Business Scenario Analysis Of Louis gardens ICT Management

Question

Assessment Task: In this assessment, you will first of all go through the scenario below.

Scenario : Louis Gardens (LG) is a new Sydney company selling and distributing garden tools and materials with stock obtained from different local suppliers, specialised in attractive, useful and popular items for mostly home users and also commercial users. LG has experienced business growth over the last two years. Currently, all the business administrative and management activities such as sales, marketing, warehousing, purchasing, staff payroll and customer service are carried out with little use of information and communication technology (ICT). The administrative staff notice its importance but finds it hard to market products online, when a similar business started to do so. Presently, an individual price tag is put on each product for sales on the shelves along all isles. A customer needs help to locate products. Too much time is taken for the service staff members to help customers with their requests. When a product is sold, it is recorded on the portfolio roll at the sales terminal, as well as a receipt printed for the customer. Stocktaking and reorder is done manually by checking items remaining on the shelves and recording items to be ordered. If customers want to know the availability of an item, they have to come to the store or ring and talk to a customer service staff.

The owners seriously consider the need for staying competitive in time of their business growth in order to effectively retain their regular and new customers. This requires effective use and management of IT. They need an effective technological solution to solve their problems, so that they can provide quality services and sustain their business.

Analyse the above scenario, identifying and reporting on the following areas:

1. As a Business Analyst (BA), perform a business knowledge audit particularly about the functional units, jobs and roles (who, why, how, what, where and when) for the provided scenario. Provide a brief statement of the problem and business case from the perspective of a BA.
2. Identify the information to be collected from people with each functional unit’s job knowledge and roles, and include knowledge sources for such information (stakeholder analysis).
3. Document the business context, the main business processes with functional relation between processes, and justify the appropriateness of any useful cited diagram or your own developed diagram using a modelling tool.
4. Conclude your findings.

You will have to create an e-portfolio using a software tool named Mahara. You need to make it private with a secret URL, as it will be requested during the marking process.

You can progressively work on your portfolio creating an e-portfolio and entering your responses.

You will need knowledge from the required topics covered in Weeks 4 – 7. You should complete the readings suggested in weekly sections provided in the unit Moodle website for these weeks progressively and attempt different parts of your assessment.

Use other references outside of the suggested readings from credible resources to support your presented ideas and strengthen your explanations.

Answer

Introduction
The report is based on a particular business scenario. The scenario provides information about a company named Louis Gardens. This company has started its business very recently in Sydney. The company collects its stock from the suppliers who provide them different types of materials and tools. With those tools and materials, The Company manufactures necessary products, which are attractive in design and have importance for the users. The products can be used commercially as well as domestically. The company has seen improvement in its business for approximately two years. There are different types of activities in management and administration in the company. Marketing, sales, purchasing, warehousing, customer service, staff payroll, etc. Are some of them Information and communication technology has not been used very widely in all these areas of business. For the marketing of the products, utilizing ICT is very important, as the employees associated with the administration of the company have felt it. A similar kind of company has already applied ICT in their marketing strategy. it makes LG face more difficulties in using ICT in their online marketing of the products. The company faces some problems very recently. For understanding the proper location of the products, help is needed greatly by the customers. It consumes a lot of time to provide information to the customers. As the company does not use ICT, the staffs check the available items manually. The customers are also facing problems largely as for every information related to the products, they have to come to the store and wait for the response of the employees. In this particular report, the background of the business has been explained with its business problems. In the next segments, the opportunities for improvement in the business, the required business solution by applying ICT will be discussed. The stakeholders of the business will be identified. A system solution will be provided for the business problem. The business processes related to the system will also be discussed in the report.

Business case
The improvement of any kind of business depends largely on the utilization of information and communication technology. For applying ICT, the companies such as a personal computer, mobile phone, use different types of devices, laptop, etc. these devices are very essential for any kind of business organization like Louis Garden (Kunisch et al., 2018). As per the business scenario provided in the report, it is evident that the company has not yet implemented ICT in their business. Consequently, the employees as well as the customers are facing different challenges. By the application of ICT, there are opportunities through which LG can improve their business. The opportunities are explained below.

To improve service delivery to customers: The key focus of all kinds of businesses remains on their customers. The service provided to the customers is the most essential part of the business. The customers of LG are facing difficulties in great extent as for each information related to any product to the purchasing of goods, they have to come to the store and wait for a long time to get the service. By implementing ICT in the business, the services can be provided to them through the internet (Füßl et al., 2018). Facilities associated with e-commerce can be given to the customers, which help them to know about the product very easily, and in the least time. They will also know the availability of any product, the price of the product. This will make customers happy. The whole experience of the customer can be improved with ICT.

To change the basis of competition in your industry: In today’s world, all the similar kind of business organizations are in a competitive mood to achieve most of the advantages from the market. Gaining profits is another essential matter for which the competition remains high in the market (Segal, 2018). Therefore, all business organizations are trying to increase their share in the market. LG is also trying to be competitive in the market through the implementation of ICT because ICT helps the business in many ways, such as the processes that run inside the business can be automated by the use of ICT. There are several business processes, which are very complex by nature. The use of ICT can improve business by reducing complexity. The errors done by the employees can be avoided through the utilization of ICT.

To improve your organization's overall performance: ICT plays a crucial role in changing the overall performance of a business organization. As per the case scenario, LG has faced different issues for not applying ICT in their business. By implementing technologies in the business, the customers will be served in a better way (Gaur and Kumar, 2018). The processes that run internally can be improved with fewer mistakes. The company can launch services that have never been possible without the use of ICT. Thus, the overall performance of the business will be improved through ICT. Use of e-commerce system can be a solution in this case.

