System of Sports-Qits
Task 1 Business Aim, Information System Requirements and Constraints
Sports-Qits is currently facing different problems regarding its operational activities and in different activities of the company such as its sales, marketing as well as its customer related strategies.
Primarily, there have been many complaints from their customers regarding their services, primarily about their customer care service as well as the delivery of their products. That is why the company does believe that technology or Information System (IS) will help them in order to manage their overall process. It will enable them to have referencing data and information that will help them in their decision-making process in order to meet the demand, preferences as well as the expectations of their customers.
With connection to their decision-making, application of IS can help the company to centralized as well as standardized their processes that will enable them to gather, store as well as process consistent and efficient data. Eventually, the said effort will help to reduce the human intervention to the process that will help to reduce workload for the employees, thus driving error-free processes.
Above all, the main objective of the company is to gain competitive advantage by helping the company to be ready for future expansions as well as future enhancements.
There have been many flaws and disadvantages from the current system of the company. If you are going to look at all of the major dilemmas and problems of the system, you will notice that it can be solved with the use of the Internet. Internet has become one of the most important tools that are used by people, for personal and even for commercial purposes. E-commerce is considered as a medium that enables people to sell different products, services and even contents using the Internet (Koper & Ellis 2001, p. 1).
Online selling will be a good strategy of the company due to the fact that online marketing is still at the peak of its growth, as a matter of fact, it was reported by the Forrest Research that during the year 2002, the online sales have increased to over 50% compare to the preceding year. The said phenomenon in the USA has its equivalent in the UK, the Interactive Media in Retail Group had said that I the same year, the online shopping had grew to up to 19 times faster than that of the conventional retailing spot. In addition to that, the Street.com had reported in December of the year 2003 that the sales of the e-commerce had boosted from 20% to 35% and it was said that, it was because of the holiday season (Reynolds 2004, p. 1).
Another important characteristic of e-commerce is that it is more connected to the customers than the traditional way of selling and buying goods and services. That is why, the result of the study that was done by the eSpending in 2003, had showed that 62% of the online shoppers that has been a respondent to the study had stated that they are satisfied with their experience in their e-shopping. On the other hand, there is a small amount or percentage (7%) of the respondents who stated that they are not satisfied with the services and products that are available in the net (Reynolds 2004, p. 1).
As of now, the company is facing a huge problem regarding their relationship with their customers; this is due to the fact that the company does not have a formal customer service committee or department that will handle the request and comments of their customers. Another thing is that, customers are already complaining about their services as well as their products.
Those reasons, pushes the company to apply IS and other computer technologies to their current system. Due to the fact that most of their customers and target customers are requesting real-time information anytime, a company website will be a good help. It will handle the overall e-commerce processing of the company from ordering up to the payment. In addition to that, the website will also help to develop the marketing strategy of the company by offering real-time or update information regarding the products and services that the company is offering. It will also help the company to save time, money and effort in giving away leaflets and other related marketing methodologies.
One of the major constraints of this project is the change of the IT communications in the organization. The project team must be able to address all of the important problems regarding the infrastructure as well as the standard of IT in the organization like as the hardware, software, network as well as the data storage. As of the now the company bought latest versions of personal computers which will be used in the project, however, it must be considered in application of different software as well as in planning and deployment of network.
Scalability is considered as one of the most critical issue with accordance to the infrastructure of IT. Furthermore, network infrastructures need to be handle and scale in order to meet the future demands, at the same time providing high levels of performance as well as availability for the mission-critical applications.
The network system of any company can be considered as sensitive to different versions of Operating Systems as well as the network management software, together with the different applications that demands for a given version of each application. That is why it will be hard and complicated to make all of the components and aspects of the large diverse networks to work together as efficiently as the management prediction.
Security is the most important aspect of any system that is using complicated networking as well as electronic transactions with the customers as well as other businesses that are considered as external entities.
