Information Systems Of Animal After Hour Services

Different Kinds of Information Systems Beneficial to Small Businesses

Discuss about the Information systems of Animal After Hour Services.

Today, most small business are growing rapidly, but it is unfortunate that the business are not ready for the tremendous growth. Therefore, these businesses face problems in maintaining the customers and tend to lose coordination among the employees. “Animal After Hour Service” also referred to as AAHS is a clinic that was established by Dr. Terry King. The solution that he was to solve is to provide veterinary services during the time most of his fellow veterinarians, were not available to offer the services to needy animals. Dr. Terry founded AAHS seven years ago, and Josh King assisted him in the activities required in the clinic. The clinic did not have many task to accomplish, therefore both Terry and Josh would manage all the task required. AAHS is one of the small businesses that was not prepared for the future growth. AAHS experiences some challenges due to its rapid growth over the past seven years. The growth of the organization has pleased Dr. Terry but also, he has some worries about the complexity of the management of the all processes in the organization.

Information systems is implemented in the case study of Animal After Hour Services. To solve the problems that the organization is experiencing. Dr. Terry has to ensure that the payroll processing is enhanced and regular staff meetings are held to ensure smooth processes within the organization. Dr. Terry is worried about the safety of data security, the logical issues such as patient treatment notes, payroll processing and the staff organization time sheets. Various steps are considered below to find solution for his worries. They include: finding out different information systems that are beneficial to the organization, identifying the problem likely to be encountered, finding out the information requirements, the information system to be used, the changes to be done in the organization to incorporate the information systems and the ethical issues that may arise with the introduction of the information system in the organization. This report provides a solution for AAHS by incorporating information system.

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.

Information Systems Helpful in Animal After Hour Services

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:

The organization could can optimize the processing of its daily transactions by use of the transaction processing system (TPS). This information system can assist the company to collect, modify, retrieve and store transactional data in a manner that enhances efficiency of access and availability (Arvidsson, Holmström, & Lyytinen, 2014 p.54). This can result in greater accuracy and completeness of source information for the organization, which can translate into better management and processing of information by the other systems that TPS integrates with in the organization.

Office automation systems are a different but equally relevant category of information systems that AAHS could benefit from. They are used in different levels of the organization from strategic to operational management levels to increase efficiency of operation (Hill & Schiling, 2014 p.133). The organization could use these systems to digitally acquire and process information systems. This can increase the ease of sharing information between the various locations of the business.

The business can also use information systems to optimize management efficiency. Management information systems (MIS), for instance, collects information from various sources and compresses them into reports in order to assist managers in making operational and tactical decisions (Galliers & Leidner, 2014 p.79). The systems use information generated by the TPS to generate the reports used in decision-making.

Decision support systems are also important for an organization such as AAHS. These systems are designed for use by particular managers to make semi-structured decisions. Dr.Terry could use these systems to make decisions relating to the business where there is uncertainty regarding the outcome of the decision, such as the medication to use where the symptoms do not necessarily reflect the problem in animals. Decision support systems are particularly beneficial for healthcare staff at the organization, as they provide recommendations for users where only limited information exists (Holsapple, 2014 p.175).

AAHS could also benefit immensely from the installation of executive information systems, which provide real time access to internal and external information pertaining to organizations. Unlike the aforementioned information systems, executive information systems present information in graphical representations thus allowing them to incorporate data from other systems in an organized manner that reflects the operations of the entire organization (Hill & Schiling, 2014 p.142). This means that Dr. Terry can be able to view information relating to the entire organization in an abstract but simplified manner that enhances decision making capacity and accuracy.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.

iii) 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.

1. 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.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.

1. 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.

The major requirements of information within the organization of Animal After Hour Services are given below:

1. 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.
2. 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.

1. 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.

Animal After Hour Services (AAHS) they cannot work on its own, they require an encomium of an owner, customers, employees, suppliers and shareholders. In addition, in the big companies, the government and communities are also including as well.  The Stakeholder appointment is a considerable aspect that lead to effective business because the stakeholders and an organisation can mutually effects on each other. If AAHS collaborated with stakeholders then it contributions the AAHS to improve its well-organized in its products and facilities through response and the two-way interaction between them can help to achieve their objectives.

According to present scenario the increase in the globalisation and in the technology development shown in the in the last three decades, it is requisite to improve and adapt the technologies  which are crucial gears and a processing and managing way for the that consumers to utilise more online oriented work especially the use Internet  in the business network. From the point of view increasing the branches and services, the use of Internet as professional network is very important for functioning and managerial pronouncements and optimal outcome. AAHS services can be improving by the use of the Internet, intranet and extranet to support its staff, nurses, vets and organizational process and assistance to be an efficacious business at more than one place. By adapting the internet as their professional communication AAHS can build their significant and powerful professional network which can be use a tool for providing services, managing systems, obtaining exchanging and sharing information (Perrin, 2015).

