How the Implementation of Strategic IS Delivers Competitive Advantage in Tesco - Research Proposal Example

An Investigation into how the Effective Implementation of Strategic Information System Delivers Competitive Advantage in Tesco Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Executive Summary 3 Introduction 4 Information System and E-Commerce 4 Importance of the Topic 6 Objective of the Study 6 Critical Analysis 7 Literature Review 9 Research Methodology 11 Recommendations 15 Conclusion 15 References 16 Bibliography 17 Course of Action 18 Executive Summary At the outset, the proposal of the dissertation deals with the introduction and subsequently with literature review which aims to appraise the critical points of current knowledge including substantive findings as well as theoretical and methodological contribution to a particular topic. It is done in order to provide up to date information to the reader as well as to form the basis for future research. The next part of the proposal talks about the research methodology which will provide a smooth way to accomplish the entire project successfully. Then it provides timetable for the project to conduct the project in a systematic and organized time frame. Finally the proposal deals with the recommendation which provides probable suggestion for the improvement of the company. Introduction Tesco Plc is undoubtedly the largest supermarket chain in United Kingdom. Head quartered at Tesco house in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, the company is into the business segment of grocery items and is a retail chain of repute. It was founded in the year 1999 by Jack Cohen. It originally specialized in food and drink. The group diversified into various sectors like clothing, financial services, electronics, home, health, car, dental, music downloads, internet services, software’s and many more. Tesco is the undisputed leader both in terms of global sales as well as domestic market share and has a profit of more than £3 billion. Also, the volume of the business of the company has international significance as it is just next to Wal-Mart and Carrefour in terms of revenue, and is the second largest in the global periphery in terms of profit behind Wal-Mart (Tesco plc, n.d.) Information System and E-Commerce United Kingdom Academy for Information System has defined information system as the “the means by which people and organization, utilizes the technology, gathers, process, stores, use and disseminate the information”. It drives organizational change with the motto of increasing efficiency, effectiveness and competitive position of the organization (UKAIS, n.d.) On the other hand, Strategic Information System can be referred as the system that assists the organisations to modify their business strategy along with their structure. The basic attribute to Strategic Information System has been to quicken the reaction time for environmental changes and it also helps in achieving competitive advantage. The most important feature of SIS is that it is basically an ‘Enterprise Resource Planning’ solution which links the business processes in order to meet the enterprise objective so that the resource of the enterprise is optimized. It is a database system that has the data mining capabilities in order to make the best use of corporate information for production, marketing promotion and innovation. It also helps to identify the data collection strategies so that database marketing opportunities can be optimized. As it helps to maintain a rapid response and the quality indicators, it is also called real time information system (Tool Box, n.d.) Electronic commerce which is popularly called e-commerce or e-business deals with buying and selling of the products over the electronic systems such as internet or other computer networks. It is because of the widespread internet usage that has allowed trade that to be conducted successfully through electronics. The main features of ecommerce are ubiquity, global reach, universal standard, richness, interactivity, information density, personalization It is undeniable that the success of information system all across the globe has immensely effected the business all across the world. The retail chain of Tesco is not an exception either in this regard. The successful implementation of the information system in any business oranisation can reduce the mis-use of various aspects of resources like time, money and energy. But on the flip side, such implementation of dedicated and elaborate information system calls for proper planning and huge investments. The prime benefit that such information system can provide to the customers is that they can shop from their convenient locations at the time of their preferences as they do not need to visit to the store. This proposal encapsulates the various aspects of information system as planned and implemented at Tesco and aims to investigate the completive advantage that the company enjoys because of such measures. Importance of the Topic The topic “An investigation into how the effective implementation of Strategic Information system delivers competitive advantage in Tesco” is immensely important in the present day business scenario. By effectively implementing the SIS, managers will be able to conduct their daily activities and functions accurately and timely. SIS supports business processes and operation. It is expected to support strategic decision making for competitive advantages. It can provide information’s as to which items to launch in which location by analyzing data collected from different sources such that company can have advantage by using these information over their competitors. It will also enable Tesco to conduct their business process differently from their competitors. Objective of the Study This proposal deals with the following basic objectives that are intended to be studied in the dissertation: To understand what is SIS and Ecommerce To what extend it will affect the competitive position analysis of the firm To understand the impact of SIS in Tesco Critical Analysis SIS is the support system that shapes business units’ competitive advantage. SIS has the ability