Management and Information Systems - Case Study Example

 Table of Contents Background of the topic 2 Organizations Strategy and information systems 4 Globalization and Global IS (global IS/risks) 6 IS/IT infrastructure 9 Telecommunications 10 Internet and New technology 11 Business intelligence 12 IS/IT Acquisition and implementation 14 Systems Design and Life cycle 14 Development and Implementation 14 References/Bibliography 15 Background of the topic The paper is concerned with comparing two enterprise in the same sector and highlight their differences in terms of Organizations Strategy and information systems (strategy/initiatives), Globalization and Global IS (global IS/risks), IS/IT infrastructure, telecommunications, internet, new technology (new technology), Business intelligence (E-commerce and its issues), IS/IT Acquisition and implementation (software system choices), Systems Design and Life cycle (design/UCD failures), Systems Plan, Development and Implementation (project failures). The companies taken into account are Tesco and EBay which stands as e-commerce organizations selling a large range of products and services over the internet. The information technology is the center piece of their business and ensures better embodiment in the business and organization. The various strategies followed are quite different for various organizations and thus it ensures their success. The initiatives taken for business difference and decision making would ensure better business continuity and customer base. The development of the software and the various implementation issues must be handled for the efficient support of the enterprise. The post implementation issues namely the support and project failure reasons are also explored for the enterprise. The reasons would be explored and evaluated for the enterprise. Organizations Strategy and information systems Tesco’s organization strategy is complete Business to Customer (B2C) organization which sells directly to the customers. E-Bay is both Business to Customer (B2C) and Business to Business (B2B). Tesco has revolutionized its organization strategy to fetch customers and ensure better communication. The information system for Tesco is an ecommerce system which fosters various electronic marketing and display of products which is for ultimate individual customers. The information system is a robust system to handle the customer’s demands. E-Bay.com ensures both business models and has trusted partners who communicate with each other to fetch business. The e-commerce system at EBay would be smart enough to market its presence and business over the internet to cater a large domain of buyers. It will be able to spread the business over a large domain of customers which may range from home users to bulk purchasers. The awareness of Tesco to its UK customers stands very important so that people get a chance to compare it with the competitors. It gives the customer a lot of importance relating to the multiple services it caters. The customer information can be stored and managed well so that they are focused when catering repeat orders and services. The data will also serve as rich information to the degree of importance which a customer must receive. Diversifications into other businesses are very important for business continuity and should be taken care really well to fetch more customers and provide them better and allied services for retention and indirect marketing. Most importantly the services can be rendered to a large variety of customers across a geographical region with B2B and B2C models. The total sales and profit can be easily captured and produced to management with ease reducing a lot of manual operations. The comparison of various products can be made so that the customer gets an insight of the difference in the product features to make a better decision. The visibility is improved which means more people get to know about it and often want to try it out for a change. The supply chain management is better rendered through e-business. People can access the online store at their convenience and make payment through the various online methods of payment. Globalization and Global IS (global IS/risks) The security aspects could be divided into two parts: one would be software security and another would be information security. It is equally valid for both Tesco and EBay. The transactions in the EBay environment is quite safe and makes sure that all the various bulk purchases and services are handled in a standard and secure format which ensures confidentiality and security on both the parties. In Tesco the transactions are done with several customers in secure environment but no one has a binding on the use of a particular format. System security can take the form which can be elaborated as follows: Passwords: A lot of various mechanisms are used for hacking the system; some among them are as follows: Social engineering: The best way to get it done is the use of fake names and pretending to be internet service providers. Installing Trojans: They are malicious invisible programs which monitor keystrokes and file paths. Interception: Not enough encryption would make the passwords vulnerable to network malicious programs. Software Flaws: The software flaws would be concerned with more of the performance of the system. Bugs: The software bugs would compose a lot of loopholes where security factor may weaken due to greater functionalities of the software which makes it to track back the processes already undergone. Secure servers: Sometimes the server technologies are not secure enough to display websites which make it a more erroneous. Antivirus software: A lot of anti-virus software makes the website flawless; again expired anti-virus software would make the website quite vulnerable to malicious programs. Firewalls: It helps in reducing security risks and also covers port to port. Information security: Information in the websites must be locked and should be kept secure so that no malicious or external harmful program is able to alter it to mislead or represent wrong information. Secure communication protocol: Using “https” would make sure that information exchanged would be safely done and managed well (Ghosh, 2001). Detecting and removing flaws: Regular flaw detection software must be employed so that they are corrected instantly. Database handling: The security features can be handled by the database itself so that the data rules are strictly adhered to when working with the database in adding and deleting data. Implementing views: The database is able to create views for every group of user so that they are able to access data only to the extent of their privileges and not the entire data itself. Restricting the data at the user level makes it quite viable to secure the right kind of information and enforce data security and warehousing. Encryption: To make a website secure financial data and payment transactions, encryption must be properly implemented. Public key encryption: The transfer of secret information from one to another would make the transfer secure so that no other person is able to tap the message. It includes algorithms which make sure that the information reaches to the intended recipient only (Rayport, 2003). Other techniques: The other techniques are quite useful in the use of internet security namely private-public key and RSA techniques. IS/IT infrastructure The supply chain of B2B of EBay is the movement of the raw materials into various transformation steps without much of branding and advertisement at large. It is focused on its base customer which is often an institution catering medium to large scale supplies. The supply chain of B2C of Tesco would focus more on the marketing of the products or services which would make sure to fetch customers and usually the channels of communication is large. The major differences can be highlighted as follows: 1. Chain size: In EBay the integration of supply chains are quite less, but they are greater in size. As it involves several businesses and the proper channel is already known for communication. However in Tesco the supply chain would have greater amount of smaller channels. The involvement is quite large as various customers are able to fetch service along several channel lines. 