Business Information Systems
MITS4001
Business Information Systems
Assignment
Instruction
In this assignment, a scenario is presented
in the form of a description of a security company. Based on your understanding
on the scenario, you are asked to write a report answering the questions at the
end of this assignment. Your report should be approximately 1800-2000 words
long and needs to be uploaded in Moodle by the due date as mentioned in Teaching
and Assessment Plan or as per Lecturer’s instruction.
Case
Study: Security Services Limited (SSL)
The
case study ‘Security Services Limited’ (SSL) provides the basis for the
questions that follow.
1.
INTRODUCTION
SSL have grown over the last 30 years to be
one of the main providers of private security services in the UK. Turnover for
the financial year ended April 1995 was up 17% to £98.4 million from the
previous year. Profitability has remained steady at around 9.2% of turnover for
three successive financial years. SSL provides a wide range of services to
companies, individuals and the public sector. The company has grown owing to a
combination of factors including organic growth from the original core
business, start-ups in associated areas of security and finally takeover of and
merger with companies providing related services. The range of services offered
include:
•
Armoured
transport for conveying substantial amounts of cash and cheques between
businesses and banks, cash from banks to businesses for wages, and conveyance
of high-value items between various parties;
• Provision
of security services for businesses – these will include security guards (day
and/or night-time cover), analysis and installation of security devices and
regular security sweeps of business premises;
• Provision
of domestic security services – this includes the analysis of domestic security
needs and the installation of appropriate security devices. The most recent
addition to the range of services has been the transfer of prisoners between
police cells, the courts and prison. This is a contracted-out service
sanctioned by the Home Office and carried out to Home Office standards.
2.
COMPANY ORGANISATION
Because of the way in which SSL has evolved,
the present company structure does not necessarily represent the most effective
or efficient way of doing business.
SSL has its corporate headquarters in Milton
Keynes, Buckinghamshire. It also has four discrete divisions each of which
represents a key area of the business. The divisions are geographically
separate from the corporate headquarters and are organised as follows:
•
The
Private Transport Division (PTD) – based in Bedford, they also have offices in
the county town of every county in England and Wales.
•
The
Business Security Division (BSD) – based in Leicester, they too have offices in
the county town of every county in England and Wales.
•
The
Domestic Security Division (DSD) – based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, they have
similar provision of offices to the above two divisions.
•
The
Home Office Services Division (HOSD) – this is based in Central London; the
precise organisation of this division will be covered later. None of the
divisions shares its premises with any of the other divisions. This is in part
due to the way in which the business has evolved (including takeovers and
mergers). However, it is also due the very separate operation of each division.
2.1
Divisional Responsibilities
The autonomous nature of the PTD, BSD and DSD
divisions means that in effect it carries out all the activities associated
with an individual business. The ways in which each division carries out its
business activities varies from division to division.
2.1.1
Private transport division (PTD)
Sales section – these are charged for in two
ways: (1) contract sales – these are negotiated for various periods and
typically relate to regular transport of specific items between two or more
locations; (2) one-off sales – these will be for single transportation tasks
arranged by customers on an ad-hoc basis. The sales area is headed by a senior
sales manager based at the divisional headquarters. Each area office also has a
sales coordinator, together with a number of sales executives. Marketing
section – this is performed by a small marketing department of two persons
based at the divisional headquarters. Annual marketing spend is small – this
division carries out core, well-established business operations, with limited
scope for growth. Transport section – this is the key area for this division:
the business operations depend on scheduling the appropriate vehicle for the
appropriate route and with the right security team. In addition, activities
such as vehicle maintenance and staff duty rostering have to be managed.
Information Systems section – this is a subpart of the Transport section; the
division operates a network of three PCs running the following applications:
•
Financial ledgers (Sage Sovereign)
•
Route planning (Autoroute)
•
Duty
rostering (end-user developed spreadsheet). Payroll processing is contracted
out to Midwest Bank Business Services.
Job costing for new and renewed contracts is
performed manually, as is one-off business. This is an area where a new
information system may be useful.
The IS function in this division is managed
by an ex-policeman who gained some IT experience while in the force but who is
not an IT specialist. However, he has made judicious use of consultant support
since his appointment.
2.1.2
Business security division (BSD)
This part of the business has experienced
steady growth over the past 5 years. Recent developments have included a
response to increased levels of computer theft in small to medium hi-tech
companies. An objective of this division is to continue with this organic
growth, while at the same time increase its profile in the hi-tech marketplace.
The management structure is well established and comprises the following:
• Sales –
these are managed by a team of sales consultants based at each office. At
office level, they are managed by a senior sales consultant. The senior sales
consultants report to the Sales Director in Leicester. Sales data is recorded
on a PC-based sales ledger and monthly sales figures are sent to Milton Keynes
on floppy disk. This department also runs a separate stand- alone PC-based
sales tracking and marketing system. A subsection of this department is an
installations section that is responsible for supplying and fitting security
equipment as ordered by the customers.