to change the way of business conduct, so that strategic advantage can be obtained. With the help of SIS, TESCO will be able to manage its information centrally and strategically which will reduce the overall cost of operation and this will lead to competitive advantage. Digital economy relates to an economy which is based up on the electronics services as well as goods produced by an organisation established in electronics business and trades through electronics commerce. Tesco as a leading name in the retail chains has to indulge in global trade. Digital economy has been used coherently with e-commerce. In the digital economy process, an organisation performs transactions by using web and internet. Tesco in recent times has utilised the benefits of digital economy to gain competitive advantage. Tesco is well versed in using its channel strategy to defend and attack markets. One of its initiatives has been the use of club cards and the launch of tesco.com which was successful in pushing back Wall-Marts advancement through Ads in the UK. In addition to these, there are different store formats like Tesco Express, Tesco Metro and Tesco Superstores among others which have a wider merchandising range and are targeted to reach different geographic areas, and merchandise is then tailored to meet specific local requirements. Moreover, the company uses customer relationship management which helps the company to collect the customer’s information so that they can be referred later. It is hereby proposed to study these topics in depth in order to investigate the competitive advantage in Tesco in the dissertation. Literature Review Tesco Plc, a general merchandise and international grocery retail chain has gained sustainable competitive advantage by effective implementation of strategic information system. Information system has grown over the years due to the development of information system. Business environment have also challenged an organisation to utilise their capabilities in the process of planning an appropriate information technology or information system. The advancement in information technology and also complexity of the internet technology have inclined an organisation to consider imparting information technology and also business strategies along with culture, environment, skill and experience of an organisation. Strategic information system performance can be properly utilised by substantial contribution of managerial budget and resources (Abu Bakar. & Et. Al., 2009). By using the strategic information system information system and information technology strategies are interlinked along with the business strategy and corporate mission. The basic three types of information system utilised are operational system, financial system, and strategic system. An important aspect of competitive business environment is knowledge management. Information system can play a vital role in various business operations as well as financial and non financial aspect like organisational decision making and management decision making scenarios. Strategic information system in modern business environment is used as a competitive strategy. Strategic information system is used to change or support enterprises strategy. The significant features of a strategic information system are decision support system, enterprise resource planning, database systems, and real time information system. Fig 1 (Gawain, n.d.). Any information system can help an organisation gain competitive advantage and reduce several disadvantages. Strategic information system can help an organisation to gain competitive advantage by delivering a service or a product at a lower level of cost attractive to the marketplace, delivering a differentiated service or a product having certain unique features, focusing on a specific market segment by using information technologies capability to provide defined, filled, and expanded product for a particular segment or niche, and by innovation. Innovation helps to develop services as well as products by using computers and information resources. Strategic information system increases an organisations performance and productivity. Strategic information system also helps to implement different changes in any application at much faster rate and also with simpler methods. It also enables to establish a relationship along with customer and suppliers. It helps an organisation to acquire competitive intelligence (Hemmatfar. & Et. Al., 2010). Strategic information system enables an organisation to process information related to business operation by evaluating current needs, risk, and also requirements (Pant & Hsu, 1995). Tesco has strategically utilised the strategic information system by implementing information system to drive the business model, creating value for customers, and also by creating wealth for the entire organisation like club card, loyalty card, data centricity, and multi channelling. Research Methodology The aim and objective of the research is to know the impact of the strategic information system in Tesco and how it helps the organisation to gain competitive advantages. Basically there are two philosophy paradigms. Those are ‘Phenomenological’ and ‘Positivist’ (Docstoc, 2008). For this project, it has been decided to go for positivist paradigm as the characteristics of it, are quite related and suitable for this project. The other important consideration of the project is that it is fact based and observer is completely independent to conduct this project. Therefore, positivist paradigm is expected to be the right choice. Research approach is the most important part of the research methodology. Among two alternatives of empirical approach and non-empirical approach, it has been decided to consider both the approach but give more emphasis to the empirical research. For more specification it can be stated that under the stream of empirical approach, quantitative and objective approach are taken into account. It refers that the conclusion will be drawn through hypothesis testing and there will be no impact of researcher on the outcome of the project. Regarding research process, both the sources, primary and secondary