Networks can be access by hackers as well as thieves and it will give them the opportunity steal as well as to change data. Furthermore, due to the fact that the system is linked to the Internet, the network is even more vulnerable with security threat, due to the fact that the Internet is more open to everyone.
Cost is one of the constraints in the project; this is due to the fact that the company is offering a limited amount of budget due to the size of the company as well as the current financial condition of the company.
Furthermore, with connection with the cost, hidden cost will also serve as an important constraint in the project. It is true that the system will enable the company to save money by reducing the time and effort that will be spending for specific transactions as well as the overall savings in terms of error and the marketing strategies. However, improvement in productivity as well as the efficiency and consistency of data will be compensated by the high operating cost in terms of additional labor and training, as well as the money that is required for the maintenance of the system.
Communication gap is one of the primary reasons why projects do fail. The relationship between the project team as well as the users of the system has always been one of the most problematic areas for implementing new projects. Different entities who are involved in the system have their different perspective or point of view regarding the system as a whole. This is due to the fact that they have different backgrounds in IT and other related technologies as well as interests and priorities in life.
The new IS of Sports-Qits will help to recreate the organization into a more effective unit or department, however, the said change will create a huge problems with regards to the issue of cultural change in the organization. More often than not, employees are experiencing refusal to change due to the different wrong impression such as computers will take their job and so on. However, the new system of the company cannot be successful without changing the traditional ways of approach of the business rules.
Applications of new technologies can affect the existing culture of a given organization. This is due to the fact that, there will be traditions and rules and regulations that might be changed with accordance to the application of the said technology.
Task 2 Project Plan and Soft System Methodology of the Sports-Qits
Base on all the data and information that have been mentioned from the past part of the paper, it shows that the key resource of the company is to integrate or connect to the Internet and the use of its own Information System or IS. This part of the paper will show the business plan of the Sport-Qits regarding their planned system, the Soft Systems Methodology or the SSM will be used in order to show it.
During the phase of planning and requirements analysis, the problem of the existing manual system of the company will be analyze in details in order to come up with different solutions that can help the said problems. The data and information that will be gathered during the said phase will be used in order to come up with the requirements for the planned system.
The first stage deals with the different problems that pertain to being messy, unorganized as well as vague of the current system. Those are the problems that have a large amount of human intervention that might affect the authenticity of different data and information. It tackles to the problem situation, and not at the problem itself (Córdoba 2003). In this stage, all of the problematic situation of the company will be analyzed such as the error in ordering process such as the wrong storage of the order of the customers as well as the late deliveries of orders, the delivered damage goods, the unavailability of different information about the company or the lack of communication to the prospect or possible customer and the most important thing is the inconsistency of data and information from different transactions of the whole process.
In this process, the employees, the customers and other entities who are involved in the process will be interviewed and ask some questions regarding their perspective to the problematic situation of the company. In this stage, data and information will be collected via the use of whatever method that will be appropriate such as survey, observation and measurement. In the case of the company, the observation and survey method will be useful. All of this will be done by the method of interview.
In this stage, the perception of the employees, who will be the end-user of the proposed or plan system; the customer, who will also use the system as an external user; and the IT team that will handle the initial use and practice of the system as well as its maintenance.
In this stage, the problem will be analyzed using the different data that have been gathered from the different perspectives of different entities who are involved in the whole system.
i. The Rich Picture
Rich Picture is used in the SSM in order to represent the different situations that concerns about the involved elements that influence the overall problem but impossible to be picked up with the use of the formal method (Darzenas et al 1994).
Figure 1 shows the rich picture of the different problems that the company is facing, together with the different entities who are involved in the said process. There are major six problems that the company is facing, primarily, the rich picture shows that the customers are always connected to the system and managerial problems of the company.
