Question

This case assignment draws from the Business Information Systems and the Systems Acquisition and Development modules (Chapters 5 to 8). Its purpose is to provide you with experience in analyzing organizational information systems, making recommendations to improve these systems, and formulating a plan to execute on your recommendations.

Questions (Individual Case Analysis)

1. Describethemainissueinthecase.Inotherwords,whatisthebigproblemorchallengethatneedstobe addressed? Clearly describe why you see this as the main issue.

2. Analyzethequalitativeandquantitativedatathatthecasepresents.Whatdoestheinformationinthe case tell you about the main issue and the effect it is having on the company? Make sure you draw conclusions from your analysis.

3. Identifyanddescribetwocomplete,distinctalternativesolutionstothemainissuethatyouranalysis suggests as being relatively likely to successfully resolve the main issue. Consider both the short and long term in formulating your alternatives.

4. What are the key 4-5 decision criteria that should be used to identify the best alternative? Make sure you define and clearly explain why these are the key decision criteria.

5. Recommendoneofyouralternativesthatisthebestsolutiontothemainissueandjustifyyour recommendation. Your justification should be based on the key decision criteria and you must clearly explain why the chosen alternative is better than the other alternative. It is recommended that you use a weighted decision matrix as part of the recommendation justification.

6. Describewhichimplementationcutoverstrategyyouwoulduseandwhy?Youmustfullyjustifywhythis cutover strategy is the best one for the solution you recommended.

Formatting

The case

Little Corp., a bicycle manufacturer located in Burlington, Ontario was a medium sized business that consisted of just over 200 employees. Of these employees, approximately 50 worked in the office while the remaining 150 employees worked in the manufacturing and warehouse facilities. Little Corp. designed, manufactured, assembled and shipped high-end bicycles (both road bikes as well as mountain bikes) both directly to end consumers as well as to retailers across North America. In the last year, Little Corp. sold over 30,000 bicycles at an average price of $1,000.

After 10 years of growth, Little Corp was beginning to feel the strains of a small organization that was rapidly becoming too large to continue operating in the way that it had in the past. Until quite recently decisions had largely been made informally by company founder, Catherine Kuijpers, based on her knowledge of the business and her industry expertise. Although Catherine was as engaged as ever with Little Corp.’s growth, over the past two years it had become clear to her that she needed to introduce more formal systems to ensure that this growth was sustainable. With its most recent annual sales now in excess of $30 million, the company was simply becoming too big to make informal decisions. There was too much at stake and resources were being wasted by decisions that had been made without sufficient analysis. Hence, over the past year the company had begun to introduce formal processes in a wide range of areas including employee recruitment and strategic planning efforts. This latter effort, in particular, had pleased Catherine as it had yielded a set of clear objectives and performance metrics that were now being used to guide organizational decisions.

From a background perspective, prior to founding Little Corp., Catherine had worked at a very large bicycle manufacturer headquartered in the north eastern United States. After more than a dozen years working in various operational and marketing roles at this organization, she identified an opportunity to manufacture high- end bicycles that could be sold at a premium price. After some discussion with family and colleagues, she decided to return to Canada to pursue this opportunity. Many challenges arose during the early years of the business including challenges related to where product development efforts should be focused, how to establish and develop relationships with new and prospective customers and retailers, and how to acquire access to cost effective manufacturing capabilities. In many cases the financial and other pressures were such that hasty decisions were made that largely aimed to quickly resolve whatever crisis was at hand.

  

Short-term thinking was also evident in information systems decision making. Over time, Little Corp. had acquired a wide range of information systems that had been implemented to address specific problems as they arose. At present, the organization was operating and maintaining over 50 separate systems that addressed needs across all functional areas. Most of these systems did not interface with the other systems at Little Corp. The major systems included a financial accounting system, a production planning system, an employee time- tracking system, payroll system, two product labeling systems, a knowledge management system, three shipping systems provided by the company’s three main shipment service providers, and a wide range of personal productivity tools.

Among the systems that had been introduced was a system to keep track of employee compensation and benefits. This had been developed by a small vendor that had since ceased operations. As a result, human resources staff were regularly required to make “adjustments” to system data to support changes in employment practices and legislation. Every second week the data from this system was exported to an Excel spreadsheet and sent to an online payroll service provider that was responsible for handling employee salary and benefit payments. Reports were generated by the payroll service provider after employees were paid and these reports were then used to manually update Little’s internal compensation and benefit system.

Accounting and manufacturing staff experienced similar frustrations as both departments were using systems that relied on considerable manual data entry. The lack of integration between accounting and manufacturing systems was also problematic. For example, although orders were entered into the financial accounting system (based on the Excel spreadsheets that were used), the details of these orders needed to then be transferred via other Excel spreadsheets to manufacturing staff. Manufacturing would then use this information to plan production, acquire necessary raw materials, and ship finished product to Little’s customers. Sales, marketing, and accounting staff had only limited insight into raw material orders or the manufacturing process such that an email or text message was often necessary to determine the status of orders and verify the need for payment. In some instances, products had been shipped to customers without invoicing these customers. Issues such as this were embarrassing and they were having negative implications for Little Corp’s operational and financial performance.