Along with Internet, one more tool can also be added to AAHS for an effective system approach which is intranet to reduce the complicity and make an improved way to is one of interconnected communications that utilise Internet system to purpose with in the AAHS. The AAHS can enhance their services widely by increasing their branches at various places and for that object the use of internet plays a very important role to enhance the security and safety of data across sites such as the patient treatment notes are easily protected, staff files are easily managed, staff time timesheet can easily be schedule payroll processing can be more easier and the staff meeting easily can be conducted where an staff meeting documents can easily be managed (Hewson and Stewart, 2016). The complexity of the work is reduce across the branches make organizations shareable across locations, without pointless repetition. The communication can happen through intranet is within the AASH for its employees to share the sharing the information of patient, patient notes can more easily, so if an owner want to presents their animal to different branches at different points of time, the treating veterinarian can easily accessible and manageable with reference to the previous records of the treatment (Palacios-Marqués, Soto-Acosta and Merigó, 2015).

AAHS can help to install the positive, posting, communicating the functions of good communication and services to customers including the database of organisation and employees; additionally, intranet can provide various ways to communicate inside the AAHS organization. Through intranet Animal After Hour Services should be utilised to enhance business and employee interaction activities. Employees are the very important stakeholder which works internally. Veterinary hospital business requires a good services to customers which are provided by hospital employees (Pontes, Szabo and Griffiths, 2015). If the veterinary hospital offers good customers’ service, it will automatically make trustworthy customers and business strengthening; consequently, it continuation of the process will become improvement up for the better occupation safety and security to its employees. The AAHS uses the intranet usage via e-mail, websites, a private section, a blog on the website for the employees or electronic system and electronic newsletter will be a implement that utilise for inside communication by providing the plans of the business process and services provide to the customers by considering their policy from the head and which also include comments, responses and blockades on the work carry out by the employees (Morschheuser, Henzi and Alt, 2015).

AAHS can also be improve by the use of Internet technologies to interconnect the intranet which is extranet for the communicating with its stakeholders which are customers, business partner or suppliers. Extranet will allow the external or outside organizations contact to the company’s inside information (Rekhter, Rosen, Aggarwal, Cai and Morin, 2016). Although, the external organization reach to documents or classified document which are important material requires a user ID and a password to use the internal system. The limited stakeholders are allow to accessing to the AAHS internal system via intranet website (Xiao-juan, Gao-feng, et al, 2016). Because of they have the relationship among the stakeholders and Animal After Hour Services, it contributes the AAHS to advance its modest advantages.

Change management is highly important in the case of any organisation that is expanding its IT infrastructure. Since AAHS clinic is expanding hence it has become essential for them to incorporate various types of IT mechanism so as to store, share and retrieve data from their operations. The changes that are going on inside the firm are the type of the network infrastructure they have, the organisation structure, communication mechanism, documentation techniques.

Since changes are never welcomed by the stakeholders because of the complexities it brings with itself hence it becomes highly essential for an organisation to manage the changes (Galliers and Leidner, 2014). Change management always ensures that no disruption comes to the organisation because of the proposed changes and employees also adopt it with minimum resilience. There are several ways in which needs to be done for managing changes at AAHS organisation. They are as follows:

• Communication: The first and foremost thing that needs to be done in any change management is to strengthen the communication by eliminating all the barriers (Kaisler, et. al., 2013). Josh King and Dr. Terry king who are the leaders of the firm needs to ensure that they had a conversation with all the stakeholders for eliminating the confusions in their mind regarding the changes that are going to take place.
• Training: This is another crucial aspect of change management. Since there are many new technologies that are getting incorporated within the organisation hence it is crucial that a proper training is provided to all the stakeholders (Fernández-Alemán, et. al., 2013). This is because the facts that network infrastructure are not easy to understand and operating it is not any job. If not used properly then there is always the chance of data leakages. This can be unintentional but can bring huge loss to the firm.
• Impact evaluation: It is the role of the Josh King and Dr Terry king to evaluate the impact that changes can produce and be ready with plan to reduce it. It is always essential for the leaders to provide support structure to the stakeholders so that they do not get depressed by the changes and adopt it.