The first problem pertains to the ordering system of the company. The company is using the traditional method where in the customers will call them via phone or make orders using the snail mail. The orders of the customers will be taken care of the administrator. Due to the manual process of ordering, and the big interference of human on the data, there is always a big possibility for the administrator to process wrong orders of the customers due to misunderstanding and sometimes, environmental interference such as noise. The flaws and errors in the ordering system have a significant effect to the issuance of invoice. Due to some errors in the orders of the customers and other flaws that are connected to the said product, the issuance of the invoice takes 28 days in order to deliver the product and to issue the invoice. The said number of days is long enough to keep the customers waiting.
One of the most important problems of the company is the payment process of their customers, due to the unclear payment agreement between the two said entities; the customers are paying the company in late manners. There are also some situation or case where in customers are taking up 6 months before they pay. The said process is somewhat not good for the financial or money flow of the company. The quality of the products which have been delivered to the customers are also another problem, there are some cases where in the customers are accepting products that are not in good condition.
The marketing department is also having their difficulty in dispersing information about the company. They are still practicing the tradition leaflets methods as their marketing strategy. The said strategy offers limited information that is why the customers have to call the company in order to know more, unfortunately, the company is not available only during office hours.
Figure 1 Rich Picture of the Current System Flow of the Sports-Qits
In order to complete the system, a root definition of the related system is needed. It defines the different agreed upon aspects as well as the belief solution to the problem. Due to the case of the company there are three related system that must be done: the company’s website, the ordering and sales system; and the quality control or checking of products system.
Table 1 CATWOE Analysis of the Sports-Qits Website
The website of the company will handle the marketing strategy or technique that will replace the traditional leaflet method. It will help the company to communicate more with the client 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. Customers will get the information that they needed with just one click of the mouse. It will also handle the product and price list of the company which is considered as one of the most important problems.
Table 2 The CATWOE Analysis of the Ordering and Sales System
The ordering and sales system will handle the financial and product aspect in the relationship of the company and the customers. It will handle the problems of the company with regards to the wrong order information as well as the late delivery of the products. Another thing is that it will monitor the payment scheme and activities of the customers, helping them to pay on time.
Table 3 The CATWOE Analysis of the Quality Control and Product Checking System
The said system will handle the problem of the company with regards to the quality of the product that they are delivering to their customers. This will help the management of the company to maintain the image of the company as efficient and responsible to their products.
Figure 2 Conceptual Model of Sport-Qits Website
Figure 3 Conceptual Framework of Ordering and Sales System
Figure 4 Quality Control and Product Checking System
All of the said related systems are all continuous process. The first system will be started by gathering different historical information and different facts about the company that will be interesting for the customers. After that, the web-developer will design the website with accordance to the image and industry of the company. The final decision of the said design will be based on the decision of the management. After finishing the website and deploying it to the Internet, it will be in great need of maintenance due to the fact that information and data about the company is changing so as the preferences of the customers.
The ordering and sales system will start by enabling the analyst to gather different information of the company that has a connection with its business rules and money and data flow. All of the said information will be given to the programmer, for them to convert the said human language to machine or programming language in order to make the logical design of the system that is connected to the business rule of the company.
C. Feasible and Desirable Changes
The changes that can be done to the company are the changes in: the structure, in the procedure and the attitude within the organization. It is important for the company to apply the Information System and the Internet, in order to improve their performance and connection to their customers. The structure of the company will be changed due to the fact that there will be new department that will handle the IT needs of the company. Another thing is that the employees will be trained in order to handle different IT-based processes.
It is important for the company to jump to the bandwagon of the Internet as well as the e-commerce because it will help them to gain competitive advantage as well as to maintain their strong bond and relationship to their client.
Task 3 – Leadership Style
Leader is the most important part of the group; they are the one who serves as the guide or the head of any activities. It is important for the leader to know his or her members abilities, knowledge and skills in order for them to the fullest. There are different leadership styles that are applicable for a given situation and people. It is important to know the right styles for the right group in order to maintain the good relationship and bonding of each and every member of the group. Leadership style is the method and technique that is used in providing different directions that will help to implement and apply plans and eventually help to motivate people (Clark 2005). The US Army Handbook of 1973 had stated that there are three major leadership styles: the authoritarian or also known as the autocratic; the participative or democratic and the delegative or the free region (cited in Clark 2005).
