Information System Assignment: Management Of IS Within Coles Supermarket
Question
Task:
Write a detailed and well-researched report on information system assignment discussing about the management of information system within an organisation of your choice.
Answer
Introduction
According to the words of Pearlson et al., (2019) undertaken in this information system assignment, within business, the management of information systems are referred to as the tools that are used for supporting the operations; processes; IT and intelligence as well. The MIS tools are known to move the data along with managing information and are considered as the core for information system management discipline and the first systems for the information. This implies that management of the information systems combines the technology instruction and business theory making use of computer technology to improve the business problems. Hence, the present study evaluates the concept of Information systems and its management within the organisation of Coles, Australia along with deriving an issue and way to solve it.
1. Overview of the organisation and need for an information system
Coles have been considered for the present study which is an Australian supermarket along with retail as well as a chain of customer service and is headquartered in Melbourne being the part of Coles Group (Coles.com.au. 2020). The organisation consists of over 100,000 employees and also accounts for about 80% of the Australian market. It also provides online shopping services for the customers and comprises total revenue of 38.175 billion within the year of 2019. The company is known to have millions of shareholders and this makes it significant to focus within the long term value of shareholders. The mission of the present organisation is to sustainably feed all the Australians for helping them in leading happier and healthier lives. However, the vision of the company is to be the most trusted Australian retailer along with increasing long term shareholder value. \
The organisation makes use of information systems for its daily operations. This resembles that information systems need to anticipate all the requirements for the managers of the organisation. However, information systems must be flexible for incorporating the constantly evolving needs for the customer market and must also be able to store; capture and organise all kinds of relevant data for a continuous and regular basis (Koivisto and Hamari, 2019). Thus, information systems are significant for most of the organisations in the retail sector as it tends to serve various functions such as managing budgets; planning; sales goals; inventory control along with the point of sale transactions and logistics. It has the role of supporting some of the key aspects based on running the company like communication; decision making; record keeping; data analysis and similar others. These are used by the respective organisation for improving its business operations along with obtaining a competitive advantage and making strategic decisions as well.
2. Description of the problem
The respective organisation has been going through a problem of higher staff turnover. The turnover rate is considered as the percentage of the employees within a workforce that tends to leave for a specific time period. As stated by Ismagilova et al., (2019), when an employer is known to consist of a higher rate of turnover as compared to its competitors, this resembles that the employees of the respective organisation comprise a shorter average tenure as compared to the other companies of the similar industry. Higher turnover of the employees are referred to have severe impact within the business both emotionally and financially. For the present case, the organisation must take steps for assessing the possible causes of the respective turnover along with measuring the rate and determining the costs and finally addressing the problems of the turnover. There are different causes that result in a higher rate of employee turnover. Some of the reasons that were found to be true in case of Coles, are mentioned below:
Sub-standard tools; equipment and facilities
When the working standards are found to be substandard and lack within the facilities occur such as improper health and safety provisions; poor information system; outdated technologies and similar others, most of the employees cannot cope up with the situation (Hoxmeier and Lenk, 2020).
Lack within the opportunity of growth
When a job is in the dead end position, this needs to be explained before hiring the people for not misleading the candidates. The job needs to be described in a precise manner rather than raising any false hope regarding advancement and growth within the position.
Inadequate training and supervision
Employees require guidance along with direction. The new employees might need extra help within the learning of an unfamiliar job. Accordingly, the absence within the training program can cause the workers to fall behind their performance level along with feeling their abilities that have been lacking.
Thus, for the present organisation, due to outdated technology and poor information systems, most of the employees are not being able to cope up with the situation and this is eventually resulting in a higher rate of employee turnover. As evidenced by Martins et al., (2019), these systems and technologies are found to lead towards failure and are known to be primarily caused through hardware faults or through the entity for not having the necessary resources for making some specified system to be usable. The damaged hardware along with being outdated seems to be poor fit within the organisation as well as the information systems.
3. Analysis of the problem utilizing Models and concepts related to Information Systems
There exist different concepts and models that are related to the Information System and its use within the organisational culture. Implementation of these models and concepts helps the employers and the employees to work in an easy way and to get adequate supervision and training for its usage. Some of the models and concepts that can be used within the respective organisation are mentioned below:
Management Information System (MIS)
As opined by Hignite et al., (2020), these are used through the tactical managers for monitoring the recent performance status of the organisation. The output through a system of transaction processing has been used being an input for a management information system. The respective MIS system tends to analyse the input with the help of routine algorithms such as aggregate; which helps in comparing and summarising the results for the produced reports which are utilised by the tactical managers of the respective organisation for controlling; monitoring as well as predicting the future performance of the company related to information technology and the ability of the employees to cope up with the same. For instance, input through a point of sale system might be used for analysis of the trends based on products which have been performing well along with those that are known not to perform well (Steininger, 2019). This information is useful for making future orders of inventory such as increasing the orders regarding well-performing products as well as reducing the products order which are found not to perform well.
Figure 1: Management Information Systems
Source: (Reed and Angolia, 2020)
There are several systems within the concerned organisation which can be operated under the concept of management information systems. Some of the examples are mentioned below:
Sales management system which gets input through the point of the sale system
Budgeting systems which provides with an overview for the quantity of money that has been spent in the respective organisation due to long and short terms
Human resource management system is considered to be the overall welfare for the employees; staff turnovers and similar other factors
Thus, as put forward by Dehgani and Navimipour, (2019), the tactical managers are found to be mainly responsible for the semi-structured decisions and the MIS systems tend to provide information that is needed for making structured decisions depending on the experience of tactical managers. Here, they seem to make judgement calls such as to predict the quantity of inventory and goods needed to be ordered for the second quarter that is related to the sales for the first quarter.
Process model of information systems
This model is known to attempt to explain the occurrence based on an outcome through the identification of the sequence of events to precede it. Besides the encouragement, the process models are generally underrepresented within the IS and the organisational journals as well (Logan, 2020). According to this model there seems to be five metamorphic phases within the evolution of work in the department of customer service which can be considered for the respective company of Coles. Each of its phases tends to comprise emergent and deliberate changes within the managers work along with the specialists of customer service and unintended outcomes. Thus, this model can help the organisation to implement changes within it through updating the information systems and monitoring the technologies in a proper way.
Figure 2: Process Model
Source: (Alomari et al., 2019)
4. IT adding value to the organisation
Information technology is able to foster innovation within a business. The innovation then results in a smarter app which has improved storage; wider distribution of information and a faster processing as well. Innovation is known to make the businesses run in an effective way and in turn, increases the value along with enhancing the quality and boosting productivity as well. The information technology systems are mainly used by the present company to perform different tasks and operations. Some of the companies are found to make use of IT for providing the basic transactions processing whereas; others such as Coles are found to enable the distributors and the customers along with the suppliers for interacting within the organisation within different communication technology systems like the internet. Thus, as per the views of Boiko et al., (2019), implementation of updated information systems within the particular organisation can help the company to sustain in the market along with gaining competitive advantage.
5. Change program or activities to solve the problem and recommendations
Organisational change is referred to as the process for changing the strategies; technologies; procedures; culture and processes within the respective organisation. Thus, there are several steps that should be followed while implementing the change of using updated information systems and providing proper training to the employees of the concerned company. These steps are mentioned below:
Defining the change along with aligning it to the business goals
This is mainly concerned with the need for the change along with what is required to change. As stated by Sauls and Gudigantala, (2019), this helps in determining the value of the change and following appropriate strategic direction as well according to the goals of the organisation.
Determination of its impacts
This considers the impact of the respective change along with the people who can be mostly affected. This requires the respective organisation to review the effect upon each of the business units along with the way it can cascade by organisational structure towards the individual.
Development of communication strategy
This is mainly referred to as the consideration of the way through which the change can be communicated to the employees of the organisation. This step also needs to manage the feedback as well. For the present case, the organisation needs to decide an effective means of communication regarding the employees that can bring them altogether on board. This might involve timeline for analysing the time through which the change can be incrementally communicated along with its mediums and channels as well.
Providing with proper training
As opined by Gottschalk, (2020), this is mainly concerned with the kind of skills and behaviours that are needed for achieving the business results along with the training delivery methods of the respective change that can result in being much more effective. Thus, for the concerned company, it can make use of micro-learning online modules along with a blended learning approach involving the face-to-face sessions of training.
Measuring the process of change
This step monitors the change whether it has achieved the business goals or not; whether the process of change management tends to be successful and implementation of any other solutions as well.
Conclusion
To conclude, the present study has evaluated the concept of managing information systems within the organisational culture highlighting Coles, Australia. The requirement for information systems along with describing a problem that has been faced by the respective organisation has been mentioned in the above discussion. On the other hand, different models and concepts have also been related to the use of information systems along with designing change programs within the organisational culture.
References
Alomari, E., Alshammry, M., Alhamil, S., Alsmadi, M., Alshabanah, M., Alrajhi, D., Almarashdeh, I. and Eljawad, L., 2019. Analyzing, Designing and Implementing a Consulting Company for Management Information Systems, pp.422-432.
Boiko, A., Shendryk, V. and Boiko, O., 2019. Information systems for supply chain management: uncertainties, risks and cyber security. Procedia Computer Science, 149, pp.65-70.
Coles.com.au. 2020. Coles Supermarkets. Available at:
Dehgani, R. and Navimipour, N.J., 2019. The impact of information technology and communication systems on the agility of supply chain management systems. Kybernetes.
Gottschalk, P., 2020. E-government interoperability and information resource integration: Frameworks for aligned development. Information Systems, p.193.
Hignite, M.A., Margavio, T.M. and Chin, J.M., 2020. Assessing the conflict resolution profiles of emerging information systems professionals. Journal of Information Systems Education, 13(4), p.6.
Hoxmeier, J. and Lenk, M.M., 2020. Service-learning in information systems courses: Community projects that make a difference. Journal of Information Systems Education, 14(1), p.10.
Ismagilova, E., Hughes, L., Dwivedi, Y.K. and Raman, K.R., 2019. Smart cities: Advances in research—An information systems perspective. Information system assignment International Journal of Information Management, 47, pp.88-100.
Koivisto, J. and Hamari, J., 2019. The rise of motivational information systems: A review of gamification research. International Journal of Information Management, 45, pp.191-210.
Logan, P.Y., 2020. Crafting an undergraduate information security emphasis within information technology. Journal of Information Systems Education, 13(3), p.3.
Martins, J., Branco, F., Gonçalves, R., Au-Yong-Oliveira, M., Oliveira, T., Naranjo-Zolotov, M. and Cruz-Jesus, F., 2019. Assessing the success behind the use of education management information systems in higher education. Telematics and Informatics, 38, pp.182-193.
Pearlson, K.E., Saunders, C.S. and Galletta, D.F., 2019. Managing and using information systems: A strategic approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Reed, A.H. and Angolia, M.G., 2020. Risk management usage and impact on information systems project success. In Start-Ups and SMEs: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 1065-1084). IGI Global.
Sauls, J. and Gudigantala, N., 2019. Preparing information systems (IS) graduates to meet the challenges of global IT security: Some suggestions. Journal of Information Systems Education, 24(1), p.7.
Steininger, D.M., 2019. Linking information systems and entrepreneurship: A review and agenda for IT?associated and digital entrepreneurship research. Information Systems Journal, 29(2), pp.363-407.
