Information System Components
Cougar Couriers is a local delivery company that relies on cyclists to deliver cross-town parcels. Customers make delivery requests by phone or using a form on the website. The details of the delivery requests are entered manually or automatically. The company is best known for its fast delivery when it comes to a distance less than 5km with this aspect it is the second cheapest company. For deliveries more than 5 km the company is relatively slow.
This report puts emphasis on the different aspect of the company and its information system components. Different information technology implementation and its direct role in the company are discussed and among the different technology the best technology which can be beneficial in the near future is discussed in the report.
With respect to the organization there are many back up and security plans that the company has implemented. The company rotates the external hard drive which is connected to the main server. Each and every day the backup service is performed in order to perform an incremental back up of files. The external hard drives are roughly rotated once a month. The total number of hard drives is three the rest of the two which are not being used are kept aside. The organization uses personal computers that run on Windows 10 which are automatically updated both the operating system and all the application such as web browsers. The computer has antivirus, firewall and malware detection software installed. The router has the Wi-Fi SSID turned off and the Wi-Fi encryption (WPA) turned on. The router also has an NBN modem (Peppard and Ward 2016).
The customers make delivery request by phone or by using a form in the website. The details of the delivery are entered into a QuickBooks like application which is used as an invoice to customer (Cassidy, 2016). For delivery distance of under five kilometers, Cougar Couriers is the considered the fastest and secondly the cheapest delivery in the town. The problem arises when the delivery is more than five kilometers. The company is relatively slow when it comes to van based delivery. The company wants to improve the speed of the delivery over five kilometers with the help of motorbikes and van.
The company should bring about the implementation of the following strategies.
Effectiveness: when it comes to business internal process, the processes are more effective when it can satisfy the employees, customer and the suppliers. Many business organizations get blogged down with the implementation of bureaucratic processes that do harm to the business more than the benefit to the organization. The organizations main goal should be optimizing business processes, and then implementing the effective control which can result in significant cost saving with better use of technology. This can be made clear with the use and implementation of CRM. CRM can help the employees to keep better track of the customer’s milestones which can be birthday and anniversary of the customer. As a result of which the relation between the customers and the company will increase (Bouayad et al.2016).
Challenges to the Company’s Delivery System
Expertise: Customers always prefer experts in any field. This is because it reassures them that they are dealing with the best. Emphasizing on the capabilities should be the main focus when it comes to adopting a competitive strategy. In order to collaborate to expertise it can be done through certification, degree or testimonials, license. These can be used as a key differentiator in the initiatives with the market (Tripsas and Langley 2017).
Mangers and computers user in an organization are familiar with only a few system which are in use now. As a result, internal and external entrepreneurs have conceived and nurtured the innovation system. The innovation system was not conceived or nurtured by the system users or its superiors. The managers and the respective computer user should be familiar with the new innovation system in order to implement the new technology and make use of it for future advancement.
- The Use of mechanic for ad hoc analysis of data files.
- Retrieves isolated data items from any source.
- Estimate the consequences of proposed decision according to the planning.
- Propose decision according to the schedule.
- Makes decision according to the schedule.
The advantages that the company can face with the implementation of cloud computing are:
- Improved mobility: To the employees data and application are always available no matter where they are.
- It is more cost effective: because the company does not have to purchase equipment and build it. The company does not have to spend money on facility, hardware, utilities and other aspect with respect to the operation of the company.
- Expenses can be quickly reduced: during the time of business cut backs or recessions, cloud computing offers a flexible cost structure by which exposure can be limited.
- Less environmental impact: with data centers decreasing with more efficient operation we are collectively having less impact on the environment. Green credentials can be increased when companies use shared resources (So 2011).
The server virtualization can be beneficial to an organization in many ways. The advantages are as follows:
- Total management of the Infrastructure management
- Migration of virtual machine
- Instant capacity of the applications
- Cost benefit which could be beneficial towards the organization.
- Isolating application of the application from other application.
The advantage that an organization can take from data mining covers all the facts of life which includes policing, gaming, science, human right and surveillance . Outsourcing bulky data mining projects can help the organization to manage the human resource, put more focus on core business area and the capital expenditure part (Bouayad et al.2016). When dealing with a plethora of source data, sometimes confusion arise for the researcher with incompetent information that does not have any tools or experience in handling bulky projects (Tripsas and Langley 2017).
