Introduction
This report is about Northumbria Country Foods (NCF), a family run company dealing with the production of traditional and contemporary English food, with ten years of experience in the industry. However, despite tremendous performance in the past, the company is experiencing many challenges in the management of its information. To remain competitive in the market, NCF has to understand the changing needs of its customers and embrace a system that can support achievement of its goals. The accounting system used by the business is ineffective, and most of the records are managed manually. It is for this reason that the organizational management considers implementing a new information system to overcome the drawbacks. This report starts by appreciating the benefits realized from adopting IS and further evaluates different management tools to identify a system that can adequately meet the needs of the company. Furthermore, the report indicates various steps to follow in the effective implementation of the new system, with recommendations for further development at NCF.
Benefits for NCF of Adopting an IS in General
Northumbria Country Foods (NCF), as evidenced by the company case study, has experienced a lot of challenges due to improper management of its information. However, by adopting information system (IS), the organization will be more competitive in the market. Information system is understood to support organizational strategy, hence plays a vital role in achieving organizational objectives (Yen et al., 2015). Some of the benefits that will be enjoyed by NCF from adopting an IS include the following;
Operational excellence
IS will offer NCF an opportunity to optimize production and operations’ capability, hence, increasing the chances of meeting its set objectives. From the case study, lack of information management made the organization to experience challenges in meeting the varying needs of its customers. Therefore, IS will enable the organization to analyze its customers and predict possible changes in their behavior, hence an opportunity to increase the company’s sales due to enhanced operation excellence.
New products and services
The food market for NCF is becoming increasingly competitive as consumer needs are changing, and meeting their needs should be the priority. Therefore, through efficient analysis of the customer’s trend, NCF will have an opportunity to understand its consumer needs. The company can thus introduce new products and services to meet the new demands, which are important for the sustainability of the business, an objective that can be achieved with implementation of information system.
Developing customer and supplier intimacy
Since NCF operates both as a supplier and retailer, the company should seek ways to meet the needs of its customers in the most efficient way possible, to maintain consumer loyalty. The objective can be achieved by effective management of records as the company will be in a position to understand the needs of its customers better.
Competitive advantage
Embracing information system will help the company eliminate unwanted processes, hence cut down operational costs, and save time and resources. IS supports continuous improvement in organizational operations and is an opportunity to enhance customer value, an aspect that impacts positively to company’s success. According to Imre (2016), IS helps firms to achieve lowest operational costs and lowest prices, an attribute that is realized because of improved efficiency. IS is also used in customization of company’s products and services to address the special needs of its target market. Finally, IS allows the business to focus on meeting the needs of specific customer groups, an aspect that impacts positively to business.
Decision making
IS enables managers to evaluate business performance, identify areas of weaknesses in the company and predict future trends (Mousavifard et al., 2013). It is, therefore, an important tool that supports the decision-making process, as managers using IS are well informed on their business performance.
Suggestion on the system (BI system, E-business system or Social Media) NCF should prioritize
All the three systems (BI system, E-business, and social media) have varied benefits to an organization. However, NCF plans to embrace all three systems in the long-term, but in the meanwhile, it requires a system with several short-term benefits. To achieve the set objective, it is important to evaluate the various advantages of the systems and select one based on their distinct benefits to the business.
BI System
Business Intelligence (BI) is one of the tools in management that has gained popularity in most organizations. The increased use of BI systems is because the system is easy to use and has various benefits to an organization. BI system allows organizational managers to make informed decisions as it uses accurate data hence eliminating cases of guess work, which may cost an organization (Rezgui & Maaouia, 2016). The tool is thus used in predicting future trends and in making informed decisions on the different operations carried out in an organization. Moreover, both employees and the management can get immediate answers to their business questions hence an important tool in decision making. BI will further enable NCF to get access to important metrics reports on its performance of activities, which is an issue in the organization through analysis of critical reports.
The tool further enables organizational managers to understand the behavior of their customers hence important in satisfying consumer’s needs. NCF had a challenge with understanding the changing needs of its customers; hence, embracing BI system will help the business to understand their needs more effectively. BI system is necessary for pinpointing up-selling and cross-selling opportunities, which are important for the business to increase its sales volume (Lee & Widener, 2016). BI is critical in streamlining business operations as it supports the elimination of unwanted activities that adds no value to customers. It is important in enhancing organizational efficiency hence supports efficient management of time and resources. BI supports effective management of business inventory and understanding of both operational costs and business performance over a longer time.
E-business
Modern organizations have embraced the concept of e-business to benefit from globalization, which has become a norm in the current setting. Most organizations appreciate e-business because it is cost-effective in marketing through different online platforms. Another benefit of e-business is that it breaks barriers of time and location, and customers can gain access to company websites and purchase their products at their convenient time irrespective of their locations. The concept (e-business) is understood to reduce transactional costs incurred by a firm hence results in increased profitability. Finally, the tool cuts back on most of the overhead costs such as rent, utility bills and other expenses associated with physical location of business.
Social media
It is another strategy used by companies to market their products and has gained popularity with increased use of the internet. The platform is used to create brand awareness especially in cases where people fail to visit company websites. The tool is appreciated as businesses gain access to a large group of customers within a short time, making it more efficient as compared to traditional marketing strategies. Most people make their purchasing decisions based on their brand loyalty, an indication of the need to enhance brand awareness. Another important benefit of social media is that it legitimizes a brand as customers are informed more on the product features through the platform. It is also an important platform used by business to increase their sales and revenue by creating enhanced public relations. The medium can further be used to create improve customer service as some of their issues can be resolved through the platform.
The system NCF should prioritize at the moment
The problem experienced by NCF is managing information to achieve effective food tracking from source throughout the production process and achieve other short-term benefits for sustainability purposes. It is important therefore for the organization to consider embracing BI system as it has more benefits to the business performance as compared to e-business and use of the social media. BI is more effective in managing information, which is a major issue in the organization and will offer the business an opportunity to achieve its short-term and long-term goals more efficiently.
Steps in implementation of the BI systems
Define the vision
Defining the vision is the first step in the implementation process and require in-depth understanding of how the data can be used by the business to obtain better performance. This includes prioritizing of the organizational needs such as customer expectations when using the BI system (Olszak & Ziemba, 2007). Understanding the goals the organization wants to achieve will make it possible to meet specific needs of the organization using the desired information system.
Define the business outcome
This step helps the management to focus on specific areas based on the set measures and target for the implemented system. However, to come up with prioritized outcomes for the business, both bottom-up and top-down approaches must be embraced. The top-down approach will indicate the key performance indicators (KPI) for the business while the bottom up will show ways on how the KPIs can be enhanced. This includes identification of the short-term goals that can be achieved easily for sustainability of the business.
Build the organization
This includes training of the organizational employees to understand how to use the implemented system as a lack of adequate skills is one of the key barriers to successful implementation of IS (Olszak & Ziemba, 2007). The training should be done on a regular basis to make organizational employees competent and appreciate the need to embrace the new system.
Governance
Successful implementation of the system will require having a team of competent individuals that understand the company needs and well informed on the IT setting. The team will be mandated with the responsibility of managing the system to stay relevant in achieving the organizational goals more effectively. Furthermore, the team will monitor use, and ensure that the desired benefits of the system are realized to achieve the set objective of the business.
Test the technology
It is the final step in the implementation of the BI system and includes evaluating the performance of the system in meeting organizational goals. NCF should start by using tools that it is familiar with and conduct more pilot studies on other systems to identify the ideal techniques for the business. Experimentation of the system identifies various areas of concern that can be improved to experience better results. Therefore, before successful implementation of the system, it is important to conduct various experiments and provide intelligence reports on the use of the system in achieving organizational goals.
Impact of the implementation of the BI system the business
Successful implementation of the BI system at NCF will have significant impacts on the company success as it will help the company overcome most of the challenges it experiences. It will help the company achieve the organizational objective of food tracking from source throughout the production process which was a concern. Furthermore, the system will enable the organization to manage its information to support different organizational operations such as accounting, employee management, customer analysis, and business prediction. It will enhance communication between various stakeholders and eliminate the use of paperwork, an aspect that will improve organizational efficiency. Therefore, implementing the BI system will contribute to increased success for the organization.
Recommendations for further development
Despite the significant impact of information systems to an organization, they also have weaknesses hence the need for NCF to engage in regular monitoring of the implemented information system to avoid such issues.
Managers at NCF should find it considerate to tailor the BI system implemented in the organization to fit their business needs
The organization should make it its culture to train its employees on different information management systems to make its staff aware of the need of engaging in knowledge management.
Conclusion
Globalization has intensified competition among organizations, and information systems are some of the vital tools used by managers to gain competitive advantages in the market. Information has proved to be a valuable asset to any organization and based on the case study, NCF performance was influenced by the lack of proper system to manage information in the organization. However, by implementing the BI system, the organization will realize significant impacts on its general performance now and in the future.
References
Imre, Ö. (2016). Adopting Information Systems in a Small Company: A Longitudinal Study. Journal of Applied Economics & Business Research, 6(4), 269-283.
Lee, M. T., & Widener, S. K. (2016). The Performance Effects of Using Business Intelligence Systems for Exploitation and Exploration Learning. Journal of Information Systems, 30(3), 1-31.
Mousavifard, F., Kazemi, M., & Ayoubi, A. (2016). Employees' Productivity and Automated Information System in Telecommunication Organization in Iran. International Journal of Management, Accounting & Economics, 3(3), 211-221.
Olszak C. M & Ziemba E., (2007). Approach to Building and Implementing Business Intelligence Systems. Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management. Retrieved on January 8, 2017 from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.465.1262&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Rezgui, A., & Maaouia, R. B. (2016). KPI-based decision impact evaluation system for adaptive business intelligence. Ingénierie Des Systèmes D'information, 21(1), 103-124.
Yen, H. R., Hu, P. J., Hsu, S. H., & Li, E. Y. (2015). A Multilevel Approach to Examine Employees’ Loyal Use of ERP Systems in Organizations. Journal Of Management Information Systems, 32(4), 144-178.
