Information Systems

The Information Systems requirements and subsequent evaluation of the impact these systems will have on the business ‘Ready to Eat, Executive summary This report is to be delivered by 25th May 2010 and is designed advise Rebecca Smith about various information system possibilities that would best suit the requirements of Rebecca’s business ‘Ready To Eat’ (RTE). The report firstly describes what an information system is, its purpose and how they work.

This report will then discuss the increasing globalisation of markets and how IS can be utilised in small businesses to capitalise on these new markets and improve their competiveness. Further discussion are delivered on what information systems are available and describes how IS haves different functions but can and do overlap when providing support for the specific business function. The report identifies information system by their function and how they can assist RTE in managing the business.Managers and business owners are expected to make decisions which have a positive effect on the future of the business; this report describes how Information systems have directly influenced decision making and how if information systems to be effective need to integrate forecasting the future and offer alternative scenarios of the outcomes of decision. The report also offers the hypothesis of Porter’s Competitive Forces model and advocates that this model is the foundation to understanding the strategic forces affecting businesses.The report characterises the role of information system and how the manipulated these forces give small business a strategic advantage. This report will identify the information requirements of RTE by advocating that the basic process of systems development involves defining the project, creating a model, deriving a model, measuring the costs and benefits of all alternatives, selecting the best option, designing the new system, completing the specific programming functions, installing and testing the new system, and completing a post-implementation audit (Chad, Yu-An ; Shu-Woan 2007).

Collaboration and communication among key stakeholders is then discussed outlining the role of the internet, intranet and extranet and how these tool can be used in business to archive a more efficient and effective operation. Further details to IS implementation are explored with a focus on identifying problems that are generally associated with the implementation of IS, this report then offers solutions by utilising planning to combat these problems. The report then discuses the ethical and security issue that are associated with information systems in business.In finalising the report if offer a summary of conclusions and recommendations that include the use of that information to facilitate the business function is of vital importance and by using Information system effectively RTE will be in a better position to sustain growth and productivity. The report recommends the utilisation of office information system transaction processing system to improve the productivity day-to-day operational and financial elements. Further, the use of Management Information systems (MIS) were recommended so as to provide the information necessary to manage and organisation effectively.It is a recommendation of this report that information system be utilised as a as tool to gain a strategic advantage by aligning the business goals with the influence of the five forces described in the report as Porter’s Competitive Forces model to obtain competitive advantage by influencing direction or strength of one or more of the forces in Porter’s model.

Table of contents Executive summary2 Table of contents3 Introduction5 Information systems5 The benefits that information systems can provide for your business6 Types of information’s system available for to RTE7 Operating Support System8Transaction Processing Systems8 Management support systems8 Decision support system8 Knowledge Management Systems9 How information systems could help RTE in managing their business. 9 Information systems affect on management decision-making? 10 How these information systems could be used to gain competitive advantages. 10 New Threat to Entry11 Bargaining power of Customer11 Bargaining Power of Suppliers11 Substitute Products12 The intensity of competition among current rivals within the industry12 What are the information requirements of RTE? 12 What business processes should RTE consider making computerised?Why? 13 Collaboration and communication among key stakeholders13 Management challenges during implementation of the computerised information system15 Planning15 Objectives of e-commerce adoption15 Involve of users and key personal16 Implementation Stage16 Top management commitment16 IT investment evaluation process16 Security and ethical issues16 Ethics17 Organisational Issues17 Conclusion17 Recommendations18 References20 Introduction For a business to be successful in today’s competitive environment computerised information systems are now being used to harness information to facilitate the business function.O’Brien & Marakas (2009) described a information system (IS) as ,any organised combination of people, hardware, software, communication networks, data resources and policies and procedures that stores retrieves, transforms and disseminates information in an organisation’ The increasing globalisation of markets and business has brought increased competition and new opportunity for small business and the effective use of Information system will better enable small business to sustain growth and productivity.Whilst there are many challenges inherent in development of such systems, these systems can offer businesses a number of advantages such as a competitive tool to develop new products and services, integrate with suppliers, compete against rivals, and make effective and efficient changes to business operations. There is a diversity of sophisticated hardware, software and communications technologies, used in information systems in today’s business which makes it sometimes difficult to classify these systems in any one category.Whilst the function of information system can overlap they all seek to benefits business by supporting business processes and operations, supporting decision making by employees and manager and supporting strategies for competitive advantages (Chad, Yu-An & Shu-Woan 2007).

Mangers depend on information system for decision making to help organise the data around them when they cannot process that data accurately and within the short period of time available to them. Managers will use this information to make decisions which have a positive effect on the future of the business.To properly assess the effect in the future of the decisions to be made diverse tools come into play. An effective information system should integrate forecasting the future, and because their choices have been made, such a system must also support the comparative assessment of the effects of alternate decisions (Gray, 2006) Information systems are also used to gain sustainable competitive advantage by aligning the business goals with IS that influence the five strategic forces outlined in Porter’s Competitive Forces model so as to obtain competitive advantage.The model’s central principle is that a business profit potential is determined to a large extent by the threat of new entrants, the bargaining power of customers, the bargaining power of suppliers, the threat of substitute products or services and the intensity of competition among current rivals within the industry (Evans & Neu 2008). The development of effective information systems holds a number of challenges for small businesses. The problems however can be addressed actively addressing the anticipated problem by ensuring if the appropriate technical skills and experience available and sufficient telecommunications infrastructure.

Further must be customer and ecommerce usage and evaluation stages the involvement from staff and user of the IS as well as a commitment from top managers. (Chad, Yu-An & Shu-Woan 2007). Businesses like RTE need routinely deal with issues such as privacy, identity theft, spyware and spam and implement controls to minimise risk. Information is a valuable organizational resource that must be effectively managed and carefully safeguarded as information cannot secure itself or protect itself from phishers, spyware, or identity thieves (Matthew & Schlachter 2007).The manner in which information is used is dependent on the ethics and beliefs of the people that make up the organization, especially the organization’s leadership (Woodbury, 2003). Information systems For a business to be successful in today’s competitive environment the collection of information and the then appropriate use of that information to facilitate the business function is of vital importance. Computerised information systems are now being used to harness this information and with the rapid growth of technology the challenge to business is how it can effectively utilise these information systems (Stair & Reynolds 2010).

To fully understand how an information system works it is beneficial to first understand the separate terms, information and systems. Firstly, information is any knowledge that is acquired by any means (Stair & Reynolds 2010). It is the organisation of that information which is important, and for that a system is required. A system is a plan or method of doing something, and is a combination or arrangement of interrelated components to form an integrated whole that has clearly define boundaries so as to achieve a common set of objectives (O’Brien ; Marakas 2009). A information system (IS) can be any organised combination of people, hardware, software, communication networks, data resources and policies and procedures that stores retrieves, transforms and disseminates information in an organisation’ (O’Brien & Marakas 2009). Information system in the business world often utilises technology to support operations, management, and decision-making (Stair & Reynolds 2010). The benefits that information systems can provide for your business The increasing globalisation of markets and business has brought increased competition and new opportunity for small business.

To capitalise on these new markets and improve their competiveness, small business need to be more effective and efficient in their business process (Chad, Yu-An & Shu-Woan 2007). The effective use of Information system will better enable small business to sustain growth and productivity (Chad, Yu-An & Shu-Woan 2007). The managerial knowledge, skills and experience of decision makers will benefit from the amalgamation of specific business aspects in their organisations which information systems can provide (Stair & Reynolds 2010). Generally the benefits of an IS can be categorised into four groups:Organisational, resulting in more organised business processes thus improving the business efficiency Managerial, allowing a better return on investment and increasing the business performance; Strategic, improving the collaboration within the company and with external partners and increasing the customer satisfaction; Technical, integrating data, objects and processes, increasing the flow of data and information and the access to the information stored, thus building a flexible infrastructure and operational, by reducing the costs (Evans & Neu 2008).When examining the benefits of information systems is also useful to categorise them according to the functional area being integrated (Worley, et al. 2005). The functional benefits of IS integration cover data management, collaboration, reporting, strategic management, decision making processes and integration of communication networks.

Functional IS integration includes implementing shared-access, integrated databases, which improve the processes of collecting, accessing and analysing data and allow business such as ‘Ready To Eat’ (RTE) to monitor events and take proactive actions before critical problems arise (Evans & Neu 2008).Whilst there are many challenges inherent in development of such system, these systems can offer businesses a number of advantages. Information technology are used by many organisations as a competitive tool to develop new products and services, integrate with suppliers, compete against rivals, and make effective and efficient changes to business operations (Worley, et al. 2005). RTE could become a market innovator by using IS to provide a unique product and service to its current customers (Chad, Yu-An & Shu-Woan 2007). This uniqueness will make it harder for potential competitors to enter the market place.In addition, another strategic use of IS would to create electronic linkages to customers and suppliers, doing this will lock in business by increasing the cost of switching to another product (Buhalis & O’Conner 2005).

The benefits that may be achieved with the implementation of information systems would include potential cost reductions business performance improvement productivity improvements customization of products and service enhanced reporting capabilities Improves personal efficiency Facilitates interpersonal communication expanded marketplaces Promotes learning or training Increases organizational controlProvide information for support of decision making Creates a competitive advantage over competition 24 hour trading and information exchange and management (Chad, Yu-An & Shu-Woan 2007) Many businesses are failing to recognise and implements the levels of information systems required to fully benefiting from IT investments in e-commerce (Stair & Reynolds, 2010). Whilst there is obvious benefits realised from the implementation of information system in small business, business are still reluctant to implement information systems as it is sometimes difficult to identify and measure the returns that can be achieved (Worley, et al. 2005).Business that can successfully evaluate the performance and outcomes from their information systems development and adoption are better able to exploit the potential and more likely create competitive advantages (Worley, et al. 2005). It is important that an appropriate system of measurement is developed and put in place to properly track measure and evaluate whether the planned goals have met expectations. Information system projects sometimes fail due to the considerable focus on implementing the technology but have no formal mechanism to evaluate progress for what information system was designed to do (Chad, Yu-An & Shu-Woan 2007).