The first type of leadership is the autocratic leadership, the reason why it is also called as the authoritarian is that it is being tied to the authoritarian personality type (Goethals & Jones 2004, p. 69). In this style of leadership, the leaders tend to tell his or her employees or subordinate about what he or she want to do and how it will be done, without getting or asking for the advice or opinion of his or her members or subordinates (Clark 2005). However, the said leadership style had gained many bad or violent reactions because some of the leaders who are applying the said style are much more likely to prefer punishments over the reward as the key motivator for their members. They also believe that punishment will help the members to function well in a given extremely structured situations. The said style also discourages the participation or the voice of the members or subordinates in decision-making process (Goethals & Jones 2004, p. 69). However, Clark (2005) gave emphasis to the difference between the authoritarian leaders and the bossing people around. Authoritarian leadership style is not a vehicle for screeching, using humiliating languages as well as leading by intimidation, coercion and misusing their power. Bossing people around is the informal type of leadership which can be considered and characterized for being abusive and unprofessional.
The said leadership style is applicable if there is no enough time to be used in order to solve problems but the leader must make sure that all of his or her member are properly and highly motivated (Clark 2005). The said application is the reason why, the autocratic leadership style is used only in rare occasions.
The second type is the participative or democratic leadership. The said style involves the leader, together with one or more employees in the decision-making process, but still, the leader has the final decision about the problem or the situation. This style is considered as strong because it will help the leader to gain respect from their subordinates or their members (Clark 2005).
It also uses the reward system as its primary technique in motivating their employees or subordinates. The main difference between the autocratic leadership and this type is that, it hears or listens to the likes, demands and preferences of the members with accordance to a given or problem of the entire organization. One thing that is good about the said style is that it helps the leader to build up their methodical and self-discipline capabilities towards his or her members (Kumar 2002, p. 205).
The said leadership style is being used if the leader had known some of the part of the information while the members also have their knowledge about the other aspect of the information and data. The said leadership style is also considered as the most beneficial style due to the fact that, it allows the leaders to become part of the team at the same time helping them to make a sound and better decisions (Clark 2005).
The last leadership style is the delegative or the free reign. It tolerates the employees to make the decision, but the responsibility about the decision that has been made still relies on the leaders (Clark 2005).
The said leadership style is best applicable if the employees have the capability to analyze the situation as well as has their capability to determine the things that are needed to be done and the process of doing it. The process of delegation and setting priorities is also important in the said style (Clark 2005). It is also use if the company goal had been thoroughly communicated as well as accepted by those entities who are involved in the decision-making (Harris & Hartman 2001, p. 247).
During the planning and requirements analysis phase of the system it will be best to apply the participative or the democratic leadership. This is due to the fact that the employees are already working for the company for years, and they already have the knowledge and familiarity regarding the flow of data, information and money in the current system of the company. It will help the overall development team to organize as well as manage different information regarding the current situation of the manual system from the current experiences of the employees.
During the proposal of the new system, it is important to consider the opinion of the end-users of the employees from the different department of the company in order to make sure that all of the features of the system will be able to meet the demand of the end-users. That is the reason why participative is use. Another thing is that, it will also help the company to make the employees feel that they are involved in the ongoing changes that are happening in the company.
The said style is also applicable during the implementation of the plan. This is in order to manage the impact of the technological as well as structural change, together with other important changes that will happen to the company. The said change can affect the mentality of the employees of the company that might cause refusal to change due to negative thinking about their positions and roles in the company.
Furthermore, the said style of leadership will also open several doors for great reward system that will enable the company to gain competitive advantage by improving the quality of their human resource via the use of motivation.