2. Integration: The integration of EBay is quite complex as it requires to be well integrated with other businesses and that happens to be a critical aspect. This ensures that the aligned parties have a bond and are not one time partners. In case of Tesco, the integration is minimum as the business deals with one time customers. The integration of the supply chain in EBay is quite crucial as often trading partners may desire to implement their standard interfaces for both the supplier and the trading partner (Sawhney, 1999). 3. Marketing: In EBay, the business or trading partners are quite numbered and enlisted at their site. The very sense to market their products and services is not at large as there is a defined set of trading partners. In Tesco, the supply chain is quite large as different section of public gets attention and the products must be marketed for sale with a new market for every individual. Telecommunications The support strategy for Tesco and EBay is quite efficient. The issues related to customer fears and support desk are resolved quite greatly. Internet and New technology The internet technology to be used further to enhance the information system is an enterprise system which would enhance the organization’s prospects. Cooper (2003) mentions that supply chain is important to visualize the processes which are involved from the idea generation stage to the deliverable component. Proper identification, understanding and analyzing the processes would make sure that better strategies can be devised for innovation. It would help an organization to optimize costs and produce quality products and services (Ballou, 2002). It is also important for an organization to seamlessly integrate the business process for strategic decision making towards resource utilization and process innovation. Tesco and EBay would use the SCM and CRM software together to address the needs of the customers and the external entities to effectively manage the data transfer among the departments. Innovation is the identification and improvement of a product or a service for better processing, distribution and optimization of effort, time and money for any organization (Hindu.com, 2008). For Tesco and EBay, it would be no different, but constant evaluation would ensure customer retention and taking care of customer demands. The CRM application for Tesco and EBay would enhance the following aspects: 1. They are better chanced to serve customers and make sure to fetch better market segment. 2. The innovation to take effective strategies against the resources that fetch them business continuity and cut down their costs. 3. Innovation with information technology would help them to grow with the dynamic information driven world and embrace changes for managing its business better and fill its objective at a large scale. (Claudio, 2006) Tesco and EBay would be able to seamlessly interconnect its departments for enabling the reduction of cost and effort of the resources. It would not only foster better relationship among departments but would enhance communication and ability to manage conflict and change in the organization. Business intelligence BI software involves determination of the data patterns for both Tesco and EBay and are way too complex to devise the right strategy not because of the lack of strategists but due to the lack of enough appropriate processes to fetch the actual data from a pool of data. The lack of direct interface with the customer is the prime concern for the failure of BI for other industries. The other industries are not able to tap the customer feelings at the first instance and thus their data collection is based on the influence of various internal and external elements on consumers which ultimately is a result of collection of incorrect data. In EBay, the customer is an institution who does not require any selling strategy to acquire and retain. The primary objective is to provide better service and customer service. EBay supply chains are quite easy to analyze the customer as the volume is quite less. Copacino C. William and Dic W. Roger (2001) mentions that the aggregation aspect can be devised better and strategized for fetching the right scenario for determining the cost advantage and similarly allocate costs for better profit and gain in the long run. However in Tesco, the analytic statistics are quite difficult to obtain and is expensive in nature. The customer base is large and not only that the aggregation techniques often result in false assumptions and analysis is based on several probabilistic techniques taking more time to get to the base. IS/IT Acquisition and implementation E-Commerce is the right selection for both the company named Tesco and EBay. Various web technologies would ensure a better interface and platform dependent. Systems Design and Life cycle The strength of the system design life cycle is very essential for both Tesco and EBay. The engineering principals for both Tesco and EBay are very strong and flexible for incorporating any business model and style. Development and Implementation Tesco’s management problems are a hindrance to its further development. The various security risks are always a hindrance. For EBay, the primary hindrance is the customer strength in several countries. In US and UK, the market of EBay is quite strong whereas the countries like India and other emerging countries do not ensure good market. References/Bibliography Ballou, R. H (2002). Business Logistics Management, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Third Edition. Claudio, U. Ciborra (2006). Teams, Markets and Systems. Cambridge University Press, 2, 78-82. Copacino C. William and Dic W. Roger (2001). Why B2B e-markets. Cooper, M. C., and L. M. Ellram (2003). Characteristics of Supply Chain Management and the Implications for Purchasing and Logistics Strategy. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 4, 2, 13-24. Harrison, P. Terry and Ganeshan, Ram (2005). An Introduction to Supply Chain Management. Retrieved 1, Nov 2008 from http://lcm.csa.iisc.ernet.in/scm/supply_chain_intro.html. Hindu.com (2008). Encourage innovation with holistic approach: Basheer. Retrieved 1, November 2008 from http://www.hindu.com/biz/2008/10/13/stories/2008101350051600.htm Learn That (2004). Definition of Supply Chain. Retrieved 10, February 2009 from http://www.learnthat.com/define/view.asp?id=339 Sawhney, Mohanbir and Kaplan, Steven (1999). THE B-TO-B BOOM - Let's Get Vertical. Retrieved 10, February 2009 from http://www.business2.com/articles/1999/09/text/models.html Read More