Often the benefits that are gained buy the implementation of a IS are not immediately apparent as they are inherently qualitative, such as guest satisfaction and systems efficiency and are not immediately recognised in monetary terms (Worley, et al. 2005). The problem of qualifying return is further complicated with system such as supply chain management which operate outside the boundaries of the business but ultimately provide advantages to you business in the long run (Buhalis & O’Conner 2005). Types of information’s system available for to RTEThere is a diversity of sophisticated hardware, software and communications technologies, used in information systems in today’s business and it often is difficult to classify a system as belonging uniquely to one category (O’Brien ; Marakas 2009). Contemporary application software supports transaction processing generates management information whilst other applications provide transaction processing, management information, and decision support. Organizations increasingly are consolidating their information needs into a single, integrated information system (Buhalis ; O’Conner 2005).Whilst information system can overlap in their function they all seek to benefits business by supporting business processes and operations, supporting decision making by employees and manager and supporting strategies for competitive advantages (Chad, Yu-An ; Shu-Woan 2007).

Operating Support System An office information system or OIS are systems that try to improve the productivity of employees who need to process data and information. Uses of an office information system include a range of business office activities such as e-mails, spread sheet, scheduling and word-processing.These systems are used at all levels from management to front line employees. Additional uses if this category of information systems may include Web browsers, personal information management, and groupware (O’Brien & Marakas 2009). Transaction Processing Systems A transaction processing system (TPS) is an information system that captures and processes data generated during an organisation’s day-to-day transactions. A transaction is a business activity such as a deposit, payment, order or reservation.Clerical staff typically performs the activities associated with transaction processing, which include the following: Billing systems to send invoices to customers Systems to calculate the weekly and monthly payroll and tax payments Production and purchasing systems to calculate raw material requirements Stock control systems to process all movements into, within and out of the business (Stair & Reynolds, 2010).

Management support systems A management information system (MIS) is mainly concerned with internal sources of information (Stair & Reynolds, 2010).MIS usually take data from the transaction processing systems and summarise it into a series of management reports. A management information system (MIS) is a system or processes that provides the information necessary to manage an organisation effectively (Melville, Kraemer & Gurbaxani, 2004). MIS and the information it generates are generally considered essential components of prudent and reasonable business decisions. MIS is viewed and used at many levels by management. It should be designed to achieve the following goals: • Enhance communication among employees. Deliver complex material throughout the institution.

• Provide an objective system for recording and aggregating information. • Reduce expenses related to labour-intensive manual activities. • Support the organization’s strategic goals and direction (Stair ; Reynolds, 2010). Decision support system A Decision support system (DSS) is an information system designed to help users reach a decision when a decision-making situation arises. A decision support system uses data from internal and/or external sources (Stair ; Reynolds, 2010). Internal sources of data might include sales, inventory, or financial data.Data from external sources could include interest rates, the cost of raw material such as flours, and fuel cost.

Some decision support systems also include capabilities that allow you to create a model of the factors affecting a decision (O’Brien & Marakas 2009). With the model, you can ask what-if questions by changing one or more of the factors and viewing the projected results. Many people use application software packages to perform DSS functions. Using spreadsheet software, for example, you can complete simple modelling tasks or what-if scenarios.Knowledge Management Systems Knowledge management (KM) expands the concept to include information systems that provide decision-making tools and data to people at all levels of a company (Stair & Reynolds, 2010). The idea behind KM is to facilitate the sharing of information within a company in order to eliminate redundant work and improve decision-making. KM becomes particularly important as a small business grows.

When there are only a few employees, they can remain in constant contact with one another and share knowledge directly.But as the number of employees increases it becomes more difficult to keep the lines of communication open and encourage the sharing of ideas. Knowledge management is a way of using technology to facilitate the process of collaboration across an organization (O’Brien ; Marakas 2009). How information systems could help RTE in managing their business. Operating Support System that utilise as e-mails, spread sheet, scheduling and word-processing will help employees and management be more productive in there day to day tasks.Employees can perform tasks electronically using computers and other electronic devices (Melville, Kraemer, ; Gurbaxani 2004). RTE could use such system for example, to update delivery schedules electronically to delivery personal.

Office information systems use communications technology such as voice mail, videoconferencing, and electronic data interchange (EDI) for the electronic exchange of text, graphics, audio, and video which could be utilised to communicate to employees when working from home.Transaction processing system (TPS) is an information system that will help RTE with all the transaction of the day to day operation. These may include the recording a business activity, a customer’s order, an employee’s timecard or a client’s payment (Melville, Kraemer, ; Gurbaxani, 2004). Transaction processing systems also assist with confirming an action or triggering a response, such as printing orders from customers, sending a tax invoice or generating an employee’s pay checks. Further to this TPS assist updating data, adding new data, changing existing data, and or removing unwanted data (Chad, Yu-An ; Shu-Woan 2007).Knowledge management information’s facilitate the sharing of information within a company in order to eliminate redundant work and improve decision-making (Stair ; Reynolds 2010). KM becomes particularly important as a small business grows.

As the number of employee’s increases at RTE it will becomes more difficult to keep the lines of communication open and encourage the sharing of ideas. Knowledge management is a way of using technology to facilitate the process of collaboration across an organisation (Buhalis ; O’Conner 2005).A small business like RTE might begin buy sharing customers feedback with employees to establish better more effective product and service. A management information system would benefit RTE in its support operations, management, and decision-making. Using this information, RTE can produce reports that recap daily sales activities; list customers with past due account balances; graph slow or fast selling products; and highlight inventory items that need reordering. Management information systems can be integrated with transaction processing systems (Worley, et al. 2005).

RTE could then derive all the necessary information from a sales transaction for example which would update transaction processing system records the sale, updates the customer’s account balance, and makes a deduction from inventory. Information systems affect on management decision-making? Manager and business owners are expected to make decisions which have a positive effect on the future of the business. Managers and owners have handful of data around them but manually they cannot process the data accurately and with in the short period of time available to them.Therefore mangers depend on information system for decision making and thus Information systems have directly influenced decision making (Gray, 2006). Today, databases and web based resources, accessed through effective communications, make information about the past rapidly available. Although databases make essential past and near-current data available, they do not support the essence of decision-making, namely assessing the effect of alternate future courses that can be initiated by the decision maker (Gray, 2006).To assess the effect in the future of the decisions to be made diverse tools come into play.

An effective information system should integrate forecasting the future, and because their choices have been made, such a system must also support the comparative assessment of the effects of alternate decisions (Gray, 2006). There are many examples of IT systems that successfully support decision making in business situations.Due to the importance of information in decision making a separate field has emerged to serve the appropriate information’s to managers for effective and good decision making purpose. Serving the suitable information use to pass through a process called management information system as the information is using to make management decisions (Stair & Reynolds 2010). How these information systems could be used to gain competitive advantages. Porter’s Competitive Forces model is the foundation to understanding the strategic forces affecting businesses.Understanding what role information system can play to manipulated these forces is paramount to utilising IT as a as tool to gain a strategic advantage (Evans ; Neu 2008).

The model’s central principle is that a business profit potential is determined to a large extent by the following five competitive forces within that industry. These forces are: The threat of new entrants, The bargaining power of customers, The bargaining power of suppliers, The threat of substitute products or services, The intensity of competition among current rivals within the industry (Evans & Neu 2008).Central to the five strategic forces it is important that they are used to gain sustainable competitive advantage by aligning the business goals with the influence of the five forces to obtain competitive advantage and influence direction or strength of one or more of the forces in Porter’s model(Evans ; Neu 2008). As we are seeking a strategic change For IT strategy is focused on external forces and the sustained competitive advantage this focus provides (McIvor ; Humphreys 2004). Whilst IT infrastructure and processes tend to support efficiency: lower costs, faster transactions, higher quality, and production efficiency.These efficiencies do not result is sustained competitive advantage (Evans ; Neu 2008). The reason is that the technologies are employed are easily duplicated by your competitor resulting in short term advantages making these technologies tactical rather than strategic and focused on operational efficiency rather than sustained competitiveness(McIvor ; Humphreys 2004).

However if RTE can continually improve and implement tactical advantages before their competitors they will achieve the ongoing competitive edge. New Threat to Entry The business of providing healthy meals to customers, such as RTE, is haracterised by a low barrier to entry. Large Capital costs to enter the market are not required and distribution channel are not controlled by any entity or complex in nature (Evans ; Neu 2008). In some cases consumer loyalty to brands can be a barrier to entry in the market place, however branding with RTE product is not strong and customer would easily shift to another product based on price or quality. Information system technology or the lack of such technology can makes it easier for new firms to enter the industry in competition to RTE and change the competitive nature of that industry.For example internet technology could be employed by RTE where orders for lunches could be ordered online making the product tailor made to the customer and also more efficient and effective than taking orders over the phone. If RTE does not take up this opportunity there competitor could do so and thus penetration into RTE’s existing market (McIvor ; Humphreys 2004).

By RTE making their ordering system more usable for the consumer they are creating a barrier to new competition to entry into the market. Bargaining power of Customer The bargaining power of buyers is influenced by a number of similar factors.When the number of buyers of a product or service increases the bargaining power of any individual buyer decreases (Evans ; Neu 2008). Internet technology has increased the pool of potential buyers of many products and services, thereby decreasing their power as individual buyers while increasing the power of the sellers. Conversely, supply chain technology may limit the number of suppliers who have access to secure networks, thus making them captive to the buyer (McIvor ; Humphreys 2004). This situation increases the bargaining power of the buyer while limiting that of the suppliers.In the case of the healthy prepacked meals buyers do not have a strong influence over price as there is a relatively broad base of buyers with only two suppliers of the product, healthy packed meals.

Buyers do have influence in that they can switch to another product purely base on price as at this stage the suppliers have not uniquely differentiated their product from each other (Evans ; Neu 2008). Bargaining Power of Suppliers The power of suppliers is increased when only a small number of suppliers exist in the market and there are limited substitutes are available (Evans ; Neu 2008).In the case of RTE there is only two suppliers of the health pre packed meals product available but this lead to little advantage to the business as a supplier. The market exists where either of the two businesses could provide the whole market if either as the product is not unique and buyers could easily swap to the alternative product (Evans ; Neu 2008). The bargaining power of suppliers is decreased by any technology capable of increasing the number of suppliers. Technologies that increase switching costs increase the power of suppliers, while those that decrease switching costs decrease the power of suppliers (Evans ; Neu 2008).RTE needs to be there first, for example ordering online form the ease of the office.

