Sunshine State Share Dealing Service - Case Study Example

Sunshine State Share Dealing Service Name Course Tutor Date Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Sunshine State Share Dealing Service 2 Introduction 2 Costs and benefits of Share Dealing system 4 Sunshine State re-engineers share dealing 4 GABBA System 5 Technology and Infrastructure 6 IT portfolio management 7 IT portfolio management in SSSDL 7 Strategic Alignment Maturity model 8 Using Luftman’s criteria 9 Conclusion 9 Sunshine State Share Dealing Service Introduction Sunshine faced very many problems in the development of a management of Information Systems Development. To begin with the number of activities to be carried out is enormous due to the large number of clients. The current number of customers and the account records were very many and still in a mess. The files to be included in the system were separate for both the Sunshine State and Tropic of Capricorn Permanent. Another problem is that the details held by a customer in relation to their accounts varied. Accounts which were held by the same individual and differed at terms of the name of the account, addresses and ages though they belonged to one person. The Share dealing system was also a success in Sunshine state. About 5.5 million people would be allotted shares and it was calculated that almost 2 million of those would be able to sell the orders during the first day. The service enabled the members to trade in their shares without instructions advice or recommendations to customers. Due to the volume of shares that were handled in each particular day, it was impossible for the firm to handle share allotment in the traditional way which was the paper based system. The share dealing system was not only efficient and fast but also sixteen million dollars cheaper compared to the paper system. Sunshine State Share Dealing Limited (SSSDL) Sunshine State Share Dealing Limited (SSSDL) share dealing system was a system that was developed by Sunshine State by them. The Sunshine State Share Dealing Limited (SSSDL) was developed on the basis of Rockhampton. Several people were appointed into the new firm including the IT project manager for Sunshine State Share Dealing Limited (SSSDL). The IT project manager came to be known as Systems Manager of SSSDL. Another important person that was hired and appointed for the SSSDL was the Managing director of SSSDL. The appointed managing director was experienced in that field since the person appointed was Lisa Kerry-Curry from Share Trade. Costs and benefits of Share Dealing system The Share Dealing system was a success to the organization in many ways. The service was easy for the members to understand and use in their operations. The great majority of the individuals who were allotted shares were not experienced in terms of handling of shares and was therefore necessary to adopt an easier method that they could use in their operations. The Share Dealing system was such a method. The method was able to explain all the confusing terminologies, processes or even procedures in the buying and selling of shares and was thus the ideal method for the traders. The Share Dealing system was also a success since it established a probability of further developing and enhancing the operations of the organization since it was possible to convert share dealing and other related activities into new revenue generating By supporting various channels such as the internet, Digital TV and WAP phones, it was possible to venture into other business fields. The SSSDL incorporated all the systems and software enhancement that were necessary to support its processes. The Share Dealing system was also successful in eliminating paper work which was cumbersome, time consuming and expensive to the organization. The Share Dealing System was a success to the organization with the major investment being the recruitment of all the staff and experts required to learn the system. Sunshine State re-engineers share dealing The responsibility given to the IT department was to work on the establishment of new business, design a solution and then purchase, test and implement the infrastructure and applications that create the solution. The application of the nominee system implied that the Sunshine State could successfully re-engineer the share enhancing process by introducing technology into what the company previously used- the taxing paper-based process. Haydon emphasizes the continuing emphasis on technology in the organization and this was the basis for the success of the organization until it converted into a limited company. The method of making money out of execution only share dealing is to work out a transaction for a customer and then ask for a fee or commission. The use of paper work in the organization implied that paper processes were obsolete in the organization and this allowed the workers to handle volumes of work load at low costs. The firm also established a telephone based banking system which was used as the basis for developing the share dealing service. One part of the service was based on telephone while the other part formed the call centre infrastructure. The infrastructure that had already been put in place was used for the development of Share Dealing System. Al the automatic call circulation, the recording, the IVR (Interactive Voice Recognition) and CTI(Computer-Telephony Interface) abilities were already in place and were using the by touch-tone keystrokes. GABBA System The full system that was developed to assist in the trade was called GABBA. This was very effective particularly in the sae of shares since the shareholders in need of trading in their shares cold do so in a matter of seconds. The process involved making a call to the SSSDL which was answered by a voice recognition system that asked various questions a means of identification. The 10 digit folio from the share allotment document was required for the transaction to take place. The folio number was counterchecked and verified through an interface with MFS in Ipswich. MFS switch contained the folio details of the nominee which were then loaded to the operator’s screen. The screen then display the person purchasing the shares by name address, shares held, shares traded, etc. In case the customer was regarded as eligible or qualified to trade, the current price at which they could trade was displayed and the eligible customer informed. This was got through the automated satellite feed from the Stock Exchange. A countdown timer was switched on which gave the customer a time limit of 15 seconds in which to decide on whether to buy or not. Payment for the purchase would then be made directly to the customers Sunshine State account. Payment to other accounts electronically or by cheque could also be used but through a request. The system was designed to figure out into which bulk order each particular trade was to be added. A bulk order update was made which included updates to MAX (the Turball and Associates system) and to HANDS-UP in order to make the market settlement. Technology and Infrastructure The technology and the infrastructure for the SSSDL system was composed of Unix based, IBM equipments which were put in place at the data centre found in the West End with large disk capacities, several servers and gateways, several communication links, interfaces to