Management Information System: Online Reputation Management - Assignment Example

Management Information System: "Online Reputation Management" Contents Contents 2 Research paper by WSI Corporate 3 Research paper 2 by British Columbia Canada 5 Research paper 3 by Elixir Systems 7 References 10 Research paper 1 by WSI Corporate The above written research paper was conducted by WSI Corporate in 2011. Modern businesses are evolving very fast. Different business houses around the world are getting highly dependent on online systems. Each and every business houses are trying to maintain their reputation through online management systems. Modern day customers are very chose in terms of different options. As more than one option is present, it is very important for each and every business house to maintain their competitive advantages. Maintaining reputation in online platforms is not at all easy. The whole process is very complex and risky. Reputation of a business house is nothing but what they do, what they say and what the idea of customers about the business house is. Online reputation management manages organization’s brand images in online domain. Modern people are very busy with their day to day works. They have very little time to go and visit any shop for purchasing any new thing. In this scenario online reputation management is very important for each and every company to show their offerings to the customers. Modern web world has both strengths and weaknesses. Online reputation management prevents different negative exposures of different brands. Online reputation management includes attractiveness and visibility of the website. It is a great tool for preventing different negative impacts on businesses. It is very important to take calculated risks for getting considerable rewards. Online management of reputations is unavoidable for each and every modern business organization. Management Information System gives information to management about their different requirements to run their business effectively and efficiently. It is a computer based system. Main elements of these systems are Software, Data, Hardware, Procedures and People. Generally management information systems are run by managers. Main aims of these mangers are to concentrate towards information flowing at different levels of organization. With the help of this system managers critically analyse different problems related with business and find computerised solutions for those problems. Here comes the basic connecting point between MIS and online reputation management. Customers browse different search engines to collect information. The more one brand is noticeable to a customer, potential of that brand increases. It is a very important factor for MIS to mange online reputation. MIS is responsible for flowing of information across the length and breadth of organizations. It is often being noticed that information are not very clear causing lots of confusions among all levels of employees. Here comes the scope of MIS manger to manage online reputation of the organization in front of their internal customers. Online reputation management is a step by step approach. It is has a deep rooted connection with MIS of any organization. Monitoring is the first step for managing online reputation. Every customer may not be happy with the online offerings of different organizations. It is very important for MIS department of every organization to monitor each and every development in their online systems. For the purpose of monitoring different monitoring tools like Social media, Yahoo! Alerts, Radian6, Google Alerts and Reputation Defender can be used. It is a very important step for MIS department to locate strengths and weaknesses of their total online offerings. It will help MIS department to get an idea of their competitor brands. It is a proactive method from MIS to reduce online negative exposures. In monitoring period different loop holes are being identified. In the next step MIS will analyze all those loop holes related with online reputation. This step is very important for designing improved brand image of organizations. In this step of online reputation management organizations take feedback from their customers. Analyze all those positive and negative feedbacks. The last step is influencing. With the help of MIS negative feedbacks are identified and then in this step all those negative exposures are to be confronted with positive comments. Here comes the expertise of MIS. Organizations can use proper social technologies for countering different negative comments. It is all about to show that the organizations are caring for their customers. Online reputation management and MIS of a company have very deep rooted relationship between them (WSI Corporate, 2011). Research paper 2 by British Columbia Canada The research was conducted in 2012. Online reputation management is very important part for every industry around the world. This system is very much important for tourism businesses also. Modern world has become boundary less with the advent of different social networking sites. Tourists around the world are sharing their positive and negative experiences with the help of different websites. Here comes the scope of MIS to mange online reputation of the organizations. It is often being noticed that when a tourist is searching for its travel guides or tourism agency often goes for different online reviews. These online reviews are very important influence makers for new tourists. It is quite obvious and natural that any negative feedbacks are very harmful for all travel agencies. It is very important for each and every tourism business organization to manage their online reputation. Their primary objectives are to convert all different negative feedbacks to a positive manner. According to the recent survey done by Hotel Association of Canada it is very evident that 86% business travellers collect information from website and on the other hand 73% leisure travellers use website for gathering information. The survey is further saying that travellers choose their hotels on the basis of number of stars associated with that hotel. MIS of an organization has great role to play as far as online reputation management is concerned. Online systems have great influences and controls on tourists across the world. With the help of online systems different tourism operators can connect tourists across the globe. Here managing online reputation become an unavoidable part for each and every tourism operators. MIS helps top level management of different travel agencies to take different strategic decisions on the basis of tourist’s feedback. MIS helps organizations to make positive customer’s reviews more and more prominent and expressive in nature. It certainly helps tourism operators to maintain their competitive edge in the market. It is very important to mange online reputation in proper ways. It is a step by step approach that each and every MIS department should follow. Creating a proper team is very important for tourism operator. This team will share