1 Introduction
In today’s world, information technology plays a big role in keeping business alive. It has set the trend of how businesses should be run, that without it, a business will surely suffer. The digital economy has set the paced of which businesses run. Small-scale businesses to large scale business are developing business models that utilize information systems (IS) to cater to the needs of the company as well as its customers. Business models are helps the management in understanding their company’s day to day activities to be able to help them in understanding how they can be able to integrate and utilize IS in the business system. (Shelly, Cashman and Rosenblatt, 2003, p. 9) Implementing an IS has become a requirement rather than an option for business organizations.
2 Information System’s and Its Characteristics
Turban defines information systems as a system that “collects, processes, stores, analyzes, and disseminates information for a specific purpose”. It should be capable of collecting necessary input for processing using technology to produce the necessary output required by the its users. Although, it is not necessary that IS are computerized, it has been observed that most of them utilizes computers. A typical IS consist of software, hardware, procedures, network and the people involved in the IS (users and developers).
There are several types of IS that can be developed for a specific business to use. The type of system depends on the requirements of the company. Enterprise Computing Systems of more commonly known as ECS are developed to support a specific company’s operations and data management requirements. The main objectives of creating an ECS is to “integrate the a company’s primary functions to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and help managers make decisions” (Shelly, Cashman and Rosenblatt, 2003, p. 14) Transaction Processing Systems (TP) are IS processes data generated from their day to data transactions. In TP systems, the processing is done by group of related command rather than by treating them individually. A withdraw transaction in a bank is an example of such process. Business Support Systems on the other hand, are systems that support the management and users of a company by providing job-related information support. These types of systems are sometime called Management Information Systems (MIS). This type of system can be combined with other types of system. An example could be a computer shop where a TP system could save the sale records, updates customer information, and provides updates to its inventory, while a related system can help the management monitor fast and slow moving merchandise to help the management decide which merchandize they sell best and generate a report showing customers with balances. Another type of IS the knowledge management system or an expert system which requires the use of large databases and specific rules because they simulate the human reasoning.
Specifically, IS’s focuses on providing support to an n organizations business processes and operations rather than focusing on providing support to individual employees. It tries to make transactions and works more easily for the employees, management and customers as well. It helps the management in the decision –making and strategic planning activities.
3 Developing an Information System
Developing an IS suited for a specific company requires several steps. This is because most IS are tailored to the business rules of those specific organizations. Developing these systems requires the intense collaboration of the company’s IT team, the targeted users of the system and the management of the organization. There must be an open communication among these three groups to ensure that all business rules are taken into consideration with the support of the management before the creation of the system.
A typical IS development consists of five stages namely: analysis, planning, designing, implementation and operation and support. During the planning phase, a preliminary investigation report or a feasibility study is submitted to the management outlining the nature and the scope of the problem. This is a vital step because its outcome can affect the entire IS development process. If it is determined that the IS project requested is not feasible then there is no need to continue to the next stage of the process. Since the creation of IS requires capital, a cost and benefit analysis must also be presented to the management by the development team to make them understand the gains they could get and the expected expenses.
The analysis phase tries to answer the question “What is required of the system?”. Business processes and documentation of what the system to build must do are done in this stage. Usually the end product is a systems requirements document where the management and user requirements are outlined together with alternative development strategies that can be used.
A system design specification which contains a blueprint of what the system would contain based of the documented specifications are then done on the designing stage. Necessary inputs, processes and outputs are also identified in this stage together with the identification of internal and external controls to make the system reliable, accurate, maintainable and secure.
During the implementation phase, the system undergoes coding and testing using several system development tools and testing tools available. The goal of this stage is to come up with a working system that conforms to the requirements of the user.
Operation and support involves the maintenance and enhancement of the system. Developers must keep in mind that business processes and information technology undergoes changes and upgrades every now and then so the system must be capable of adjusting to possible new business requirement and volumes.
4 Estate Agent Database
Real estate companies are just one of the organizations that needs IS to be able to make transactions and management more efficient and easier. Developing an estate agent database will make the tasks of agents easier and makes monitoring of the property viewings of the clients more manageable.
Although, the IS development stages were not followed strictly during the development of the simple database, because of the size of the project, user consideration and requirements were properly adhered to. Planning and analysis were not required, since the project has been assumed to be analyzed by the systems analyst of the company and the requirements were just passed on the development team. However, the development team is responsible for the last three phases, which are the designing, implementation and the operation and support. The development was more on the ad hoc side. Although ad hoc development model is not promoted, the size of the project makes it justifiable. (Davidson, 2002, p2)
Simplicity and understandability of the user interface was taken consideration during the design since the developers expected that the user of the system would be ordinary real estate agents who are busy and not computer experts does they don’t have much time in learning the new system. This is just like a creation of a database for a video shop where the user’s capability to use computers is a big consideration. If a complicated interface is developed, then there is a possibility that they will not understand how to use the system.
While developing the system, maintainability and scalability was also taken into consideration. There is a possibility the number of clients and properties will increase thus requiring additional space, so the developers make the database capable of running even if the system is transferred to another computer. Although, the system was built in MS Access, the data can be converted in a different database format if someday the client requires it.
The developers also made sure that the data tables are normalized to reduced data redundancy, functional dependencies and anomalies resulting from unnormalized data. (McFadden & Hoffer, 1994, pp 182 - 185)
5 Recommendations/Learnings
Although the system developed was able to meet the minimum requirements of the system without using a structured development model, it may have been good to practice utilizing one to have an idea of how big IS projects are made.
The scope of the project is very small. Should there have been time and opportunity to conduct planning, the scope of the project could have been wider to cater to other aspects of the real estate agents database like the adding capabilities of the system to determine which client is looking for specific types of properties so that one a property is available.
Although, the system made is design for the personal use of a specific estate agent, it could also be expanded to cater to specific companies needs. The database could be expanded such that there would be one database of clients and properties and then viewings of clients together a field to identify if who is the estate agent responsible for that specific viewing to avoid redundancy of data. In this way, the management could also readily identify the number of clients they have and the sales they have made.
References:
Davidson, Paul, 2002, Information Systems development Techniques and their Application to the Hydrologic Database Derivation Application,[pdf]. Available at
McFadden, Fred & Hoffer, Jefrey, 1994, Modern Database Management, 4th edn, Benhamin/Cummings Publishing Company, Inc, CA. pp 182 – 185
Shelly, GB, Cashman, TJ, & Rosenblatt, HJ, 2003, System analysis and Design, 5th edn, Thomson Learning Asia, Singapore
Turban, E, Wetherbe, McLean, & Leidner, 2007, Information Technology for Management: Transforming Organizations to Digital Economy, 6th edn, Wiley, John and Sons Inc, CA
