The Course of Information System Management and Business Institutions - Essay Example

and number] Feb. 15, 12 Information System Management Contents Contents ii Section 1 Section #2 3 Section #3 6 Section #4 9 Section #5 11 Section #6 14 Works Cited 16 Section #1 This report is related to the course of Information System Management through which students learn how the foremost and primary organizations and business institutions organize their infrastructure with the help of Information System (IS) and the technology associated with IS that enables it to work efficiently. It also involves investigation and know-how of modern technology that helps the leading organizations in attaining their primary goals and objectives successfully within the targeted deadlines while gaining their 100 percent customer satisfaction ratio. Information Management System is an organized system or procedure through which information is provided for better management of an organization efficiently. They are very mandatory and essential for the business development as it helps in the components of wise business decision making as well as prudent. It also helps in providing transparent information flow of business policies, guidelines, practices, standards, and certain procedures for reasonable business operations. Information Management System is used by the management in different managerial corporate levels. Safe and sound Information Management System also assists the company in attaining proper and well planned internal controls, audit coverage, safeguards, and operating procedures. There are four groups of Information Management System in which the entire system is divided; these groups are related to Human Resources, Financial Department, Accounting, and Marketing (Allen & Hamilton & Baker 14). This assessment research assignment is correlated with the Information System Management Course and is designed in such a way through which the stimulated thinking of the classroom students would be analyzed and evaluated with the help of a case study. The company chosen for case study assessment is the Information Technology giant company Dell Corporation. In this case study, Dell's customer-centric business model will be analyzed. Apart from that, an overall analysis and evaluation will be carried out regarding Dell's customer-centric business scope, which would help in knowing that how Dell Corporation makes use of its Information System in order to develop and organize a demand-pull value chain, and how does it affect the relationship of Dell Corporation with its suppliers and customers. Section #2 (Covey & Merrill 103) The modern world of today is all about modernization and innovations in the technology field which is growing and grabbing a competitive edge in the global marketplace. Every technology oriented organization is trying their best to make their unique and strong position among their competitors in the technology sector so that they could flourish and market their products with unique and different features which cannot be overcome by any other competitor. For this objective, many multinational organizations and well known reputable companies are developing their research and development department, so that they could stand differently from others. Dell Inc. is one of the most leading and successful multinational technology oriented organization which has accomplish and conquer a very reputable position in the technology world market. Dell Inc. is basically involved in the designing, development, manufacturing, marketing, technical supporting and selling of personal computers and several other computer related products. The main headquarters of Dell Inc. is situated Round Rock, Texas and engages more than 88,000 employees around the globe. This technology oriented organization started grabbing the business growth since during 1980s and 1990s and since then, Dell Inc. has attained the position of being one of the largest technology corporations in the world. Originally, Dell Inc. was founded in the year 1984 by named Michael Dell who was the student of University of Texas Austin. The starting capital invested by Michael Dell was around 1000 US dollars who started the business with the name of PC's Limited (Grossman 157). The main products of Dell Inc. includes personal computers, servers, data storage devices, software, computer peripherals, disc and tape backups, removable disc backup, and network switches. The organization is also engaged in providing third party solutions and software that includes business applications, office applications, anti-virus software, network security software, operating systems, entertainment and recreation software, printers, flat panel monitors, projectors, televisions, laptop accessories, wireless products, networking products, peripherals, software titles, power adopters, digital cameras, and scanners. Apart from that, the corporation is also involved in providing several other services to its customers and customer companies, which includes of asset recovery, recycling services, infrastructure consulting services, deployment services, training services, management services, and support services. Dell Inc. has divided its products and particular brand names into separate market segments. These market segments serve to different groups; such as, Business/Corporate Group, Home Office/Consumer Class, Peripherals, Services and Support, and Discontinued Products/Brands. The major competitors of Dell Inc. in the global business sector are IBM, HP, Sun Microsystems, Gateway, Lenovo, Apple, Sony, Acer, Toshiba, and Asus. As of today, Dell Inc. is busy in striving in the global technical market and is following the aims and objectives set by the owner of the company. The aims and objectives of Dell Inc. are simple, that is; The company should work for a better future and sustainable business growth; The business should have a concrete relationship with its suppliers and customers; The company should act directly along with its team for a sustainable customer value; The company's business growth and performance should differentiate it from other companies and competitors in the marketplace; Impose a winning culture in the company; and To understand that being an all-embracing and widespread global supply chain company, Dell Inc. has the core conscientiousness and liability to coordinate with its suppliers in order to encourage and endorse high standards of performance and behavior, which consists of sustainable environmental practices, health and safety of people and significant human rights and their dignity. Section #3 In order to run a successful business in the competitive marketplace, it is very important to focus on the new customer base while giving importance to the old and existing customer platform as well. After a long research by the global critics, it has been proved that the most important reason to accomplish the title of a successful business, the core secret is to keep and retain the old existing customers. Old customer base maintenance not only proves that the business if worth investing but it is also very profitable and beneficial for the accountability and financial stability of the company. This is the reason that many multinational large, medium and small organizations are paying extra emphasize on maintaining relationship with their customers for long term periods, so that they could also enjoy