Evaluation of critical areas of an information system - Coursework Example

? Evaluation of Critical Areas of an Information System Executive Summary The information system is used for the purpose of ensuring that organizational decisions are made effectively and efficiently. In order to ensure that decisions are made fairly and have a positive impact on the organization, it is important to ensure that decisions are made by the proper people who are the organization’s management. There are various types of information systems which help the organization’s management to come up with the best decisions for the organization. The information systems help in making decisions on matters of managing human resources in the organization as well as promote the marketing environment in that organization. The information system also uses computer technology to offer solutions to companies and organizations which are geographically distributed and which have problems communicating and solving some of the problems experienced, thus capturing the operations of international companies. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.1Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………4 1.2 Organization understanding of the information system…………………………………….4 1.3 Types of information systems in organizations…………………………………….……….5 1.3.1 Transaction Processing System…………………………..…………..…….……..5 1.3.2 Management Information System…………………………… ……………..…....5 1.3.3 Decision Supports Systems……………………………………………………….6 1.3.4 Executive Support System……………………………………………….……..…6 2.1 Information Systems for Competitive advantage……………………….……………….….7 2.1.1 Value Chain Analysis………………………………………….…………..………8 2.1.2 Porter’s Framework for competitive Analysis…………………….............……….8 2.2 IT and Human Resource…………………………………………………………….………..9 2.3 IT and Marketing………………………………………………………………...….…….…10 3.1 Capturing International Companies by use of Information Systems…………………….….11 4.1 Complex Information in IT………………………………………………………….………11 4.2 Solutions to the IT Issues………………………………………………..…….…………….13 5.1 Case study……………………………………………………………………....…….……..13 6.1Summary…………………………………………………………………………….….……14 References…………………………………………………………………………………….....16 Evaluation of Critical Areas of an Information System 1.1 Introduction Information system is used in management of organizations in order for decisions concerning the organizations to be made. Information systems help the management to improve the performance of the organization in order to expand its production and bring out an understanding of the information in the organization. The Unilever Company is one of the organizations which use information systems for the purpose of bringing in an effective working condition and thus contributing to competitive advantage. An organization may use different information systems which help in improving the performance of the organization. 1.2 Organization understanding of the information system Unilever Company uses the information system to ensure that the business goals and objectives are met. Therefore, the organization uses technologies and techniques which help in planning for the systems which can be used to improve the working environment of such an organization. The use of information systems at Unilever Company brings in an effective and proper working condition through the formation of teams which work towards attaining a competitive advantage. The management of the Unilever Company have a role of ensuring that the organization function in a proper way for the purpose of bringing in innovation for improving the benefits to the business. Therefore, the management ensures that the resources are properly planned for so as the projects put in place can be carried out (Prospects, 2013). The organization also uses information technology so as to enhance the management of supplies to the customers and this in turn brings a better understanding of the customer’s needs thus the organization is able to meet these needs. The use of information system in the organization provides an understanding between the organization and the business partners who ensure that the organization works towards attaining its goals and objectives through the involvement of businesses (Unilever, 2012). Thus, the management at Unilever Company uses the information systems to ensure that they create a business change in the organization as well as provide approaches which are needed for the purpose of solving some of the problems that the organization comes across. The use of information systems helps the organization to make proper decisions which are used for improving the skills of the workers as well as improving their communication with other workers and management. All these bring in competitive advantage and expand the organization to influence and face the global environment and markets. 1.3 Types of information systems in organizations 1.3.1 Transaction Processing System This is a type of information system that is used in organizations on daily basis for the purpose of enhancing support for all the organization’s primary and operational activities. This type of information system provides support for the data that has been stored in the organization. Data to be stored is gathered from both internal and external sources, and it is used to support the organization’s environment. The transaction processing system is used to gather data for the organization and it ensures that the information is accurate and kept safe and secure. 1.3.2 Management Information System This type of information system helps the managers and those people in authority to ensure that they make the right and concrete decisions for the organization. The people who use this type of information system have similar needs which have to be addressed by similar minds. The decisions made are in concern of what the organization has been doing in the past, what it is presently doing and the goals it wishes to accomplish in the near future. The marketing mix decisions are made using this kind of decisions. Therefore, the managers are able to come up with decisions concerning which the product the organization should deal with, the place and location where such a product should be marketed, the price to be imposed on that particular product and the promotional effects to be placed on the product to ensure the success of the organization. 