Harnessing Information Systems - Case Study Example

Harnessing Information Systems The role of information technology in the society in the twenty-first century has enhanced drastically. The modern world of commerce heavily relies on information systems since everything happens electronically. Utilization of information systems is fundamental for any business to thrive under these conditions. An understanding of a building, a sound basis of information systems in business is utilized for e-business, e-commerce operations, enterprise collaboration, and management. Data and information are critical components of information systems that employed by firms. The innovation of information systems has enabled commerce to thrive since it allows organizations to be cost-effective, gain competitive edge, and efficient in their industry. Hence, the usage of information has drastically been enhanced since the advent of systems design. Comprehending significance of information systems depends on understanding the components of the information systems that are employed in the global business. . An information system is a collaborative effort that strives to connect people, network, software, hardware, and data in order to facilitate the daily operations of a business (Voortman, 2004). The main three types of information systems are manual, informal, formal, and computer-based information systems. Information systems, in essence, give valuable data to organizations that can be given evaluated upon, analyzed, and enhance the value of the key goals that the organization possesses. Information Systems aids in the establishment of a foundation that are mainly responsible utilization of technology (Kizza, 2013). Managing information systems stems from internetwork enterprises thus the field of information systems has become critical aspects of business administration. The chief innovations that business professionals are an IS Framework. IS Framework is used by business professionals in implementing competitive strategies. Moreover, IS a Framework aid in gaining competitive advantage that allows efficient operation of the firms. A primary example of a company that uses IS Framework is Wal-Mart excels in providing products and services at a very low competitive price (Torres-Coronas & Arias-Oliva, 2009). Moreover, IS Framework allows businesses to be headfirst as the leader in technology as synchronization of software and data management of customer information. In addition, the IS framework enables companies to communicate the whole supply management that is heavily associated with the customers’ demands. For instance, the order to cash process in a business requires several steps. When the client places the order, the sales order department requires credit approval from the credit department (Kizza, 2013). The credit department then informs the sales order department disposition of credit request. At these stages, the use of technology is extensive. The credit and sales department can use of point-of-sale technologies to scan the barcode of products. In addition, the innovation of technologies can use barcodes to process the order. Next, sales order department acknowledges customer order notifies warehouse, revenue collection process, and payroll process. In essence, it each step of the horizontal information flows consists of heavy utilization of technology. Another critical issue that information systems addressed was an organization’s problems regarding differentiation. Prior to the introduction of these systems, few companies possessed the ability to deliver different products and services. With the help of automation systems as the result of information systems, companies were able to customize products based on customer needs. Companies were able to take prototypes and then enhance the functionality features due to high levels of customization that systems had to offer (Voortman, 2004). This idea was virtually non-existent but was quickly adopted amongst companies with the arrival of these systems. Companies not only were able to penetrate the market industry but also become niche leaders. One example of how a company does not choose to be cost-effective can be seen through Rolex. Rolex does not seek to be profitable but uses information systems to let individuals customize their products and gain market edge. In the past years, information systems were developed directly for businesses to be efficient and flexible. However, the new information systems must be able to comprehend the relationship between suppliers and customers. One of the key things that information systems facilitate business is storing and manipulating date storage system (Kizza, 2013). Databases enable organizations to create, store, modify customer information. Databases also allow organizations to check inventory, order new items, and do product resets. Any organization can use databases to analyze their market and industry critically in order to gain a competitive advantage. Competitive advantages are defined as a long-term benefit to a company over its competition, which can result in higher quality of customer service, better products and be cost-effective. Furthermore, they can use the information systems to attract customers through promotions via coupons for their products. Prior the development of information systems, most companies were not efficient and lacked the capability of running a smooth business. Inventory was one of the most critical aspects that the companies struggled to maintain (Torres-Coronas & Arias-Oliva, 2009). With the advent of the information system, companies revolutionized a way to keep inventory via the channels of LIFO and FIFO methods (Kizza, 2013). Retail companies such as Walgreens and Wal-Mart, are prime examples of the initiating of business through information systems. When prevailing client purchase products in the store, all systems of management information systems get engaged. Through the development of information systems, the whole process of inventory is smoother. As soon as the customer at the point-of-sale purchases the product, the database is notified that the product is purchased from the store. Moreover, retailers use telxon, a new type of technology and a device that drastically enhances the inventory process (Voortman, 2004). The telxon is very user-friendly and allows managers to scan items utilizing the barcode. When an item is scanned, the telxon compares the actual inventory of elements that are in stock versus estimated inventory. It ensures that their no deficiency in stock and the actual items that are placed in the store (Torres-Coronas & Arias-Oliva, 2009). The usage of telxon can be extremely helpful for business managers as it allows them to obtain reports on sales, the actual count, price of a particular item, and the unit price. Business usually utilized computers for simple operations such payroll, human resources, and payroll data. The impact of information systems enabled applications to be more sophisticated and allowed firms to store information and synchronize with other devices (Voortman, 2004). As more data was stored in servers, management to print reports and analyze the current conditions of the company frequently uses data. Information systems served as a catalyst that give rise to decision support systems, ERP, SCM and corresponding CRM. The three new possible scenarios Current companies that utilize Salesforce now are Starbucks, and John Hopkins Salesforce allows companies to have dynamic SALESFORCE reporting. From a corporate standpoint, decisions are created from top-up approach in which different sectors of markets are analyzed. It is evident that companies opt to venture in the whole business enterprise mix to growth in the future (Voortman, 2004). In essence, the corporate strategy of Starbucks is a compound