggle is being wasted. The total track of the performance should be maintained (Bidgoli, 1997:139). The database department should employ another department which will do so in better way. The ethical rights should be thoroughly provided to the employees in order to gain high results. That’s how it is possible to work in the world globally and more effectively. The Malaysia and the UK is just the start, that’s what that should be stored in the minds of the employees. Security Challenges: The security challenges are available everywhere around. The security of the information should be another thing that has to be taken seriously, in fact, very seriously. We see that the information is changing its way from hard copy to soft copy. All the information is moving on the computers. The servers and the clients’ relations are being brought in front of people. But the stealing of the information is still the hazards that are not seen differently. The hackers and crackers are always working to break into the systems and the databases of the customers. That’s where our enemies can strike us and make a fun of us. And so we have to take further steps so that this issue is not at the stake. The AITP, Association of Information Technology Professionals, has worked to setup rules for the computer crimes and various ways by which these crimes can take place. So the recommendations are directly related to those which are stated by them (O’Brien, 2003: 375). Network Security Architecture Encryption of data has become an important way to protect data other computer resources on the networks and the internets. The encryption is basically is the communication between the host and network server, and it changes the password values in such a scrambled form which can only be unscrambled by authorized software on the other end. Firewalls are another same technique that detects the unusual behavior in the form of intrusion and or other spy ware or virus. An antivirus client will keep track of the definitions of the virus to be updated. Thus by employing these services at our network we are sure that we have a strong line of defense against the hackers and crackers and the computer criminal personalities working their way through to the important and value able information of our company, employees and customers (Tomlinson, 2007: 85). Client Server Emails should be monitored carefully for the material that might be harmful and can in some way or the other objects the user piracy. The whole monitoring staff should be employed for this purpose. The skilled staff should be hired with competitive salaries. By this we will be safe in our approach. Flexibility: The flexibility is an issue that must be taken cared of. It has been found out that the data resources, different applications and networks sometimes provide non- flexible approach to the data and the services. This is what that sometimes becomes cumbersome. This is where the solution provider has to be very careful in his approach. The solution has to be carefully drawn keeping in mind that the future scenarios can change. We may need to add another network in the existing network. Or we might need to share the resources on another network server, or we might need to have any other software solution as per the demand of the company and the users. So it should be kept in mind that the solution should be the one that works best in every condition (Tomlinson, 2007: 487). This must not happen that at the end of some period we have to increase our resources and we don’t have any options but just to employ a whole new network again from scratch, rather than using the existing as the backbone and incrementing the new one. Same situation should be with the software application providing team that should always be keeping itself ready to make up new applications by getting the feedbacks from the employees that may be using them. Being flexible in approach from the start will help us making good roots to move forward. That should be made clear before employing any solutions for the problems. The Hardware Reliability: As we know that the hardware structure is the one that will be employed once. We might need software solutions, upgrades and new applications but the hardware should be the one that should always be supportive to the changes to the industry. It is difficult to stay with the hardware approach to upgrade as there is always coming next. So what we will be doing is that we will be employing the very high end computer technology. So much new that it might not be available for the consumer sector to buy. Thus, by making that we are assure that we are buying products that are way far new and will stay in the market for the longer time. This will also allow us to upgrade the software solutions whenever needed as we will have the required hardware all the times, at least for some years (Sumner, 1995:301). This will surely cost high capital but it will also provide us the opportunity to get low on our other expenses including the upgrade hardware etc. The hardware should be the best is not everything that is desired. The hardware should be kept alive all the time in working condition is what required. The server that are being used should be up 24/7 policy. No matter what happen, the computer servers should never go down. In case of an outage it, we must employ a backup server with the same configuration as the one which is primary and it should have access to all the resources. The backup generators should be working there. There should be a separate staff for that purposes, whose work is to always make sure that the servers are up and are working fine. In any scenario where they might need help they must get it every time. It is all because, that’s what our business is all about. The information exchange is what that is required from us for the two head office, in Malaysia and in UK. So that is what we will be doing. Hosting Issues: When we talk about hosting and its issues, we are not sure about what to come. We have a lot hosting options to start with. Whether to employ our own housing and/or hire a hosting company to do, is what basically to be decided upon. Well at this time it will be better off to go with a hosting company and not to house in our place. I recommend this because we all know that we are starting something new in UK. We are known of the trends but we are not sure about the results. The results will be good hopefully, but it would be better that we should work on those areas which are first to be worked on. The hiring of staff and working in field are seemed to be two very good things to start with. Keeping the human resource in the fields is better and that will make our hiring at one point only. By hiring the hosting company and giving our resources to it will therefore save us a lot of time which we should employ in other areas. At the mean time, we would be slowly developing our own hardware solutions and installing our own networks (Piccoli, 2007:466). When it will complete we will than start the shift back of the data to our own resources. Otherwise, we might lose lots of time in just hanging out the networks and it may take indefinitely time. Conclusion: The information systems in the business will act as a bridge between two managements and it surely will provide benefits to our company to stay in the market. Like all other big industries are employing the IT as the priorities, we will be doing so. By this we get the entire features required to run our business. References O’Brien, James A. 2003. Introduction to Information Systems: Essentials for the e-Business Enterprise. New York: McGraw-Hill. Gray, Paul. 2005. Manager's Guide to Making Decisions about Information Systems. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Piccoli, Gabriele. 2007. Information Systems for Managers: Texts and Cases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tomlinson, Roger. 2007. Thinking about GIS: Geographic Information System Planning for Managers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pearlson, Keri E. & Saunders, Carol S. 2005. Managing and Using Information Systems. New York: Doubleday. Sumner, Mary. 1995. Management Information Systems, the Manager's View. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Bidgoli, Hossein. 1997. Modern Information Systems for Managers. New York: William Morrow. Read More