The organization using this form of technology would have a profound impact on the organizations long term plans, initiates and programmers. In order words how the technology is used and interface is done with the connected devices would change the way that companies do business and transform how employees access and act with the digital information. The advantage that can be faced with the implementation is a better work experience which will be more contextualized, streamlined and more connected across devices (Popovi? and Hocenski 2010). The workers now days are more increasingly mobile, as a result of which the enterprises focus on supporting the number of growth of employee who use mobile devices to get access to the HR services related in office.
The advantages that can be included with the implementation of the virtual Private Networking are:
- Enhanced security: the data is always kept secured and encrypted.
- Share file: sharing a file in a group for a long period of time can be done easily.
- Remote control: the information can be accessed remotely from anywhere even from home. This can help in increasing the productivity of the company.
Strategies for Improvement
The advantages faced with respect to the implementation of the technology have brought many big enterprises to implement it. The advantages faced are:
- Elimination of long term commitment to a single technology
- Improves fault isolation
- Makes it easier for a new development in order to understand the functionality of a service.
The cloud can be used in order to store the information of the customer. The main advantage regarding use of cloud is that ones the volume of the data increases it is not possible for the normal database to process the data. In such a situation cloud can be helpful in storing up of the data and retrieve of the data when it is required. The security aspect of cloud completing can also be relied (Lowry et al. 2016).
The strategic perspective focuses mainly on the issue that contributes to the improvement of the business process. It mainly analyses the strategic perspective and the development of the strategic map within the organization. A value chain refers to a chain of activity and processes that depict all the behaviors or actions in an entire organization.
From the view of the business prospective, the organization needs to understand the full operation of the business processes and the supply chain that are aligned with the strategic analysis.
In a cloud computing architecture the term cloud infrastructure refers to the back end components. The components are multisocket, persistent storage, local area network equipments such as router and switches. The model requires massive capacity to compute to handle with respect to the users demand and to optimally balance demand with few servers. As a result, cloud infrastructure consists of high density system with shared power.
In comparison to the traditional system infrastructure of the data center cloud infrastructure uses locally attached storage, hard disk drive (HDDs) which is used instead of disk array on a storage area network. The individual’s disk is aggregated using a file system which is distributed (Dave, Patel and Bhatt 2016).
The staff involved in the new information system technology should be well trained. In order to work with any new technology training plays a very important role. An appropriate training can help in full utilization of the resource (Rittinghous and Ransome 2016).
The security risks involved in cloud computing are:
Unauthorized access to the customer and business data: Criminals are more attracted towards small business organizations because of they are easier to breach. Cloud computing with small businesses pushes data and those data can be easily breach.
Risk related lack of control: when using a cloud service. The vendor is the controller. There is no guarantee that the price of the service today would be same tomorrow. The data ones handed to the cloud service provider oversight of the data cannot be done (Pearlson, Saunders and Galletta 2016).
The risk factor can be avoided by enforcing security measures and keeping back up of the data. The vendor is the full controller of the data, the data should be kept track off and any illegal personal should not be given access to the data.
References
Bouayad, A., Blilat, A., Mejhed, N.E.H. and El Ghazi, M., 2012, October. Cloud computing: security challenges. In Information Science and Technology (CIST), 2012 Colloquium in (pp. 26-31). IEEE.
Cassidy, A., 2016. A practical guide to information systems strategic planning. CRC press.
Dave, A., Patel, B. and Bhatt, G., 2016, October. Load balancing in cloud computing using optimization techniques: A study. In Communication and Electronics Systems (ICCES), International Conference on (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Lowry, P.B., D’Arcy, J., Hammer, B. and Moody, G.D., 2016. “Cargo Cult” science in traditional organization and information systems survey research: A case for using nontraditional methods of data collection, including Mechanical Turk and online panels. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 25(3), pp.232-240.
Pearlson, K.E., Saunders, C.S. and Galletta, D.F., 2016. Managing and Using Information Systems, Binder Ready Version: A Strategic Approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Peppard, J. and Ward, J., 2016. The strategic management of information systems: Building a digital strategy. John Wiley & Sons.
Popovi?, K. and Hocenski, Ž., 2010, May. Cloud computing security issues and challenges. In MIPRO, 2010 proceedings of the 33rd international convention (pp. 344-349). IEEE.
Rittinghouse, J.W. and Ransome, J.F., 2016. Cloud computing: implementation, management, and security. CRC press.
So, K., 2011. Cloud computing security issues and challenges. International Journal of Computer Networks, 3(5), pp.247-55.
Tripsas, M. and Langley, A., 2017. Call for Papers: Special Issue of Strategic Organization “Exploring the Strategy-Identity Nexus”. Strategic Organization, 15(1), pp.113-116.