RTE should consider a tailor made health choices for their clients as flexible manufacturing technologies that allow for high levels of product customization tend to make it less attractive for customers to switch to a rival’s product or service (McIvor & Humphreys 2004) Substitute Products Substitute products and services are threat to RTE Product, a substitute product is a product that appears to be different, but can satisfy the same need as another product.A substitute product or the healthy prepacked food could be the supplier of muesli bars or an easier accessible healthy pie van outside the business. Substitute products are increasing their importance as a strategic force as an increasing networked economy has made substitute products and services more readily available (Evans & Neu 2008). The intensity of competition among current rivals within the industry As in the case of the supply of prepacked healthy foods another supplier has recently entered the market. Unless RTE can increase the barrier to entry into the market place additional suppliers may enter the market and increase he competition. Among rivals, sustained competitive advantage derived from technology usually occurs when the technology is maximised by innovative organisation structures, marketing channels, or supplier relationships within an industry, it is almost inevitable that rivals will use the same core technology for the production of their products and services (Evans & Neu 2008). In most instances, these core technologies will be supplied by vendors with such technologies being transfer very rapidly among the rivals within an industry.

As a result, most core technology within an industry is tactical, rather than strategic (Evans & Neu 2008) What are the information requirements of RTE? There are a number of different types of information systems that can serve the needs of RTE at different levels in the organization. Information systems might be developed to support employees and management in decision making planning and controlling, for example to help with the quantity of supplies of pre? packed healthy meals and decision about opening the business on public holidays (Gray, 2006).Other types of information systems include transaction processing systems, which simply record the routine transactions needed to conduct business, like payroll, shipping, or sales orders; and office automation systems, which are intended to increase the productivity of office workers and include such systems as word processing, electronic mail, and digital filing (Gray, 2006). Ideally, the various types of information systems in an organization are interconnected to allow for information sharing. A variety of tools exist for analysing a company’s information needs and designing systems to support them.The basic process of systems development involves defining the project, creating a model of the current system, deriving a model for the new system, measuring the costs and benefits of all alternatives, selecting the best option, designing the new system, completing the specific programming functions, installing and testing the new system, and completing a post-implementation audit (Chad, Yu-An ; Shu-Woan 2007). It is the responsibility of small business owners and managers to plan what systems to implement and to ensure that the underlying data are accurate and useful.

The organization must develop a technique for ensuring that the most important systems are attended to first, that unnecessary systems are not built, and that end users have a full and meaningful role in determining which new systems will be built and how(Chad, Yu-An ; Shu-Woan 2007). What business processes should RTE consider making computerised. RTE should advance the current use of their computerised operating support system to being used outside the office, either from home or in between home office and client deliveries address.The current software used to increase productivity, e-mails, spread sheet, scheduling and word-processing etc can easily be extended to home. The idea of closing on public holidays or being at home at weekends need not be detrimental to the business if the basic operational function of the business can be run from home. This can also be extended to communication with mobile information systems with the ability to accept and place orders whilst in transit. This facility can also used to submit information into a customer relationship management system.

For example whilst delivering to clients it is leant that it was the client’s birthday. This information could be stored and used in the following year to create customer loyalty. Computerising day to day operation with TPS will help RTE with the financial side of the business. A simple accounting package for small to medium business is MYOB; this can track cost and inventory of supplies of raw materials. In addition both cash receipts and account receivable information can also be process keeping up to date financial data.This data can also be used for budgeting and forecasting and thus planning and controlling (Chad, Yu-An ; Shu-Woan 2007). Management information system and decision support systems are usually associated with larger business but any system that can collate internal and or external information and report this information in a fashion usual to decision making.

Using this information, RTE can recap daily sales activities; list customer’s information; view sales of high and low margin products product to assist in decision making (Worley, et al. 2005).Collaboration and communication among key stakeholders The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to connect of user across the world (Tsunenori et al. 2008). Most traditional communications media, such as telephone and television services, are reshaped or redefined using the technologies of the Internet. The Internet is allowing greater flexibility in working hours and location by offering different opportunities of collaboration and communication (Tsunenori et al. 008).

Businesses, which utilise Internet, intranet and extranet facilities, are gaining significant competitive advantages through the ability to better collaborate and communicate amongst stake holders by utilising the information system and process that these platforms provides(Tsunenori et al. 2008). The Internet is used extensively by businesses taking advantage of the efficient way in which its spread information to a vast number of people simultaneously. The Internet has opened a whole new market for business.Working collaboratively has been made dramatically easier due to its low cost and nearly instantaneous sharing of ideas, knowledge, and skills (Melville, Kraemer, ; Gurbaxani, 2004). Internet “chat” for example would allow colleagues to stay in touch in a very convenient way when working at their computers during the day. Stake holders and collaborating teams can work on shared sets of documents without either accidentally overwriting each other’s work or having members wait until they get “sent” documents to be able to make their contributions (Buhalis & O’Conner 2005).

Business and project teams can share calendars as well as documents and other information. Such collaboration occurs in a wide variety of areas including scientific research, software development, conference planning, political activism and creative writing The Internet can be defined as an interconnected series of computer networks, which provides global access to communication and information. Intranets are internal networks, which utilise Internet technologies to support communication, collaboration, information sharing and the support of business processes within the organisation (Melville, Kraemer, & Gurbaxani, 2004).Extranets utilise Internet and intranet resources to link customers, suppliers and trusted partners with the enterprise in a connected way to facilitate communication and collaboration and improve business relationships (Buhalis & O’Conner 2005). Information systems such email, calendaring and chat systems are simple example examples of information systems that can be used in the workplace to create a collaborative working environment (Melville, Kraemer, & Gurbaxani, 2004).A collaborative working environment supports people in both their individual and cooperative work, who can work together whether inside or outside of the office. Business matching and collaboration support systems are can be used for small-and-medium sized companies such has RTE.

A category of IS designed to support collaboration and communication is termed Enterprise Collaboration Systems (ECS). ECS is a combination of Internet, Intra and extranets used to facilitate communication and collaboration. An example for RTE is the sharing of the order information placed by customers.The desired result from the implementation of an ECS is would be to provide each member of the team of RTE with the tools to share documents and information through communications and collaboration to make it easier individuals to manage their own tasks more effectively and efficiently (Gray, 2006). An intranet is a network within the organisation private computer network where members of the origination can securely share any part of an organization’s information or operational systems within that organization (Buhalis ; O’Conner 2005).The intra can host an extensive part of the business information technology and also may be the host of several website for internal communication and collaboration. Benefits of the intranet are that intranets can also help users to locate and view information faster leading to time saving.

The Intranets could be used to distribute information to employees on an as-needed basis (Gray, 2006). Intranets can be used for communication within an organization and is for staff the opportunity to keep up-to-date with the strategic focus of the organization (Melville, Kraemer, ; Gurbaxani, 2004).Some examples of communication would be chat, email, and or blogs. Intranet Web publishing allows cumbersome corporate knowledge to be maintained and easily accessed throughout the company using hypermedia. Information that may be distributed by this means might be employee manuals, company policies, business standards and even training. Because this information can be updated online the most recent version is always available to employees using the intranet. This can promote a common corporate culture as every user is viewing the same information within the Intranet (Buhalis ; O’Conner 2005).

Intranets are also being used as a platform for developing and deploying applications to support business operations and decisions across the internetworked enterprise. Users can view information and data via web-browser rather than maintaining physical documents such as procedure manuals, internal phone list and requisition forms. This can potentially save the business money on printing, duplicating documents, and the environment as well as document maintenance overhead (Buhalis ; O’Conner 2005).When part of an intranet is made accessible to customers and others outside the business, then that part forms part of an extranet. Businesses can send private messages through the public network, using special encryption/decryption and other security safeguards to connect one part of their intranet to another (Buhalis ; O’Conner 2005). An extranet is a private network that uses Internet protocols, network connectivity to exchange information. An extranet is an extension of a company’s internet that is made available via the internet to people outside the business.

It can be used to exchange information and ecommerce between businesses, doing business with other business (business-to-business, B2B) in isolation from all other users of the internet This is in contrast; business-to-consumer (B2C) models involve known servers of one or more companies, communicating with previously unknown consumer users(McIvor, ; Humphreys, 2004). An extranet is an extension of the intranet to other business but is not accessible to the general public an extranet however requires network security such as firewalls.The extra net can be utilised to select order and track supplies required to make the prepacked healthy meals. Uses of the extranet could also be utilised to exchange large volumes of data using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) or Share product catalogues exclusively with trade partners (Tsunenori et al. 2008). Management challenges during implementation of the computerised information system The development of effective information systems holds a number of challenges for small businesses.The problems associated with the implementation and the eventual success of information systems can be minimised by actively addressing anticipated problem.

Firstly, it is important to understand the organisational goals and assess if the appropriate technical skills and experience available are available to accomplish these goals. Further it is important that there is involvement from staff and user of the IS as well as a commitment from top managers. In addition there must be sufficient telecommunications infrastructure, customer and ecommerce usage and evaluation stages in the adoption of ecommerce (Chad, Yu-An ; Shu-Woan 2007).There are three stages in the adoption of ecommerce. The problems associated with the development of effective information systems can be minimised by addressing the challenges that may arise in process off planning, implementation and post implementation reviews (Chad, Yu-An ; Shu-Woan 2007). Planning Objectives of e-commerce adoption The key issues for the organizational adoption practices in the planning stage include e-commerce adoption objectives, user involvements, top management commitment and user resistance management (Chad, Yu-An ; Shu-Woan 2007).The Objectives for adopting an e-commerce system by organizations varied greatly, so to properly plan for the implementation of information systems a business must first know what objective and expected outcomes they wish to achieve.

The closer the alignment with stated organizational goals and how the e-commerce investment is organized and conducted gives rise to a better opportunity of success (Worley, et al. 2005). Many businesses simply fail to establish a linkage between the reasons for adopting an e-commerce system and their organizational goals.Systems are often installed without linking the benefits to their organizational goals. Good user resistance management is a critical part of successful adoption of any IT investments in e-commerce. Involving users in the planning stage during the implementation of these systems will alleviate significant user resistance (Chad, Yu-An ; Shu-Woan 2007). Involve of users and key personal With the implementation of computerised information system there often comes a great deal of change.

Change management techniques need to be carried addressing the resistance to this change.It is one thing to have the commitment of senior personal but this alone will not succeed if there is considerable resistance from other members of the organisation (Worley, et al. 2005). On the other hand, organizational evaluation involves pre-project justification and change management in the planning stage, and the use of investment evaluation and benefits realization methodologies in the implementation stage (Chad, Yu-An ; Shu-Woan 2007). There is a direct relationship between users’ involvement and system success (Worley, et al. 2005).Organisations which keep the users and customers in the dark would tend to have low usage for their systems.