Task 4 – Communication, Mentoring and Coaching
Communication is one of the most important aspects of human’s life. It is considered as important because it creates a bond between the lead one person to another, one group to another and one nation to another. It is a medium that helped many organizations to implement and practice different techniques and tactics with accordance to the goal and mission of the company. Communication is define by the Encarta Dictionary of English as the exchange of the different information between people via the means of speaking, writing and other means of communication with the use of one standard system of signs and behavior. It can also be defined as the process of sending and receiving message by means of different symbols (Diederick & Wolff 1998, p. 387). It is also considered as one of the most important element within an organizational climate (Diederick & Wolff 1998, p. 388).
The application of the new system to the company will means as a huge organizational change. Organizational change is the organization-wide change like adding new technologies, implementation of new software or system, reconstruction of the mission, process of layoffs, mergers and other major collaborations, including application of large new programs (Carter M 2008). The said process is important because it will help to manage the change in the overall industry and global market, where in the business or the organization is involved. Organizational change is the results of different driving force such as the budgets, new markets or new clients, increase in the productivity as well as the emergence of new technology and new competitor (Carter M 2008).
A. Communication
Organizational change is not that easy, there are many flaws and problems that the company is going to change, more primarily to the reactions and feelings of the employees towards the application and implementation of computerized system. Communication will play an important role for the management of the company to explain the reasons or the importance of the said organizational change for the operations and performance of the company.
Effective communication will be helpful throughout the development and implementation of the different plans of the system. It can be used by the analyst as well as the programmers, together with the different members of the development team in order to ensure that all of the necessary information and data that will be needed in order to develop the system will be organized and managed. During the first phase, which is the planning and requirements analysis, communication is very important due to the fact that, the said phase is considered as the most critical of all, because all of the different problematic situations are all being analyze, it will serve as the primary data in developing appropriate solution to the problem that will help the programmers and the developers to plan the physical as well as the logical design of the programs that will meet the demand of the different problems.
It is also important in the said phase, because, different entities in the project development have their own perspective regarding the situation. That is why it is important for the project team leader to communicate well with the analyst, the programmers, the end-users, the customers as well as the management itself. This is to ensure that all of the point-of-view of the different entities involved is being analyzed in order to use it for the final physical and logical design of the system as well as in the development process.
It is also the role of the management to communicate to their employees in different medium such as memo but seminars or meetings are more of an advantage. This is due to the fact that it will develop a direct or personal communication between the representative of the company and the employees. The company must explain to their employees that application of the said technology will help them to enhance as well as improve the flow of data, information, product as well as money inside the company. The company must also understand that the application of IT, IS and other related technologies are one of the most misunderstood issues inside the organizations. Due to the said reason, they must understand the fear that the employees are feeling towards the change. There are always notion that robots will replace the human workers, and the different software and computerized systems will replaced the service and brain of the human. In addition to that, most of the employees respond to the organizational change like how they respond in their individual lost as well as anguish. More often than not, employees are having the sentiment or reaction of distress as well as the rejection when a company had already declared about their implementation of a certain organizational change (FEAP n.d., p. 1).
That is why it is important to communicate to them by informing and telling them facts that they wanted to know as well as information that will leave them in peace such as the different benefits of the computerization and other organizational change to the overall performance of the company.
Mentoring and Coaching
Sometimes the terms mentoring and coaching are used interchangeably but sometimes it has a great difference (McKeown 2002, p. 193). Both of the two said terms are considered as a process, but coaching pertains to the process of enabling as well as helping, while mentoring is the supportive process (Parsloe 2000, p. 82).
B. Coaching
Coaching will be helpful during the implementation of the system. The said activity can help the end-users of the system from the different departments of the company to know more about how to use and manipulate the different subsystems and features of the system that will enable them to go through the different transactions of the company. Coaching will be helpful for the employees because it will help to remove their fear about the use of the new technology. Another thing is that, due to the fact that the employees are not computer literate, it will add up to their fear and might cause of refusal to use due to their fear to make mistake. With the help of training and coaching, the employees will be able to be familiar with the different feature and process of the system. It will also help them to be comfortable about the use of the system.
