Question 1:
Some of the problems that might arise due to frequent acquisition and disposition of tourism brands is the fact that the acquiring company now has disparate set of information systems. They are all based on different technologies. These disparate technologies end up creating excessive software maintenance activity and costs. This would need the buying company to either sell such an information system or change the technology running it. This is cumulatively hectic and expensive
An information system is made up of five important parts, namely: People, hardware, software, data and networks. All these work in harmony for the functionality of the system to be realized. When standardizing a single platform to be in unison with a running system, you would have to change at least three of those five components of the information system. This would greatly influence how the system initially functioned but would achieve the goal of harmonization. The problems stated earlier would be greatly solved but at the cost of a lot of time and effort on the part of the persons implementing it. Of the five elements that I named earlier, those that will benefit the most from the standardization are the people, software and data. The people will have only one type of a system to work with; the software will be in unison hence maintenance will be minimized and the data will be in one format since there will be one single running system.
Question 2:
a)
The three values represent the totals of the April 2005 rentals. The $3,697 would be the total amount of funds collected for all the packages . This would be totals for the AU location. The value $1,577 would be the total for the Maui package in the AU location and the value $2,121 would be for the Britz package in the AU location. This would be the totals for the April 05 rentals.
b)
The first conclusion that can be derived from the data is that the data provided is inaccurate or there is one package that is missing. This is mainly because the total is given as $3697. However, adding $2121 and 1577 we obtain $ 3698. The difference if $1 indicates there is an error in the data provided. The second conclusion is that the Britz package is very profitable. This is mainly because it makes $2,121. The last conclusion is that the Maui package is the least profitable. This is mainly because it results in an income of $1,577.
Question 3:
THL could make use of the OLAP like the one showed by implementing a business analysis model like the one shown. The customers are allowed to work with their web pages as usual. The use of the aurora reservation application will provide the needed information that will be fed to the report server database. The report server database will receive information from the operations personnel. From the report server, information will flow between this server and the reservation server as well as the OLAP database. This will pave way for the business analysis to commence on the OLAP. I the case of THL, operations personnel will be the people working on the ground with the various business arms of the company, they will have the systems in place and once the information is fed into it, the system would have a network with the specified servers put in place and dedicated to completing the said objectives.
Question 4:
Running a business that is 7, 500 miles away can prove to be a daunting task for THL. This is because with increased distance, comes problems such as the fact that their system is user customized. When a user requires using elements of the business system such as a vehicle that is only available at that branch, it will be difficult to do so. Sometimes the system might juggle the requisitions made by the client that may put the client in that branch that is all those miles away, coordination amongst the working team would then be difficult. This would in the result in limiting the resources used by the system so that they can now not make such requests on other branches of the organization. This would be against the business idea of travel that is being sold by the company.
Question 5:
The implementation of a transaction processing information system would mitigate the problem mentioned above. This would be solved in that transactions involving the branch that is located all those miles away would have to be minimized or eradicated completely. This is because when elements required for the acquisition of the tour lie in one branch and this far away branch, coordination and implementation would be difficult or even impossible. A decision support system may also come in handy when solving this problem by deciding the best way forward. Certain decisions that may affect the overall functionality of the system may be subject to opinion, but a decision support system has no bias. In addition, it will provide THL with the best way forward.