Furthermore, many benefits expected from the adoption of these systems were mainly tailored for the customers and the senior personal (Chad, Yu-An ; Shu-Woan 2007) Considering the complexity of the decisions and the large expenditure required for business to engage in e-commerce projects a better understanding of the adoption and evaluation practices of IT investment in e-commerce in Australian Business will assist them in their involvement in e-commerce (Worley, et al. 2005).Small to medium enterprises such as RTE needs to know what they want to achieve from the implementation of the computerised information system and to link these objectives to the e-commerce adoption (Chad, Yu-An ; Shu-Woan 2007). Implementation Stage Top management commitment Obtaining top management commitment throughout the implementation is critical to the success of the IT investments in e-commerce (Chad, Yu-An ; Shu-Woan 2007). There also should be a focus on the possible dissatisfaction and resistance among employees or users regarding the implementation of some of the IS and a user resistance management plan implemented.IT investment evaluation process Evaluation for any electronic commerce initiatives is difficult and requires much more rigorous evaluation process One of the critical points of the post-implementation is the appropriation of the system by its users which is often difficult and extensive education and training should be considered (Melville, Kraemer, ; Gurbaxani, 2004). Security and ethical issues Businesses today routinely deal with issues such as privacy, digital security, identity theft, spyware, phishing and spam (Spinello, 2003).

Businesses like RTE need to deal with these issues and institute controls to minimise risk. The manner in which information is used is dependent on the ethics and beliefs of the people that make up the organization, especially the organization’s leadership (Woodbury, 2003). Business ethics has development various principles that embrace the basic principles of ethics held by society as a whole which in turn leads of good and ethical business practices (Spinello, 2003).With the development of Information Technology it has been reason that good ethics in the development and uses of information technology correspond to the basic business principle that good ethics is good business (Woodbury, 2003). Information is a valuable organizational resource that must be effectively managed and carefully safeguarded as information cannot secure itself or protect itself from phishers, spyware, or identity thieves (Matthew ; Schlachter 2007).As concerns about security and privacy increase as a result of personal concerns and fears over the theft of personal information, it is import for a business such as RTE to developed and / or revised codes of ethical conduct (Woodbury, 2003). At the same time government continue to develop laws and legislation that are specifically related to ensuring the privacy and security of information and individuals (Woodbury, 2003).

. Ethics There are four areas of concern with regards to information collected by an organisation.These include privacy, accuracy, property, and accessibility (Lacey ; Suresh, 2004). It important for owners and or managers to develop a sense of awareness of the potential types of ethical issues those are common to information (Matthew ; Schlachter 2007). Managers should be involved in monitoring outward activities of the business because customers and their privacy are affected when there are outward breaches. Of equally important are inside issues such as internal surveillance and monitoring activities, because these affect employees (Woodbury, 2003).Due to the prevalent use of Internet, instant messaging and email a number of software surveillance products have been developed for the by today’s business.

Organisational Issues In and organisation it often that you would encounters a Computer virus and increasing attacks by hacker are perpetrated with the intention to destroy data and software so as to disrupt computer services. Phishing attacks frequently target a specific group of people and are intended to secure personal information, usually financially related, from innocent and unsuspecting responders (Woodbury, 2003) .Criminals are especially interested in acquiring, bank account information, credit card numbers and other financially-related data that can help them to steal identities or money from unsuspecting customers. Identity theft is the appropriation of someone else’s identity to commit fraud or theft (Lacey ; Suresh, 2004). It is not only not people external to the business but also people from within the company such as disgruntled insiders that a great amount of damage and threats to cyber security originates.Programs commonly referred to as “spyware” or “adware” have become very widespread and are used to monitor online behaviour (Henry, 2005). The programs threaten compliance efforts and intellectual property, and create problems for computer users, some of the problems that prevail as a result of spyware include slow computer processing speeds and pop-ups taking over (Matthew ; Schlachter 2007).

Remedies for spyware include installation of anti-spyware software and switching to more secure software.The general sense at this time is that this may be a cure that is more costly than the problem to be solved however, the consequences of identity theft are significant, and the financial impacts exceed billions of dollars each year (Lacey, 2004). The victim is subject to loss of funds or other property, a tarnished credit history, a possible criminal record, difficulty in securing employment, and an inability to obtain goods and services (Lacey, 2004). Identity theft is a problem that affects both individuals and organizations, and remedies must be developed.The organization’s first line of defence, the firewall, is easy to install and maintain and didn’t doesn’t disrupt regular business applications. Conclusion In concluding they report as identified and describe the nature of information system and how they can be used in business as a competitive tool so as to be successful in today’s competitive environment. The report has offers a number examples of how information systems can offer businesses a number of advantages such to develop new products and services, integration with suppliers, and the competitive edge by effective and efficient changes to business operations.

This report attempt to categories information systems as to their function but state that this is not always possible as many system overlap and are increasing integrates in the in providing support to various business function. The report offs and example of a information system the is utilised for decision support but also provides transactional support for the businesses day to day financial operations. The report describes how managers will use this information to make decisions which have a positive effect on the future of the business.The report also detail how IS are also used to gain sustainable competitive advantage by aligning the business goals with IS that influence the five strategic forces outlined in Porter’s Competitive Forces model. The report offers solution to problem that arise in the implementation of IS by proactively planning to combat these problems. Lastly this report discussed such as privacy, identity theft, spyware and spam and how business need to implement controls to minimise risk as Information is a valuable resorce to organizational and must be effectively managed and carefully safeguarded.The report desrines tha manner in which information is used is dependent on the ethics and beliefs of the people that make up the organization, especially the organization’s leadership.

Recommendations It is recommended by this report that for RTE to be successful in today’s competitive environment the collection of information and the then appropriate use of that information to facilitate the business function is of vital importance. Computerised information should be used to harness this information. By using Information system effectively RTE will be in a better position to sustain growth and productivity in the following areas.Organisational, resulting in more organised business processes thus improving the business efficiency; Managerial, allowing a better return on investment and increasing the business performance; Strategic, improving the collaboration within the company and with external partners and increasing the customer satisfaction; Technical, integrating data, objects and processes, increasing the flow of data and information and the access to the information stored, thus building a flexible infrastructure and operational, by reducing the costs (Evans & Neu 2008).It is recommended that RTE implement information systems for daily operation support in the form of an office information system t to improve the productivity of employees who need to process data and information. Uses of an office information system to include a range of business office activities such as e-mails, spread sheet, scheduling and word-processing. These systems should be used at all levels from management to front line employees.

In addition a transaction processing system should be used organisation’s day-to-day transactions. These systems can provide productivity gains in the functions of billing systems to send invoices to customers, calculating the weekly and monthly payroll and tax payments, the production and purchasing systems to calculate raw material requirements and ttock control systems to process all movements into, within and out of the business (Stair & Reynolds, 2010).It is also recommended that Management Information systems should be utilised so as to provide the information necessary to manage and organisation effectively. These systems are designed to enhance communication among employees, Provide an objective system for recording and aggregating information, reduce expenses related to labour-intensive manual activities and support the organization’s strategic goals and direction (Stair ; Reynolds, 2010).It is a recommendation of this report that information system be utilised as a as tool to gain a strategic advantage by aligning the business goals with the influence of the five forces described in the report as Porter’s Competitive Forces model to obtain competitive advantage by influencing direction or strength of one or more of the forces in Porter’s model. This report recommends that by actively addressing anticipated problem associated with the implementation of information systems a successful outcome is more likely.For his to occur it is important to understand the organisational goals and assess if the appropriate technical skills and experience available are available to accomplish these goals.

Further it is important that there is involvement from staff and user of the IS as well as a commitment from top managers. There are four areas of concern with regards to information collected by an organisation. These include privacy, accuracy, property, and accessibility (Lacey ; Suresh, 2004). Remedies for spyware include installation of anti-spyware software and switching to more secure software.It is recommended that owners and or managers develop a sense of awareness of the potential types of ethical issues those are common to information (Matthew ; Schlachter 2007). Managers should be involved in monitoring outward activities of the business because customers and their privacy are affected when there are outward breaches. The organization’s first line of defence, the firewall, is easy to install and maintain and didn’t doesn’t disrupt regular business applications A policy should be implemented that cover both ethical and security procedures.Ethical behaviours in the development and uses of information technology should be similar to the basic business principle that good ethics is good business.;

INTRODUCTION

The information systems play a critical role in managing market logistics, especially computer, point-of-sale terminals, uniform product bar codes, satellite tracking, electronic data interchange EDI, and electronic funds transfer EFT, these developments have shortened the order-cycle time, reduced clerical labour, reduced the error rate in documents, and provided improved control of operations. They have enabled companies to make a promise such as “the product will be at dock 25 at 10:00 am tomorrow,” and control that promise through information.

Keeping in view of above significance of information system, the report has been designed to explore and outlined the reason of organization adopting information system strategy and what is information system strategy. Also using multiple methodology frameworks that assist in devising IS strategy. At the end of this report the six external drivers are listed in connection with real world example to understand how they influenced on IS strategies.

INFORMATION SYSTEM STRATEGY

The definition of IS strategy is formulation of approaches and planning needed to deploy information systems resources to support organizational strategy.

The definition of development of information systems strategy is usually encompasses the areas of how information systems will be used to support an organization’s strategy. Support means creation of strategic of IS with organization strategy. Impact implies a role for IS in generating opportunities for an organization to gain competitive advantage. A strategy which covers both these facets is that of Dohertty et 999), who describe IS strategy development as

The IS strategy is a process of identifying a portfolio of computer-based to be implemented, which is both highly aligned with corporate strategy and create an advantage over competitors.

An information systems strategy brings together the business aims and understanding of the information needed to support those aims, and the of computer systems to provide that information.

Irrespective, of any definition the main theme of information system is to establish strategy to provide best and timely service to their consumers in order to increase the wealth of shareholders.

The emphasis of information systems strategy is on delivering a portfolio of appropriate software tools and systems that support the future direction of an organization and achieve advantage for the organization (Strategic objectives). Furthermore, the IS strategy also determines the quality of services delivered end-users.

(BODDY, BOONSTRA, KENNEDY, 2002)

REASONS OF INFORMATION SYSTEM STRATEGY

The reasons organization heavily invest to generate its information system is to achieve six important business objectives. These objectives can be outlined as

Operational excellence
New products/services
Business model
Customer and supplier intimacy
Improved decision making
Competitive advantage
And survival

1. Operational excellence

The ultimate objective of every organization is to maximize the wealth of shareholders. The information system provide efficient mean to optimize the production and operations capability for the business. Also some time it needs to change the way organization conducting its business and management attitude. There are many success stories of those who plan strategically to implement information system and bring fundamental results due to this implementation. For example, Wal-Mart being as a largest retailer gains sales more than $348 billion in sales during 2007, which was 1/10 of total retail sales in US. The Wal-Mart achieved that hallmark by linking digitally its retail store system with the suppliers, so when the customer purchased items, the bar code link identified the suppliers about outflow and demand of certain product and suppliers timely replenish the stock.

