China E-Government Development - Beijing Haulian Company - Case Study Example

E-Government Development By student’s name Institution Course Prof Date 1.0 Introduction In this century of technology, every organization and government is embarking on strategic plan to integrate the information technology system in their operations. Information technology is arguably the main aspect of the advanced technology that has revolutionized all kinds of the organizations around the world. The system is associated with numerous benefits which have seen a large number organizations embrace it to leap these benefits. Governments have also not been left behind in the integration of the technology in their operations in order to enhance the efficiency of their operations and facilitate good leadership. This report will describe China E-government development and how the development has affected Beijing Hualian Company business success in the country. 1.1 Background information E-government is use of information technology to improve delivery of government services to other government agencies, citizens and business organizations. Governments have opened internet websites where they can interact directly with citizens and business community within a country. The development enables citizens and business organizations to receive information and services from the government all time regardless of the day or hours. The interactions have opened new opportunities especially to the business community while also raising some concerns. In 1998, Chinese government embarked on a strategy of implementing comprehensive e-government initiatives in order to achieve digital 21 century information technology standards (Warren 2012). In the next one decade, the government continued to integrate ICT in its system to enhance the efficiency of its operations and the quality of the services they provide to their citizens. By 2001, the government had established a technology platform where citizen could transact business with the government online. At the end of that year, the government started to provide services and information to the country’s citizens and business community. The introduction of the smart card in 2003 was probably the major landmark in the development of the E-commerce in the country. 1.2 Descriptions of the Organization This report is based on findings of a visit to one of Chinese company referred to as Beijing Haulian Company. Beijing Haulian Company is an organization that is owned by the Beijing Haulian Group. It comprises of department stores and supermarkets that are spread all over the country. It also deals with sales of other products namely fresh vegetables and fruits and textiles. Although the company has focused its operations on domestic market, it has a number of stores in foreign market such as Singapore. 2.0 E-government Initiatives in China The E-government Development in China comprises of five initiatives namely electronic service delivery services, China Post E-Cert, Electronic Tendering system, Institution for Governance & sustainable development and China Special Administrative. These initiatives can be identified as G2C, G2B, C2G or G3E. Electronic service delivery, institution for Governance and sustainable development and China Special Administrative are all G2C. China Post E-cert is G2B or G2C while Electronic tendering system is a G2B. 3.0 Goal of the Five Initiatives 3.1 Electronic Service Delivery Initiative This initiative provides a platform through which people can transact business with the government. It is a broad service that enables people in the country to access a large variety of public services and information. It also enables the government and the citizens to create several online communities. The completion of the initiative will see the government provide a large number of services through online mean. Some of the services which will be captured in this initiative include jobs vacancies information, booking for appointment with a government officer, paying government bills and paying for examinations among others. 3.2 Institution of Governance & sustainable development The goal of this initiative is to provide services that are not captured in ESD initiative. It involves services such as employment, local investing, traffic information and directory services. 3.3 Electronic tendering system The goal of this initiative is to enhance supplier’s activities in the country. It intends to facilitate the relationship between the government and business suppliers through use of online. It also intends to enhance the efficiency of tending process in the country. 3.4 China Post E-Cert The goal of the initiative is to facilitate creation of a community-wide information network for both private and government sectors. Though the initiative, almost all the people in the country are expected to register with the government and obtained a smart card for their use. 3.5 China Special Administrative The goal of this initiative is to enable the citizens and the business organizations receive information and other services through different online sites. The initiative enables people to access and interacts with different departments in different organizations. In addition, the platform intended to serve a specific market target such as jobless, youths and transporters among others. It will validate the server certificates for local internet providers. 4.0 Role of the government Chinese government has been playing a supervisor role where it has been regulating how business organizations, public and private organizations operate. Although it has been encouraging the business activities in the country, its involvement has remained minimal. In some situations, the government involvement in the business activities has had negative impact on the business organizations. However, upon the completion this development, the role of the government will take a new direction. The government will not be a supervisory body but a business partner to the business organizations; both private and public business organizations. The government will work closely with the business organizations so that they can provide various kinds of information and services to the organization. The integration of the information management system in the government operations will improve efficiency of its operations leading to a favorable business environment. 