Corporate Information Systems Strategy - Coursework Example

Introduction Hants Hotels is a hotel group operating five hotels in the Hampshire region. Now with five hotels in the medium-to-high price segment, the group is increasingly targeting a business clientele, gradually expanding its offering of convention centre facilities in several of its hotels. All the hotels use computers for billing but each has different systems dating from before their incorporation into the group. Reservations are all handled manually in each hotel and there is no central reservation system for the group. The reports are created manually by general managers and sent to managing director (MD) every three months. The reports sent from each hotel does not necessarily obey certain standards which make them look confusing and in-accurate for the MD to process. Overbooking is a major problem. Hotel employees are not always aware of the level of overbooking until guests show up, causing occasional friction and unpleasant exchange of words between guests and staff. In addition, when no vacancies are available, people are sometimes sent away without being referred to a nearby hotel of the same group, in part because of a lack of communication, or because some hotel employees are still reluctant to aid a former competitor. Business Strategy Corporate Culture: Corporate culture is the beliefs and values shared by the members of an organisation. How they behave each other or how they behave their clients, how the organisation behaves to its stakeholders or clients. Corporate culture is driven by “vision” and “Mission Statement”. The vision is where the group wants to go in future and the mission statement is the summary of the beliefs of the organisation and where they want to be: Hants Hotels Vision and Mission Statement: Keeping more control on overall behaviour of the group Keeping more control on the internal behaviour of each hotel in the group Providing integration in the operation of the whole system, using same reservation systems but more productive in a way that provides customer satisfaction. A system that could be extended with easy whenever the group decides to increase the number of hotels, services or stakeholders. SWOT Analysis: -Strengths Hants Hotels is a group of hotels, based on the same leadership, team work and logo. The group is increasingly targeting a business clientele, gradually expanding its offering of convention centre facilities in several of its hotels. -Weaknesses A: Each hotel has its own version of billing system. B: Reservations are handled manually C: Little standardisation in the way reports are produced, difficult for managing director of the group to process. D: Overbooking, causing inconvenience for clients E: Check out problems -Opportunities The group managers have identified that using a unified system for processing the information, they can keep more control on the organisations behaviour. Using a unified system, web based or networked system, operations like booking, billing, checking out and reporting will be done accurately and conveniently. -Threats The only threat to such systems is security. Information is exchanged within a network of computers in different geographical locations. Although if security measures are considered the threat will be almost zero. Information Systems Strategy An organisation needs to maintain a Corporate Information Systems Strategy so that the information needs of everyone (each hotel) in the organisation (Hants Hotels Group) could be met efficiently. (CISS, 2010) The IS Strategy of Hants Hotels is based on the weakness section in SWOT analysis and the visions and mission statements of the Hants Hotels Group. A: All the hotels within the chain, will be using the same billing system. B: Reservations are handled electronically (and manually if necessary). For electronic reservation, the customers will have to visit the website of the Hants Hotels Group, select the specific hotel they want in the region and fill a reservation from online. For manual reservation, an staff from the Hants Hotels Group, might follow the same procedure for the clients that send requests by phone or those who come to the hotels in person. C: Every hotel will need to use the same interface and database, resulting the standardisation of the information. The end user, managing director (MD), will use these information to process the status of each hotel in the chain using queries or softwares designed for this purpose. D: Overbooking will not happen again. Every change to the capacity and vacancies of a hotel is stored and updated in a unique database accessible by clients through the website. Once a reservation is made somewhere, that will be taken into account for the next client who wants to make a reservation. E: Check out problems will not happen. The check out process will be electronically done. Payments are electronically processed, once a room becomes vacant, it will be taken into account for other customers when they search for the vacancies. Using a new and unified Information System, the managers of Hants Hotels Group, will keep more control of the groups behaviour, having up to date reports of the status of the hotels in each location, will enable them to update their corporate strategies, make new and novel decisions or decide whether they want to increase the number of the hotels in their chain. IT Strategy The Information Technology strategy is all about planning, introduction and use of the Information Technology resources for the benefit of the organisation. (BizEd, 2010) Using the Information Systems Strategy above, we can define the Information Technology strategies for Hants Hotels Group. A: Billing System: The billing system, includes are the processes of taking an order from a customer, from the reservation to check out. Customers, make a reservation, which means they determine the number of days they need accommodation at a hotel, once the vacancies are checked, they will be given 12 hrs notice to make a payment online. Once the payment is done, all the purchase information will be stored in the central database. In case the reservation is requested to be done manually by a client, this is the job of the hotel reception to fill an online form and confirm the payment online. B: Reservations are handled electronically (and manually if necessary). Once a reservation is made, 12 hrs notice will be given to a client to make a payment otherwise the reservation will be redeemed for other clients. For every client/reservation a temporary user account will be created, so that they could login and make a payment securely without the need of re-entering their personal details. C: Every hotel will need to use the same interface and database. Same forms will enable the queries to manage the data entered conveniently. Using the same input forms for the operation of each hotel, means forcing every party to take a unified standard for entering the data into account. IT System Requirements: The system will need to use a database in order to store all the information. Taking the security measurements into account from the weakness section of the SWOT analysis, regular backup has to be taken on the information. (Supported by webhosting service). The website has to be implemented using a web server technology, for example php which will use a mySql database. Users will have different access levels to the website: - Administrator - Managing Director - Hotel Manager - Hotel Staff and Reception (managing their job online) - Registered users (need a profile for making reservation or payment) - Normal Visitors (no access level check needed!) Conclusion In this report, we have briefly outlined the Business, IS and IT strategy of the Hants Hotels Group. We identified the business strategy of the group based on their current position, their vision and mission statements and the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis identifies the benefits of implementing a new online system for Hants Hotels Group, considering the threats and comparing to their current status. Within the IS strategy, we try to address the strategy and solutions we need to apply the business strategy to an IT system. We determined the flow of information and the rules and orders of how the information will be processed. Within the IT strategy, we mainly focused on how to implement the IS strategy using the Software and Hardware and Web Technologies. We also addressed the security, the only problem of the proposed Information System (which we discussed in the weakness section of the SWOT) analysis by using secure databases, web server technologies and different user access levels. References (CISS) Corporate Information Systems Strategy, www.ICT-Teacher.com, available from < http://www.ict-teacher.com/A%20Level%20IT/Module4%20Powerpoint/13.3Corporate.ppt> viewed on 18 April, 2010 (BizEd) Business Strategy, www.bized.co.uk, available from< http://www.bized.co.uk/educators/16-19/business/strategy/presentation/busstrategy.ppt> viewed on 19 April, 2010 Bibliography Harvard Business School Press, Strategy: Create and Implement the Best Strategy for Your Business (2005) Ralph Stair and George Reynolds, Principles of Information Systems (2007) Read More