2. New products and services

The information system enables organization about the trend of new product or services. The demand can be evaluated of competitors product and then it is matched with the market to assess there is any need of copy cat product. Such as the music industry is no longer like it was in 2000. The exuberant demand permits the Apple Company to innovate new products with different styles.

3. Customer and supplier Intimacy

The customers intimacy can be gauged by their frequency of repurchase, the often they come to buy the goods or receive the services the more they generate revenue for the organization. The suppliers relationship can be evaluated in the same way, if there are few suppliers and all are given confirm order or tie them with contract, the more they will deliver quality raw materials.

Take the example of hotels business, they are using computers to keep track of guests preferences, such as their preferred room temperature, check in time, frequently dialled telephone numbers, and television programs, and store these data in a giant data repository, individual rooms in the hotels are networked to a central network server computer so that they can be remotely monitored or controlled. When these guests arrived to the hotel, the system automatically changes the room conditions, such as dimming the lights, setting the room temperature, or selecting appropriate music, based on the customer’s digital profile. Through, extensive use of IT, hotel can carry out their customer profitability analysis and can adequately determine those customers that are providing high revenue.

4. Competitive Advantage

When organization outperform its competitors in terms of operation, new product development, services, and establishing business model, customer intimacy and last but not least in decision making process, then they are well ahead from their competitors.

Through establishing IS strategy many organization prominently Toyota successfully eliminate waste, adopt continuous improvement, and optimizing customer value. The IS help to build effective supply and lean management system. Let discuss in detail that crucial aspect of IS strategy,

The models which will help us to how to determine and evaluate of competitive advantage in terms of IS strategy’s are Porter’s Competitive Forces and Generic theory.

4.1) Porter’s Competitive Forces Model

The most widely used mode for understanding competitive advantage is Michael Porter’s Competitive forces model. This model provides a general view of the firm, its competitors, and the firm environment. These are

Rivalry among existing firm
New Entrants in market
Substitute product in market
Supplier’s Power
Buyer’s Power

1. Rivalry among existing firm

All firms share market space with other competitors who are continuously devising new, more efficient ways to produce by introducing new products and services, and attempting to attract customers by developing their brands and imposing switching costs on their customers.

2. New Entrants in market

The new arrival in market often gets kick start its business using several of IT and IS help. In mature market, when there is already fierce competition going on the tool that new entrants can use to get itself introduce to the customers are gaining economy of scale by spreading its fixed cost to the number of units or/and adopting learning curve. The state of the art designed IS can monitor the movement of learning curve that will help management in their decision making process.

3. Substitute Products and Services

In a competitive market, there are several substitutes product each addressing different customers market need. New technologies create new substitutes all the time. To make the product more distinct and attractable organization need often to change its features and packaging to keep the product up to date.

4. Customer’s power

The theory’s regarding customers retention has been getting enhanced day by day. The new theory related to customers are customer relationship management, which emphasis on keep the existing customers rather than deploying resources to attract the new one. In that sense, the power of the customer grows if they can easily switch to a competitor’s products and services, or if they can force a business and its competitors to compete on price alone in a transparent marketplace where there is little product differentiation, and all prices are known instantly through internet.

5. Supplier’s Powers

The supplier’s power has huge impact on organization profitability. If there are few suppliers operating in the market the power of suppliers might be high and they would be in the position to convince the organization with their terms and condition. However, if there are many or diversified suppliers in the market, the greater control organization would have to exercise over suppliers in terms of price, quality, and delivery schedules. For instance, manufacturers of laptop PCs almost always have multiple competing suppliers of key components, such as keyboards, hard drives, and display screens.

4.2) Porter’s Generic theory

There are four generic strategise, each of which often is enabled by using information technology and system: low-cost leadership, product differentiation, focus on market niche, and strengthening customer and supplier intimacy. These are

Cost leadership
Product leadership
Focus

1. Cost Leadership

The use of information system to achieve the lowest operational cost and lowest prices is goal of almost every organization. The classic example is Wal-Mart. By keeping prices low and shelves well stocked using a legendary inventory replenishment system, Wal-Mart became the leading retail business in the United States. Wal-Mart’s continuous replenishment system sends orders for new merchandise directly to suppliers as soon as consumers pay for their purchases at the cash register. Point-of-sale terminals record the bar code of each item passing the checkout counter and send a purchase transaction directly to a central computer at Wal-Mart headquarters. The computer collects the orders from all Wal-Mart stores and transmits them to suppliers. Suppliers can also access Wal-Mart’s sales and inventory data using web technology.

Due to efficient use of IS by Wal-Mart they do not need to maintain large inventories of goods in its own warehouse, which cause greater cost of order and holding the inventories, because the system replenishes inventory with lightning speed.

2. Product Differentiation

Those organizations that are charging high prices for their product need always modify their product to keep the product in the eyes of customers. For instance, Google continuously introduces new and unique search services on its web site, such as Google Maps. By purchasing PayPal, an elector nice payment system in 2003, eBay made it much easier for customers to pay sellers and expanded use of its auction marketplace. Apple created iPod, a unique portable digital music player, plus a unique online Web music service where songs can be purchased for 99 cents. Continuing to innovate, Apple recently introduced a portable iPod video player and music-playing cell phone.

Manufacturers and retailers are starting to use information systems to create products and services that are customized and personalized to fit the precise specification of individual customers. Dell Inc. sells directly to customers using assemble-to-order manufacturing. Individuals, businesses, and government agencies can buy computers directly from Dell’s production control receives an order, it directs an assembly plant to assemble the computer using components from an on-site warehouse based on the configuration specified by the customer.

3. Focus

Using information systems to enable a specific market focus, and serve this narrow target market better than competitors. Information systems support this strategy by producing and analyzing data for finely tuned sales and marketing techniques. Information system enable companies to analyze customer buying patterns, tastes and preferences closely so that they efficiently pitch advertising and marketing campaigns to smaller and smaller target markets.

The data come from a range of sources-credit card transaction, demographic data purchase data from checkout counter scanners at supermarkets and retail stores, and data collected when people access and interact with Web sites. Sophisticated software tools find patterns in these large pools of data and infer rules from them that can be used to guide decision making. Analysis of such data drives one-to-one marketing where personal messages can be created based on individualized preference. For example, Hilton Hotels OnQ system analyzes detailed data collected on active guests in all of its properties determine the preferences of each guest and each guest’s profitability.

(LAUDON, LAUDON, 2009)

Multiple Methodology Frameworks

Earl methodology has been regarded as most influential methodologies for developing information systems strategies. According to this work, IT offers major new business opportunities by improving productivity and performance, developing new businesses and enabling companies to gain competitive advantage. The key ideological stance taken by Earl is based not on internal but external or outward looking activities so that business objectives can be met fully. Earl pioneered a multiple methodology with three approaches (top-down, bottom-up and inside-out)

Top-down

Top down is concerned with identifying and agreeing business objectives and the drivers of business value through interviews, debates, existing business strategy and policies. Critical success factors (CSFs) are then developed for areas where success is necessary for survival, and subsequently information systems that support/enable/deliver these CSFs need to found.

Bottom-up

Bottom-up is about exploring what currently exist in terms of hardware, software, IT and IS applications and determining their functions, and how they work and add value. This activity concerns itself with understanding what systems currently exist and in establishing what needs to exist in the light of company strategic needs. This activity also requires and understanding of any capacity limits or constraints of current systems, which might act as a barrier to future needs.

Inside-Out

Inside-out is about being innovative and finding novel ways of giving the business an advantage. Usually, this needs strategic thinking into state of the art knowledge of other sectors/companies and spotting potential technologies or application of technologies, which will be ground-breaking in the near future. Benchmarking techniques are sometimes useful to highlight where an organization is falling short or has the opportunity to outperform its competitors.

Earl suggests that both top-down and bottom-up methods should be used for IT/IS strategic planning and alignment since this gives a comprehensive overview of the situation from all angles. Accordingly, the top-down methods should be used to clarify business strategies and needs as well as the potential contribution of IT application. This should result in the alignment of IT and IS investment with business needs. Bottom-up methods should be used to discover gaps and map where an enterprise is in IS terms of its IT applications and where it needs to develop to meet the business strategy. The result should be improved specialist-user relationships and knowledge of where IT is important for competitive functioning. The third part of the methodology is termed ‘inside-out’ and implies designing an organizational and technological environment, which enables innovations to happen, thus making it possible to gain competitive advantages from IT/IS.

Flaws in Earl’s Methodologies

While Earl’s model is still relevant it does have a number of flaws:

There is an assumption that because senior management are thinking about the strategic use of IT and IS and their alignment that this view and stance is good for everyone (throughout the enterprise), which may or may not be the case.

The model lacks the ability to chart or predict future technologies and their potential impact on the business.

The model is based on a rational and economic-based manager (Whittington, 1993), who traditionally make decisions by analysing all the facts rather than taking into account more social, cultural, politically charged agendas, which can be entitled ‘social’ reasons and ‘gut feeling’ to decisions-making.

Finally, Earl’s model does not take into account group and individual interactions and how this social networking is important is determining how things happen in business life.

Since the development of Earl’s methodology other frameworks have evolved. A number of them have integrated principles and issues highlighted by Earl but have been modified to address some of the weakness of the Earl’s model. (GRANT, HACKNEY, EDGAR, 2010)

External Drivers that Influence IS Strategy

The following are the external drivers that have potential impact while formulating Information strategy and need to be adequately take into accounts.

Transformation of the business enterprise
Emergence of the global economy
Transformation of industrial economies
Competition
De-regulation
Emerging technologies
Changing nature of the customer
Environmental and conservation issues
The value of intellectual assets

1. Competition

Adopting Information System brings fundamental improvement inside and outside operation of organization. The organization added value in its activities by involving the IS across its department. The IS allow firms to understand and make better their supply chain, lean management, and value chain and eliminate all those wastes that do not give any margin to the company. Some of example of adopting Information system is given below.

1.1) YANSHA Leans on IS to Stay Competitive

YANSHA is one of China’s biggest retailers. It sells upscale designer clothes from around the world along with other line merchandise. One of its largest retail stores occupies 215,000 square feet in Beijing’s famous YOUYI Shopping City.