1.3.3 Decision Supports Systems This is a type of information system that is used in making decisions that do not necessarily affect the managers, but those which affect the smaller groups in the organization such as the support groups. However, with complex situations, the individuals may seek the help of the managers in order to come up with the best decision affecting such people. All decisions made should be considered as having an influence on the business or organization future operations. This means that it is important for the people to have a consideration of the issues that purposely affect the organization’s way of achieving the business objectives (Burstein and Holsapple, 2008). 1.3.4 Executive Support System This is a type of information system that is used to help the executives come up with decisions needed to ensure that they make the organization progress and meet its goals and objectives. Most of the information provided by this kind of system is that which affects the organization’s operation and which has a great influence on the organization’s operations. Information from Executive Support System comes from all organizational activities such as marketing, human resource, accounting, manufacturing and financial. All these types of management information systems are designed to ensure that all problems facing the organization are solved (Ghaebi, 2012). 2.1 Information Systems for Competitive advantage In order for an organization to become competitive, it has to use various technology tools and the required applications. This would lead to an effective an efficient organization which is able to meet the business goals and objectives. In order to effectively compete in the market, an organization should be able to identify the three strategies which they would use to ensure that they are able to compete effectively in the market. The three strategies are the overall cost Leadership, the strategy of differentiation and the focus strategy. The information system provides a link between the suppliers and the customers as well, thus improving the service provision to the customers from the suppliers through the management of the organization. Therefore, a good relationship is built between the organization and the customers (Bidgoli, 2011). For Unilever Company to achieve competitive advantage, it has come up with a strategy to expand to the foreign markets. This would make it possible for the organization to attract and gain customers from all over the world. Once the products have been introduced and spread to several foreign markets, the organization would be in a position to compete globally. The organization ensured that its products are unique and different from the products produced by the competing organizations. However, the products would be unified all over the world and thus the users would be able to find the specific products from any place in the world. The use of information systems in ensuring that the organization achieves the goals of entering into the foreign market makes it possible for the organization to market the products to all parts of the world. The operations and distribution of the products would also be uniform and the customers would get their needs all over the world (Fikri, 2010). The entry into the foreign markets for competitive advantage would make the organization use the cost leadership strategy which would ensure that the products are sold at a relatively low price. This would make it possible for the organization to attract buyers from all over the world and thus promote their products at a low price. There are two approaches used for the creation of competitive advantage in an organization by the use of information systems. These approaches are value Chain Analysis and Porter’s Framework for Competitive Analysis (Daneshvar and Ramesh, 2010). 2.1.1 Value Chain Analysis The value Chain is explained using the business unit context which is inclusive of the activities that are designed by the organization for the purposes of designing and producing products and services in the organization for the marketing and delivering them to the customers in order to achieve competitive advantage. The value chain is used to distinguish between the two types of activities carried out in an organization, and these include the primary activities and the support activities. Ward and Peppard (2002) explained the primary activities as those which enable an organization to fulfill their objectives in order to meet the needs of the customers. All the primary activities should be linked together in order to ensure that the performance of the organization is proper and optimized. The support activities on the other hand are those which control the business operations and help add value to the organization. The process by which information is used for the products and services to be created and delivered to the potential customers is the value chain. 2.1.2 Porter’s Framework for competitive Analysis There are five underlying forces which determine the attractiveness of an organization and the competitive forces which help in achieving the competitive advantage. These forces are the rivalry among the existing firms, the threat of substitute products, and threat of competitors, bargaining power of the suppliers, and bargaining power of the buyers. The information technology has an influence on the organization’s competitive advantage as it can be able to change the relationship between the organization and the suppliers of the products to the customers. The internet for example may affect the bargaining power of the suppliers by focusing on internet procurement which is a good channel which the suppliers can use to reach the users of the specific products (Rainer and Cegielski, 2009). Rivalry among the existing forms is a challenge that an organization may get and thus the information systems may be used to widen the market of the products geographically. The organization may also improve the bargaining power of the buyers by eliminating the traditional ways which were used to attract the customers. The threat substitute products are also a force that is used to bring competitive advantage to the organization. Therefore, the management of the Unilever Company may use the information systems to ensure that they concentrate on expanding the market of the products thus leading to the increase in the size of the market as compared to other organizations, and this leads to the gain of competitive advantage (Daneshvar and Ramesh, 2010). 