Business Information System Analysis-Management Assignment Solution Sample

QUESTION

 

You are required to act as the business analyst working for the organisation in the case study. You have
been asked to do the following:
1. Identify all key problems (for each problem identified, you are required to provide a brief explanation).
2. Pick up 1 problem from one or more stakeholders which you consider is most problematic and discuss in detail why the problem needs to be addressed and how they should be treated and why? For discussing the treatment for the problem, you are required to apply Russel Ackoff (2011) framework ‘The 4 Different Ways of Solving a Problem’ by clicking on the following link:
http://www.human-current.com/blog/2016/1/22/dr-russell-ackoff-design-is-theanswer
3. Designate whether the problems you have identified in 1 are hard or softsystem problems. You need to explain why you have made your decision
4. Identify key stakeholders and problem owners
5. List possible models, tools and techniques that can be used to analyse the current system. Critique each of these models, tools and technique in addressing the problems in the case study. (Note: the emphasis is on critiquing the methods and not
to give examples of the methods). As part of this section, consider both object oriented and structured approaches as covered in previous units (e.g. Requirement Analysis Modelling INF20003. For those who are a bit rusty (or have not studied
these techniques in detail) here are some resources to look at: structured approaches: https://www.visual-paradigm.com/tutorials/data-flow-diagram-dfd.jsp;

comparison between object oriented and structured approaches:
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/object_oriented_analysis_design/index.htm,

object oriented approaches:
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/object_oriented_analysis_design/ooad_object_oriented_analysis.htm)
6. Draw a Rich picture bringing all the components together as identified in 1 –4

 

ANSWER

 

Introduction

There are various types of business problem exists nowadays among all type of business. Every business needs to be master in order to identify and define the problem which is occurring continuously within a business organization. Identification of problem need more time to manage and resolve it properly. Defining a problem is a most important part of critical thinking in terms of business. This report highlights different business problems that an organization may face. Moreover, one main problem regarding the stakeholders of BookBorn has been described here with object oriented and structured approaches that can be used to mitigate the problem.

Identification of the key problems within Bookbarn

The key problems that the company Bookbarn is facing are related to their manual ordering system. Bookbarn is a supplier company of stationary and office consumables to the offices of across Australia. As per the views of Grant (2016), along with the growing number of sales of their goods the company faced a crucial problem of ordering system. The company administrator is unable to handle the manual process of ordering supplies from consumers as well as their wholesalers.

Along with this a new problem has been raised regarding the use of computerized ordering system. As Bookbarn is a 40 years old company there are many senior employees who are comfortable of working manually. Therefore, it will boost up the problem within the company if the computerized system will deployed as many of the employees are not aware of the use (Moro, Cortez & Rita, 2015).

Problems from the stakeholders

Apart from the employees and administrator of the company the key stakeholders of the company are their permanent customers as well as the wholesalers. After meeting with the stakeholders and potential users of the company, it can be seen that the main problem that has been raised is their ordering system is not responding fast with the time and with growing number sales. The administrators are also not able to cope up with the growing rate of sales due to their slow ordering system. As stated by Tarhini et al. (2015), the issues are getting worst when the similar companies has been arrived with computerized ordering system which is faster  than the manual one. So, to solve the customer’s problem this issue needs to be addressed. In order to address the issue Russell Ackoff framework has been used which has four steps by which the problem can be solved. The stages include:

Absolution is the act of ignoring the problem hoping that the problem will be solved by itself (Ringle & Sarstedt, 2016).

Resolution is composed of two parts in it. First part will determine whether the problem arises before and if it happens than whether it can be solved with previous solution or not. Second part is to search for what changes have been made prior to the problem so that the reason of the problem can be identified easily. However, Nitzl, Roldan & Cepeda (2016) stated that this is not best solution for the ordering problem in Bookbarn as their problem needs improvement of the system.

As a solution to the problem of manual ordering system is a computerized ordering system euch needs IT experts to handle and monitor it.  

Dissolution is the final stage of resolving the problem where the final implementation of computerized ordering system has been implemented and required steps has been taken to implement the new system properly (Brea‐Solís et al. 2015).

Analysis of the identified problem

The problem that has been identified regarding their ordering system is it is slow and not able  to handle the order pressure any more as it is operated manually. So, it can be seen that the problem is more about hard system as a new method has to be implemented in order to solve the problem which is computerized ordering system.