YANSHA has long experienced market leadership in china, but in recent years has felt increasing completion from international companies. YANSHA’S management team was aware that its methods of communication with suppliers-the placing and receiving of orders-were less than efficient. It was also aware of other inefficiencies in communication throughout the organization. For YANSHA TO maintain its leadership role in the market, it would need to cut the waste and become lean and mean in its application of information systems technology.

YANSHA turned to IBM China Research Lab to evaluate its information systems and recommend the latest technologies to bring it up to date. IBM implemented a massive system upgrade across the entire enterprise: an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The ERP allows YANSHA executives and managers to view real-time performance date, such as sales across all location, in certain regions, or in one particular store. Using this system, managers could, for example, determine the success of a particular marketing approach. The new ERP interfaces with a new supply chain management (SCM) system that provides close communication between YANSHA and its suppliers. These two systems working together, the ERP system and SCM system, allow organization.

The new systems required a substantial investment of time and money for YANSHA, but the benefits have vastly overshadowed the costs. The new systems reduced the time it takes for suppliers to ship merchandise to YANSHA (order lead time) from 2.5 days to 4.5 hours. The order acknowledgment rate has increased from 80 percent to 99 percent. Order errors have been reduced from 9 percent to 1 percent. The money saved by YANSHA receiving the right merchandise at the right time has saved the company enough money to pay for its expensive new information systems within nine months of rolling them out. Achieving a return on investment (ROI) in such a short time is something any chief information officer (CIO) would be proud of.

2. Deregulation

Deregulation can be defined as when Government cease to act as a controller over the industries and permit maximum liberty of the operation in market is called Deregulation.

The use of IS in case of deregulation become vital because the connection with suppliers crossing the boundaries and new frontier develop which bring competitive edge to the firms. One of example in such situation is

2.1) 7-Eleven Japan Company

In 1996 the Japanese Industries witnessed major deregulation in sales of stamps, postcards and revenue stamps and it is become possible at convenience stores. 7-Eleven Japan recorded sales figures equivalent to 9 billion yen in this area in 1996. Stamps and other products that customers frequently request contribute to increased store loyalty from customers even through the products themselves have low profit margins. In 1997 deregulation occurred in the travel industry. In 1998, the medical supplies and finance industries were deregulated and many other areas will also be affected.

7-Eleven Japan invested approximately 4 billion yen in the construction of large-sized refrigeration boxes for ice cream in 1994 and installed them in all of its chain stores. It is quite natural that ice cream sells well in summer time. However, 7-Eleven Japan recorded more than a two-fold increase in ice cream sales in comparison with the previous year. The refrigeration box was placed in the centre of the store where five gondolas used to be stationed. This was a drastic and innovative use of space as convenience stores have a limited space.

Morinaga Milk industry Co. Ltd, Morinaga and Company Ltd, Snow Brand Milk Products Co, Ltd AKAGI NYUGYO, and HAGEN DAAS were the main suppliers. Until then, ice cream was mainly produced in the winter season and prepared for the concentration of sales in summer. However, manufacturers were unable to respond quickly to the change in the market. It was not possible to increase the production of popular ice cream because it would only build up inventory volume. Therefore, 7-Eleven Japan established a system to sell ice cream within 10 days after placing orders. The features of the system are as follows;

On-line transmission of order information and inventory volume of the store directly to producers
Manufacturers produce based on this information and store them in a storage facility especially prepared for 7-Eleven Japan
The exact quantity required is delivered to the joint delivery centre for frozen products
Form this centre, products are delivered to the stores

In this way, 7-Eleven Japan has constructed a consistent production, distribution, and sales system for ice cream products. Thus, it became possible for the store to sell very fresh ice cream throughout the year. In addition, 7-Eleven Japan tied up with Morinaga Milk industry Co. Ltd Morinaga Company, ltd and AKAGI NYUGYOU for the development of new products and has developed new types of ice cream that satisfied customers’ needs. This is an excellent reflection of 7-Eleven Japan’s attitude towards “taste” and “freshness”, 7-Eleven Japan Attaches importance to the “un-learning effect”, something that breaks away from the existing concept. This is why it could carry out a very drastic innovation in order to sell “summer products during the winter season”. (ISHIKAWA, NEJO, 1998)

3. Changing nature of Customer

The information system has been rigorously used to understand need and demand of customers in order to build stable relationship with them. A satisfied customer tends to remain a customer, and it is less costly to retain existing customers than to attract new ones. Therefore, the Information System helps to track down profiles of profitable customers to exceed revenue by continuously temping them. The process include compile the data of customers like

Where the customers are located
What items are in demand
What is the revenue by customer and item in terms of an ABC ANALYSIS
What are the sales patterns and the sizes of orders

A sound database will enable organizations to manage costs, increase profits and make informed decisions about what to put on shelves. No manager ever has all the information needed to make a perfect decision, but having an adequate source of accurate information will improve the quality of decision.

3.1) KROGER COMPANY
3.2) BARNEYS NEW YORK

Barneys New York, the upscale clothing store chain, reports a 10 percent increase in online revenue by using data mining software that finds links between online behaviour and greater propensity to buy. Barneys uses a system from proclivity systems to analyze data about when a customer visits its site and other demographic information to determine on whom it should focus its e-mail messages. For example, an email message announcing a sale might be send to those who had purchased certain products in the past but only when the items were on sale. This has not only increased sales but has increased customer goodwill by showing that Barneys understands its clientele’s interest.

(GELINAS, DULL, 2010)

4. Emerging technologies

The large supermarkets are extensively using information system to reduce their cost. They are acquiring sophisticated and state of the art technologies to evaluate the customer demand. The sensor machine on doors protect the shop to be stolen the goods. Also bar code or tag on the cloth helps organization to evaluate the demand of the product and link that technology with the Information system, which later send information to the supplier to replenish the particular stock in store.

4.1) Sainsbury

Since 1989, Sainsbury has implemented a high-tech information system that has halved the average time it takes to get a product from the supplier to the consumer. The impact has not only been on the Sainsbury organization, but also on other organizations within the retail food supply chain. According to Angus Clark, the Sainsbury director responsible for systems and distribution, bar-code scanning at the checkout counters has changed the whole supply-chain operation from a “push” system to a “pull” system. Historically, forecasts dictated what was pushed down the supply chain to each retail outlet. But scanning has allowed Sainsbury to capture demand data the instant a sale in made. Now, production and distribution can be calibrated to levels of real demand.

(STAHL, GRIGSBY, 1997)

5. Transformation of Business Enterprise

Organization structure refers to organizational subunits and the way they relate to the overall organization. An organization’s structure depends on its goals and approach to management, and can affect how it views and uses information systems. The types of organizational structures typically include traditional, project, team and virtual. Organizational structure can have a direct impact on the organization’s information system.

5.1) World Bank

World Bank is two financial institutions owned by 185 member countries. In recent years, the World Bank has suffered from front page scandal’s regarding suspected improprieties with its senior-level officials. In 2007, World Bank president Paul WOLLOWITZ was pressured to resign, and in 2005, vice president and CIO Mohammad Muhsin retired under a cloud of suspicion. However, while the press and the world were focused on corruption in the World Bank, some very positive developments were taking place with World Bank infrastructure and information systems that went relatively unnoticed.

The World Bank has traditionally been run as a top-down hierarchy, which is a traditional organizational structure. In recent years, through the use of global information systems, the World Bank has transformed into a decentralized, front-line, matrix organization,” observes a recent article in Baseline magazine. Rather than controlling information systems from the top, the World Bank has been investing to empower its clients with the information systems they need locally to participate in the global economy.

(STAIR, REYNOLDS, REYNOLDS, 2010)

Bibliography

Book References

DAVID BODDY, ALBERT BOONSTRA, GRAHAM KENNEDY (2002), “MANAGING INFORMATION SYSTEM: STRATEGY AND ORGANIZATION”, 4TH ED PG 312-314: PEARSON EDUCATION LTD

KENNETH C. LAUDON, JANE P. LAUDON (2009), “ESSENTIALS OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS”, 8TH ED PG 6-22: PEARSON EDUCATION LTD

KEVIN GRANT, RAY HACKNEY, DAVID EDGAR (2010), “STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT” 1ST ED PG 119: CENGAGE LEARNING EMEA

AKIRA ISHIKAWA, TAI NEJO (1998), “THE SUCCESS OF 7-ELEVEN JAPAN: DISCOVERING THE SECRETS OF THE WORLD’S BEST CONVENIENCE CHAIN STORES” 1ST ED. PG 46-48: SEBEN-IREBUN DAKEGA NAZETSUYOI

ULRIC J. GELINAS, RICHARD B. DULL (2010), “ACCOUNTING INFORMATION SYSTEMS 8e”: 1ST ED, PG 345-346, SOUTH-WESTERN CENGAGE LEARNING

MICHAEL J. STAHL, DAVID W. GRIGSBY (1997), “STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT: TOTAL QUALITY AND GLOBAL COMPETITION” 1ST ED, PG 243, BLACKWELL PUBLISHERS LTD

RALPH M. STAIR, GEORGE REYNOLDS, GEORGE W. REYNOLDS (2010), “PRINCIPLES OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS”, 1ST ED, PG 48: CENGAGE LEARNING

Introduction

Accounting information systems (AIS) have experienced vast changes in several decades, improving from paper-based journals and ledgers to completely automated, paperless systems. However, the migration from paper to computer has its risks to the company.

It contains the confidential information which becomes compromised if it is unprotected. The unauthorized use of the accounting system can be misused and involved in risking loss of the information, disastrous and bad data input. Security of accounting systems is a priority in many companies. In recent decades, the changing environment has posed a threat to the company. As a system accountant of a large established UK based Retail Company specialising in the sale of household electrical appliances, it is necessary to consider the risks and the security threats that the company would face in today’s business environment.

According to Tony Boczko, risk is related to the likelihood of loss, the probability of mischance and the possibility of hazard or harm. Moreover, risk can be defined in several ways such as the chance of bad consequences, the exposure to mischance and the probability of loss. These risks and threats can lead an undesirable impact on both the present and future of the company’s financial activities and stability.

Type and nature of both the risks and the security threats

Nature of risk

The nature and source of the risks can be distinguished into two primary sources of risk which can be categorized as the event/activity-based risk and resource/asset-based risk. By referring to Tony Boczko 2007 (pp. 681), he mentioned that event/activity-based risk is defined as the risk which is associated with the particular event/ activity or the group of activities/ events. The resource/ asset- based risk is the subsidiary primary source which can be defined as the risk which is associated with the possession and use of the resource/ asset or the group of recources/ assets.