2.2 IT and Human Resource The human resource uses the information systems to ensure that problems concerning data information needs such as data tracking, data entry and data information such as payroll, accounting problems and management data of the organization are solved. The software needed to ensure that these problems are well solved is the Human resource Information System software. The software helps in the management of the information that has been put in the organization by the management about the employees data, so that it can become for easy for the management to analyze the information about the employees in the organization. The software is also used for the purpose of keeping information concerning the guidelines needed to be followed in order to provide a good working environment (Dery et al, 2006). The Unilever Company can use the Human resource Information systems to ensure that information about the employees is well kept. This means that data concerning the employees’ absence, their salaries, their profiles and all the data concerning the employees is up to date and safely kept. The value chain is applied to the organization’s human resource management by administering the employees’ benefits as well as providing personnel services to the workers. Training is also made effective through the use of web based training to the employees who help in improving the performance of the organization thus providing competitive advantage (Daneshvar and Ramesh, 2010) 2.3 IT and Marketing The use of information systems in marketing is done to ensure that data is collected, processed and stored in order to help in the managerial decisions. The information herein brings in a relationship between the managers and the marketing environment. This means that information is developed through analysis from the users. The development of the marketing information is made so as to ensure that the management gets information concerning the competitors in the marketing environment. This makes it possible for the management to get to know which ways to follow in order to ensure that they go ahead of their competitors in the marketing environment. Through the use of information systems in the marketing environment, the value of information received is up to date and the decisions made help in improving the environment in which the information is got from (Bhansali, 2008). 3.1 Capturing International Companies by use of Information Systems Information systems are used to enhance the capture of international companies by use of the internet, the supply chain management, electronic data interchange and the enterprise resource planning. The internet for example is used to transfer data, audio and video information to any person all over the world. Information provisions to companies all the world is used as a pillar for the competitive advantage of a particular company. Therefore, the information system is set in order to ensure that people work together with the data provided to enhance the procedures which are needed to effectively manage information for purpose of meeting these organization’s goals and objectives. Computer technology is used to offer solutions to companies and organizations which are geographically distributed and which have problems communicating and solving some of the problems experienced. Organizations are able to access information from any part of the world. One of the advantages of computer technology is the reduction of costs incurred in the process of communication between the management personnel who are in different parts of the world. The technology enables information to be shared effectively without having to personally leave a place for another for purpose of communication (Dadashzadeh, 2007). 4.1 Complex Information in IT There are issues which come up as a result of the information technology which are complex and sometimes difficult to solve. The following are some of the issues which the management find to be complex while dealing with the information systems. Urgency There are situations in which there are urgent needs and needs which are not urgent. Therefore, while considering the information system to use in the process of communication between the management, it is important for the people to identify some of the information which is an emergency so as to ensure that it has been solved and dealt with urgently. Coverage Some of the information needed in ensuring the organization’s decisions are made is the coverage of information within that particular organization. Therefore, the problems in the organization should also be considered and evaluated to ensure that they are all covered and solved so as to ensure a proper running of the organization. Structure There are some issues which need to be considered in the approach of the complex information that an organization may be facing. This is because there are va5riations in the structure of the organizations and how they solve some of these issues and problems. Some structure of the information issues should be considered and well identified so as to identify the procedures needed in ensuring that business is well structured to solve some of these information issues. Risks An organization may experience some loss if information is not well and correctly accessed. There are situations where there are so many risks involved in the decisions made for the purpose of ensuring a proper management of the organization. All scenarios of the information should be accessed to ensure that the decisions made are reliable and would bring good and better results (Skyrius and Bujauskas, 2010). Some of these issues that are experienced in information systems are due to the lack of management tools which are needed to ensure that information is evaluated, monitored and controlled in a proper way (Irani, 2001). 