Computer Information Systems Essay Research Paper INFORMATION

Computer Information Systems Essay, Research Paper

INFORMATION SYSTEM CASE STUDY

Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company is an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of The Great-West Life Assurance Company the largest stockholder-owned insurance company in Canada, and a member of the Power Financial group of companies.

We are searching for a new enterprise system. We are looking for a structured approach that eliminates the guesswork and makes the job faster and easier. In fact, we are in demand of a proven method that includes the use of an expert system assistant to automate significant portions of the process, getting us to the short list quickly, saving us time and money, maintaining team momentum, and facilitating buy-in.

Few executives can keep pace with all the changes in today’s fast-moving marketplace with new competitors, new business models, new technologies and innovative methods. Over the past decade, many companies have thinned the ranks of management, becoming “lean and mean.” As a result, executive attention is spread thin. The problem is to have enough time to plan, to reflect and to take the long view in business. Our company’s executive management needs consulting services that are designed to address these needs, and to provide focused assistance to busy executives who need to lead their organizations in this world of change.

Strategic Thinking

A strategic service is needed to define our current business model, our core competencies, and the key trends and issues affecting our industry. Then, we will need to formulate a strategic framework, providing structure for the new ideas and initiatives that will form our plan for the future. Finally, we need an IS service that can effectively communicate our strategy to our entire organization. In short, we need to do things better strategically and technically.

Process Improvement

Our executive attention is put into a rapid company-wide operational assessment to determine where the major opportunities lie. Or, we can focus on either specific processes such as material planning, engineering change management, and order fulfillment; or, on specific business functions, such as manufacturing, sales, or accounting. The company’s business goal of process improvement is growth, with improved quality, efficiency, flexibility, and customer service.

Enterprise Technology

Finally, we have a great demand of information technology. New technology is driving many of the changes in the marketplace today. We begin to look for an expert in technology, the Internet, Data Warehousing, supply chain management, advanced planning, and enterprise resource planning. But more importantly, our executive manager Jean O’Neil, is looking for an IS service that can apply technology to meet our business objectives, enable new business models, improve business processes, and to better serve our customers. On the whole, O’Neil is seeking IS group management consultants that have years of experience in a variety of industries from some of the world’s major corporations to many small and mid-sized firms.

A recent survey revealed that over half of enterprise system implementations do not meet their objectives. Yet companies continue to implement new systems, imagining that new software will automatically bring benefits. For our IS consulting services, O’Neil thinks that we need managers who are successful to first identify the opportunities and then leverage information systems to exploit those opportunities. Our IS group also needs to focus on business process improvement and not just information technology.

A business process assessment is designed for companies that want benefits from information systems. It quickly zeroes in on those specific areas that hold the best opportunities for improving business processes. The problem with our company is that we need strategic business improvment through technology. Firstly, an assessment is needed because this service is essential for companies like us for planning to select or implement a new enterprise system. It focuses the selection and implementation on those areas that hold the greatest pay-back. Secondly, this service is valuable for us because we want to get more from our existing system. In fact, O’Neil points out that this is indeed a small investment to help the company to get all the benefits from the system that has been already installed.

For our three year business plan, O’Neil states that the business process assessment plan is necessary for a four step methodology:

1. Preliminary Survey

First we will need a short survey to determine basic site information, including major business functions performed and which functions are supported by our existing system. This helps us determine the time required for the assessment and the functional areas we will need to explore. Then based on the results of the site survey, we also need to give a fixed price proposal for the assessment itself. Depending on our needs, and we do need a well developed plan, and therefore, the entire assessment will be completed in about one month.

2. Structured Interviews

Using our structured interview, O’Neil points out that our company needs to conduct a series of interviews with representative managers and users. This structured approach keeps the interviews focuse

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