business plan because it deals in the restaurant business. Starbucks Company integrates different quality management factors in its business process. To ensure quality that consists of demographics, product, price, and location. The mission of the organization is creating brand equity that consists of delivering efficiency in all facets of operations. Starbucks works on the factor of providing convenience to individuals within 5-7 miles of their location preferences. This core model of satisfaction has allowed it to become the leader in fast-food production. Although the intelligence behind SALESFORCE has been enhanced, good business analysts still understand the gravity of analyzing data to report to management. It extends to just merely reading graphs but benchmarking these results via thresholds (Voortman, 2004). A centralized information from all the sources (e.g. point-of-sale (POS) system, and equipment monitoring, where all sorts of information, real-time feeds and legacy information, can be monitored and analyzed in most efficient and precise way via data warehousing. Salesforce ERP system, which can handle most day-to-day business functions, would serve as the hub. POS and other devices use business intelligence software to gather sales information and marketing data, which is then transferred to a Salesforce database for analysis. It would help organizations have robust information of their business processes and assist them monitoring the progress of their business in the terms of sales, revenues, inventory management, and staff allocation (Voortman, 2004). Moreover, it will aid in the location of the company thus giving them the head start to mitigate any risk. The utilization of SALESFORCE is to supplement the work of Business Analysts and cultivate their thinking into making better and faster decisions. With the advent of cloud computing, Cloud computing is one of the essential concepts that will advance to play controversial in the modern century (Voortman, 2004). Cloud computing is undoubtedly a vital component of the organization as it upholds the security, embeds flexibility and allows corporations to implement a modern IT system. In essence, cloud computing is a cluster of servers that function together (Torres-Coronas & Arias-Oliva, 2009). Moreover, number of characteristics that define cloud data, applications services, and infrastructure. For instance, cloud services can be remotely hosted. In addition, they are ubiquitous, meaning Services or data are available from anywhere. When it comes to cloud computing, many flavors are present. Research shows that cloud computing is beneficial to most companies because it is cost efficient, offers unlimited storage and is easy to maintain and upgrade. Another great feature of the cloud is the fact that it can provide services for end-users. One of the notorious services is known as Platform as Service (Paas). In the PaaS model, cloud providers deliver a computing platform typically including operating system and programming language. MVC framework is a prime example of this service (Voortman, 2004). Moreover, Infrastructure as Service or (IaaS) or IaaS clouds often offer additional resources such as virtual machines, storage capacity, security and end-to-end logical network model. Lastly, Software as Service (SaaS) can be beneficial because of a software deployment where an application is hosted as a service. A great example of this is Salesforce 2.0 in the e-commerce realm. A great benefit of cloud computing is the fact is the fact that it takes high energy costs. In addition, the traditional mainframe networks take too much space (Andersen, 1995). Furthermore, the heat that is generated by these servers must be cooled (Torres-Coronas & Arias-Oliva, 2009). In fact, recent studies have found that organizations achieved on average an 18% reduction in their budget from cloud computing and a 16% reduction in data costs. It is clear that cloud computing is a technology that has been around for many years, but lately has been the pivotal point for organizations (Andersen, 1995). By optimizing technical support, optimization, and troubleshooting, the Cloud offer to accomplish significant economies of scale, resulting in small prices for the underlying cloud resources (Voortman, 2004). Actually, the vast organization such as Amazon has already deployed cloud services in the cloud. It is clear that organizations are moving to this direction as data storage for the future. The second possible scenario would consist of having a comprehensive business analytics. Business Intelligence is one of the most prominent and critical fields as Information Technology emerge in the 21st century (Voortman, 2004). BI is pivotal in many organizations because it allows respective stakeholders to view and analyze data. Before the advent of BI, information about customers and business were overwhelming. With BI, stakeholders can take this raw information and convert into data that can assist them in making real-time decisions. The challenge for many organizations is the fact that the majority of decisions are made based on estimated guesses. One of the best elements of BI is the fact that it reduces any ‘guesswork’. Moreover, it allows the organization to understand customer behavior in a much meaningful way. Another huge aspect of BI is the collaboration aspect as it enables users to interact and use this data. Imagine an organization in which the marketing department requires key reports from the technology department (Andersen, 1995). Clearly, the issue of latency can be a factor that can delay essential decision-making. With the boom of e-commerce, this has become even more pivotal. For many decades, companies have established itself as one of the most premiere companies internationally. In order to harness the growth of customers worldwide, McDonald’s has created data warehousing that has allowed the company to understand the customers, track inventory, and monitor financials. All of these components are integrated in one dashboard that has harnessed BI. The last scenario understands their customer demographics through the validity of data. Information systems, in essence, give valuable data to organizations that can be given evaluated upon, analyzed, and enhance the value of the key goals that the organization possesses. Information Systems are important because establishing a foundation for responsible use of technology. Managing information systems stems from internetwork enterprises. Hence, the field of information systems has become critical aspects of business administration. Thus, this competitive advantage allows firms to be cost-effective by becoming cost leaders for John Hopkins University. According to many researchers, organizations saw the combination of its POS and in-store processor software as a strategic advantage. The secondary benefit aimed at escalating yearly sales (Voortman, 2004).The primary objective of using Oracle software with other systems is to perform integration on different regimes, so everything is centralized thus the information. References Kizza, J. M. (2013). Guide to computer network security. London: Springer. Andersen, K. V. (1995). Information systems in the political world. Amsterdam [u.a.: IOS Press [u.a.. Voortman, C. (2004). Global logistics management. Cape Town: Juta Academic. Torres-Coronas, T., & Arias-Oliva, M. (2009). Encyclopedia of human resources information systems: Challenges in e-HRM. Hershey: Information Science Reference. Longley, P. (2011). Geographic information systems & science. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Information Resources Management Association., & Khosrow-Pour, M. (2002). Issues & trends of information technology management in contemporary organizations. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing. Read More