IT for Pale Amber French Polishing and Bespoke Furniture - Business Plan Example

Lecturer 30th November IT Plan for Pale amber French Polishing and Bespoke Furniture Introduction: Pale Amber French Polishing and Bespoke Furniture (PFPBF) is a London based small company that provides furniture making and French polishing services. Material and techniques applied for these services are a high quality in the market. Customers with varying needs place orders on the phone call or visit the company before placing their orders. In the furniture market, a careful temperature treatment is essential for the production of polishing and furniture materials. For finishing of the wooden floors and repairing of scratched tables or making a new bespoke furniture piece, company utilizes its capabilities to meet the clients’ demands. Products A wide range of work of all types such as timber and French polishing, wood products, ornamentals and architectural fittings including staircases, floors, wood paneling, and doors, etc. are main services. Modern technique for restoration of old timber is worked out there. Market Most of the customers belong to hotels, museums, legal firms, banks, embassies, private offices and residential. Vision and Mission The vision of PFPBF is to become a large of UK Company in the handmade furniture. Following the vision, PFPBF will expand its business online through development of a strong information system. At the same time, company intends to enter a foreign market. Company’s aim behind the activities of vision is to offer the quality products and strive for achieving the new partners in USA and Canadian market. Currently, company provides high-quality products to London-based communities. Company wants to introduce the high competitive products. Problems with its current information processing abilities The PFPBF is a small one furniture manufacturing company that is more motivated for introducing the extended online information system. Aim behind this development is to fill the gap of low-level coordination between organizational units and functions. There is a lack of high-level effectiveness and efficiency for external as well as internal customers’ satisfaction. Difficulties of company increase because political, cultural and competitors’ resistance increases (Caruso and Marchiori). Furniture manufacturing and processing companies cannot properly function without implementing a good information system. It refers to all business affairs and individuals from finance, bookkeeping, supply and sales, etc. A company’s information system requires to be explained in terms of its corporative parts, and transactions, which integrate together to form an information system. Deficiencies in the existing Website Nearly 70% small business companies working in UK are connected through the internet, but their websites are static and limited only for emails. Only a small number of UK business companies have their fully functional system with dynamic features. In an estimate, about 2% products all over UK were sold through the internet. But suggestions for UK are equally high as for Canada in Terms of online buying and selling of products. The PFPBF faces the challenges of communication with vendors, clients, and employees. Already web portal of PFPBF is inefficient in yielding the desired outputs. Company’s management needs the fast communication with their customers to verify their placed orders. High cost of broadband presents an additional hindrance for developing an information system. Furniture manufacturing companies serve in their ways in UK, but cannot advance their existing systems to align with the IT applications, which are robust and inexpensive. Small, medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have limited staffing skills, experience and resources and face various competitive problems posed by the larger organizations. These large organizations have their well-managed information systems and invest the amount in millions of dollars for new ISs. Top management of small, medium sized companies show their commitment for adoption of IT as a cornerstone to achieve the success in SMEs. The PFPBF top management may be not interested in developing the full fledged information system for business computing. Top management is directly involved in IS sophistication and evaluation. For success of the small medium sized companies including the PFPBF, it has been found that advantages of computerization for companies are only achieved through the Top management’s involvement and interest for adopting the IT technology. Company suffers from the restricted access of resources as compared to the large organizations. Financial resource for a company is the key critical success factor, which are also called as the performance requirements. Imprecise investment of financial investment can cause the economic failure. For the implementation of a good IT system, company requires the investment for a long period and a large amount for IT infrastructure (Ghobakhloo et al.,). Existing system of the company is mainly in the category of blogs with the abstract information about company. Company’s website is static with static pages links. It does not incorporate the features, which allow customers to make interaction with the company’s sales department. Customer cannot find any option to fill the form and submit it for any request of product or service of the company. Very simple technology for website development has been used. Modern web technology features have been not embedded with the website, which ensure reliability and security of the system (Greenwood, 350). IT Plan Like many other growing companies working in UK, The PFPBF needs to replace its existing system with an enterprise application, which is aimed to provide all types of business activities. This type of a system is based on the Enterprise Resource Planning. This type of system works not only for planning but also managing the daily operation for PFPBF. Company wants furniture product delivery and another service at a reduced cost. New information technology considered for company PFPBF is innovative and newest that is more common for companies looking forwards. The innovative technology has been not introduced in the past. Adoption of a new technology is also based on the business needs of the company. Following the strategy of low cost, company’s business will be focused to process