System Vision Document For Best & Less Clothing Retailer Implementation

Identification of Problem

Information System is a collection of technological components and human resources, used for taking data as input, storing the data and then processing it. Information Systems are used for sharing business, internal organization operations and customer related information and possible business patterns (Laudon and Laudon 2016). Specific hardware and software, based on the characteristics and capability of IS, are used for developing an information system. Project Management methodologies are used for organizing a project and delivering it successfully. Based on the needs of the organization and proposed system complexity. Predictive project management methodology is based on the concept of finding the requirements beforehand and executing the project based on the finding (Marchewka 2014).

The report is constructed based on the case study of ‘Best & Less’, a cloth retailing organization in Australia. The organization is currently maintaining their operations based on papers and spreadsheets. Best & Less is considering that implementation of an Information System. The system will be implemented organization wide. The core system will be connected to a web application, used by the customers to buy products.

Problem Description: The organization has not experienced any operational experience over few of the years. The organization face issues with maintaining the stock thus leading cancelation of orders. Best & Less has also been facing issue with creating new products. The customers are not interested in the same old products. Few of the attempts by the organization to create new products have failed in the past. The organization does not have any proper business model that can deliver intended result. No accurate link between the creation, production and sales of the products are available in Best & Less. The number of old loyal customers are getting low gradually. Best & Less does not have any proper mechanism to monitor the process of inventory. This often leads to customer dissatisfaction and loss of business. The management of Best & Less has been complaining about lack of data present (Best & Less 2014). The management decisions are often full of faults and new issue occurs because of overlooked factors. The organization needs a solution that can collect and present all the business data to the management in an organized form. The competitors are using various technologically advanced solutions that are not just increasing sales but also suggesting future trends. In such a situation, Best & Less is not able to invent any business idea that can push them forward for achieving competitive advantage.

System Capabilities: The proposed information for Best & Less clothing retailer will be capable of following things.

1. The first and most crucial capability of the system is accurate and quick data processing. The system can store a lot of information in a central location thus reducing the communication time between IS components.
2. The access to the stored information will be immediate. The management can see the stock or check the sales of a day in a second with a single click (Schwalbe 2015).

• The subsystems will be implemented in every department of the organization. Thus, collaboration between the departments will be more effective and efficient.

1. In terms of operations of Best & less will be highly benefited by the system capability of automating the back processes (Laudon and Laudon 2015). The staff will be able to concentrate on the core activities and system will handle the tasks like tracking the stock, order processing, payment handling and many more.

Expected Business Benefits: Best & Less is expecting various benefits from the system implementation.  The organization wants the system to be effective in terms of business operations, customer satisfaction and production.

1. The system must cope with the business environment and produce opportunities for the staff to perform better.
2. The business decisions must be accurate and help to achieve business objectives

Breakdown of The Estimated Time for Project Completion:

Functional requirements of the system define the characteristics of the system. The System of Best & Less will have the following functional requirements.

1. Authorization
2. Authentication

• Database

1. Website
2. Reporting
3. Auditing

• Inventory Monitoring

The system of Best & Less will have three main systems. One internal, customer and vendor system. The internal system will have three subsystems. Therefore, total six iterations will be there.  

System Capabilities

Development Cost: 

Estimated Annual Cost:

Anticipated Benefits from the System: The system implementation project has been taken with great intentions of pushing the business toward more competitiveness.  The following are the benefits expected from the information system.

1. The cost saving is not effective from the implementation of the system. Huge reduction in the expenses of the operation does not happen overnight. The financial benefits become noticeable almost after one year of implementation. These financial benefits are tended to happen in sequential manner (Putra, Ahlan and Kartiwi 2016). Taken as an example, after implementation of information system, the productivity gets boosted and leads to less amount of workforce. Therefore, the operational cost gest reduced. Better information flow within organization often results in less lead-time cost and decreased cost for inventory holding cost.
2. The improvisation of detective and predictive internal controls is another tangible advantage. Information system consists of central data storage system. The beigest advantage of centralized information storing approach is better access control. The management can fetch reports faster from the system with accurate and latest data (due to real-time data flow) (Too and Weaver 2014). This enhances the accountability and lessen the possibility of misusing organizational assets, internal theft and fraud. Reviewing the entire audit for transactions are possible due to the automatic monitoring. Moreover, the automatic tracking allows the authorized users to access the historic and current data efficiently.

