Improvement Of IT Processes In SPARK NZ

Commercial activities and business processes

Investigate a local organization to discover its IT processes and any opportunities for improvement, and write a business-style report covering the required tasks, including developing a rigorous medium-term strategy and implementation plan taking into account the budget and resourcing constraints of the particular organisation.

SPARKZ NZ also known as Spark New Zealand is a company that provides telecommunication services in New Zealand. This company provides telephone services, mobile network and internet services (Sparknz.co.nz. 2018). This company is also a huge ICT provider to the businesses dwelling in New Zealand. It has been providing services to the country since 1987 (Sparknz.co.nz. 2018). This company belongs in the list of the largest organizations that provide these services.

This report discusses regarding the company SPARK NZ (Sparknz.co.nz. 2018). It further discusses the some activities that can be implemented by the company in order to improve their business strategies.

Spark helps in unleashing potential in all the New Zealanders. It is the largest supplier of phone lines that are fixed (Sparknz.co.nz. 2018). It is also one of the biggest providers of internet (Sparknz.co.nz. 2018). Almost half of the New Zealand uses the telecommunication services provided by Spark. It has nearly 700000 customers that use its broadband services (Sparknz.co.nz. 2018). This company is also the biggest provider of mobile.

The business processes used by the company in order to enhance its growth and productivity are as follows

• Enhance the program model. The company designs a good program model in order to function efficiently.
• The company takes initiative to improve the quality of partnerships with its stakeholders as well as customers.
• Spark NZ takes initiative to empower as well as align the organization.
• The company drives depth into markets and adds new markets as well.
• The company ensures that desired steps are taken for improving its performance and increase the amount of customers using their services.

Spark NZ aims in serving its customers and earn revenues. They serve their customers with their best online as well as offline services and experiences. Spark NZ also targets in capturing global markets.

Mobile as well as broadband data has been in demand since some decades. The power of Information Technology inspires the company to innovate new technologies in order to meet the needs of customers. This is because the company believes that their success depends on the demand of their services. Presently Spark NZ has been investing in the best network providers in data (Rappaport, Sun  & Shafi, 2017). They also work for bringing innovation with the help of recent digital solutions. The company also ensures they are updated with the needs and wants of customers. They maintain a continuous touch with their customers. They are currently investing in the growth areas like Light box and Cloud Services.

The asset register and application portfolio consists of complex networks, mobile phones, telephones along with PCs having access to internet. These assembled in a system allows people to share thoughts, speak as well as it helps in business (Strategy, 2015). The business can be done with anyone irrespective of his geographical location. The company also comprises of a group of national and regional operators. The offices where the functions under this company are carried out are equipped with IT hardware as well as software. The software is updated very often. The equipped hardware and software are of the categories sales analysis tools, tools of data management, systems designed for processing the orders, protocols of information security, web services, system that manages customer relationship and many more.

IT asset register and application portfolio

Some software applications used by Spark NZ include Microsoft Office. Excel is used mostly for reporting. Microsoft Project, Microsoft Visio and a Terminal Emulation software is used. These applications are used for various purposes. It also uses a software called Operations Support Systems in order to manage the functioning of the back-end telecommunication functions.

Spark aims in making daily life of people easy by providing better IT services (Oldham, 2017). They aim in turning the users’ data in actionable insights. This is done by the smart use of data (Sparkdigital.co.nz. 2018). They also aim in helping people to find the most effective solution. This is done with the help of the experts of strategic sourcing.

In order to analyze the gaps the IT vision is divided into three major portions. First being the integration of technology with business, second being familiar with clients and the last being loved by the staffs.

• Integrate the business with technology: the company needs to integrate its business with technology. The technology needs to be updated. Updated technology would help the business to grow faster.
• Become familiar to clients: nowadays people tend to use net from their phones. There has been an increment in people using internet. In order to be familiar to the clients their app should be updated very often and they should bring innovations in the app.
• Loved by the staff: an international collaboration should be initiated in order to keep staffs happy. Latest version of technologies should be used in order to make the work of the staffs easier.

In the operation plan the steps include plan initiation, collection of data, scope determination and making of IT products. plan initiation includes meeting of the stakeholders, initiating the project planning, analyzing the infrastructure and goal setting. Collection of data includes defining the terminologies, taking surveys, evaluating the result of the survey, going through literary articles at last evaluating the literary articles. Scope determination includes evaluating the stage results and taking decisions accordingly (Oakland, 2014). Making of IT products include the discussion of the requirement of equipments, sorting the need of the equipments, arranging the required equipment, initiating the project, processing the project and completion of the manufacturing of the IT products.

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish
Sparks NZ	1365 days	Mon 25-06-18	Fri 15-09-23
Plan initiation	511 days	Mon 25-06-18	Mon 08-06-20
Meeting of the stakeholders	78 days	Mon 25-06-18	Wed 10-10-18
initiating the project planning	145 days	Thu 11-10-18	Wed 01-05-19
Analysis of the infrastructure	134 days	Thu 02-05-19	Tue 05-11-19
goal setting	154 days	Wed 06-11-19	Mon 08-06-20
Collection of the data	311 days	Tue 09-06-20	Tue 17-08-21
defining of the terminologies	77 days	Tue 09-06-20	Wed 23-09-20
taking surveys	78 days	Thu 24-09-20	Mon 11-01-21
evaluating the result of the survey	64 days	Tue 12-01-21	Fri 09-04-21
going through literary articles	54 days	Mon 12-04-21	Thu 24-06-21
evaluating literary articles	38 days	Fri 25-06-21	Tue 17-08-21
Scope determination	199 days	Wed 18-08-21	Mon 23-05-22
evaluating the initiating stage results	110 days	Wed 18-08-21	Tue 18-01-22
taking decision hence wise	89 days	Wed 19-01-22	Mon 23-05-22
Making of IT products	399 days	Tue 24-05-22	Fri 01-12-23
Discussing the requirement of the equipment	45 days	Tue 24-05-22	Mon 25-07-22
sorting the need of the equipment	67 days	Tue 26-07-22	Wed 26-10-22
arranging the required equipment	89 days	Thu 27-10-22	Tue 28-02-23
initiating the project	54 days	Wed 01-03-23	Mon 15-05-23
processing of the project	76 days	Tue 16-05-23	Tue 29-08-23
completion of the manufacturing of the IT products	68 days	Wed 30-08-23	Fri 01-12-23

Table 1: Operational schedule

      (Source:  Created by author)

Capital expenditure budget

	Particulars	Amount
	Capital Investment	-$35,000.00
	Less: Depreciation	$500.00
	Purchases	-$125,000.00
	Less: Commission	-$1,200.00
	Less: Transport Expense	-$1,500.00
	Less: COGS	-$300.00
	Salaries and Wages	-$36,000.00
	Employee Benefits	-$4,500.00
	Indirect Expenses	-$12,000.00
	Interest	-$1,500.00
	Insurance	-$400.00
	Sales and Services	$250,000.00
	Less: Depreciation	-$300.00
	Less: Transport Expense	-$450.00
	Less: COGS	-$600.00
	Amortization	$1,000.00
	Loan Principal Payments	$1,500.00
	Gross Profit	$34,250.00

Table 2: Capital expenditure budget

       (Source: Created by author)

	Particulars	Amount
	Marketing	$15,000.00
	Staff and Human Resources	$24,000.00
	Technologies	$15,000.00
	Others	$3,500.00
	Services	$1,500.00
	Rent and Equipments	$4,500.00
	Development Programs	$2,200.00
	Contingencies	$6,500.00
	Insurance	$1,000.00
	Surveillance	$1,800.00
	Total	$75,000.00

  Table 3: IT operational budget

      (Source: Created by author)

Risk ID	Name and description	Probability	Impact	Priority	Mitigation
1	Quality risk: the quality of the services provided might not meet the expectations of customers (Langer and McGee, 2017).	Minor	High	3	Quality inspection should be carried out in order to avoid this risk.
2	Security: the renovation must not reveal identity of any customer (Viani, 2015)	High	High	1	This risk should be avoided by installing the latest and updated security control methods.
3	Risk of exceeding the Budget: the exceeding of budget might cause problem for the company.	Low	High	5	The budget should be decided in such a way that it does not affect the company.
4	Technical: technical equipments might fail to perform during the project (Kelsey, 2015).	Medium	Medium	2	This risk must be avoided by looking after the technical procedures carried out by the company.
5	Operational risk: the resources might not be efficient enough while performing (Hughes, and Smart, 2018).	Medium	High	4	This risk should be avoided by proper training.

Table 4: Risks

The table is regarding the risks faced by the company, its probability. The risk’s impact on the company and their priority. It also includes the mitigation that can prevent the risks.

Speed vs. Plan

This Metris looks after the fact that weather the organization is spending on whatever it wanted to spend (Chen, Chen and Jiang, 2017). It also looks after the fields when the organization would spend are over or under plan (Chen, Chen and Jiang, 2017). It helps in detecting appropriate anomalies before the organization faces crises. It dives an accountability culture within the IT organization (Chen, Chen and Jiang, 2017). It is important for managing the adherence to budget of the organization.

IT vision

Unit Cost of Infrastructure vs. Target

It measures the efficiency of the organization. It compares the organization with its opponent organizations (Butcher and Sparks, 2011). It compares the alternatives in order to decide on outsource or in source or cloud. It also demonstrates the efficiency of defending budget to its business peers.

Business-Facing Services

It ensures that the company delivers a good quality of performance as well as quality. It helps meeting the service obligations to its business (James, & Culkin, 2017). It identifies and corrects the quality slippage (Beltagui, 2018). This has to be done before it is too late and the project goes out of hand.

Project spent on initiatives of Customer-Facing

This field looks after weather the organization is investing enough on its projects. The projects on which it has invested should affect the business (Kumar and Reinartz, 2018). It also looks after that the customer experience is prioritized (Kumar and Reinartz, 2018). It ensures that the services provided by the organization create an impact on it s external customers (Kumar and Reinartz, 2018). It also detects the science projects under the organization.

Customer satisfaction

It ensures that the business servicing IT facilities are good and beneficial enough. It detects the perception of the IT within its internal customers (Hill and Alexander, 2017). This metric helps in identifying as well as correcting problems with the perception of IT with the help of business (Hill and Alexander, 2017). It also drives the culture of a continuous improvement of quality in the field of IT.

IT investment by the Business Initiatives

It looks after that weather the IT projects have lined up with better business priorities. It also looks after weather the organization is investing the necessary amount in their strategic initiatives (Frank, Mashevskaya and Ermolina, 2016). It aligns the IT that has been spent with the help of business strategies (Frank, Mashevskaya and Ermolina, 2016). It also identifies the projects, which have no contribution to the business objectives.

IT spent by the Business Unit

This metric measures the impact of BU consumption on IT cost. It also calculates the cost incurred in IT for every BU’s consumption (Aharoni, 2015). It shapes demands with the help of showing hoe the consumption drives cost. The more consumption leads to more cost incurred.

The amount of investment on Grow, Run and Transform the business

It measures the priorities of IT budget on the grow vs. run initiatives. This also ensures that the organization is investing enough on the new technologies, or innovation in technologies (Adp.com. 2018). In this metric the shift spends from run towards grow and it transforms investments. It also aligns the IT spent with the help of strategic business priorities (Parker, Van Alstyne & Choudary, 2016).

Gap analysis and required projects

Projects on time, on spec and on budget

This metric ensures that which projects are efficient and effective. It improves the business governance of the projects (Adp.com. 2018). It also detects and reins in as well as shuts down a project that is not much efficient (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017).

Application and service cost

This metric calculates the cost incurred by every IT offering. It also looks after how the cost spent is distributed across the portfolio of application and services (Lee, 2015). It uncovers the excess cost involved in running applications. It also aligns the IT spending with the business priorities (Dillon & Vossen, 2015)

Every organization faces some or the other issues as well as challenges. Spark NZ faces some issues as well. These issues and challenges are as follows.

• The Spark customers had faced a recent problem (Loo,  Mauri  & Ortiz, 2016). The problem was regarding mobile data. It took quite a long time to resolve the problem (co.nz. 2018). This happens often and this issue needs to be resolved by the company (James, et al2017).
• The customers using the company’s services face problems regarding the internet access (co.nz. 2018). The company faces some network problem that does not allow the company to provide better services to its customers (Sparknz.co.nz. 2018). This is quite challenging for the company because if the problem were not resolves as soon as possible the company would lose its loyal customers (Sparknz.co.nz. 2018). Customers would prefer brands that provide better service.
• Employee turnover: many employees of Spark had turned over since some years. The employees that turned over were very experienced ones (co.nz. 2018). This has reduced the production of the company (Auerbach, 2016).

 

Figure 1: Organizational Chart

(Source: Created by author)

The staff hired by the company must undergo a proper session of training that would help them in their work. The staff-training plan of the company has been decided for a period of 12 months (Yap & Webber, 2015). The training provided would cover the basic training regarding the rules and regulations to be followed by the employees of the company (Certo, 2018). It would then include the training of employees regarding the key technologies that is being used by the organization such as IoT (Internet of things), Artificial intelligence, big data and some more.

Along with all these, the offline service providers will be trained in better management of customer relationship (Bryson, 2018). They would also be trained on the usage of information system (Christodoulou, 2015).

Conclusion

From the above report, it can be concluded that Spark NZ is a company that provides telecommunication services to people of New Zealand. This company is also a huge ICT provider to the businesses dwelling in New Zealand. It has been providing services to the country since 1987. The company faces many issues and challenges regarding some problems like network issue, problem faced in browsing and some more. Better management of the processes can avoid these problems. This report also includes some tables, which refer to its budget plan, operational plan and some more

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