and produce the furniture products and other services easily. New system will support the company to lower the charges of products distribution and labor will be closely and tightly supervised. Use of technology will pave the way for production of standard products. In order to develop an IT plan for the furniture company, an appropriate technology is selected (Lourens and Jonker). Infrastructure for new information system: There is a need of a supporting infrastructure for PFPBF that entails the interconnection of all services and enable them to function properly. Infrastructure of a furniture company includes all components involved for the production of furniture products and related services. Information system infrastructure of PFPBF consists of a network, software, hardware, human resource, data, facilities that support in decision making, competitive strategy, and business processes. Management of the company also needs an infrastructure that supports the various activities including the collaboration between sales officials and customers. Management at various levels in the company needs the information analysis from business processes. The infrastructure of the company is based on the following components. Software Hardware Collaboration and communication Facilities Data and knowledge Services Human Resource A robust system helps the business units of company with the external as well as internal partners by providing them structure and fundamental processes and ensures that technology is aligned with those needs which could not be met through the existing system. This robust system will provide a balance between the business innovation and IT efficiency. In the initial phase, a thorough review of critical business process and business strategies will enable to identify the gaps in human resource and HR lifecycle. High priority streams of production and sales are addressed initially that yields the tangible results. For example, sales department data is processed that enables to forecast the sale for next six months. System’s development is taken in House in premises of the company. For this purpose a development team comprising of total five members is hired for a period of six month. This team is responsible and uses the agile methodology for application development. This application will be fully functional and aligned to business goals of PFPBF. Agile methodology fills the gaps, which remain incomplete by using the traditional methodologies. Agile methodology is more advantageous than traditional methodologies in adopting the rapid and flexible changes in the business, products and deployment environment. Main applications related to ERP system include the products, Orders and Sale, Suppliers and customers, User management and management. Product Module of the Information System covers the data about all products and services. This module also contains the information about stock available. Orders and Sales module is related with the customers’ orders, status of their orders, delivery notes and invoices produced after receiving the products. Suppliers and Customers module has been further divided into two applications. New customers and existing customers information is maintained in the customer application. This application is core for the system development as it recognizes the existing individuals who interact with the system and get the company’s products or services. Management is a module designed for company’s manager as he can manage the orders, prices and manages reports about customers’ purchase and sells. A User module is for those individuals who hit the information system for any information. These business processes are embedded with the new system and eliminate all lacks found in the existing website of company PFPBF. New IT plan is consistent with the business needs, financial resources, and competitive position. Recognition of valuable sources of capacity and money is obtained through the information. Business objectives of the acquisition, use, storage and other services can be easily obtained through this new system. System deals with the management information, management planning, actions and decision making. It also saves the usage of company’s resources for distribution of products (Jawadekar, 286). Summary In this paper, the IT plan of a UK based company Pale Amber French Polishing and Bespoke Furniture has been briefly described. Vision, market, products and services of the company make it unique in the London furniture market. Company’s main products are handmade and applied with high-quality chemicals. In the next part of the paper, current problems faced by the company are briefly described with the reference of the literature. Current website of the company has been analyzed and found various securities and low-level business processes facilities in the website. Availability of limited resources and less interest of top management has been considered a major hindrance for adopting the large-scale information systems. In the final part of the paper, IT plan for furniture company PFPBF has been discussed. Infrastructure and major types of applications are also an essential part of the IT plan. Agile methodology is chosen for development of an ERP as an information system and services are delivered in-house. Work Cited: Caruso Angelo and Marchiori Michela. The Adoption of Information Systems in SMEs: Organizational Issues and Success Factors, Adoption of Information systems in SMEs Available fromhttp://www.google.com.pk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fis2.lse.ac.uk%2Fasp%2Faspecis%2F20030092.pdf&ei=W5Z4VLW-GYncasy3gIgJ&usg=AFQjCNEcTnf2JK8FWSiy1WYwZnM2ehkCRw Accessed on 29-11-2014. Greemwood P. Robert, Handbook of financial planning and control, Burlington, Gower Publishing Company, 2002. Print. Ghobakhloo Morteza, Hong S. Tang. Abouri S. Mohammad and Zulkifli Norzima. Strategies for Successful Information Technology Adoption in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Information, 3, (2012): 36-67 Print. Jawadekar, S. Waman. Management information systems: Text and cases. Green Park Delhi. McGraw Hill Education, 2013. Print. Lourens S.A and Jonker A.J. An Integrated Approach For Developing A Technology Strategy Framework For Small- To Medium-Sized Furniture Manufacturers To Improve Competitiveness, South African Journal of Industrial Engineering, 24(1) (2013) 50-67 Print. Read More