Importance of Information System for AAHS
Discuss about the Challenges Facing Physical Layer Security.
Information has become the most valuable asset in modern day business. With the advancements of connected technology, it has become easier for the organisation to make sure that they have incorporated best of information system. Firms must understand the overall value of information and ensure each and every aspect related to the implementation of the information system within an organisation. AAHS also have a lot of stakeholders associated with it, and huge amount of data gets generated in their day to day activities. As the organisation is expanding its business in different parts of Australia hence they need to have an information system that is capable of handling huge amount of data while ensuring their safety. Every system has their own problems which is becoming the problem of the overall organisation and hence needs to be sorted out so as to maintain their performance at higher levels (Bajdor and Grabara, 2014). With the increasing use of information system along with the increasing activities of hackers managing these ethical and security issues have become a major challenge. AAHS have to be ready for facing such kinds of issues and hence should make strategies for confronting these issues. This report highlights the future information system requirements of AAHS. It also showcases the business and system problems that exist in the business. It also describes about the information requirements of AAHS and the way in which it will improve the competitive position of AAHS. In the last section use of various kinds of networks has been explained along with the change management process that will be required for managing changes within AAHS. It also provides the idea regarding the security and ethical issues present in the Information system and ways to resolve it.
An information system is set of devices that helps in the managing the information that is generated within the organisation in various processes. It is also referred to as the organised system that helps in gathering, organising, accumulating and sharing of the information (Boell and Cecez-Kecmanovic, 2015). Researchers also define the information system to be the group of devices that is capable of interacting so as to produce information.
The data is generated within AAHS in a huge amount and since the company is at expansion process hence in future requirement of the information system will also be greater. There are several ways in which an information system is important for future operation of AAHS:
- It will help in storing the details that are linked with the clients and their animals. This information can be of various types.
- It will help the firm in sorting out the important and desired details which is highly required in the making of decisions.
- It will help in the process of transactional processing which is highly required in managing the finance and sales operations.
- Since the competition in the market is going to increase hence it is beneficial for the firm to make the decisions that are fact based. In this process information system plays a highly crucial role.
- Since the data is generated at several locations in Australia hence there is a requirement of an information system that is capable of sharing data with each other.
- There is also a requirement of information system which is able to produce information whenever required and stores the data at centralised location. This will also help them in retrieving data from anywhere with the use of networks (Laudon and Laudon, 2016).
- Since the network of stakeholders will get bigger hence it will be required that the system will be connected through internet, intranet or extranet. This will help AAHS in providing help to their clients whenever required.
- It is important for the organisation to make sure that they have planned for their resource utilisation. For doing this forecast has to be made which must be on the basis of previous data gathered with the help of Information system.
- Examining scenarios: Information system will also help in predicting the future business environment based on the trends that is followed in the industry. It is generally based on the requirements of the industry (Galliers and Leidner, 2014).
Types of Information System
It is to be noted that there are various types of information system that could be beneficial for small business. For specific unit within a firm a specific information system is required. Some of types of information system that can be beneficial for small firms are as follows:
- Information systems in Organisation: This information system gathers, accumulates and processes data to provide any organisation with meaningful and real time accurate data. It is also the network that transmits and receives data and procedures that governs the method through which data can be managed (Laudon and Laudon, 2016).
- Transactional processing systems: This type of system gives a way to gather, process, modify, cancel and accumulate transactions. This is extremely beneficial in the case when multiple transactions are taking place at a single time. It is used for producing reports like wages, billings, inventory summaries, checking registers or manufacturing.
- Decision support system: This helps in making of decisions by working and evaluating data that can be generated with the help of data models and statistical charts. It basically improves the quality of decisions made by managers or say it acts as support system for managers (Sen, 2015).
- Expert systems and neutral networks: It is also known as knowledge based systems that is designed for analysing and generating recommendations, diagnosis and decisions that are controlled. It process the data in the same way in which a human brain may synthesis the information.
- Management information systems: It is a system that uses this data for creating reports. It can be used for making routine business decisions that helps in streamlining the daily business processes. This helps in increasing the efficiency of the work process.
There are many business and system problems that are faced by AAHS. The problems in the order to priority are as follows:
- Data accumulation and storage: Since there are many nodes attached with the different units of the organisation hence data accumulation and storage becomes a problem.
- Sharing of information: There are huge amount of data that needs to be shared with various stakeholders of the firm. With the use of information system this sharing of data can be easily made.
- Data security threats: Since huge amount of data gets generated within the organisation and hence maintaining its security is a major problem for the company. In the increasing hackers activities this threat got bigger and dangerous.