• The information system will be responsible for increasing the revenue of Best & Less through improving the response time. The data availability, a tangible advantage, like less amount of bottleneck. The information system will track the available number of products in the inventory and automatically inform the manager and inventory supervisor if a product is about to be emptied. This way the organization will be able to fill the inventory with required product and not face any order related issue (Ahlan, Kartiwi and Sukmana 2015). Improving the customer relationship is another tangible benefit expected from the system. The sales team and customer relationship team can easily track the customer data and their orders. The customer can quickly get a reply for their feedback or issues. The system is expected to check the buying patterns of the customer and suggest them products accordingly.

1. The intangible benefit Best & Less is expecting from the system implementation is achieving better responsibility and transparency. The management will be able to track all the processes happening at each department. From sales of the products to cost of operations is available at a click. The management can divide the responsibilities among the staff in a better way. Each of the staff will be responsible for carrying out different tasks and the system will check their work feasibility.
2. Best & Less is expecting to contact more vendors and establish strong and lengthy relationship with them using the system. The vendors will be using an extension of the system. They will share the invoices and reports to the system (Teixeira et al. 2016). The management of Best & Less can see those reports and pay the vendor using the system also. This will also bring the whole process into a single system.
3. The staff of the organization is expecting full support from the system. The system will be handling back office processes and allow the users to see only the required data. The staff are not expecting to handle paper and spread sheet works anymore.

Summary of estimated annual benefits: 

Organizational Risk: The Best & Less can encounter severe organizational loss if the project gets failed. The first loss will be reputation of the organization. Taken as an example, the system has issues with payment or order processing mechanisms. Then the customers will be greatly hampered. In such cases, the organization will not only lose the credibility of service but also customers (Schwalbe 2015). The organization will face various regulatory issues due to wrong handling of payments. The customers may lodge complaint if they did not get refund against an order or the order is not booked even after deduction of fund.

Technical Risks: Technical risks are inevitable in Software Project Management. The project can encounter issues like inadequate technical resources. The organization may want to implement various things that are mentioned in one requirement. Therefore, unclear requirement will lead to faulty system design. The system may not be as designed. The system will be responsible for collecting data from all the parts of the organization (Kaiser, El Arbi and Ahlemann 2015). Such a big scale project often leads to scope creep. As a single server will be handling internal tasks, customer orders and vendor processes. The possibility of server breakdown is very high.

Resource Risk: The resources of a project is not only the raw materials and equipment, the project team and stakeholders are also resources of the project. The biggest resource risk is always with the project team. Project team member(s) can leave a project at any time, leaving the project vulnerable. Hiring a new staff and train him is quite expensive and time-consuming process. The project team can lose faith in the project if they do not have complete understanding of it (Heldman 2018). Continuous development challenges, misunderstanding, poor communication and many more factors can make the staff less efficient.

Schedule Risk: The risk of failing to meet the deadline is becoming more common with the complex projects. If the project manager and other responsible team members fail to collect all the essential business and user requirements it can result into schedule risk. The IS implementation project at Best & Less will be carried out using the Iterative Model (Wu, Chen and Olson 2014). Therefore, it is very essential to make sure that schedule risk must be avoided at any cost.

Organization Feasibility: Based on the description of issues Best & Less is facing right now, it can be clearly understood that an information system implementation has become essential. The organization will be able to handle numerous issues, known or unknown, after IS deployment. The system will not only handle internal process but also keep track of the customer activities. The organization will never have to put hard effort for managing paper-based works. The database will hold the historical and current data to provide better decision-making support to the organization management body.

Expected Business Benefits

Technical Feasibility: The system can be accessed by computers, mobile devices and tablets. The internal staff, management executives, vendors and most importantly customers can remotely access their interest of data at any time. The system will use most innovative ideas in information system solutions such as real-time data flow, inventory management with IoT based technique, security checks for staff, MVC based Web page development and many more.

Resource Feasibility: The real resources of the Best & Less are the employees. The employees will be able to carry out the core tasks instead of wasting hours to manage papers. Another crucial resource of the organization is the products. With powerful inventory management system at work, Best & Less will track the stock of every product. All the products can be ordered automatically if the stock is low.

Tool support table for the implementation of information management infrastructure

Work Break Down Structure:  

Conclusion:

From the above study it can be concluded that the implementation of IS at Best & Less an essential business solution. In terms of technical business solutions, the organization is way behind than its competitors. The paper and spreadsheet-based works are not only consuming precious hours but also affecting business dictions. The organization has chosen to implement a collaborative system with its vendors and it is a smart move. Iterative model will not only ensure proper documentation of project but also ensure project completion in less days. Therefore, it is clear that with the successful installation of the system, Best & Less will again become a repeated brand in its industry.

References:

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