Question

You are required to undertake an in-depth study of the Case Study and answer the questions that follows: ISSUU: Flousihing on Internet When it comes to doing global digital business, ISSUU sells digital products in the form of templates and extensions that are used with the open source content management system (CMS) Joomla. The Joomla CMS allows anyone with at least a limited knowledge pf Website construction or internet technologies to start a Web site. Joomla essentially puts advanced Web technology at the fingertips of 'newbies'. Current estimates suggest that Joomla is being used on 1.5 to 2 million Web sites globally. Andy Miller, a former member of the core developer group of the award winning Joomla CMS, started the ISSUU template club with the goal of making professional-looking Web sites available to the average Internet user. Competition in the industry is fierce. However, ISSUU attempts to differentiate itself from other template clubs through originally, a user-oriented focus, and flexibility of design. Currently, it is branching out into other different CMS markets, providing templates for other open source CMS solutions, such as Drupal, WordPress, and phpBB3. ISSUU sells its products directly to its customers through a membership system. Growth of the club is mainly organic. For each type of membership, ISSUU charges a different fee. Members are differentiating by whether they are light or heavy users (e.g., regular members vs. developer members), which is visible through the pricing schedule. Marketing efforts are targeted at the online community. To attract new customers, ISSUU uses an affiliate system and makes use of Google ads. The ISSUU template club was launched in 2006 and has experience exponential growth. According to Miller, "I started the ISSUU Template Club with a whopping three templates in the inventory. Membership has steadily grown since that time probably due to the increase in number of available templates. It's been a relatively consistent ride and 1 think a huge part of that is just due to how great, Joomla is and how it's popularity has risen. Sure, some templates are more popular that others, that is just the way these things work. 1 try to ensure that we provide a very well-rounded selection of designs, not just the same old "business" templates every month." How did the club get its start? Miller says, "I have been involved in Web development since my days in University, back in the early 90s, when hypertext was a new concept and gopher was the most common method of sharing information across networks. 1 was computer engineering major and quickly got caught up in the excitement around the internet. Anyway, long story short. I've been doing web development ever since." ISSUU is privately owned, Miller is the sole partner of the ISSUU Limited Liability Corporation (LLC). As much, he is also the day-to-day operational manager. Miller focuses on energizing his staff and creating a common goal for his employees-the success of the ISSUU template club. The organization can be characterized as flat and nonbereaucratic. It has full time staff of 12 and has 14 support staff. The support staff consists mainly of subcontractors and several volunteers. New staff are attracted straight from the ISSUU community or from online advertisement. Thus, the organizational structure is fluid and flexible. The organization retains specialists from different parts of the world, highly skilled in their respective fields. ISSUU presently has a user base of well over 40,000 registered members. It stands out because of its international orientation and collaboration. The team responsible for support and development of new templates and extensions is an international team consisting of members from around the globe- the United States, England, Italy, Holland, Germany, India, Canada, Poland, Greece and Japan-from different backgrounds and different age groups. All communication and information exchange between the employees of ISSUU and between ISSUU and its customers performed using the electronic superhighway. ISSUU attracts its customers from allover the globe; like its team; its customers come from different backgrounds, different age groups, and different countries. The target group of customers is, in essence, anyone who wishes to run a Web site using the Joomla CMS. ISSUU focuses mainly on development of templates for the different content management systems to which it caters. Other services provided are mainly in the area of support. Customer support is provided through an online forum in which ISSUU club members can post their template and extension-related questions and general problems with Joomla. The online community at ISSUU.com and its collaborative atmosphere is representative of open source ideals. It is one of the pillars of ISSUU's success. Your report should include: 1. What are ISSUU's business processes, and what information systems can be used to support these processes? 2. How can these systems improve ISSUU's business performance? 3. What is ISSUU's business-critical information system? 4. What information system could possibly improve ISSUU's business performance? A general description of the organization, its business concerns, and various approaches to managing, information and MIS currently adopted. You are expected to make extensive fieldwork, collecting information from the organization through studying available documents and literature, journals, websites, newsletter etc

Answer 1

1. What are ISSUU's business processes, and what information systems can be used to support these processes?
Ans. A process is a series of tasks that are completed in order to accomplish a goal. A business process, therefore, is a process that is focused on achieving a goal for a business. If you have worked in a business setting, you have participated in a business process. Anything from a simple process for making a sandwich at Subway to building a space shuttle utilizes one or more business processes.
Enforcing best practices is the information system that is user to support business processes. As an organization implements processes supported by information systems, it can work to implement the best practices for that class of business process. In our example, the organization may want to require that all customers returning a product without a receipt show a legal ID. This requirement can be built into the system so that the return will not be processed unless a valid ID number is entered.

2. How can these systems improve ISSUU's business performance?
Ans. Instead of embedding outdated processes in silicon and software, we should obliterate them and start over. We should “reengineer” our businesses: use the power of modern information technology to radically redesign our business processes in order to achieve dramatic improvements in their performance.

3. What is ISSUU's business-critical information system?
Ans. Organizations that are serious about improving their business processes will also create structures to manage those processes. Business process management (BPM) can be thought of as an intentional effort to plan, document, implement, and distribute an organization’s business processes with the support of information technology.
BPM is more than just automating some simple steps. While automation can make a business more efficient, it cannot be used to provide a competitive advantage. BPM, on the other hand, can be an integral part of creating that advantage.
Not all of an organization’s processes should be managed this way. An organization should look for processes that are essential to the functioning of the business and those that may be used to bring a competitive advantage. The best processes to look at are those that include employees from multiple departments, those that require decision-making that cannot be easily automated, and processes that change based on circumstances.

4. What information system could possibly improve ISSUU's business performance?
Ans. Reengineering our businesses. Already explained for Question 2.