Coaching will also help greatly those employees who are not that familiar with the computer and other related hardware that the company will be using. It will be great if the company will set up some training session about the fundamental information about the computer, like its part as well as other devices that the company is using like the receipt printer and the likes. By doing those things, the employee will be able to basic about the computer; therefore it will help them to learn the different process in easy way. This can be done before the actual implementation of the system in order to give the employees the necessary background regarding the usage of the new and improved computerized system of the company.
It can also be used during the implementation by the project team leader when he or she will review all of the works of the members. The leader will call for a meeting and will analyze it regarding the goals and objectives of the company as well as the project. When a specific aspect of the project will not be done with accordance to the goals, the leader will advised regarding the areas in order to prevent the unsatisfactory development of the project.
C. Mentoring
Coaching pertains to the first or initial learning that is given or taught to the employees. Mentoring is just like maintenance where in it helped the employees to be more attached or connected to the system. Mentoring will help the company to lessen or remove the discomfort of the employees towards the system. Discomfort and lack of confident of the end user of the system might cause different problems to the management such as repetition of the task and prolonging the time that is being spent to a given transaction.
It is also the process of showing the employees on how to get along in the new organization and technologies in the street sense that is called as the learning ropes (Cook 1999, p. 106).
In the case of the project of the Sport-Qits, mentoring can be used in order to help the individual members to develop. During the implementation of the system, mentoring can be used as a process where in the team leader as well as the developer supports the different members of the team regarding the different expertise about technical issues. It will be helpful during the development phase of the project.
Furthermore, it can also be helpful during the actual implementation of the system, by helping the end-users of the system be more familiar with the technical aspects of the system.
References
Carter, N 2008, Basic Context for Organizational Change, Authenticity Consulting, LLC, Free Management Library, viewed 12 March 2008, <http://www.managementhe lp.org/mgmnt/orgchnge.htm>
Clark, D 2005, Leadership Styles, nwlink.com, viewed 12 March 2008, <http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadstl.html>
Coady, J., Rich Pictures and their Effectiveness, viewed 5 September,2007, <http:// 72.1 4.235.104/search?q=cache:uMSJLUy8HsQJ:www.syros.aegean.gr/users/tsp/citations_dnl/Masters_Rich.doc+meaning+of+rich+picture&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2>
Cook, M , Effective Coaching, McGraw-Hill Professional
Córdoba, J 2003, Soft Systems Methodology, The University of Hull, viewed 10 March 11, 2008, < http://www.hull.ac.uk/php/sbsjrc/Teaching/Learning%20resources/S ystems%20thinking/Soft%20Systems%20Methodologies.ppt>
Diederik, P J, Wolff, C J & Thierry, H 1998, Handbook of Work and Organizational Psychology, Psychology Press
Goethals, G, Sorenson, G J & Burns, J M 2004, Encyclopedia of Leadership, SAGE
FEAP NEWSLETTER: Managing Organizational Change. Faculty & Employee Assistance Program. University of Virginia Health System. Viewed 13 March 2008,<http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/feap/newslette rs/managing-org.-change.pdf>
Harris, J & Hartman, S 2001, Organizational Behavior, Haworth Press
Korper, S & Ellis, J 2001, The E-Commerce Book: Building the E-Empire, Morgan Kaufmann
Kumar, N 2002, Organizational Behaviour, Anmol Publications PVT, LTD.
McKeown, L 2002, Retaining Top Employees. McGraw-Hill Professional
Parsloe, E 2000, Coaching and Mentoring: Practical Methods to Improve Learning, Kogan Page
Reynolds, J 2004, The Complete E-Commerce Book: Design, Build & Maintain a Successful Web-based System, Focal Press
Rich Pictures, systems.open.ac.uk, viewed 13 March 2008, <http://systems.open.ac.u k/materials/t552/pages/rich/richAppendix.html>
Williams, B 2005, Soft System Methodology,Actrox.co.nz, viewed 11 March 2008, <http ://users.actrix.co.nz/bobwill/ssm.pdf>
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment