Information Systems and Information Technology - Assignment Example

Information Systems and Information Technology Information systems and information technology forms the basis of refined service delivery and management. This finesse comes from processing the information within the given time using it up to establishment and customer’s requirement and necessity. The ability of the company to address the needs of the customers depends upon the availability of the information about their needs. This is the context and place where the information systems and technology play key and vital roles. Let us consider two cases. 1. The company was situated in a particular place and its products are supplied over a vast area. 2. The company has branches over a certain area and it offers its services through those branches. In the first case the company can have access to Internet or a network, which gives feed back about the needs of its consumers. The needs of the consumers depend on the trends in that area. So knowing them in time enables management to deliver them what they want and thus satisfying them. This process of information (from the consumer to management and then from management to consumer) will be faster if it is online. In the second case the company should have a network with all of its branches including access to the net. This helps in planning the schedule, removal of stress and tension, constructing a warning system, to be prepared for the need, integrated system of management, updating of information and improving accuracy. In the present context of Church town garages there is absence of warning system and it keeps the company administration ignorant of the workload and needs at branches and of customers. This makes management to react on the staff, which results in spoiling the quality of service they offer. The proactive ness can be expressed when the administration was prepared for the problem and it was possible with the warning system in effect. Another tool of management systems is of forecasting costs, scheduling and delivering. Due to the lack of this tool of management systems The Church town garages was not able to have an effective cost forecasting which in turn affects its profitability and it was unable to plan its schedule as all of its 60 garages are not interconnected. So the transactions of buying and selling(as it will sell and buy new and old cars), services are effected by the lack of pre-planning strategy. This makes each garage run according to the wish of that GM (Garage Manager). The Area Managers were naturally unable to control the operations in the garages, which fall under them under these circumstances. When the GMs solicit input from outside source (customers) and in turn able to pass it to AM s in time then the policy and project management can be made integrated at the level of the owner Gary Smith and continuous monitoring can be made which makes the work, job and transactions transparent (in the meaning that they were made known from top to the bottom of the administration) which enables the Company to act according to the needs and satisfaction of the Customers along with profit oriented, cost effective planning. The next tool is Communication. This can be conceived as the understanding the situation with the information available to us. This will be near perfect if the Garage Managers in the current establishment are able to arrange productive meetings. But that is not simply enough. The productive and proactive decisions and actions taken and planned should be conveyed to the superiors so that they can be implemented in an integrated manner. This can be enabled by web based project collaboration software, which makes project specific communication possible. To decide and define area of improvement, analysis of data - the management systems will play a major role by developing accountability from top to bottom of an administration and makes every body act proactively. Manufacturing systems bridge the gap between off-the-shelf, entry-level products and complex high-end systems. Its modular design will ideally suit for developing midsize businesses that require more capability than a simple book keeping software can do. The topics which bridge gap between the products and high-end systems are presentation of quality management reports, serial number tracking and warehouse management. These things are addressed by applying quality management systems in the company administration. Spearheaded by Internet-related technology, a fundamental change can dramatically impact business of any kind. A powerful Web related modules that provide employees and the customers with the information they require over the web. Using this Company can conduct business operations through Internet. An advanced ERP Web-based accounting solution built on an object-oriented, multi-tiered architecture can serve conducting business in all types of companies and thus The Church town Garages also. The solution should offer an integrated set of end-to-end business management applications. It should offer integration, high performance and reliability to increase profitability and gain competitive advantage. An accounting and operations software solution should put your business first. It should serve in the manner that the employees do their job more efficiently. The solution should speed up your company’s growth, must give a unique work flow and should deal with the organisational structure of the company. Whether the company is big or small should not matter, the ERP solution should provide an environment of efficiency. ERP system that can serve The Church town garages must be at core, sophisticated, accounting and operations systems. They have to create a perfect kit, which addresses the modules they need in the present day work and then constructing financial system. It should enhance the productivity of entire enterprise with end-to-end solutions. It should accommodate the present requirements of the garages and must be able to meet the changing needs too. The ability to stream line the processes was a prerequisite for growth and that process involves an investment in technology. The qualities of the system that should be adopted are: 1. Company must not worry about outgrowing the system in future. 2. The modular structure and screens with fields should match the company’s requirements. 3. The system should work on both Web and desktop. 4. It should be consistent and must be easy for data entry and delivering. 5. The various departments of the Church town Garages must be more productive and more interdependent which is possible by a set of integrated end-to-end solutions. 6. It should be flexible in architecture. The fundamental misalignments of four basic building blocks of the organisation are motivators, decision rights, information and organisational structure. The employees should know for which decisions they are responsible and for which they are not. Their quality of the work should be correctly estimated and awarded. This makes the Church town Garages resilient and decision making positive and profitable. When the information was shared accurately the over booking or less booking of orders and services can be avoided thus making both Company and Customers comfortable and content. The company can be a good motivator for their staff by rightly accessing the information of their work and awarding them financially and in other ways. This type of motivating is possible when the top administration can take decision according to the latest updated information which is possible only by management and manufacturing systems. In case of correct decision making each employee (including managers) should know where his responsibility starts and where it ends and must act accordingly. This is possible only when access and appraisal of information is right from top to bottom. When this decision making process is integrated the church town garages GMs can take decisions at their level with the help of the planning of Area Managers. It makes purchases be made at least possible price and sales at a maximum possible price or profit. It can also make the offering and accepting of services and services orders according to the capability and affordability of the Company. When the organisational structure was integrated (not centralised) then each employee feels that there is no gap between the top management and the local manager (GM) in case of church town garages. This makes the working environment more conducive and competent. Recent research has shown that Emotional Intelligence is critical to your effectiveness in the workplace. But the company’s emotional intelligence may be even more important, since most organizational work gets done in teams. This can be streamlined by effective integrated decision-making process which was possible by only online information sharing, updating and appraising which enables the administration to act accordingly. It's no secret that keeping customers satisfied is the key to profitability. The secret is how to do it. The ERP solutions the Church Town Garages adopt should help employees understand the links between their capability, customer loyalty, profits and growth and learn to create sustainable competitive advantage with service. Effective marketing can mean the difference between runaway successes and costly flops. Covering everything from customer programs to ad campaigns to sales promotions, the ERP solutions should provide guide lines to marketing, for the way the marketing done will depend on the decisions taken at managerial level and implemented at employee level. The easy to use and easy to access anywhere ERP accounting solutions enable various garages, GMs, AM s and Gary Smith to decide about the financial and sales policy making. The systems will enable management and cadre to deliver competitive advantages for the automobile sales and servicing with investment production. The ERP solutions will enable management to automate inventory handling process and thus making a better management of supply chain. By utilising the integrated back office automated transaction processing the Area Managers and Gary Smith can exchange date with trading partners and thus extending their area of operating. They can enable their customer to shop on web. The enterprise wide reporting, budgeting, consolidating from an unified source enables the management to integrate information into useful reports and to distribute over the whole enterprise. References and Bibliography 1. primavera.com 2. sagesoftwareinc.com 3. http://www.orgdna.com/google/hbr.cfm 4. http://marketingservicesshop.purebusiness.com/purebusiness 5. http://smallbusiness.dnb.com/ Read More