• Marketing
– there is no specific section dealing with this: marketing is perceived as
being little more than advertising and leaflet drops in each geographic area
and it is left to the sales force to accomplish this.
•
Finance
section – this division has a separate finance function that runs a range of
stand-alone PC-based financial ledgers. Purchase and General Ledger information
is communicated to head office on hard copy – this is because the ledgers are
incompatible with the systems used at head office. Payroll processing is also
carried out in-house using the Pegasus payroll package on a stand-alone PC.
•
Purchasing
section – this is a subset of the finance section that deals with equipment
procurement for the installations section. Manual purchase data is passed to
the finance section for processing.
The IS function is now managed by a 24-year-old graduate in Business
Computing who has just replaced a recently retired senior accountant.
2.1.3
Domestic security division (DSD)
This is the most recently established
division, having been created by the acquisition from the receivers of a
nationwide chain of domestic security specialists within the last 6 months.
They have inherited a sound infrastructure of local offices and a reasonable
customer base and have been concentrating on turning around a business
operation that failed principally because of inadequate financial controls.
The key issues for this division are to
expand the customer base by (1) increasing the number of customers; (2)
marketing new services (e.g. security audits); and (3) emphasising the need for
ongoing maintenance of existing security systems.
This division is devolved down to area office
level, with each office responsible for the local management of the sales
activity, materials procurement and installation. Costs and revenues are,
therefore, managed at the local level with little current coordination by the
divisional head office in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Currently, the divisional head
office is responsible only for collecting financial data from each of the
branches (provided by them manually and in a variety of different formats),
which it then collates and then passes to SSL Headquarters, again in manual
paper form. SSL realises that it has to do something about the whole set-up in
order to establish a strategic and operational direction for this division.
There
is no IS investment and no specialist IS staff in this division.
2.1.4
Home office services division (HOSD)
This division was set up some 3 years ago as
a result of a successful tender to manage the transportation of prisoners
between police cells, the courts and the prison service. In addition to the
divisional headquarters in Central London, there are six regional offices
throughout England and Wales. From these offices, the transport of prisoners
and deployment of staff is coordinated. In addition to staff in the
transportation vehicles, a number of staffs are stationed permanently at police
stations in each county.
The
divisional headquarters is responsible for:
•
the coordination of the regional offices;
•
ensuring that the contractual arrangements
are adhered to;
•
accurately
costing both the standard service provision plus any additional services
offered;
•
processing
the accounts payable and receivable, and providing financial and management
accounting information to SSL’s headquarters (manual hard copy only). This
division is the most well organised in computing terms: the divisional headquarters
runs an IBM AS/400 minicomputer on which has a set of financial ledgers,
budgeting and costing software that has been purchased from KCB Ltd (a
specialist in AS/400 financial systems); each regional office has a PC running
routing and rostering software; each regional PC is linked to the AS/400 over a
WAN; the divisional headquarters also has a number of PCs running business
productivity-type packages (e.g., spreadsheet), which are also linked to the
AS/400 (thus allowing the download of data to the PCs for further analysis).
The division’s computing is managed by a ‘hybrid’ manager with both financial
and IT expertise. There is also one analyst/programmer and one
operator/programmer.
3.
SSL HEADQUARTERS
The company has yet to rise to the challenge represented
by an increasingly diverse yet related range of business operations. Similarly,
an historic under-investment in IS has meant that the divisional areas can only
send information in manual form only where it is re-keyed into relatively old
mainframe-based financial systems. The divisional nature of SSL means that the
activities at headquarters are principally general and financial management
orientated. The IT department is somewhat old-fashioned and certainly less up
to date than some of the divisions. In addition to a DP manager, there are six
data entry clerks who are responsible for re-keying financial data from the
divisions, three programmers, a systems analyst and two computer
operator/systems programmers. The DP manager is about to retire, and SSL must consider
how it wishes to manage IS both at headquarters and divisional level.
Questions
Considering the above description of SSL, write a report by answering
the following questions. It is recommended that up to 1 hour should be spent on
each question.
1.
Analyse
how SSL may identify the value that it obtains from its current portfolio of
information systems and evaluate the techniques that may be used in assessing
future IS investments.
2.
In many
parts of the company, it is clear that SSL do not have a coherent IS strategy.
Analyse how it may construct an IS strategy that is supportive of its business
strategy and the benefits that it would derive from this.
3. Analyse
the strategic potential for greater investment in information systems and
technology at SSL both from a divisional and company-wide perspective. Could
business process re-engineering be a useful tool in maximising the potential of
IS and IT within the company? Explain and justify your answers.
4.
Describe
the current location of IS functions within SSL. Recommend the best location
for IT services in the future.
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