4.2 Solutions to the IT Issues In order to ensure that the problems are solved, it is important to ensure that the organizations consider selecting a team of people who are experienced in the making of managerial decisions. This is important because such people will be able to identify and access the information received in order to ensure that they make the right decisions. If for example a certain decision is needed to be made urgently, the management should be in a position to ensure that they discuss the issues at hand and come up with the concrete solution to a problem that they might be experiencing. This is an important issue because if decisions made are not concrete, it means that they would affect the operations of the whole business. If there is variety of information that needs to be accessed by the management in the organization, it means that the management should ensure that they cover the whole organization and consider the structure of the organization for the purpose of establishing a concrete decision that would favor the organization’s operations. In addition, the management should also consider some of the important aspects that are needed to ensure that they evaluate all the risks involved after a certain decision are made. This is also important in ensuring that every decision made is controllable and can have an influence on the organization’s operations (Shelly & Vermaat, 2000). 5.1 Case study The Unilever Company had an intention of consolidating the 16oo brands that it had previously come up with in order to form 400 from that number. This is because the Information Technology environment in the organization was decentralized and thus it was a burden for the organization’s to plan on how to stabilize and improve the efficiency of the organization. The reason as to why the management made the decision to consolidate the brands is because the Information technology Environment need to ensure that information reaches the customers regionally and globally in a fast, effective and efficient way. Therefore, the decision to consolidate the brands made the organization to launch a program that would be used in the development of the infrastructure that would support the growth of the organization (Stair & Reynolds, 2010). The program that the organization came up with was the Unilever information program which would be used for integrating information in order to serve the thousands of customers who needed to get information concerning the products and services that the organization offers all over the world. The program would make it possible for data to be available to all the users. The organization therefore extracted a tool called Data Integrator which would be used to get data from the customers which would be used for the purpose of making proper decisions for the organization. The Data Integrator would have an access to lots of information sources which would be used in the management of the company’s data infrastructure (Broe and Applegate, 2005). 6.1 Summary The information system is one of the systems which help the management of an organization to make decisions which have a great effect on the organization’s operations. With proper management in the organization, it means that the decisions made are proper, which have bees accessed, interpreted and evaluated. The various types of information systems are used to ensure that each person in the organization is in a position to come up with the best decision which affects the organization. A successful organization is that those decisions are made effectively and efficiently by the proper individuals (Lohman, 2002). The decisions made are made so as to bring in an effect in the organization’s operations. All the activities in the organization are considered because they affect the success or failure of that particular organization. The information systems affect the human resource and the marketing environments of the organization as well. However, there are issues which come along with the decision making in the organization, which affect the making of decisions that are well valuated. These issues should be dealt with in order to bring in a better organizational perspective that is able to solve all the organizational problems. References Bidgoli, H., 2011. Using information Technologies for Competitive Advantage. Business Education centre. Retrieved on 3rd Jan 2013 from http://www.csub.edu/kej/documents/business_educ/2011-01-24.pdf Bhansali, J., 2008. Marketing Information Systems. Retrieved on 4th Jan 2013 from http://www.slideshare.net/bhansalijayanti/marketing-information-system-presentation Broe, C., & Applegate, S., 2005. Case study Unilever Jumpstarts Growth Strategy, Increases Revenues. Retrieved on 3rd Jan 2013 from http://tdwi.org/Articles/2005/10/13/Unilever- Jumpstarts-Growth-Strategy-Increases-Revenues.aspx?Page=1 Burstein, F., & Holsapple, C. W., 2008. Handbook on Decision Support System. New York: Springer. Dadashzadeh, M., 2007. International Information Systems Management in Strategic and operational. New York: SAGE Publication. Daneshvar, P., & Ramesh, H. N., 2010. Review of information technology Effect on Competitive Advantage- Strategic perspective. International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology, 2 (11). Dery, K., Grant, D., & Wiblen, S., 2006. Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS): Replacing or Enhancing HRM. Retrieved on 3rd Jan 2013 from http://sydney.edu.au/business/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/72273/IIRA_Dery_et_al_HRIS _Replacing_or_enhancing_HRM_final.pdf Fikri, M., 2010. Unilever’s Strategies for Competing in Foreign Markets. Strategic Management Seminar. Ghaebi, 2012. Types of information systems. ISR Lecture IV. Retrieved on 3rd Jan 2013 from http://araku.ac.ir/~a_fiantial/ISR_Lec_%5B4%5D.pdf Irani, Z., 2001. Information Systems Evaluation: Navigating Through the problem Domain. Information and Management. Lohman, D., 2002. Complex Information Processing and Intelligence. Retrieved on 4th Jan 2013 from http://faculty.education.uiowa.edu/dlohman/pdf/complex_information_processing.pdf Prospects, 2013. Role of IT at Unilever. Retrieved on 3rd Jan 2013 from http://ww2.prospects.ac.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/Engineering__Science_and_Tech nology/Features/Role_of_IT_at_Unilever/p!elkmef Rainer, R. K., & Cegielski, C. G., 2009. Introduction to Information Systems: Enabling and Transforming Business. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Shelly, C., & Vermaat, 2000. Types of Information Systems. Retrieved on 4th Jan 2013 from http://bisom.uncc.edu/courses/info2130/Topics/istypes.htm Skyrius, R., and Bujauskas, V., 2010. A study on Complex Information Needs in Business Activities. The International Journal of Emerging Tran discipline, 13 (1). Stair, R. M., & Reynolds, G., 2010. Principles of Information Systems: A Managerial Approach. New York: Cengage Learning. Unilever, 2012. Information Technology. Unilever global Company Website. Ward, J., & Peppard, J., 2002. Strategic Planning for Information Systems (3rd Ed). New York: British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. Read More