In addition, Tony Boczko 2007(pp. 681) mentioned that the source of risk can be categorized into four associated secondary sources of risks such as authorized internal employee and external agent-based risk, unauthorized persons-based risk and nature-based risk. The case of the authorized internal employee/ external agent-based risk is the possible loss which can be resulted from the unintentional or deliberate errors. Unauthorized persons-based risk is most likely involved in the risk of possible loss which can be resulted in the possible breaches of security and misappropriation of assets and information. The nature based risk is involved in the risk of possible loss which is resulted from the geographical disaster or meteorological conditions.

Type of Risk

What are the different types of risksThere a number of differing types of risk that can affect the household electrical appliances company in today’s business environment. One of the risks is unintentional error. Unintentional error is the error which is related to the inadvertent mistake and erroneous actions attributable to the bad judgement in decision making, ignorance and inattention. The unintentional errors that happened through computerized systems are always at of risk power failure of the computer, viruses attack and end up with losing the important information of the company such as financial documents. Furthermore, problems with computerized system could lead to a standstill in usage of the database. When the household electrical appliances company is focus and reliant on the accounting information system, the unintentional error due to the power and computer outage could lead to a work disruption. Work disruption can disable the input of the information of the company can access to the stored information. Additionally, if the data is not backed up properly, the company will end up lost its important data.

Risk such as deliberate errors can cause the company with the bad and serious implications. According to Tony Boczko 2007(pp. 682), deliberate errors can be explained as the conscious erroneousness and incorrectness whose occurrences are designed to damage, destroy and defraud a person, group of persons and organization. Such errors are intentional and premeditated. What if there is ‘someone’ else hosting its precious and valuable data‘Someone’ refers to the hacker. Hacking is the illegal action which involved in gaining unauthorized access to the company accounting information system to steal and get the data illegally. The big news of the hacking system is NASA’s system. ‘In 2002, Gary McKinnon was arrested by the UK’s national high-tech crime unit, after being accused of hacking into NASA and the US military computer networks.’ (BBC NEWS, 2006) Besides that, the hacker ‘The hacker has also denied that he had made Washington’s computer system inoperable, although he did admit he may have deleted some government files by accidentally pressing the wrong key’. (Jo Best, 2005). Deliberate errors brought a serious implication to the company.

Besides that, natural disaster is also counted as the serious type of risk in today’s business environment. ‘A natural disaster is the effect of a natural hazard (e.g., flood, tornado, hurricane, volcanic eruption, earthquake, or landslide). It leads to financial, environmental or human losses. The resulting loss depends on the vulnerability of the affected population to resist the hazard, also called their resilience’. (Wikipedia, 2011) As a household electrical appliances company, if it is suffered from the natural disaster such as floods. Floods can destroy drainage computer system and cause the raw sewage to spill with water. Besides that, building and company’s equipments can be also damaged due to the floods. It will lead to the catastrophic effects on the environment as the toxic such as gasoline will be released and caused pollution. Floods can cause a huge amount of money losses to the business.

Type of Security Threats

In today’s business environment, there are many computer frauds and computer crimes through computerized accounting information systems. Fraud can be defined as ‘deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage. In the broadest sense, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual’. (Wikipedia, 2011) As a household electrical appliances company, the internal employees or managers as well as the shareholders can be also fraud through the computerized accounting information system. The information stored electronically can be manipulated and accessed if proper controls and security measures are not taken place. This will affect the operation of the business. Fraud such as account takeover is a serious activity which always happens in today’s business environment. ‘An account takeover can happen when a fraudster poses as a genuine customer, gains control of an account and then makes unauthorized transactions’. (Action fraud) The information of account holders such as credit card can be taken over by those fraudsters.

Los Angeles attorney Christopher Painter said: “If you have an explosive growth on the Internet, you’re going to have this great huge growth in fraudulent conduct and crime committed over the internet.” (BBC NEWS, 1999) From this evidence, we can see that there is a security threat on today’s business through the computerized accounting information system. Fraudster can be sued if they found out by people. For example, ‘Bank of America and two of its former bosses have been charged with fraud for allegedly misleading shareholders during the takeover of Merrill Lynch’. (guardian.co.uk, 2010)

There are few types of fraud, such as false billing, financial fraud, advanced fee frauds, identity theft and phishing. In false billing scam, the fraudster will send out a so-called invoice for a particular product or service that are never be ordered, fraudster hope that it will be paid for sure from the victim without any investigation. This activity usually happened in large business organization, it is because large business organization has a billing or payments system which used to pay the invoice of the company, fraudster sends out those fake invoices and hope that this will be unnoticed by the large business organizations.

‘Phishing is a way of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication’. (Wikipedia, 2011) It is dangerous for today’s business operation, it is because instead of stealing the personal and business information, ‘phishers’ can affect the computer with the viruses and convince the victim in order to participate in money laundering.

Another security threat is computer crime, according to Tony Boczko 2007 (pp. 691), he mentioned that computer crime can be defined as the deliberate action to gain access to, or steal, damage or destroy the computer data without authorization. Computer crime involves in the activity of dishonest manipulation of computer programs or computer-based data. It also involves in the fraudulent use/abuse of computer access and resources for personal gain.

The types of computer crime such as the inappropriate use of corporate information systems, theft of computer and hardware, unauthorized access and information theft or the fraudulent modification of data and programs, system failure and premeditated virus infection and disruptive software. It is hard to define a computer crime; it is because computer crime is always and easily be happened in the business organization. People might think that fraud is also kind of computer crime. It is a wide context in security threats.

As a household electrical appliances company, premeditated virus infection such as spyware, it gathers the users and client’s information and relays it to the third party such as advertisers. Spyware can monitor operation of the computer, scan the important information and files, snoop on the private applications such as chat programs. By reading the cookies and change the default web browser, spyware can consistently relaying the information from the database. It is dangerous for the business organization, because if their competitors spy into their programs and get the costs and type of materials of the electrical appliances as well as the client’s contact number, the business organization will be easily defeated by competitors.

There is a latest issue about the Sony PlayStation Network which involved in the identity theft. ‘Up to 3 million Britons are believed to be among the 77 million users of Sony’s PlayStation Network, which has been hacked into by criminals who have stolen users’ personal information, possibly including credit card details’. (Charles Arthur and Keith Stuart, 2011)

‘Sony, which shut down the online games, movies and music delivery system last week after it was attacked by hackers, has said that although names, birthdates, e-mail addresses and log-in information were compromised for certain players, it has seen “no evidence that credit data was taken,” but “cannot rule out the possibility’. (Richard Newman, 2011)

Security Strategies/Measures

Due to the vulnerability of the computerized accounting information system, it is easy to be attacked by internal and external people of the business organization. It is necessary to implement some methods to solve the serious issues. According to American Institute of CPAs In order to protect the business organization from the attack of risk and security threats, , TOP Technology Initiatives Task Force, which is a group of the technologically astute members of the CPA profession and other technology professionals, collaborated in the AICPA’s Top Technology Initiatives project, seeking to identify the most important technology initiatives.

The first method is enhancing the information security such as upgrade the hardware and software in order to protect the information systems from the security threats. Company should implement and upgrade the level of firewall which blocks the intrusion from the internet. Update the anti-virus programs with the logins of password and username to limit access. Besides that, company should hire the experienced network integrator to check whether it is work properly with the security patches. Additionally, company can have a security audit for the independent confirmation on the company’s financial data and client’s information. Through this process, business organization can be protected.

The other method is disaster and business continuity planning. It is an activity which involves in the developing, monitoring and updating of the climate change, accident and other malicious destruction. It can prevent the business organization to loss their important information. It is because having the computerized accounting information system down for few hours or few days due to the natural disaster; could lead a bad impact to the profitability and liquidity of the business organization. So, business organization should plan and design a process to keep the system stable to prevent any losses.

Control Procedure

According to Tony Boczko 2007(pp. 729), he mentioned that the internal control which comprises the processes or procedures within a business organization designed to provide a reasonable assurance that business objective- primarily the maximization of shareholder wealth which can be achieved and those undesired events can be prevented or corrected.

The internal control related to the management control. It can be defined as a diverse range of activities designed to conduct, direct and control business activities and ensure the consistency with corporate business objective. For example auditors, their role is to audit the business organization’s internal control policies, to assure that the control within the departments is under controls and adequate, it can help in control the financial statement to prevent the financial loss in order to achieve the mission of business organization.

Furthermore, internal control such as risk assessment is also needed to be taken place in every business organization. It is an effective control procedure helps in protecting company.

According to health and safety executive, the risk assessment, instead of creating the huge amounts of paperwork, but rather about identifying sensible measures to control the risks in the business organization. Risk assessment is help to protect people by putting in place measures to control those risks. As a household of electrical appliances company, risk assessment is a good starting point; manager can actually investigate and look for the hazard which may cause harm to the business organization. Furthermore, a critical thinking about how the accident could happen and who will be influenced could help in noticing and monitoring the risk. Once the managers identify the risk, it will be easily to control and put a suitable measure on it.

Conclusion

As a conclusion, accounting information system brings a lot of disadvantages to the organization in today’s business environment, but accounting information system combines the study and practice of the accounting with the concept of designing, implementing, controlling and monitoring the information systems. It also combines the modern information technology and the traditional accounting system to provide a better financial system to manage and improve the financial performance of the organization.

Introduction

Myocardial infarction

A computing machine system designed to assist directors program and direct concern and operations.

MIS pronounced as separate letters, MIS refer loosely to a computing machine -based system that provide directors with the tools for forming, measuring and expeditiously running their section s. in order to supply past nowadays and anticipation information, an MIS can include that helps in determination devising, informations resources such as that information of ware resources of system, system for do any determination, people direction and undertaking direction application and any computerized procedures that enable the section to run expeditiously.

Within companies and big organisation, the section responsible for computing machine system is sometimes called the MIS section. Other name for include is information system. IT ( information engineering ) .

SCHOOL MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

Introduction

These yearss, which we describe information epoch as assorted technologic developments have been practiced ; the taking hazard that an organisation could obtain is to hang approximately tactless to alter. A batch of of import factors such as changeless developments in information engineerings, information exchange, and increasing and increasing the outlook of the society to a great extent, recent disposal perceptual experiences and applications cause organisations none over the universe to develop new applications during order to stay

Every state aims to do available their citizens with the most existing instruction in the line of their pecuniary competency. In support of this ground, huge encompass been put into action all around the universe.