different suppliers, PCs operating Windows XP, and satellite links for the real-time price feeds, with the call centre operating incorporated voice and data CTI (Computer-Telephony Interface). The systems are a replica which also consists of back-up generators at some sites and processing can be exchanged. In regard to software development almost 20% of the total was carried out in-house and also some internal functions such as cheque processing. The interior software expansion was primarily written in VB.Net utilising Oracle Databases. IT portfolio management IT portfolio management is the adoption of systematic management to large groups of items controlled by enterprise Information Technology capabilities. Sunshine State has succeeded in applying IT management portfolio in its operations and particularly in handling large volumes of customer information. This has enabled the firm to expand in the Sydney Stock exchange market from its initial status as building society to its current from as a public company. Accenture’s research reveals that high-performance organizations proactively manage their IT application portfolios which assist in enhancing their effectiveness and at the same time assist the firms in reduction of operational costs. In the recent past though, research indicates that many firms have increased their application costs or rather have had them increase higher and higher due to the highly complex and changing business environment as well as redundant applications and varying technical footprint. Faced with the challenges of the highly competitive market in the business world, many companies have enhanced their investments in the management of application portfolio in order to efficiently allocate and distribute resource among its departments for effective performance. IT portfolio management in SSSDL Application Portfolio Analysis forms the basis for any Portfolio Management Initiative. Application Portfolio Analysis is a specialized service providing a strategizing application portfolio. SSSDL Application Portfolio Analysis is a structures method of analyzing the whole organization in terms of system and landscape while focusing on application complexity, scalability, trade fit and cost and other parameters. Portfolio Analysis is carried out using the Top Down method where the current business constraint points are analyzed to advance the drilling down of supporting applications. The applications in range are analyzed on more than 100 parameters to noticeably reveal the present application architecture, complexity, replication and/or redundancy in code, boundary complexity, data uniformity and quality, and cost break up. The scrutiny and the collection of information are carried out using a Portfolio Analysis Framework template together with verified portfolio analysis equipments and trade and process questionnaires. The comprehensive analysis plots the function on a 3*3 Portfolio Assessment matrix which in addition results to modernization options. Strategic Alignment Maturity model Maturity as a measure to assess the capacity of an organization in terms of reference to a particular discipline has become popular now that the capability maturity model (CMM) has been adopted as a measure of maturity. Whilst the initial CMM has a particular focus on the assessment of software development package, this model has been diverse and extended in several approaches and is now adopted for the assessment of IT infrastructure Management. The definitions of Business Process management span from IT-focused perspectives to BPM as a holistic management exercise. IT-focused definition characterizes BPM from the viewpoint of business process automation. SSSDL has grown and expanded in terms of information and technology and is thus considered to be mature according to this model. The examination of BPM definitions reveals that the emphasis is generally laid in the analysing and improvement process in an organization. Using Luftman’s criteria Using Luftman’s criteria, SSDL can be evaluated based on the perspective of identical factors. Luftman’s creteria is just an elaboraton of the strategic allignment model. The main factors to be considered include the driver of the strategic plan in an organiztion, governance, communication, partnership, the role of IT in the firm and the scope and architecture skills. Under the Luftman’s creteria this organization will be considered to be operating wel. The organization is competent enough in the IT field and has been able to convert from a buiding society to a limited firm due to information and technology. Conclusion Application of information technology systems in the operations of Sunshine State enabled the conversion of the organization from a building society into a public limited company. On Monday 2nd June 2005 the Sunshine State converted into a public limited firm and a total of 5 million shares were successfully allotted to the members. The sum value of the sale was $4.2 billion which made the firm accomplish the largest trade every in the Sydney Stock Exchange. On average, each member had $2,200 per share and the telephone share dealing service handle over 8000 calls and processes about 4,500 purchase instructions. The telephone share dealing service expanded to include the capacity of the members to sell Sunshine State shares and also buy. This service was serving more than 6,000 customers on daily basis. This had previously been secluded for over two months after the vesting took place. In November 2005 a certificate selling service was launched to assist individuals who had not chosen the nominee account to trade their shares. By January 2006 SSSDL were servicing greater volumes on daily basis in figures far higher than those of their competitors. They also had 25-30% fewer order taking staff implying that their end-to-end processes were highly efficient and effective Work cited Jeffery, M., & Leliveld, I. (2004). Best Practices in IT Portfolio Management. MIT Sloan Management Review. 45 (3), 41. Kaplan, J. D. (2005). Strategic IT portfolio support, which consume the bulk of IT spending. The challenge for including application maintenance and suppofolio management: governing enterprise transformation. United States, Pittiglio Rabin Todd & McGrath Inc. McFarlan, F. W. (1981). “Portfolio approach to information systems.” Harvard Business Reeview (September-October 1981): 142-15 Weill, P. and Broadbent, M. (1998). Leveraging the New Infrastructure: How Market Leaders Capitalize on Information Technology. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard Business School Press. Aitken, I. (2003). Value-driven IT management. D. Remenyi, Computer Weekly Professional Series. Oxford, Butterworth Heinemann. Benson, R. J., T. L. Bugnitz, et al. (2004). From business strategy to IT action : right decisions for a better bottom line. Hoboken, N.J., Wiley Office of Government Commerce (2004). Business Perspective: The IS View on Delivering Services to the Business. OGC, ITIL© Managing IT Services (IT Infrastructure Library). London, The Stationery Office. Office of Government Commerce (2002). Application management. OGC, ITIL© Managing IT Services (IT Infrastructure Library). London, The Stationery Office. Verhoef, Christopher, "Quantitative IT portfolio management," Science of Computer Programming, Volume 45, Issue 1, pages 1–96 Read More