Case Study Coffee Construction Australia †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Case Study Coffee Construction Australia. Answer: Introduction The Information Technology Management is the procedure where all the resources associated to Information Technology are handled as per Companys requirements and priorities (Schwalbe 2015). The Information Technology Management is this report is discussed to investigate best practice Information Systems for Coffee Construction Australia. Coffee Construction Australia is an old-style family owned business which deals with construction projects. The purpose of this report is to examine the best practices of Information System that could be used by the Company to support different areas of business and managing projects. The report investigates various Information Systems useful for Coffee Construction Australia to provide best practices for the Companys growth. The report focuses on the various aspects of Information System to implement in Coffee Construction Australia. The functional areas, sale, marketing, human resource, finance and accounting and quality management, of Coffee Constr uction Australia are evaluated in this report (Cassidy 2016). The various aspects include best practices of Information System, the business areas supported by Information System and how Information System could be used to manage projects. The structure of this report is business value proposition for best practice Information Systems, functional areas supported by Information System and how project manager manages project through Information System. The business value proposition is described in this report to get an overview of what Information System will provide to Coffee Construction Australia Company. The reason of choosing Information System for the Company is also provided to understand what benefits it will provide to the Company. Information System used by competitors/similar Companies The information systems used by the competitors for their business management are various and they are adopted by the Companies. The Companies are using decision support system, transaction processing system, enterprise resource planning, business modeling system, project management information system and supply chain management system. These information systems are used for driving the business functions in an organization. The companies, in todays scenario, are focusing on growing their business globally and being globally competitive in the market. The study also shows that organizations other than construction organizations have also adopted Information Systems for their business growth (Cassidy 2016). The organizations are adopting Information Systems as per their requirement and needs. The example of this is given as follows. Transaction processing systems serve at the operational level of the organizations such as payment systems, to provide regular transaction updates to the organization management. Management Information Systems serve as an assistant to transactions processing activities in organizations such as management reporting system. Decision Support System serves at managerial level in organizations such as group decision support systems. The information system such as supply chain management is widely used in manufacturing companies. The supply chain management system provides management tasks throughout business process life cycle (Abu Al-Rejal et al. 2017). The supply chain management provides information on product availability and information regarding customer services. The other organization such as telecommunication companies in Yemen has adopted management information systems to enhance their overall business performances (Al-Mamary, Shamsuddin and Abdul Hamid 2014). The management information system helps to compile, process and store various information. The major competitor of Coffee Construction Australia, ABC Construction Company, is using Information System as a main element for growing their business (Garrigos et al. 2018). The primary Information System used by ABC Construction is Enterprise Resource Planning system. The above scenarios show the adoption of Information Systems in different organizatio ns. Business value proposition The business value propositions for Information Systems are given in the following paragraph to identify why Coffee Construction Australia should adopt Information Systems. The Information Systems in todays scenario gives major benefits to organizations and it helps in growing business functions and operations (Stair and Reynolds 2017). The major benefits provided by different Information Systems are better communication, operations management, decision making, record keeping, risk of errors are reduced and high productivity. The Information System facilitates coordination among the team members in an organization for managing projects. The Information System helps to integrate applications to fit with overall goals and objectives of an organization (Eason 2014). The Information Systems provides a major factor that is innovation. This factor helps to extract ideas and values from Information Systems which in turn helps the organization to grow economically. The Information System also provides competitive advantages to an organization such as maximizing customer service and providing satisfaction. The improvement in market share can also be achieved due to Information System. The above benefits shows the importance of Information System in an organization whether construction company or any other company. The investment in Information System will result in improved business practices and productivity. The adoption of Information Systems should be looked from business value perspective to achieve the goals and objective of an organization (Marnewick 2016). However, the adoption of Information System poses some challenges which need to be looked upon for better implementation of Information System. The major factor in adopting Information System is Information Technology infrastructure, cost of maintenance and appropriate knowledge of Information System. The further sections discuss on what Information Systems will be adopted by Coffee Construction Australia. The recommendations for adopting Information Systems are also included in the report. Supporting Business Functional Areas This section focuses on the different functional areas of business and reason of using Information System in the organization. The functional areas for business in this section are chosen as per business success requirements. The standard functional areas are sales department, marketing department, human resource department, finance and accounting department and quality management department. The sales department in a business is necessary in an organization. The sales department is responsible for dealing with clients and generating orders. The sales department generates order through various techniques (Al-Mamary, Shamsuddin and Abdul Hamid 2014). These techniques are telephonic sales, advertisement, door-to-door sales, and direct sales by representatives. The sales department does not only generate orders through new customers but also from existing orders. The sales department takes orders from clients and communicates the order details to the organization for further processing. The marketing department is responsible for identifying and meeting clients requirements. The marketing department is considered important to identify clients present and future need to increase organizations revenue. The mar keting department in an organization uses marketing mix to achieve their goal and objectives. The marketing mix includes product, price, promotion and place. The product defines the product needed by the target customers at appropriate price with suitable promotion strategies and place where promotion will highly achieve. The human resources department is responsible for dealing with organizations staff and recruitment of new employees. The human resources department deals with their staff on daily basis and trains their staff to achieve the required goals and objectives of the organization. The human resources department also deals with recruitment of new employees to fill the vacant position by the suitable person. The training and development of new and existing staff is done by the human resources department (Zarkovic, Cetkovic and Knezevic 2015). The finance and accounting department is responsible for communicating information across all departments in an organization to ensure the successful operation of business. The finance department requires making decision quick and fast based on the information from sales, marketing and production department. The annual revenue growth and market position is taken care by finance and accounting department. The quality management department is responsible f or ensuring the excellence of