Inside our state, excessively taken out within of the batting order, were prepared in conditions of in order engineerings and so activated. In committee preparation classs in relation to the usage of computing machine in following subdivision of the program that information engineering package are circulated to the 3.000 primary instruction schools merely about Turkey and instruction room access is established.

As a consequence of developing 600 computing machine instructors, in-service instruction is designed for all the primary school inspectors working on the grazing land, and for at least 106.381 pedagogues shaped of directors and instructors of chief in larning will be ready in line with recent direction plans

School Management Information Systems

Bing at the commencement phase of the School Management Information Systems, mechanisation of the school direction is the necessary topic of today ‘s school direction. Principals have ongoing obtain domination in competitions by directing schemes. School direction in sequence systems aim to offer maintain for the managing and educational behaviour of the school directors by manus out information. Obtain domination in competitions by directing schemes. School direction in sequence systems aim to offer maintain for the managing and educational behaviour of the school directors by manus out information.

Telem ( 1999 ) specify the direction information in his words as “an executive information system planned. Information systems sustain non merely information procedure but besides make the support in inventions. Since being correctable to different alterations, these systems are helpful to pull off with the burden for alteration.

School directors can do more better and dependable determinations when they get rectify and up-to-date information by school executive information systems ( Christopher, 2003 ) . Option devising is careful as the bosom of educational direction and shows the significance. Every twenty-four hours, disputing fortunes that need determination devising are based on the complex and unannounced nature of school milieus.

In add-on to this, directors have been necessary to do more and speedy determinations in short times because of the lifting chance from the educational system ( Christopher, 2003 ) . In add-on, determination devising become faster, more regular and more complicated in schools of in the present twenty-four hours. In order to do determinations under such state of affairs, taking and roll uping informations that is ceaseless, up-to-date and that can be accessed quickly and analysing and utilizing this information is a committedness.

Success of school development surveies are often depends on informations based determination devising, though School direction information systems give information and a diverseness of studies from the database in order to data professionally in this side.

increased school rules, supported determinations on the phase of control and planning, improved the power of learning plans, facilitated student-teacher communicating, enlarged the accomplishment between instructors, facilitated methodical and uninterrupted information transportation to parents, and increased communicating with more establishments and the cardinal organisation.

Information systems were on a regular basis used in mundane work and directors and instructors did non hold adequate instruction on the system. Directors and instructors pointed that while school direction information systems had encouraging effects on appraisal of efficiency of the school, advancement of utilizing beginnings, high quality

It is cleared as we can see communicating and information engineerings have increasingly more had a function on the behaviour of schools. During this epoch, a batch of things have been spooked and written about the significance of computing machines.

The mock-up of this research, which targets to look and to calculate out thoughts of directors sing managerial information systems, is review theoretical account.

( MIS ) more frequently than non is everlasting. The categorization, on the other manus, consists of certain clerical informations that is obliging for a portion stage and either restructured or simple from the System as it becomes antique duologue sandwiched between Antitrust Division ( ATR ) and the province certification and proceedings way is long-lasting on the material of chronological proceedings and their temperament. point of you they required long clip information times gone by and easing do research on chronological affairs that connected to present affairs, Antitrust Division ( ATR ) expects invariably to be delighting to the oculus the consecutive statistics in this reservoir, rather than file awaying and taking it from the organisation.

legal action and Judicial Activities–

include activitiesAntimonopoly divider ( ATR ) Intranet, Appellate Docket System, , station and Complaint Tracking System, national Non-Merger Tracking System against the jurisprudence Case Sentencing agreement, , trade and industry Analysis Group Working designation, Field Office Matter Tracking System, Hart-Scott-Roding Tracking System, financially feasible scrutiny Group path System lawmaking Tracking System, subject Tracking construction.

The of import mission-based information gave to MIS is conveying together, set aside, class, stored, and air as-is. MIS applications encompass dealing ground the information non comes foremost an affiliated start day of the month ) and distinct format ground digital numerical Numberss safety steps Number ) for institute and support in the sequence.

The preponderance of the in sequence in the organisation in bend System

Safety screens

User cogency

As declare old, the system is limited for usage by the fiscal forces, so merely people from the Financial Control section. Besides, while its usage is merely finance exact, others sections have nil to make with it.

Having said that, there are watchwords for the terminal users ; hence watchwords make certain safety and control.

Physical entree

Physical entree is made limited by locked waiter suites, sign-in sheets, etc.

Function security

Developers Register Functions

• Developers can necessitate parts of their Prophet Forms codification to look up an sole map name, and so take some action based on whether the map is accessible in the current duty.

• Developers registry maps. They can besides register consideration that passes values to a map. For illustration, a signifier may keep informations entry merely when a map consideration is passed to it.

• Normally, developers describe a bill of fare include all the maps accessible in an application ( i.e. , all the signifiers and their securable sub maps ) . For some applications, developers may specify extra bill of fare that restrict the application ‘s functionality by excluding specific signifiers and sub maps.

• As developers define bill of fare of maps, they typically group the sub maps of a signifier on a sub map bill of fare they associate with the signifier.

• Assumptions/Risk Assessment

• Premises support the base of the solution. Premises include

• Library houses a certain minimal figure of transcripts of the same book for interest of many borrowers.

• Library utilizations original books/CDs.

• Library does non rede users to copy CDs/DVDs onto their computing machines.

• Library restricts the most figure of borrow able points for different users.

• Library waiter runs a version of Windows runing system.

• Client systems support.NET Framework.

• User has basic computing machine cognition and knows how to search/find information in the cyberspace.

• User has a well-bred cyberspace speed to run the on-line solution.

1. Functional Specification

1. Initially when the solution is host in the waiter, decision maker histories are setup. These decision makers manage the waiter. First clip users can transport on with simple hunt but those who want to borrow books necessitate to sign-up for this installation. They can so sign-in anytime for seeking, borrowing or returning books. They can besides see their profile pages, history of their minutess

End-to-end solutions ability

We handle turnkey undertakings, and have built, managed and supported our clients IT systems crosswise the value concatenation — substructure, applications and concern procedures.

This is how we work:

• A Customer Services ( CS ) unit designs and builds the IT substructure and web.

• A Systems Integration ( SI ) unit builds up applications and integrates them across diverse hardware and package platforms.

• Our IT-Enabled Services ( ITES ) unit manages developed applications and digitisation activities.

Our Education and Training unit grant IT instruction and preparation to users.

Wide sphere expertness and technological competences

We have proven expertness in a broad scope of applications, including

• Real-time systems

• on-line systems

• entrenched systems

• procedure control

• operation processing

• contemplation processing

• informations communications

• networking

• parallel architectures,

• E-commerce engineerings and e-governance applications.

Considerable resource pool with diverse accomplishment set

We attain this with the aid of our resource pool of applied scientists trained in assorted engineerings, with immense sphere cognition and diverse accomplishment sets. With 3,718 workers, more than 21 % have more than ten old ages of work experience. We besides have a large capableness pool that works on emerging engineerings and competence countries.

We have a unflawed educational profile ; every bit many as 30 % of our workers have postgraduate grades.

We besides carry out considerable research into emerging engineerings and competency countries at our state-of-the-art, ISO 9001-certified R & A ; D Centre in Hyderabad, India. That is what gives us an perimeter in complex, high engineering undertakings.

The Systems Integration Business Unit ‘s all four parts are at Level 5 ( optimising degree ) of the SEI ‘s Capability Maturity Model ( package ) .

Healthy and Strong client relationships

CMC ‘s client orientation and service civilization lead to digesting bonds with clients. Our diverse value proposition and service civilization, attached with our path record of winning service bringing, are reflected in our long-standing client relationships with dominant participants in

Up step

Management Information System ( MIS ) is presently being upgraded for web-based maps. The front-end will be ASP, and the database is being upgraded to Oracle 9i.

Strong point

1. A enthusiastic group drawn from experts in H2O resources, irrigation direction, fluid mechanicss, and hydrology, works for the drawing, development and execution of the canal irrigation direction system

1. CMC has broad sphere cognition and apprehension of the process, policies every bit good as the operational and administrative direction composing and manner of irrigation sections

Experience

To plan, developed and implemented a Management Information System in India, funded by the World Bank.

Feasibility surveies

Feasibility surveies to detect the functionalities required in an MIS, and to construct up a model for an information system

Client list

1. Irrigation Department, Government of Maharashtra

2. Maharashtra Krishna Valley Development Corporation ( MKVDC ) , Pune

3. Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India

Discussion

Harmonizing to the result of this survey which was sing the use of School Management Information Systems in primary schools and which mean to make up one’s mind the point of views of the school directors associated to direction information systems, it was experienced that the figure of computing machines was non sufficient and there was merely one computing machine joined to Internet in about all of the schools. Besides, in a little figure of of these schools, there was a web page

of the school. Study which was conducted by the Pelgrum ( 2001 ) in 26 states and by Mentz and Mentz ( 2003 ) in the schools of South Africa, it was seen that one of the most common hurdlings of the applications of direction information systems was the inadequacy of the Numberss of the computing machines.

Due to this ground, it can be said that there was an of import substructure job of the acknowledgment of school direction ‘s information systems in today ‘s schools. As Greg roseola stated ( 2004 ) the uniformity with technological betterments increased with the pattern of engineering. For that ground, it is mandatory to supply pedagogues chiefly school directors with sufficient technological opportunities to do them accept and travel with the betterments. The jobs encountered show the necessity that the applications of information system should be done in the range of a utile plan.

Besides, there is a critical difference among the schools in footings of holding these engineerings. This unfairness makes us believe that there is some inequality connected to the use of these engineerings ‘ chances non merely for the director and instructors but besides for the pupils. This state of affairs shows that there is a possibility of coming face to face with the job which is discussed extensively and called “digital division” non merely countrywide but besides in the schools in the similar state.

In add-on, it was seen that there are still some school directors and adjunct school directors who do n’t hold a computing machine in their suites at the schools in the range of this survey. In the center of the school directors and adjunct school directors who have a computing machine in their suites, some of them use a computing machine without an Internet contact. Besides there are some schools whose instructors do non hold the chance of doing usage of the information engineerings. This is besides is seen that The Ministry of Education ‘s nonsubjective ( MEB, 2002 ) which is providing each staffroom with at least two computing machines ; providing counsel service, library, school directors with Internet entree in order to speak with the cardinal and provincial offices and besides for the pattern of direction has non been achieved yet.