BIS2006 Management Information Systems Assignment Help

 

Assessment Brief: BIS2006 Management Information Systems Trimester 2, 2024 

Assessment Overview 

Assessment 1: Online Quiz 

Assessment Details: 

These online quizzes will assess your knowledge of key content areas of learning materials from weeks 1 to 9. For successful completion of the quizzes, you are required to study the material provided  (lecture slides, tutorials, and reading materials), engage in the unit’s activities, and participate in the  discussion forums.  

These quizzes will be completed online through the APIC Online Learning System (OLS).

Marking Information: There will be four quizzes conducted during trimester, each quiz will be  marked out of 100 and weighted 10%, together, they will comprise a total of 40% of the total unit  mark. 

Assessment 2: Case Study-1 

Assessment Details: 

This assignment assesses the student’s application of theoretical learning to practical, real-world and/or simulated situations. 

Mini Case Study 

ShoeSmart 

ShoeSmart is an online retail business founded by Achiles Bunion in 2010. The company decided to  investigate a Business Intelligence (BI) solution to analyse around a million transactions from almost  100,000 customers in their database. To better understand what their customers want, they also like  to implement a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution. Together with their BI system,  they also hope it will give them insight on the needs of their customers so they can come up with  new products/services. 

The vision of the company is “to be the go-to online retail store for Australians for their shoe needs” by offering speed, convenience, choice, and price delivered to customer doors within 30  minutes or less. To speed up their warehouse and delivery operations, they currently use an RFID  asset tracking system in their packing warehouses to speed up locating and allocating resources.  They also use a proprietary GPS system that allow their delivery drivers to find the fastest routes to  their destinations and avoid any delays. 

One of their main competitors, FootFriend recently used analytics to build a data-centric approach  to its business. For example, the initial reports produced by their BI system identified that Nike Air,  Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star and Adidas Superstar were their most popular shoes in the last  quarter of 202x. As a result, they’ve realised that Big Data could reveal insights they don’t know  before which could even create new sources of revenue for the business. 

“We had a lot of data coming from our point-of-sales software. Initially, the challenge was  how to a develop a quick way to talk to the company’s POS database. After they found an  easy way to access the data, their next challenge was to drill down into the information in  ways that would positively impact business results. Our goal was to use the huge amount of  

transaction data in a cost-effective way and find the right metrics to help us drive our  business forward,” said Tibilias Talus, vice president of R&D and analytics at FootFriend. 

FootFriend use Tableau to crunch its data. Tableau is a data visualization software focused on  business intelligence. Tableau is a powerful and fastest growing data visualization tool. It helps in 

simplifying raw data into the very easily understandable format in the form of dashboards and  worksheets. Tableau is cost-effective as it only cost them $70 per month for the subscription. After  rolling out their Big Data strategy, FootFriend have nearly doubled their annual sales to $878,850  and welcomed an additional 15,000 customers in 202x, a 10% increase in total customer count. 

In contrast, ShoeSmart used Microsoft Access but eventually used SQL to talk directly to the  company’s POS database. Luckily, they have an in-house IT personnel specialising in SQL who made  all the necessary queries and reports that they need for organisational decision-making. However,  they are now in need of an analytics software that could make reports in an understandable format  in the form of dashboards and worksheets to help simplify decision-making. Hence, they are  currently investigating the possibility of also using Tableau and have hired an external consultant to  help them in this regard. 

ShoeSmart said that the three foremost analytics questions they asked: 

• How can we further improve our services? 

• How do we reduce delivery times? 

• How can we find hidden needs and fill up with new products and services? 

The problems they are facing include information silos, decentralised data, lack of data analytics  and visualisation strategies, lack of business intelligence skilled personnel and lack of customer  relationship management system solution. 

Initial investigation revealed that possible CRM solutions includes cloud-based CRM such as Zoho  CRM, Salesforce, SugarCRM or Monday.com. However, they are still at a lost whether to go  proprietary or open-source, and assuming they will use Tableau as their BI system, will it interface  well with their CRM solution of choice? They would like you to help them in this regard. 