A recent problem with the compensation and benefit system that delayed payment of employee salaries led Catherine to think once again about what to do with Little Corp’s current mix of aging and often incompatible systems. Her IT manager was a long-term employee who seemed to be able to keep current systems running but the world had changed a great deal in the last ten years. Consumers were now highly connected with mobile services having become the norm, particularly among the types of people that typically purchased Little Corp’s bikes. These consumers had come to expect mobile service options, access to real time information concerning the order status of their bikes, rapid assistance in the event of bike failures and warranty repairs. In short, there seemed to be many new opportunities for Catherine to consider in light of the technological and social changes that had been taking place. Almost too many opportunities!

Answer 1

Ques 1: Describe the main issue in the case.In other words,what is the big problem or challenge that needs to be addressed? Clearly describe why you see this as the main issue.

Ans 1: Little Corp. desperately needed a formal way to ensure that the growth of the company was sustainable. The biggest issue that the company faced was that there were over 50 system that were build to address the needs and requirements of all functional units, but these 50 systems were not strongly co-ordinated with each other. Rather, the interfaces amonst them were weak. The biggest drawback was the manual updation of the reports. In the world of growing science and technology, where most of the things are becoming automatic, Little corp. still relied on manual system entries. It also requires to provide a real time system and better mobile services to the consumers so that they can flexible place orders and enquire about their order status.

These following lines from the passage reflect that manual updation of system and lack of integration between different fucntional units of the organization was the biggest problem.

" Staff from human resources department were required to make “adjustments” to system data. This data from this system was exported to an Excel spreadsheet and sent to an online payroll service provider that was responsible for handling employee salary and benefit payments. Reports were generated by the payroll service provider and these reports were then used to manually update Little’s internal compensation and benefit system. Accounting and manufacturing staff experienced similar frustrations as they relied on considerable manual data entry. The lack of cooordination between accounting and manufacturing systems was also problematic. Sales, marketing, and accounting staff had only limited knowledge about raw material orders or the manufacturing process. In some cases, products had been shipped to customers without invoicing these customers. Issues such as this were embarrassing and they were having negative implications for Little Corp’s operational and financial performance."

Ques 2: Analyze the qualitative and quantitative data that the case presents.What does the information in the case tell you about the main issue and the effect it is having on the company? Make sure you draw conclusions from your analysis.

The case chiefly talks about four major issues:

1. Lack of coordination between major systems like financial accounting system, a production planning system, an employee time- tracking system, payroll system, two product labeling systems, a knowledge management system, three shipping systems provided by the company’s three main shipment service providers, and a wide range of personal productivity tools.

2. The manual dependency of the organization for entering and updating data.

3. A quick need to introduce formal system and take decisions with sufficient analysis.

4. Need to adapt to real time technonolgical system and better mobile connectivity services to be able address the consumers so that they can easily place their orders and enquire about them.

Due to lack of efficient technical tools in the orgranisation, lots of challenges were faced by acccounting and manufacturing staff. Sales, marketing, and accounting staff had only limited knowledge about raw material orders or and couold not determine the status of orders and verify the need for payment. In some instances, products had been shipped to customers without invoicing these customers. Such issues were embarrasing and they were having negative impacts on operational and financial performance of Little Corp.

Ques 3: Identify and describe two complete,distinct alternative solutions to the main issue that your analysis suggests as being relatively likely to successfully resolve the main issue. Consider both the short and long term in formulating your alternatives.

Alternative 1: To get rid of manual data entry and updation of records, the organisation should learn, practice and adapt new technical skills to handle large data and improve inter- departmental connectivity so that every department of the organisation gets access to adequate information required to plan production, acquire necessary raw materials, and ship finished product to Little’s customers. To improve networking between departments as well as connectivity with customers various scheduling methods can be adopted, to send emails and text messages.

Alternative 2: A formal perspective and analytical decision making is extremely crucial in today's world to for any businnes to grow and flourish. So organization should study, analyse and adapt latest marketing strategies to esnure wholesome growth of the organisation.

Ques 4: What are the key 4-5 decision criteria that should be used to identify the best alternative? Make sure you define and clearly explain why these are the key decision criteria.

1. Strategic Planning : Scheduling tasks in various departmennts, analyzing previous sales data, taking necessary formal decisions and outlining a stragtegy that leads to greater profits require careful and well planned startegy for any business firm.

2. Innovative Ideas: Any out of the box idea which is feasible and brings about greater efficiency in a work place and bigger satisfcation to the end consumer always profits the firm.

3. Technological advancement: Since technology is advancing everyday, so adapting latest technological methods for decision making and problem solving, analysing and predicting data and further taking mandatory and wise steps greatly benefits a firm. With technology,  efforts in production decreases, rate of production increases which further increases employee's efficiency to hit larger targets per day. The entire manufacturing, prodcuing and shipping system becomes automatic and speedy.

4. Networking : For any firm to grow and flourish, networking and connectivity between inter-departments within the firm and with the end consumers is extremely important. Networking ensures that relevant information reaches timely to every department so that each department can work on the data provided.