Answer 1
1. In order to help AAHS management, define what information systems are and briefly explain how information systems are important to future operations at AAHS. While answering this question, explore the different kinds of information systems that could be beneficial to any small business. (Picture from interne and Source)
2. Identify and list the specific business and system problems faced by AAHS and list these problems in order of priority.
3. What are the key information requirements of AAHS? For each information requirement you have identified, discuss how this information would enhance or improve AAHS competitive position.
4. Which specific information system(s) can help AAHS in managing their business problems, making business decisions and fulfilling the information requirements identified in the previous question? Be specific in how they will help in these areas.
Animals After Hour Services or AAHS is a specific veterinary hospital, which has been running for several years in Gold Coast and Brisbane Southside (Laudon and Laudon 2016). This hospital was started by the Dr. Terry King as the smaller practice for helping the injured animals while the hours when the veterinary practices are closed. All of the practices eventually work on weekdays from 7am to 6pm and on Saturday, they work on half days. This helps the animal owners in presenting emergency medical attention to those animals, who are suffering from diseases or problems. The organization is being spread to various locations. However, Dr. Terry King is worried regarding the complexities as well as expenses of the set up of information technology (Bajdor and Grabar 2014). For this complexity, he should implement various information systems for the betterment of their organization.
IS or an Information system is the organized system to properly collect, organize, communicate as well as store information or data. It is the collection of various complementary networks, which organizations and people utilize for performing any type of data operation. This information system is the group of several components, which help the users in interacting and producing significant information (Laudon and Laudon 2015). The internal information is focused in this type of system and the external information is discarded. This type of system refers to the particular software that is utilized for running any computerized database or to the computer system. The various types of information systems that should be used by this organization of AAHS or Animals After Hour Services are given below:
- i) Transaction Processing Systems or TPS
- ii) Management Information System or MIS
Answer 2
iii) Decision Support System or DSS
- iv) Expert System or ES
All these above mentioned information systems would be extremely beneficial for the organization of Animals After Hour Services to attain organizational goals and objectives.
Figure 1: Transaction Processing System
(Source: Google.co.in. 2018)
The above provided image has clearly demonstrated the most important type of information systems that are required for the organization of Animal After Hour Services or AAHS.
Since, this particular organization is a small business; the above mentioned four information system types would be extremely beneficial for them. The future decisions of the organization could be easily undertaken with the help of these types of information systems (Gallagher and Sixsmith 2014). These would help them in organizing, evaluation and finally management of the departments within the business. Moreover, this helps to enhance the business. For providing perfect information and data, the management information system could involve software, which would be helpful in decision making or data resources like hardware resources of a system, applications of project management, databases, management of people and the various computerized process for running efficiently.
The organization of Animal After Hour Services or AAHS is a veterinary hospital that was started for a noble cause by Dr. Terry King to serve or treat animals even after the regular hours so that the owners of the animals does not face any problem in treating their pets (Arvidsson, Holmström and Lyytinen 2014). They have opened up their business to a new sector with the mission to help more animals simultaneously. Although, this is exciting, the complexity as well as the cost of the set up of information technology is worrying him.
There are various business problems as well as system problems that are faced by the Animal After Hour Services or AAHS organization and these problems are listed as per priority. The several business problems and system problems according to their priorities are given below:
- i) Complexity of the Information Technology Set up: The first and the foremost business and system problem that this organization of Animal After Hour Services or AAHS is facing is with the complexities while setting up the information technology of the organization (Demir and Krajewski 2013). This type of complexity is extremely dangerous for the organization as they will not be able to maintain the infrastructure properly. Due to this type of complexity, AAHS should incorporate a specific information system that would eventually reduce the complexity to a greater level. The incorporation of management information system or MIS is the best solution to this type of problem.
- ii) Costs of the Information Technology Set up: The second significant problem that this organization of Animal After Hour Services or AAHS faces for their business or systems is the cost of the information technology set up (Ghosh and Guha 2013). Since, this particular organization is a smaller business, the cost of the IT set up can exceed their budget and limit and thus they would be in mere problem. Moreover, the maintenance cost of the information technology set up is much higher than the rest of the technologies and thus should be mitigated within time.
iii) Making Systems Shareable Across Sites: The third problem that this organization faces is for making the systems shareable across various websites. Since, it is a small organization, often they suffer from various problems and thus they should involve a technical expert in the process (Klukas, Chen and Pape 2014). This technical expert would be looking for various details of the organizational technology and hence their problems would be easily solved.
- iv) Various Logistics Issues: The fourth significant problem that this organization of Animal After Hour Services or AAHS faces in their business is the several logistics issues or challenges (Kadam and Onkar 2015). The various logistics issues or challenges are patient treatment notes, payroll processing,conduction ofregular staff meetings, staff time sheets and all files related to the staffs.
In the beginning, this particular organization of AAHS or Animal After Hour Services only contained few members like two veterinarians and few nursing staffs. Since, the practice was small; the management was much easier (Castronova, Goodall and Ercan 2013). However, with the growth of their business, Dr. Terry King has realized that they need a better management field and information system to properly manage and note their business.
Answer 3
The major requirements of information within the organization of Animal After Hour Services are given below:
- i) Storing of Client’s Data: The first and the foremost information requirement within this organization is to store the client’s data (Boonstra 2013). This should be stored within a safe and secured location, from where they can easily access the data of their pet animals. Dr. Terry King strongly wishes to implement this particular system within their business, which would be helpful for them in mitigating all the issues that are related to information gathering. The patient owners do not have to run from one end to the other for getting information about their pet animals. With the help of this information system, all the necessary information or data would be securely stored and thus the patient owners could easily get hold of their data (Tarhini, Arachchilage and Abbasi 2015). This would thus improve or enhance the competitive position of the organization of AAHS.
- ii) Online Updates of Well Being of Animals: The second important and significant requirement of information of the organization of Animal After Hour Services is the online updates of the well being of their animals. The owners do not have to visit the hospitals for getting updates of their animals (Li et al. 2014). These online updates would then reduce the amount of phone calls that come every day in the hospital and thus the overall time of the organization would be saved. The reduction of constant phone calls is extremely important within a hospital to enhance the business. Moreover, the owners are getting live updates of their pet animals and this would make them relaxed to a greater level.
iii) Lodging Pet Insurance Claims: The third important and significant requirement of information of the organization of Animal After Hour Services is the lodging of pet insurance claims (Döring et al. 2014). These are extremely important for any individual as often the expenses are extremely high and hence it is possible to afford them properly. The insurance claims would be reducing the expenses of the hospitals to a great level.
- iv) Printing or Downloading Consolidated Statements: The fourth important and significant requirement of information of the organization of AAHS is the ability to print or download the consolidated documents (Hays et al. 2013). Moreover, the various treatment notes of the patient animals are required by the owners and hence these are extremely important for the organization. The competitive position of the organization would be solely improved in the process.
There are various information systems that could easily help the Animal After Hour Services or AAHS in proper management of their business problems and thus making the business decisions and fulfilling the requirements of the information that are identified in the case study. Dr. Terry King is concerned regarding the set up of the information technology or the growth he is making in his business (Arvidsson, Holmström and Lyytinen 2014). This type of growth can enhance the organization in obtaining several organizational goals and objectives within their business. The various information systems that would be helpful for this organization of Animal After Hour Services or AAHS are given below:
- i) Transaction Processing System: The first and the foremost information system that would be required for the organization of AAHS is transaction processing system or TPS. It is the simplest method to collect, process, and store, modify or even cancel the transactions (Laudon and Laudon 2016). All of these information systems eventually allow several transactions for taking place simultaneously. The information, which this system collects, is eventually stored within databases that are used for producing various reports.
- ii) Management Information System: The management information system or MIS is the specific information system, which utilizes the data or information that is collected by the transaction processing system and utilizes this information for creation of reports in a specific way, which managers use to make several business decisions (Bajdor and Grabara 2014). AAHS or Animal After Hour Services should implement this information system for taking proper managerial decisions within the organization.
Decision Support System: Since Dr. Terry King is concerned about the information technology set up, a decision support system or DSS is one of the major requirements for their business. This type of information system is responsible for helping the organization in making various significant decisions by proper analysis of data. This helps in generating data models and statistical projections (Demir and Krajewski 2013). It easily solves problems while utilizing the external data. Moreover, the managers can judge for properly improving the manager’s decision. Dr. Terry King thus can easily take up this option to reduce all the complexities or problems that they are facing and take up relevant decisions within the business.
- iv) Expert Systems: Another significant information system that would be helpful for this particular organization of Animal After Hour Services or AAHS is the expert system (Laudon and Laudon 2015). This particular system is also referred to as the knowledge based system and is the computer system that is designed for the analysis of data and hence producing decisions, diagnosis and recommendations, which are to be properly controlled.
All the above mentioned types of information systems are extremely important and significant for the organization of Animal After Hour Services or AAHS. These information systems can help them to manage their business problems.
References
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