each and every responsibility among them. There should not be any scope of blame game within the team. In the next step setting of objectives are being done on the basis of their expectations and present situations in the tourism industry. In the next or 3rd step different strategies are created for achieving those objectives. The fourth step is implementation stage. Here different actions are taken for the implementation of different strategies. The whole process is guided by MIS of the organization. This department or system will provide all necessary information to the management. Management will work according to that information. It is often being noticed that popularity of travel review website is also a very key factor for managing online reputation. In simple if averagely ranked travel review website gives well comments about a tourism operator and simultaneously a top ranked review website gives negative comments about the same tourism operator, tourists will focus on the top ranked review. It is very important, essential factor or duty of MIS to ensure positive feedbacks for their organization from top ranked travel review websites. Social media plays an unavoidable role in terms of online reputation management. Social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Travel Forums and Flickr are very serious influencer for managing online reputation in tourism industry. Every tourism operators must use their MIS to good effect for using those social media for managing online reputation. It is very important for each and every management to measure the performances of their online reputation management system. It can be effectively measured and improved with the help of customer’s feedback. Increasing numbers of positive reviews are very important for all travel agencies. It may create customer loyalty for tourism operators. It is very evident that in tourism industry online reputation management is very important and it has strong relationship with MIS. It helps management to identify different issues related with online reputation and also guides to come up with different solutions (British Columbia Canada, 2012). Research paper 3 by Elixir Systems In 2006 the research was conducted. Modern business competitions are very fierce. It is very important for each and every organization to focus on their brand image and customer’s perception towards the brand. Over the years the industry has become very sensitive towards what other people are saying about certain brands or products. Online is such a platform where reputation of organizations can be made or can be broken. It is impossible to overlook or neglect different effects of online reputation management. Information flows from different directions. Internal information and external information both are very necessary for the top level management to design their different online reputation management strategies. All these information are provided by organization’s MIS. Each and every successful organization is very sensitive and precise in terms of their online reputation management. Generally those organizations don’t take any chances with their online reputation management policies. They consider this online management as an opportunity to develop trust in the mind of customers and to earn profit out of those convinced customers. Here MIS plays significant role. It helps organizations to identify different issues with reputation management and provide guidelines to resolve those issues. Due to its vast and boundary less presence online reputation is very effective in terms of time saving aspect. Reputation management through online is a combination of public relationship and search engine marketing. Here MIS will play a very crucial role. Companies try to increase their visibilities in different search engines and try to replace negative feed backs with positive feedbacks. Proper flow of information is very important from bottom level management to top level management. MIS maintains that flow of information. There are three steps to mange reputation in online domains. Three steps are Monitor, Analyze and influence. It is a continuous proactive measure where a certain level of management monitors all comments and feedbacks given in online. It is very difficult to keep track all different developments that are taking place. To resolve this issue managements use different alert systems to monitor all developments more effectively. It is the preliminary step to identify what customers, competitors, focus groups and other people are saying about different brands and organizations. Monitoring provides immediate advisories to organizations if negative information is appearing. In the second step analysis are being done by middle and top level management. In this step all the information gathered from monitoring process are being scrutinized. In this step organizations very critically analyse different information gathered from uncontrollable websites. Companies measure numbers of positive feedbacks and numbers of negative feedbacks. If positive feedbacks are more in numbers in comparison to negative feedbacks then it is a good and healthy sign. It clarifies that organization’s online reputation is well managed. If negative feedbacks are more in numbers than positive feedbacks then it is a bad sign for organizations. It states that online reputation of organization is not properly managed. Influencing is the final step of this process. Here top level managements of different organizations try to influence all negative feedbacks with the touch of positivity. Here managements use same sources, platforms from where all issues began. It is often being observed that Blogs, Social Network Sites, Complaint Sites and Attacks from Competitors are main sources of problems related with online reputation. Here in the influence stage top level managements select same platforms to influence customers (Elixir Systems, 2006). All three research papers are clearly showing that managing reputation in different online platforms is very important and complex. MIS plays a very important role for every organization to mange themselves. It is very important for every successful organization to have well managed online reputation backed up by suitable MIS. References British Columbia Canada. 2012. Online reputation management tourism business essentials. [pdf]. Available at: http://www.destinationbc.ca/getattachment/Programs/Guides-and-Workshops/Guides/Tourism-Business-Essentials-Guides/OnlineReputationTBEGuide_October2012.pdf.aspx. [Accessed on: 17th June, 2014]. Elixir Systems. 2006. Online Reputation Management Protect Your Brand Influence Consumer Perception. [pdf]. Available at: http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.sempo.org/resource/resmgr/Docs/ElixirSystemsOnlineRepMgmt.pdf. [Accessed on: 17th June, 2014]. WSI Corporate. 2011. Online Reputation Management How to Balance the Risks and Rewards. [pdf]. Available at: http://www.wsiwebmark.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/ORMWhitepaper.pdf. [Accessed on: 17th June, 2014]. Read More