5.0 Application of Information technology to achieve business success The success of business organizations in today’s world is highly dependent on ability of the organizations to utilize information and information technology systems to collect and analyst relevant information. Gregory (2014) writes that information management is a vital tool for the success of an organization. It enhances decision making by providing sufficient data required to make informed decisions (Gregory 2014). This report will examine how the Beijing Haulian company has achieved business success through the use of information technology and people. Information technology has permeated value chain at every point transforming the way value activities are done and the nature of the connection among them. Value activities are broadly classified as information-processing and physical components. The physical component deal with the physical tasks required to do the activities. On the other hand, information-processing component deals with the steps required to capture, manipulate and channel data that are required to perform the value activities (Gregory 2014). Every value activity requires not only use of information but also generate some information. Decision such as scheduling promises, production plans and transportation rates that are required to ensure time delivery are dependent on information within an organization. An organization need to collect information from the customers, make a schedule and avail the products to their customers at the appropriate time. In addition to the collection of the data related to the value activities, information system has the ability to analyze the value data and provide solution to various value adding problems. Beijing Haulian Company has considerably used information technology to enhance its value activities. It collects marketing information from different parts of the country, analyze it and make decisions production scheduling and transportation arrangement. As a result, the company has been able to add value to their products through effective management of the value adding activities in the country. The effective management of the value adding activities is solely due to the information system that collects information from the people and analyzes it to provide the best alternative for the organization. Therefore, information system has been a vital tool of the success of the Beijing Haulian Company in the recent past. Beijing Haulian Company success can also be attributed to its ability to use information, information technology and people to create competitive advantage over its competitor. Information technology increase competitive advantage through cost management and product differentiation. Information system is essential for an organization that intends to lower its cost of production. Information technology allows an organization to automate their production processes hence reducing the number of the employees required in the production process. An organization need to feed the required information to a computer system, which will regulate the production process depending on the information feed. In addition to the direct cutting cost, information enables an organization to made decision which help to cut the costs of production. The system help an organization to reduce wastage through effective scheduling and proper planning for the production process and processing process. Information such as the quantity of the sales and marketing data and warehouse data help an organization to avoid excess production which could increase warehouse cost and also prevent under production which could result to loss of profit. Beijing Baulian Company has utilized information, information system and people to lower it cost of production and gain competitive advantage over its competitive in the retail business in the country. The company has established an information system to help in production process hence cutting labor cost. In addition, the tendering process has been improved by the information system as computers help to analyze tenders depending on the information provided. The company also uses the information system to ensure that there is no overproduction which could increase the warehouse cost. The reduce cost has been increased the competitive advantage of the company over the other firms in the industry. Therefore, information system has played a major role towards the company business success. Information technology has been an essential tool in differentiation of the Beijing Haulian products. Differentiation is achieved when an organization identity what the customers want and hence going ahead to produce products that precisely meet the demand. The task of knowing what the customers demand in the market lies solely on the information management system. Information system enables an organization to collect relevant market information and share the information to the relevant departments. These departments respond by production of customized products to meet the customers’ expectations. The differentiated products are sources of competitive advantage for a company over its competitors in the market. Beijing Haulian Company has been relying on information from their customers to know that the market demand and align its operations towards what the customers are demanding. It uses information system to differentiate its products from the competitors which has given the company a competitive advantage over its competitors. They collect market information occasionally, analyze the information and devise the best way to produce a product that meet the consumers’ expectation and compete fairly with the competitors’ products. It is therefore, arguably true to say that information and information technology has contributed to the success of the organization in the market. Information and information technology system has been at the central point in the marketing plan for the Beijing Haulain Company. Successive market plan take account of every variable in the market. Market variables are collected and analyzed through information systems. Large amount of relevant information leads to effective marking plan where all variables in the market are included in the plan. Marketing aspects such as promotion methods, advertisements method and market segments depend hugely on the information which an organization have about the market. The increase in use of the information system to collect and analyze various types of information has been significantly improved marketing activities. Beijing Haulain relies hugely on the information system to collect and analyze marketing information in order to make decision regarding marketing. The company use different methods of collecting marketing information such as emails and internet web pages. The increase in the popularity of the web pages has provided the company with a platform which it is capitalizing to gather market information from their customers. This information is sorted and analyzed using information system in the company and help in planning various market aspects such as market segmentation and promotional and advertisement methods to adopt. As a result, the company marketing activities and strategies have been successive translating to success of the entire company. Conclusion This report has described E-government development and how the development has affected Beijing Hualian Company business success in the China. China has implemented an E-government development to facilitate management of information. The development has five major initiative namely electronic service delivery services, China Post E-Cert, Electronic Tendering system, Institution for Governance & sustainable development and China Special Administrative. This development has affected the business organizations in the country as evident in the case of Beijing Haulain Company. Information and information system are essential for success of an organization as it enhance value activities, marketing activities and increases competitive advantage of an organization. References Warren M., 2012, Information Technology Changes the Way You Compete. Harvard Business Publisher, 38(4) 98-131. Gregory L. 2014, Information Technology: A New Competitive Weapon. Sloan Management Review, 9 (4) 234-278. Read More