Auto Accessories: Overview of Business and Challenges
Discuss About The Performance Management Business Supporting.
AA or Auto Accessories is a specific small organization that is responsible for distributing as well as selling various accessories for vehicle from various overseas suppliers. These suppliers are eventually specialized in the popular, useful and attractive items for all the vehicle owners. These could either be cameras for recording traffic, camera view of the parking assistance and many more (Bhattacharyya 2015). This particular organization has eventually experienced a specific growth of business in the last two years. Recently, each and every activity of the management and business administrative like the marketing, customer services, warehousing, purchasing, and sales and staff payroll are easily carried out with extremely little utilization of ICT or information and communications technology. This organization is suffering from few issues and thus they have appointed a business analyst.
The following e portfolio outlines a brief discussion on the case study of Auto Accessories or AA. The business case will be properly mentioned here with the business problem, various opportunities for improvement and a significant solution for it. Moreover, the stakeholder analysis will also be done with relevant data and identification of stakeholders. The business context and the business processes will be provided here. Furthermore, a specific system solution is suggested for them to solve all the problems.
The organization of Auto Accessories or AA sells and distributes various vehicle accessories from overseas suppliers who are specialized in attractive and famous items for various owners of vehicles (Fleisher and Bensoussan 2015). The items are mainly colourful decorative car stickers, traffic recording camera, parking assistance camera viewer and many more. This particular organization has subsequently experienced a sharp growth in business in last two years and recently and they are involved in several activities like warehousing, purchasing, customer service, marketing, staff payroll and sales. This is done with the incorporation of information and communication technology (Zott and Amit 2013). The administrators have noticed the importance; however finds it extremely tough in marketing the products online when all the same kind of business has started. In the present days, a specific price tag is being put on every product for sales purpose on shelves with isles. Any customer requires help in locating the products. Excessive time is taken for staff members in helping the customers regarding their requests. This is the main problem for this business.
The moment any product is sold, it is being recorded on the journal roll at the sales terminal. The receipt is printed for the customer and the stocktaking or reorder is done properly. The reordering items are to be ordered. All the customers want to know the availability of any item, and for this they have to come to the store (Hilton and Platt 2013). They require an effective utilization and as well as management of information technology. The owners of the organization consider the requirement for staying competitive for the business growth for properly retaining the new as well as the regular customers. A proper technological solution is required here for solving the problems.
Business Problem and Solution
The above mentioned business problem could be easily solved with the help of an information and communication technology for the improvement of their technology (Van Der Aalst, La Rosa and Santoro 2016). It is the responsibility of the business analyst to properly analyse all the problems of the business and thus to execute the business processes effectively. They have taken up information and communication technology for their business. Although, the utilization of information and communication technology is extremely less in the business, they still are enjoying various benefits of this technology. They have an opportunity to improve subsequently and thus the advantages of the information and communication technology are present (Dumas et al. 2013). The most significant advantages of the ICT for any specific business management are as follows:
i) Better Decision Making: The first and the foremost advantage of information and communication technology within the business of Auto Accessories is better decision making. The systems of ICT would eventually allow them for storing, processing, analyzing and finally sharing of huge amount of data (Zur Muehlen and Recker 2013). The information that is eventually available from the corporate data helps to enable all the employees or managers in taking decisions accurately and quickly for managing the operations effectively and efficiently. Moreover, the response time is very less for any type of business threat or opportunities. The network for communication allows the various decision makers in various locations for working together easily and promptly for the purpose of taking joint decisions.
ii) Increasing Manufacturing Productivity: When the business processes would be automated completely, the organization of Auto Accessories or AA would be able to increase their manufacturing productivity (Rosemann and vom Brocke 2015). Since this organization is responsible for manufacturing various automobile parts, they should increase their productivity. With the solution of information and communication technology within the production line of this organization, the computer sided design would be able to help the company in successfully reducing the set up times and thus improving the accuracy of manufacturing products. The employees would be able to spend extremely lesser time on remanufacturing or reworking the products (Hammer 2015). The access to the manufacturing information would help the managers in planning the production more efficiently and hence making good use of all resources or diminishing the lead times.
iii) Improving Customer Service: The main problem that they are facing is the dealing with the customer services. The quality of the customer service is the most significant factor for any business. The organizations thus utilize the solutions of information and communication technology for offering fast response for high standards to the customers (Van Dongen, Dijkman and Mendling 2013). Auto Accessories or AA being a manufacturing company, would be able to provide excellent services to the customer. The customers can easily know about the available products and services and they do not need to ask the customer agents in this scenario. The product databases could be easily updated with the help of smart phones with safe and secured Internet connectivity.
Benefits of Information and Communication Technology
iv) Great Collaboration: Information and communication technology also helps to collaborate efficiently and effectively (Van der Aalst 2013). Since, the organization or AA comprises of various departments, a proper collaboration should be present for them to subsequently maintain progress on various vital projects. The organization could be able to diminish the total time of the project and hence get the newer products in the market quite fast. The organization is supposed to get a better competitive advantage for this scenario (Harmon 2014). Thus, the organization should implement information and communication technology within their business.
The above mentioned advantages clearly define the important aspects of this technology for the organization and thus financial performance would be improvised for Auto Accessories.