can be included as per the demand and need of the project. It has been long established that secondary research is the backbone of the primary research. Therefore, before conducting primary research, it is intended to collect relevant and adequate data from various secondary sources. The annual report of last five years of Tesco Plc, annual reports of the competitors of Tesco Plc and various IT and business related journals will be the main sources of secondary data to understand the present status of the company in the field of strategic information system over it’s rivals and the current evolution in this field to predict the scope of gaining competitive advantages. For the primary research it has been intended to adopt questionnaire and interview method. Sample size will be 150. The questionnaires will be divided among the buyers, supplier and the employees of the organisations equally. It refers the stratified sampling method as it consisted with three separate strata whose characteristics is within the group same and among the group different. Each stratum will be consisted of 50 respondents. These are the stake holders who can better provide the answers related to the topic as employees are responsible for implementation part and the outcome of the implementation will mostly affect the buyers and suppliers of the project. Managers of the company along with other industry experts are intended to be interviewed. The probable combination of the interviewee will be as follows: Designation of the Interviewee Number of Interviewee Chief Information Officer 1 ( Telephonic) IT managers 2 Marketing Managers 2 IT Professors of local universities 3 Software Engineers 2 Interviewing of only the managers of the company may not provide a clear view of the issue and their may be a scope of biasness. Therefore, it has been decided to take views of the other experts in the related field. Questionnaire analysis part will be mainly supported by hypothetical testing along with the other statistical tools, as per the requirements. Recommendations The dissertation intends to successfully investigate if Tesco must use strategic information system and if it helps it to achieve competitive advantage. It is also expected to find out if it will help the company to boost its sales and stay a step ahead of its competitors with SIS. The recommendations would be based upon the research finding which will help the company to provide useful information and make strategies so that the market share can be increased, As it has its branches all over the world therefore it is also expected to recommend how the company’s each and every branch can successfully implement SIS. Conclusion Sustainable competitive advantage seems to derive not from the technology or the systems themselves but from the way in which they are used which indicates the primacy of human issues over those of technology or even applications. The conclusion is proposed to be substantiating all the claims that are observed throughout the research paper. References Abu Bakar, F. & Et. Al., 2009. Conceptualization of Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) Success Model in Public Sector: An Absorptive Capacity approach. ISEing. [Online] Available at: http://www.iseing.org/emcis/CDROM%20Proceedings%20Refereed%20Papers/Proceedings/Presenting%20Papers/C14/C14.pdf [Accessed July 28, 2010]. Docstoc, 2008. Tradition and Paradigms. Research Philosophy. [Online] Available at: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/8558617/Research-Philosophy [Accessed July 15, 2010]. Ecommerce answers. No Date. History of Ecommerc. Whai is Ecommerce. [Online] Available at: http://www.e-commerce-answers.com/history-of-ecommerce.php [Accessed July 28, 2010]. Gawain, No Date. Strategic Information Systems for Competitive Advantage. Soc. [Online] Available at: http://gawain.soc.staffs.ac.uk [Accessed July 28, 2010]. Hemmatfar, M. & Et. Al., 2010. Competitive Advantages and Strategic Information Systems. International Journal of Business and Management. [Online] Available at: http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijbm/article/viewFile/6631/5247 [Accessed July 28, 2010]. Pant, S. & Hsu, C., 1995. Strategic Information Systems Planning: A Review. Information Resources Management Association International Conference. [Online] Available at: http://viu.eng.rpi.edu/publications/strpaper.pdf [Accessed July 28, 2010]. Tool Box, No Date. Strategic Information System. Home. [Online] Available at: http://it.toolbox.com/wiki/index.php/Strategic_Information_System [Accessed July 28, 2010]. Tesco plc, No Date. About Us. Products. [Online] Available at: http://www.tescoplc.com [Accessed July 28, 2010]. Ukais, No Date. Definition of Information System. Definition. [Online] Available at: http://www.turningcourse.com/ukais/isdefn.pdf [Accessed July 28, 2010]. Bibliography Hughwilson & Et.Al. The Multichannel Challenge: Integrating Customer Experiences for Profit. Butterworth-Heinemann, 2008. Course of Action Sl No. Activity Start End Duration 1 Prepare Research Proposal 28/07/2010 31/07/2010 4 2 Submit Research Proposal 01/08/2010 01/08/2010 1 3 Obtain Approval 02/08/2010 07/08/2010 5 4 Literature Research 07/08/2010 12/08/2010 5 Non- Empirical research 5 Collection of Secondary Data 13/08/2010 20/08/2010 8 6 Submit Progress Report 21/08/2010 22/08/2010 2 Empirical Research 7 Prepare and send Questionnaire for pilot Survey 23/08/2010 25/08/2010 3 8 Receive response 26/08/2010 30/08/2010 5 9 Edit questionnaire 01/09/2010 01/09/2010 1 10 Sent Questionnaire 02/09/2010 10/09/2010 8 11 Receive responses 10/09/2010 25/09/2010 16 12 Centralize Questionnaire Data 26/09/2010 27/09/2010 2 13 Prepare questions for Interviews 28/09/2010 28/09/2010 1 14 Conducts Interviews 29/09/2010 03/10/2010 5 15 Centralise Data collected from Interviews 04/10/2010 05/10/2010 2 16 Prepare first draft 06/10/2010 12/10/2010 7 17 Review and submit chapter 13/10/2010 14/10/2010 2 18 Typing and word processing 15/10/2010 24/10/2010 10 19 Editing and proofreading 25/10/2010 27/10/2010 3 20 Binding 28/10/2010 31/10/2010 4 21 Contingency 01/11/2010 10/11/2010 10 22 Submit dissertation 11/11/2010 11/11/2010 Read More