There are several ethical and security risks that are present with the implementation with new technology at the organisation (Al Ameen, Liu and Kwak, 2012). This issue arise because there will be lot of node that will get connected to the network infrastructure. If any node has weak security infrastructure, then it may lead to serious ethical and security issues. In the case of Internet, this is a bigger problem as there are many external hackers that are trying to access the data of organisation which could be of strategic importance. Some of the ethical and security issues are:

• Privacy: If the data related to the client’s gets leaked due to any information security flaws, then it leads to ethical issues (Stair and Reynolds, 2013). Privacy of stakeholders is very essential as any loss to it may be cause image failure of the AAHS clinic.
• Data loss: This is another major issue that is attached with the use of Information systems. As data cats as gold in the modern day business hence it has become crucial for the organisations to make sure that they do not loss. In another way if some external sources are able to corrupt the data then it may lead to generation of wrong information which is again dangerous for the firm at the time of decision making.
• Unauthenticated access: If the system or the network gets into the hands of unauthorised individuals, then there is a chance that they may use it for their personal benefit. This is not good for the firm in the competitive environment they are in.

There are several things that AAHS clinic can do for avoiding it:

• Use of extranet: The use of extranet helps the company to safeguard its crucial information at the same time providing the information that are essential for other stakeholders (Sen, 2015).
• Use of firewalls: There are several firewalls that can be used by the organisation so as to make sure that no malicious content could enter into their network.
• Authenticating systems: For ensuring that only authenticated individuals gets the access of the information, use of password protected systems could be beneficial.
• Employee’s training: It is crucial that an organisation provides training to its staffs so as to make sure that they do not unintentionally opens the gate for hackers to enter into the system.
• Information security policy: Since their network infrastructure is expanding hence it is crucial that organisation makes its information security policy (Frisse, 2010). In this all the rules and regulations regarding the information security must highlighted.

Conclusion

To solve the issues Dr. Terry is worrying about, the implementation various useful information systems in the daily organization process. First the clinic needs to identify the problems they are like to face in the day-to-day activities. There are three main problems are tend to worry Dr. Terry. The problems include: the cost of setting up the information technology in the entire organization, the possibility and security of sharing the information systems across the branches and solving several logistics issues and challenges.  Second is identifying the key information requirements of AAHS. The requirement identified are supposed to enhance AAHS competitive position. The main requirements for Animal After Hour Services include: storing every client’s data for retrieval when required later, the online updates of the well-being or improvement in health for all the animals that have received AAHS services, lodging of Pet Insurance claims and printing of the consolidated statements. The third point is that, the organization needs to identify specific information systems that will help AAHS in managing the problems identified, making decisions and fulfilling the requirements of the organization. The information systems that are best fit for the organization include: Transaction Processing System, Management Information System, the decision support system and Expert Systems. The Transaction System is a system used to collect, process and store the transaction that will happen in the organization. The Management Information System uses the transactions generated from the Transaction processing System, to generate reports. Finally, the Expert Systems especially the knowledge base which helps in analyzing data thus assisting the organization in making valid decisions. The organization need also to identify the used of internet, intranet and extranet in enhancing communication of various person involved in the organization. The organization need to consider the changes required in order to incorporate the use of information systems. Finally, the organization is required to identify the ethical issues that can arise due to the incorporation of information system in the organization.

From the research done on the issues and possible ways of the organization to solve the worries and challenge, I would recommend AAHS to take the following steps:

1. The organization should find many kinds of information system and determine how every kind could be helpful in the organization. The information system tend of help an organization collect much data , analyze the data and make decision from the analysis
2. The organization is required to identify all possible problems, worries or challenges is may be experiencing. The organization should also look into the future, and identify the possible problems that may arise with time due to rapid expansion of the company.
3. The AAHS organization is required to identify the information requirements. The information requirements should include: storing of client’s data, online updates of the improvements of the animals health condition, lodging the pet insurance claims and printing the consolidated statements. Having the requirements of the organization makes it easier in finding was of fulfilling the requirements.
4. From the earlier list of on the type of Information Systems, the organization should narrow down to specific information systems that will fulfil the requirements of the entire business. The organization should find an appropriate transaction processing system, an appropriate management information system, an appropriate decision making system and an appropriate expert system such as knowledge based system.
5. The organization should understand how to use and implement the internet, intranet and extranet. This is meant to ensure that the communication between employee- employer, employee-employee and employee-client is efficient.
6. The organization should also consider the possible changes to be made as a result of the incorporation of information system in the organization. Some employees need to be trained to accommodate the use of information system.
7. Finally, the organization should identify the security issues and ethical issues. Some of these factors include the customers’ privacy, the minimizing of data loss and preventing unauthenticated person from accessing the system.

With the implementation of the suggested ideas, the AAHS is likely to experience a tremendous growth without failing. Following the steps recommended, AAHS will experience less challenges.

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