Stakeholder can be defined as any person, organization or group, which comprises of various interests or concerns within the organization (Laguna and Marklund 2013). The stakeholders could affect or could be affected by the various actions, policies and objectives of the specific organization. The most significant examples of the major stakeholders for any business are employees, creditors, employees, government, directors, owners or community form where the business has drawn all the resources. These stakeholders are responsible for any type of change or important decision of the organization. The impacts can either be positive or negative (Chang 2016). The organization is required to reduce the costs and also plan a round of layoffs for the organization. The organization of Auto Accessories comprises of various stakeholders. The various stakeholders of this particular organization are as follows:
i) Customers: The first and the foremost stakeholder of this organization is customer. They are responsible for the overall growth of the organization and they could not survive without the help of these customers. The customers select the products and also determine the quality of them (Harmon 2015). If they would provide a negative review for the products, the organization would definitely suffer through various problems. However, if they would provide good review for the product, the company would become extremely popular.
ii) Shareholders: The second type of stakeholders for Auto Accessories is shareholder. These shareholders mainly own the organization. They have put their main capital in the business and thus they have every right to know about all the changes or alterations in the business (La Rosa et al. 2013). If they will not approve any change or alteration, such changes will not be incorporated. The shareholders will be under huge profit if the customers would be happy with the products.
Stakeholder Analysis
iii) Employees: The next important stakeholder for the AA or Auto Accessories is employee. The employees are those people, who eventually create as well as deliver all the products or services, which the customers would consume (Vom Brocke et al. 2014). When the employees would be providing their best work, the organization will be in huge success and thus these employees are the most important stakeholder of the company.
iv) Suppliers: The next important stakeholder is the suppliers. They are responsible for supplying various things to the organization. If these raw materials will not be supplied to the organization, they would be suffering in major problems from lack of raw materials.
These above mentioned stakeholders eventually focus on the various outcomes. There are various important things that help them in deriving the data from the inputs. The first factor is their roles (Vukši?, Bach and Popovi? 2013). The role of this stakeholder is extremely important. The second factor is the general requirement and their knowledge. The knowledge is external for the internal or external stakeholders and is addresses within the knowledge audit.
The organization of Auto Accessories or AA is popular for selling as well as distributing various vehicle accessories for its customers (Glykas 2013). The supplier of this organization is from overseas. They mainly sell or distribute car stickers, camera for recording traffic, camera viewer for parking assistance and similar products. The stocktaking as well as the reorder of the products is done manually and thus the organization faces major problems due to this. Moreover, when the customers wish to know about the availability of the items, they require admin assistance and thus this become extremely time consuming (Tang, Pee and Iijima 2013). Thus, they require a specific technology, which would be helpful for them to solve each and every above mentioned problem and be effective.
The system solution that would be perfect for them is the incorporation of an online system. This online system or database would be storing all the information regarding the products and these customers will be selecting the items and thus a list would be made. This online system would sort all the items and will also show the location of the products. When this list will be prepared, the mode of payment would be selected (Harmon 2015). The incorporation of this type of technology in the business of AA, would easily solve the problem of involvement of extra staffs and excess time. For the problem of manual stocktaking and reorder, this database will be an important solution. Hence, the two problems would be solved.
Figure 1: Data Management by Database
(Source: Van Der Aalst, La Rosa and Santoro 2016)
The business is the proper collection of interlinked and structured activities or actions, which produces any specific product or service for the customers (Van der Aalst 2013). Any specific business process is visualized or displayed as the flowchart with various interleaving decision points. The business process can also be the process matrix of the activity sequence that contains relevant data. The various advantages of utilizing the business processes mainly involve higher customer satisfaction and improvised agility in reacting for the changes in market. The process oriented companies significantly break down all the constraints of the structural departments for avoidance of functional silos (Rosemann and vom Brocke 2015). Auto Accessories comprises of various important business processes within their business and thus these processes should be a part of the system. The various business processes of the organization of Auto Accessories or AA are given below:
i) Sales and Marketing: The first and the foremost business process of this particular organization is sales and marketing. The sales can be defined as the activities or operations involved included in the promotion as well as selling of the services and goods (Van Dongen, Dijkman and Mendling 2013). The marketing of this organization refer to the procedure or technique for promoting, distributing and selling of the services and products. The main aspects of the sales and marketing mainly include responsibilities of every group that are collectively linked and the marketing has the most important role of the sales.
ii) Accounting and Technology: The second important business process of this organization of Auto Accessories is accounting and technology. Accounting eventually operates on the technology and thus this particular process should be executed properly (Zott and Amit 2013). The accounting process is the most important process for any business as it deals with all types of accounting procedures and thus this process is the most vital processes of the rest. Moreover, the technology of the organization should also be maintained properly by proper security measures.
iii) Product Distribution: The third business process of this organization is product distribution. AA is responsible for selling and distributing all the vehicle accessories and thus selling and distribution of the products should be properly.
iv) Management, Human resources and Finance: The next important business process of Auto Accessories is management, human resources and finance (Hilton and Platt 2013). The entire control of the business or human resources sector is done by the HR department. All the financial transactions are controlled by finance department and the employees are managed by management department.
v) Quality and Product or Service Delivery: The final process of business of the organization of Auto Accessories is quality delivery and products or services delivery. These products or services are extremely important for the organization as these are responsible for bringing out the best of the quality and success in the organization (Fleisher and Bensoussan 2015).
Figure 2: Business Process Management
(Source: Zur Muehlen and Recker 2013)
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that AA or Auto Accessories is one of the most popular and important organizations for car manufacturing parts who are specialized in all types of items like car stickers, camera for traffic recording, camera viewer and many others. The stocktaking and the reorder are done manually by simply checking all the items that are remaining on shelves and recording the items that to be ordered. The most effective utilization or management of information technology is solely required here. They have appointed a business analyst or BA for their organization with the purpose of analysis of the organization or the domain of business and thus assessing the model of business or the integration with technology. There is opportunity for the improvement and the business solution for applying ICT in the business. The above mentioned e portfolio has clearly provided a brief description on the case study of Auto Accessories with relevant details. The stakeholder analysis is done with identification of stakeholders and proper knowledge sources for data collection. Moreover, the business processes are provided for the organization. A proper system solution is provided to them for solving all the problems they are facing in the business.
References
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