Identification of problem owners

The problem owners are mainly from the group of their regular customers who are the potential users of their system. The customers and wholesalers are their key stakeholders as well. As the users are regularly using their ordering system they can understand that the system is becoming slow due to heavy work pressure as the system is operated manually.

Structures approaches to mitigate the problems

There are two approaches that can be used to analyze the current situation of the problem that has been raised in Bookbarn regarding their manual ordering system.

Structured approach to analyze the current system of manual ordering can be done by preparing a DFD (Data Flow Diagram) of the system. As per the views of Gu, Tang & Jiang (2015), a DFD is a pictorial representation of the system by which the operation of the system can be understood as well as the problems that has been occurred due to the slow functionalities of the system.

Object oriented approach can be understood by developing the new software that has been proposed to implement in Bookbarn. As opined by Vidgen, Shaw & Grant (2017), the object oriented analysis phase of system analysis phase of software development as well as the system requirements can be determined through this approach. Three analytics tool has been used under this approach of system analysis.

Object Modeling can be used to develop the static structure of the computerized ordering system

Dynamic modeling represents the time-dependent factors of the new software system.

Functional modeling of the mew software system can be used to determine the processes that have been encountered in the system to mitigate the existing issues.

 

Conclusion

It can be concluded from the above sections that the Bookbarn Company is facing issue regarding their manual operation of ordering process due to its slow nature. Along with that there has been raise another problem when computerized ordering system has been proposed to cope up with the situation. A meeting with main stakeholders and key users of the old system has been conducted through which the company is able to understand the need of implementing computerized system.

Reference list

Brea‐Solís, H., Casadesus‐Masanell, R., & Grifell‐Tatjé, E. (2015). Business Model Evaluation: Quantifying W almart’s Sources of Advantage. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 9(1), 12-33. Retrieved on 31^st March 2019 Retrieved from https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/13135315/brea-solis%2Ccasadesus-masanell%2Cgrifell-tatje_business-model-eval_SEJ-12-0963-R3.pdf?sequence=1

Grant, D. (2016). Business analysis techniques in business reengineering. Business Process Management Journal, 22(1), 75-88. Retrieved on 1^st April 2019 Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Delvin_Grant/publication/291372407_Business_analysis_techniques_in_business_reengineering/links/5b69547892851ca650511ff1/Business-analysis-techniques-in-business-reengineering.pdf
Moro, S., Cortez, P., & Rita, P. (2015). Business intelligence in banking: A literature analysis from 2002 to 2013 using text mining and latent Dirichlet allocation. Expert Systems with Applications, 42(3), 1314-1324. Retrieved on 1^st April 2019 Retrieved from https://repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt/bitstream/1822/38304/1/BI_in_banking-review.pdf

Gu, Q., Tang, T. L. P., & Jiang, W. (2015). Does moral leadership enhance employee creativity? Employee identification with leader and leader–member exchange (LMX) in the Chinese context. Journal of Business Ethics, 126(3), 513-529. Retrieved on 31^st March 2019 Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-013-1967-9

Nitzl, C., Roldan, J. L., & Cepeda, G. (2016). Mediation analysis in partial least squares path modeling: Helping researchers discuss more sophisticated models. Industrial management & data systems, 116(9), 1849-1864. Retrieved on 1^st April 2019 Retrieved from https://idus.us.es/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11441/71185/Mediation%20Analysis%20in%20Partial%20Least%20Squares.pdf?sequence=1

Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2016). Gain more insight from your PLS-SEM results: The importance-performance map analysis. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 116(9), 1865-1886. Retrieved on 1^st April 2019 Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marko_Sarstedt/publication/294535368_Gain_More_Insight_from_Your_PLS-SEM_Results_The_Importance-Performance_Map_Analysis/links/59f79717aca272607e2d887a/Gain-More-Insight-from-Your-PLS-SEM-Results-The-Importance-Performance-Map-Analysis.pdf

Tarhini, A., Ammar, H., Tarhini, T., & Masa’deh, R. E. (2015). Analysis of the critical success factors for enterprise resource planning implementation from stakeholders’ perspective: A systematic review. International Business Research, 8(4), 25-40. Retrieved on 1^st April 2019 Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/download/46782212/Analysis_of_the_Critical_Success_Factors20160625-23223-ydmarh.pdf

Vidgen, R., Shaw, S., & Grant, D. B. (2017). Management challenges in creating value from business analytics. European Journal of Operational Research, 261(2), 626-639. Retrieved on 31^st March 2019 Retrieved from http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/19847/1/EJOR%20analytics%20value%20creation%20resub2%20Feb%202017%20FINAL.pdf