services, products and internal processes in an organization. This helps to achieve high success among the customers. The quality management department uses information to identify issues, faults and weaknesses in the overall process, services and products of the organization. The department is also responsible to provide solutions for improvements in these areas. Reason of using Information Systems The reasons for using Information Systems for the above described functional areas of an organization are described in the following paragraph. The Information System plays an important role in business operations. The above described functional areas and other sub-functional areas of a business require Information System to enhance the overall business operations. The marketing and sales department requires huge investments to market the products and services. This department needs Information System to get details information of new market trends, product details, improving sales, publishing products and others. The human resources department requires details of all staff and training of new staff (Bryman and Bell 2015). This department needs Information System to store details of staff and their training and development. The finance department requires details of overall business economy and revenue. This department needs Information System to calculate salary of staff, expenses of the organization, overdue payment and other costs. The quality management department requires extensive assessment and testing of products and services. This department needs Information System to assess and quality checks the services, products and internal process quickly. Therefore, these areas along with other functional areas in an organization require Information System to achieve successful business growth. The different types of Information Systems for different functional areas are discussed in the next section. This section helps to understand how project manager will manage projects using various Information Systems. The more valuable Information System is also discussed to be necessary used by the project manager. Using Various Information System to help manage projects The various Information Systems useful in todays scenario are given in the following paragraph. The Enterprise Resources Planning system is the Information System that will help the organization in improving all the functional areas discussed in the prior section. The Enterprise Resources Planning system supports the above discussed functional areas that are sales, marketing, human resources, finance and accounting and quality management (Seethamraju 2015). These areas are grouped together as Enterprise Resources Planning modules. Finance and accounting: This module includes fixed asset, payables which includes vouchering, general ledger, matching and then payment, cash applications and collections having receivables capability and cash management. Human Resources: This module includes recruitment, training, payroll, benefits, retirement, separation and diversity management in workplace. Sales and Marketing: This module includes storage of presales activities, details of clients visit, expenses, invoicing, shipping, forecasting and analysis of competitors. Quality Management: This module includes procurement and subcontract procedures for products and services, storage of materials with daily quality checks, quality checks of production, quality inspection and assessing project tasks. The above Information System provides wide range of functions to an organization. However, for the complete management and success of an organization especially Coffee Construction Australia, additional Information Systems are required. The other Information Systems are required for Operations Management Department (Pearlson, Saunders and Galletta 2016). The Information Systems for Operation Management areas in an organization are discussed as follows. The supply chain management system provides benefits to organizations with minimized cost effects, maximized efficiency rate, increased output and increased profit in business. The other benefits are boost in organizational work environment, minimize the delay in processes and improved supply chain network for the organization. The supply chain management is stores details of raw materials, movements of goods, goods consumption and inventory processes. The computer-aided design (CAD) provides benefits to organizations such as minimized error percentage, decreased effort, time saving, improved accuracy and sharing is easy. Computer-aided design system is used for designing and drafting in organizations to increase the productivity and quality. The decision support system provides valuable decision making process to the organizations. This system stores the overall information of the organization and the upper management is then responsible to analyze the essential information to take appropriate decisions for the organization (Mahadevan 2015). The project management information system provides up-to-date details of information on project work. This information is then used to make appropriate decisions for the organization. The project management information system improves the management and provides a competitive advantage in the market. The budget and schedule is tracked, documents are managed and better information is provided to improve the decision making. Therefore, suitable Information Systems to align with the business functional areas of Coffee Construction Australia are Enterprise Resources Planning system and Computer-aided design system. It is appropriate for all business functional areas. Hence, Enterprise Resources Planning should be aligned to solve problems related to all the functional areas of business. Valuable Information System Coffee Construction Australia should use the above Information Systems for the complete management of their businesses. The Enterprise Resources Planning will be used by the Project Manager as follows. The project manager will use ERP to monitor and manage the cost, resources for the project and deployment of the project (Galliers and Leidner 2014). The ERP is used for understanding client requirements and deigning responsibilities to each module to achieve success in business. The third use is to manage end-to-end coordination and completion of business projects. The fourth is providing training and support to the staff. The project manager uses ERP to predict and manage risks and timely reporting of the project status. The Company has existing technologies, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Office suite, Office Automation System and Gmail, to facilitate their business functions. These existing technologies along with new technologies will help Coffee Construction Australia. Conclusion Therefore, from above conclusion it can be concluded that Information System are necessary for Coffee Construction Australia Company. The Information System introduction in Coffee Construction Australia Company will improve its overall business. The various Information Systems are Enterprise Planning Resource, decision support system, project management information system, computer-aided design and supply chain management system are discussed in this report. The Coffee Construction Australia Company has problems regarding managing the large volumes of data. Hence, Information Systems will help them to improve their business operations. The report also suggests recommendations for the proper adoption and maintenance of Information Systems in Coffee Construction Australia Company. The Information System will reduce human effort and provide quick and easy solutions in each department of Coffee Construction Australia Company. Recommendations The recommendations for using best practice Information Systems for functional areas of Coffee Construction Australia are discussed as follows. Identifying the areas of business- The identification and knowledge of business areas are necessary to evaluate the necessary requirements of Information Systems in various areas. Knowing various numbers of vendors- The organization should evaluate number of vendors providing Information Systems. This will help to manage costs and other aspects of business. Training and Development of employees- The training and development of employees is necessary to make them well versed with the existing and new technologies. The employees should be prepared to use new Information Systems. Getting the required Information System- The required Information System should only be adopted in the organization to manage the unnecessary requirements. The areas which require Information System should only be analyzed to implement new Information System. Being prepared for the changes- The organization should be prepared for the changes that new Information Systems poses. 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