good reputation and revenue generation over time (Pareek 179). (Camarinha-Matos & Afsarmanesh & Novais & Analide 404) Successful businesses always develop a business model for their convenience. This business model converts business innovation to economic value for the betterment and revenue growth of the company's business. Same goes for customer-centric business model because it always emphasizes and focuses on the customer relationship. This model pays attention on how to strengthen and deepen down the customer relationship with the company by increasing loyalty ratio. In order to accomplish this task, the company must understand and comprehend its customer base because any business can only succeed ahead by taking its customers' interest if the company's management knows what their customers want and need. After evaluating the customer needs and wants, the company is required to change its way of operations and product quality according to their customer feedback so that it could minimize the ratio of errors and increase the customer loyalty among the existing customers while developing new ones. Customer-centric business model might not be easy to accomplish as understanding all the customers and changing product quality at the same time is not an easy task; however, it is not impossible as well. The only thing required here is to concentrate and pay attention to what the customer says and what is beneficial for the company to change its products and operations accordingly. This type of business model is usually one-segment marketing technique because the business has to concentrate from mass marketing to one-on-one marketing basis. Reports and studies have proved that customer-centric business models are gaining popularity among multinational companies; especially technology oriented corporations because it leads the company and its business to understand all the customers while covering the targeted profitability ratio and gaining lifetime customer value calculations and trust. To implement a customer-centric business model in the company, it is necessary that the trustworthy stakeholders are recognized by the management so that it would not create mismanagement in the future for customers or the company. The customer-centric business model has a vast and radiant impact, especially on the Information Technology sector. However, the usual challenges faced by the company while incorporating this business model in the organizational structure are; To recognize who wants what; To have a error-free communication between all the mediums of the business transactions; And to have a perfect consolidation, consistency, and conventions from the management side (Nadkarni 2002). Dell Inc. is an Information Technology oriented corporation and thus, it is also highly influenced by the customer-centric business model. The company follow demand-pull financial system, so it was not that much complex to incorporate the customer-centric business model in the corporate environment of Dell. According to the business model of the company, the management pays keen attention to the needs and feedback of the customers. Then the management pays high emphasize to their feedback and try to navigate the operations according to their feedback and requirements. This has placed Dell not only in becoming one of the finest and sharpest computer sellers in the global market, but the company has successfully forced other competitors to keep their prices low in the market because of the radiant cost-effectiveness of Dell's products and their productivity. Section #4 (Sheldon 85) In today's competitive business environment, management of inventories has become more complex and has shrunk the product life-cycle as well. Management of inventories, especially for the finished goods and items is one of the most important tasks for the management of the company, which has involved almost every single entity in the supply chain management. It involves the flow of finished goods and products between a supplier's supplier and a customer's customer. Value chain within a company's management is the system which is responsible to take care of activities and processes, while neglecting the conventional departments. It is also responsible for the examination of potential of minimizing overheads by recognizing the primary activities that cause them. Value chain of supply chain management is mainly divided into two segments; that is, supply chain and demand-pull approaches. Demand-pull is the specific idea and approach which has been derived from the Japanese word "Kanban". By using the word of demand-pull, it explains that the amount of demand represented and drawn from stockpile or stock-on-hand in the allotment centers generates a pull signal for replacement or refilling. In short, demand-pull is basically make-to-order production oriented. Demand-pull is a very well defined and simple to understand concept in the normal seasons usually, but it may face some drawbacks in the seasonal demand. The management of the company needs to develop a very well organized quantity on hand because it may get affected anytime because of the fluctuation in the demand of products and finished goods (Hosni and Khalil 10). As for Dell Inc., the management is making use of demand-pull value chain system instead of supply push system. The company uses this system because it helps in changing the level of coordination and information through out the company and the people involved. Information is transferred through out the chain with a rupture and is easily provided and available to all the concerned departments and people simultaneously. This system of information flow delivers information more efficiently than any other medium because all the concerned people are informed without any delays or communication gap. The fluent information flow enables the company, suppliers, and even customers to relate together whenever needed. With the help of this system, the customer pays the dues and all the charges for the product before while ordering process. After that, the company uses that amount and delivers the product to the customer within the targeted time by lowering the cost and time for the customer. Not only this, but technological changes and technological advancements are introduced rapidly over time to all the concerned parties at the same time, which eventually helps in rapid increase and growth of revenue for the management and know-how for the customers. The infrastructure followed by the Dell Inc. has become the infrastructure of its suppliers as well, which has bonded them more closely than ever. Every single change in the system, revenue brought forward by the company, and events are easily conveyed to the suppliers of the company whenever required. Apart from all these beneficial effects, there are some drawbacks related to the demand-pull approach use by the company. One is that the tightly enclosed infrastructure may be of severe losing for both sides if one big entity faces some technical problems or lose in the business. Another drawback associated with the tight infrastructure in the demand-pull system is that the information of any cancelled order for the supplier may affect or hurt the management of the company somehow. Section #5 The management of Dell Inc. is entitled and renowned for developing efficient and flexible operations and management system so that the company could attain its goal of keeping safe and strong relationship not only with its suppliers, but also with its customers as well. This is the reason that Dell has become one of the most well known and leading Internet and technology infrastructure oriented corporation in the world. The advancements in the infrastructure of Dell has enabled the suppliers and buyers of the company to leverage Dell's proficiency and knowledge along with its coordination with its partners to attain goods and services from many multinationals, which involves Dell's customers as the majority of population. This is the reason why Dell has successfully maintained a trustworthy bond with its suppliers and customers on both sides. The finished goods designed by the Dell Corporation are not basically developed by the company, because they are primarily manufactured by its suppliers. According to a calculated estimation, around 30 of the total 200 suppliers get close to the ratio of 80 percent of total Dell's running business. Dell does not have a lot of suppliers because its suppliers takes care of all the transactions through the online extranet, where the customer places order and the supplier immediately gets the information, traces down and confirms the order as soon as possible. Later on, the supplier sends the delivery information and delivers the goods and finished products to the customers on time after feeding this information intro their production system. It is assumed that very soon, the extranet of the company would become private oriented so that the customers could place the order directly and from where the suppliers could feed the information, confirm the order and inform the company with the business transaction whenever the order is confirmed. This extranet system is very fast paced and highly classified not only for the customers, but also for the suppliers as well. The customers get the private close attention, while the suppliers get orders on hand immediately. This system eventually helps the suppliers to act and perform better, because they are able to see through the demand chain and find out which components are needed to accomplish the order delivery and when they would be delivered in real time while keeping the inventory amount as minimum as possible in the warehouse (Baker 311). This fast paced procedure and system has not only boosted up the performance level of the company, but also has reduced the overall prices of the products in the technology sector while giving a competitive edge to its competitors. With this speed of performance, loyalty, and cost-effectiveness, customers are benefited from the close attention from the management of the company as they are able to communicate with the management directly, while enjoying low prize rates of computer products as compared to other brands in the global marketplace (Holzner 10). Apart from all these advantages, there are some drawbacks associated with the system of Dell Inc. this drawback is that the tightly integrated infrastructure system of the company along with its suppliers may affect the business transactions, if, incase, the system faces some errors or malfunctioning. Then the entire system on both sides would face the same problem which may affect the stored data in the mainframe or might cause delays in the business transactions on real time. Another drawback of using this system is that if the supplier receives a cancellation order from the customer side before payment or confirmation procedure, then this might cause serious misunderstanding or depression for the management of the company. Section #6 The story of Dell Inc. started from a student who started to grow customized computers from his investments, and then grew the business enormously within a very short span of time. The smart and strong business strategies, policies, procedures and regulations have enabled the entire business to grow and performance by following a very systematic approach with the passage of time. The management and the owner of Dell Inc. have gradually gained the technology oriented business and strived from many stages in order to gain the title of being one of the most popular and successful IT oriented corporations around the globe. The company has made use of Information Management System which is associated with the Information System (IS) to help the company perform efficiently while showing productive results to its management. Dell Inc. is associated in the designing, manufacturing, development, marketing, technical support and sales of personal computers and computer related finished goods. These products are sold around the world through the suppliers directly who makes use of the extranet, web based business and direct communications with the company's customers. In order to maintain its existing customer base while winning the trust level new customers, the management of the company pays extra emphasizes and focus so that the business could enjoy long term relationships and revenue generation from its client base. For this purpose, the company also makes use of the supplier's relationship with their customers. Suppliers are the major entity involved in the business communication of Dell Inc. as they integrate and communicate with the customers directly without any interference. To achieve good communications with the client base, management of Dell Inc., focuses on the needs and requirements of the customers and examines how the 100% customer satisfaction ratio could be obtained. This helps in understanding the requirements and feedback of the customers regarding the products, so that the company could change its products and their characteristics according to the customers' requirements; this approach is known as customer-centric business model. And the system used by Dell Inc. is demand-pull approach which explains that the amount of demand represented and drawn from stockpile or stock-on-hand in the allotment centers generates a pull signal for replacement or refilling. Another emphasize paid by the management of Dell Inc. is on the relationship bond of customers and suppliers. The suppliers keep track of the major business transactions through Dell's Extranet where orders are placed and suppliers track these orders, check their components within their inventories and deliver the required computers and accessories on time. Customers on the other hand make the payment at the time of ordering and enjoy low costs, high attention and better performance from the company's management side. Works Cited Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Michael Baker Jr., Inc, National Cooperative Highway Research Program, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, National Research Council (U.S.). Transportation Research Board; 2003, Environmental Information Management and Decision Support System: Implementation Handbook; Published by Transportation Research Board, p14. Stephen M. R. Covey, Rebecca R. Merrill; 2008, The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything, Published by Simon & Schuster, p103. Elizabeth Grossman, 2006, High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health; Published by Island Press, p157. William A. Cohen, 2004, The Art of the Strategist: 10 Essential Principles for Leading Your Company to Victory, Published by AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn, p77. 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