Stakeholder analysis: The people, who are interested in an organization, are known as stakeholders. The policies, actions, objectives of an organization can influence the stakeholders or the stakeholders can also influence an organization (Naim, 2018). The authority of any business organization tries to please the stakeholders and the requirements of the stakeholders are needed to be satisfied so that the companies can achieve competitive advantages from the market. There are different types of stakeholders. LG Company has also different types of stakeholders. They are as followed.

1. Customers: The most essential stakeholders of a company are their customers. LG produces different types of products that can be used by the customers in their homes and in commercial use (Azudin and Mansor, 2018). No business organization can sustain in the market without the presence of the customers. LG also values to their customers. This is the reason for which LG wants to implement ICT in their business so that the customers can be provided with innovative products and good service.
2. Employees: Employees are other important stakeholders for any business organization. The employees manufacture the goods consumed by the customers. The employees also deliver the products and services to the customers. This is the reason for which the employees are also regarded as the stakeholders of the company (Boyle et al., 2018). The staffs of LG are involved in marketing, sales, warehousing, for providing services to the customers, purchasing, etc. all these sections cannot be run properly without the engagement of the employees. Therefore, it is very clear that the whole service provided to the customers as well as the internal procedures of the company will face the challenge without the presence of the customers. It is very important for companies like LG to employ skilled people with attractive offers for the improvement of the whole organization.
3. Shareholders: The key owners of the companies are the shareholders. They are also very essential for business organizations. Most of the time, investments are done by the shareholders (Heimann-Roppelt and Tegtmeier, 2018). Therefore, a high level of involvement is evident from the end of the shareholders, through direct involvement is not allowed. They connect to the companies through the board of directors.
4. Suppliers, distributors: Suppliers, distributors are also important stakeholders of a particular company. In this specific business scenario, the company, LG stocks the required materials from the suppliers who supply resources locally (Thavabalan et al., 2018). These materials help the company to create products that function properly for the customers. Without the materials, the company would not be able to provide attractive products to its customers. Therefore, maintaining a good relationship with the suppliers and distributors should be regarded as a crucial factor for the company.

Business Context
As per the given scenario, it is evident that the company, Louise Gardens is facing issues in their marketing sector. ICT is used in very low scale in the company. Consequently, the marketing of the products cannot be done online (Fidrmuc and Korhonen, 2018). To know the price for each of the products, the customers have to come to the stores and wait for a long timed to get a response from the employees. Employees are also facing problems because they have to do all the works related to the business manually. Therefore, the need for ICT proves to be very essential for the company. The application of e-commerce via the internet can change the whole service and process of the business. ICT must be integrated with the business for making the business efficient. In this particular scenario, the website can be a solution through which ICT can be implemented properly to the business. A website contains webpages that are interlinked. Web server is the location where the website resides (Lai et al., 2018). Different types of documents, files are included in a website. A home page must be there. The page through which the customers can connect to the company is also there on a website.

For the development of the business, solutions related to technology should be used by LG by implementing ICT. Different types of websites are there such as service-oriented website, transactional website, portal or media site, brand-building site, etc. for this particular company, transactional website can be created through which the customers will be able to get all the information related to the products .availability of the products will also be known through this kind of website. The customer will also be able to buy the product from the website (Teti et al., 2018). Required software should also be installed in the system of the company for maintaining the website and controlling the processes related to it. This will help the customers to purchase products avoiding the queue in the store as well as the employees of the company will also achieve benefits from this. They should not have to handle a long line of customers. Their relationship with the customers will become good. The receipts are printed automatically with every purchase. These kinds of websites help the companies to gain the customers who are new. The existing customers will also get good service from the company .the services will be provided to the customers, which are good in quality (Hwang et al., 2018). It will help the company to gain a competitive advantage from the market.

Business processes
There are different types of business processes that can be seen when the website system will be implemented in the company for providing services to the customers. At the top level, the processes related to the process of e-commerce includes different steps. At the very beginning, an order is placed by the customer through the system of e-commerce (Erickson et al., 2018). Then the extraction of details related to the order is done. Then for the processing of the order, the details of the order are sent to the warehouse. In the sub process, another section is receiving orders. After the placement of the order done by the customers, the extraction of the orders must be done. Here, the processes are as follows:

• The extraction of the details associated with the order is done manually from the website. The details regarding the payment, information of the customers, product ID and its description are included in the extracted information.
• The employees for the data related to the order do checking manually (Feng and Guo, 2018). The detailed information for making contact with the customer, detailed address, etc are checked in this step.
• All the data related to the order are incorporated in the software and the customer is notified about the receiving of the order.
• The order then goes to the warehouse.

In the warehouse, notification is provided to the section for the processing of an order. Different criteria are matched such as the location of the item, availability of the product in the stock, etc. (Lokshina et al., 2018). As per the availability, packaging of the order is done and then it is sent to the department for shipping.

In the shipping section, the size, weight of the packaged product is checked and with the destination of the product. The labels required for the employee prints the shipping of the product and notes regarding the delivery are added. The customers are provided confirmation for the shipping. The employee to the software updates the unique number used for the tracking of the shipment (Torrès and Thurik, 2018). In the end, the packaged product is given to the service provider related to the courier and sent for the destination.

Conclusion
This report is based on a company named Louise Garden. A business scenario is provided which shows that the company has not yet applied information and communication technology in their business. Consequently, the employees, as well as the customers, are having trouble with buying and selling of the products. Therefore, in this report, the problems of the business have been described and the areas where the improvement can be done have also been elaborated. The major stakeholders and their functions have been given in the report. A system solution is provided and the associated business processes have also been discussed here. ICT assignments are being prepared by our management assignment help experts from top universities which let us to provide you a reliable assignment help service.

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