- Infrastructure management: It is crucial for the organisation to understand that maintenance of the system infrastructure needs higher skills for which they have to take the help of other firms.
- Training: Another major problem in this regards is that most of the employees of AAHS are not able to operate the information system because of the complexity it has. This calls for having a huge amount of training so that they can effectively utilise these information systems.
There are various key information requirements of AAHS of which some of it are highlighted in following points:
- Management information is crucial for Dr. Terry and Josh for coming up with an effective business decisions related to information on customers, suppliers, inventory of suppliers, pricing, inventory of finished and delivered goods, payroll expenses and related costs (Trappe, 2015). This would provide competitive advantage of AAHS as all the resources could be properly managed using this information.
- Giving accessibility of business information to other staffs for making a communication, collaboration and coordination between all the stakeholders. This will help in making the business processes smoother as well as would help the firm in providing services to the clients at the required time and at the same time ensuring that data can be shared in full protection (Tarhini, Arachchilage and Abbasi, 2015). This information regarding the fact that how information has to be given to customers at the same time, ensuring security will help in improving the CRM which ultimately provides competitive advantage to the firm.
- Proper utilisation of information system would help AAHS in resolving the difficulty related to processing the growing transactions. This would help the firm in gaining the competitive advantage over the competitors. The details regarding transactional processing could help in making of the financial and better strategic decisions which gives them competitive advantage over the rivals.
- There is necessity to align the process like finance, client’s animal’s details information system, human resource, inventory in a single unit in terms of system architecture. This would help them in sharing the data among various units so that effective care could be provided to clients. This information related to various clients and other units will enhance the competitive position as it will help the firm in bringing smoothness to the work process.
- There is also the requirement regarding safety and security of data across sites, staff timesheets, staff files, and logistical issues like patient treatment notes, payroll processing and conducting of regular staff meetings. All these data helps in ensuring high level of customer satisfaction which plays a necessary role in giving competitive advantage to the firm.
Since the information requirements of AAHS is more or less associated with the day to day business activities. The information systems that could help in these areas are:
This system helps in managing information that is generated on real time basis. In the management of client’s data and inventory management this information system plays a very crucial role. It supports managerial decision making hence it will brief about the issues that is faced by the organisation on their daily and long term basis (Ahmadi, Nilashi and Ibrahim, 2015). It will also help in understanding of the business requirements using which immediate response to business can be provided. It also helps in managing the inventory and daily staffing requirements. It also provides the ideas regarding the top accounting packages that could be used for managing the accounts related problems.
Since there is huge amount of transactional data that gets generated in the operations of the organisation hence it is crucial for the management of the firm to make sure that all these data are stored and managed in a better way as it helps in making of financial decisions. It also helps in managing the resources of the organisation.
In order to improve collaboration among the staffs so as to provide better services to the users this system can be used. Since Dr. Terry and Josh has to think about the way in which business operations are managed on their own hence they need to have a system that would help them in coordinating among all the staffs sitting at different locations. This will also help them to give online advices to the users with the help of Internet, Intranet and Extranet (Siddiqui, et. al., 2014).
Large numbers of stakeholders are connected with AAHS clinic. For sharing information with all of them, it is crucial that firm connects them in a network that is capable of sharing the crucial information. There are various types of networks available with the firms to ensure that all the data is shared with stakeholders without any serious failures. Strategic utilisation of internet, extranet or intranet can help the organisation to improve their communication and hence can work in collaboration.
Business and System Problems of AAHS
Internet is a connection of internal and external devices in a network. Internet facilitates the doctors of the share the treatment details with the clients. For example the service provides can share information like prescription, notes with the clients in other parts of the country. It will also assist the doctors and other medical staffs to gather information regarding any development in the medical sciences. Internet facilitates clients to avail treatment from doctors especially like first aid or treatment if emergency occurs. Video calling feature of internet can help in this regards.
On the other Intranet is an internal network that only shares with the internal shareholders. Intranet facilitates stakeholders to share information with each other and hence maintaining effective internal communication among staffs (Kasemsap 2015). This is extremely important in case when something needs to be effectively communicated among all the stakeholders in a very short period of time. This is more secured than internet as external parties cannot have reach to the operations of the clinics and its information generated. This helps in improving team culture which is highly necessary in the treatment of patients. Use of centralised database along with the cloud computing software can be useful in terms of sharing information with other stakeholder.
Apart from this, extranet could also be used within the organisation. This is an efficient network option as it is a type of intranet that also provides some significant amount of information with other stakeholders. This is beneficial as only limited amount of data is shared. This improves data abstraction feature of the information system within the organisation. Both intranet and extranet are secured networks which is crucial in the age when the hacker’s activities are increasing.
All the three can be used within AAHS as intranet and extranet helps in improving the communication while internet promotes learning mechanism inside the firm while internet promotes learning inside the firm.
Managing changes is highly important within the firm especially the ones who are expanding their business (Eason, 2014). This is because with their expansion IT infrastructure also gets expanded. As AAHS clinic is opening its business in other parts of the Australia hence storing, sharing and retrieving data cannot be an easy job. The alterations which are going on within the organisation are a type of network infrastructure, organisational structure, documentation techniques and communication mechanisms.
There is a fact that changes are not welcomed by the employees and they try to resist the changes. It is because it brings complexity with itself. This increases the need of the organisation to make sure that they have a change management plan which helps in smoothening of the change process. Change management ensures that no obstacle remains in change process. Change management is crucial as it eliminates the disruption that is caused by the made changes. On the other hand it ensures that employees also adopt these changes with almost no resilience (Klosterman and Schein, StarSight Telecast Inc, 2014). There are various ways trough which changes can be managed. Some of them are as follows:
- Communication: While any changes are going on inside the organisation, communication plays a most crucial role in it. It is essential that a firm strengthens its communication mechanism which ensures that all the barriers in the work process get eliminated. Dr. Terry King and Josh King are the leaders of the organisation and hence they need to talk with all the stakeholders of the firm so as to eliminate confusions regarding the various aspects of changes.
- Training: For any change to take place effectively, it is crucial that all the employees are ready for that change. Since there various technologies are used in an organisation hence it is important for the firm to provide training regarding the use of Information system (Barbarito, et. al., 2015). If the data protection is not used properly then there is a higher probability of data leakage. Training is important as any unintentional faults done by employees can lead to huge data loss.
- Impact analysis: It is crucial that leaders of AAHS to understand what kind of impacts can possibly be posed by the made changes. This is necessary for being ready to face it and making plans to eliminate it. This acts a support structure which is required to be given when changes are taking place.
Information Requirements of AAHS
There are huge numbers of security and ethical issues that comes while the changes are taking place in terms of network infrastructure. When number of nodes gets connected with the network this problem gets enhanced. In case of any weak links any hacker can get into the network and can steal or tamper the information. Some of the ethical and security issues are as follows:
- Privacy: If the data gets leaked then there is always a chance that privacy of the stakeholders attached can get compromised (Jouini, Rabai and Aissa, 2014). This is both security and ethical issue which can lead to huge image failure of the clinic.
- Data loss: There is another crucial issue that is linked with the use of information systems. Data is essential in the modern day firms hence it is important for an organisation to make sure that effective mechanism is installed within the firm so as to reduce data loss chances (Ahmadi, Nilashi and Ibrahim, 2015).
- Unauthorised access: If the system or network gets hacked by any individual then there is a chance that they may use if for their own benefit. This is not effective in the modern day competitive environment.
- Using extranet: This is an secured network as compared to internet hence can protect firm from any kind of external attacks on network while ensuring that all crucial details can be provided to stakeholders.
- Firewalls and authentication systems: Firewalls can help organisation to protect systems from the attacks of malicious contents by any hackers (Ker, et. al., 2014). There are several authentication systems that can be used by the firm for providing system access to only few members.
- Employees training: It is crucial that organisation gives internet securing training to all the members of the firm so that they do not unintentionally give access to hackers.
- Information security policy: It is crucial that an information security policy is strengthened so as to protect organisation from any kind of wrong practices (Eason, 2014).
Some of the recommendation to organisation is as follows:
- Use various kinds of information system as per the requirements of various units can be beneficial.
- Use of extranet would be beneficial as it helps in sharing the data while ensuring that they do not have access to all the information.
- Use of cloud based architecture will help the firm in reducing the IT resource that will be required for managing the database (Boell and Cecez-Kecmanovic, 2015).
- While making the changes to the network architecture, it is crucial that large number of people gets involved in the change management process.
- Training to all the members regarding the way in which the information system has to be used must be provided.
- Use of firewalls and making of strong information security policy can help the firm in protecting their crucial data.
Conclusion
From the above report a conclusion can be derive that information system is highly important within the organisation. There are several types of information system that is available in the market and can be utilised for the managing different types of task in different organisational units. There are various information requirements within the organisation and there are different types of information systems which can help in this regards. Use of internet, intranet and extranet can help the organisation. It is crucial that change management is used within AAHS while making the changes so as to ensure smoothness in the work process. There are various security and ethical issues that are present in the use of this information network and hence several techniques must be used for eliminating it.
References
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