Once you formulated your recommendation solution, you now need to provide a critique of the  proposed solution. Your critique should include a discussion of the features of the proposed  enterprise CRM solution, its functions in support of business processes, such as its ability to  produce customer insight reports, including a justification of its “fitness” to the organisational  needs, such as alignment to the company’s strategic goals (such as, will this CRM solution help  better understand customer needs?). It may also include cost/benefit calculations, such as ROI,  payback analysis, and Net Present Value (NPV). Also, will the proposed CRM solution interface well  with Tableau? 

You are required to describe the role of information systems in supporting operations and  organisational decision making (ULO-1), discuss the features of enterprise systems and their  functions to support business processes (ULO-2), and critique the alignment of an organisation’s  information systems strategy and business strategy (ULO-3).  

The following areas should be covered in your assignment using the case study context: 

1. Provide a brief description of the organisation 

2. Provide a description of the current information systems problems (e.g., information silos, lack  of BI capabilities, etc) and describe the role of information systems in supporting operations  and organisational decision making (e.g., creation of dashboards and worksheets) 

3. Discuss the features of enterprise systems and their functions to support business processes  and how its implementation will provide real benefits to organisation (e.g., competitive  advantage, improved customer traffic, improved sales and profit, etc)

4. Critique the information system solutions proposed. Are they aligned to the company’s  business strategic vision? 

5. A report of 2500 words summarising your analysis must be submitted by the due date.  Reasonable assumptions are allowed. 

Penalty for Late submission: a deduction of 5% of the total mark shall be imposed on each of the  next subsequent days.  

Submission requirements 

1. Use a typical report structure, with a Cover Page, Table of Contents, Introduction, Body,  Recommendation/Conclusion and References format. Executive Summary is not required in  this report. 

2. The References are excluded in the word count. 

3. The Cover Page should clearly indicate the name of the person submitting the report and the  word count. 

4. You can use each question above as Headings in the Body of your report. 

5. All References should reflect quality citations from relevant academic journals and adhere to  the correct Harvard format (Wikipedia NOT allowed). 

Marking Information: The Case Study-1 will be marked out of 100 and will be weighted 30% of the  total unit mark. 

Marking Criteria and Rubric

 

 

 

Assessment 3: Case Study-2  

Assessment Details: 

Read the case study and the article below, then complete the report requirements at the end. To answer the report requirements provided, you will need to conduct further research about the topic  (read the article below see the list of references included for further research). 

Case Study 

CyberTaxi 

CyberTaxi is a transportation service that was rolled out in 200X afterits founder, Raydon Karr couldn’t  get a taxi in New York during a snowstorm one December night. It originated from the idea, “What if  you could request a ride from your phone?” 

Today, CyberTaxi boasts an annual revenue of over $11 billion, a market capitalisation rate of $80 billion, and over 20,000 employees. With 100 million global customers and three million dedicated  drivers in 80 countries, CyberTaxi has been a legitimate game-changer in the taxi services market. 

CyberTaxi wanted to make it easy as 1-2-3 to get a ride. Customers just need to do is to open their  mobile phone, tap a button, and find an affordable ride in minutes. This is aligned to the company’s vision and mission which is to “getting a ride is as easy as saying 1-2-3” and ”to be the number one  taxi service for travellers all over the world.” To achieve their vision, they need to align their  business strategy with their IT strategy. But how? 

What CyberTaxi has exposed is that companies can transform a business if they engage with  customers more effectively. But getting that engagement is tough. According to Mack Cartrip, chief  systems architect for CyberTaxi, “Each person connecting to CyberTaxi is having a unique experience  with highly personalised data.” To solve this problem, the company decided to implement a  “Customer Relationship Management” or CRM. It’s called CRM software because there is systematic 

data collection and organisation and uses this information to predict customer’s buying behaviour  and habits. It focuses on analysing customer data, anticipating their wishes or requirements, finding  new needs, and recovering those who have left. In the same way, it works to make a positive change  in profitability, with the increase in sales through personalised campaigns. 

Businesses that began to systematise their operations with this type of system retain their  customers since there is a balanced collaboration between marketing, customer service and sales.  They have also managed to expand their business, increasing their sales in an approximate range of  37%. CRM makes data collection an intuitive process that determines when a lead needs a service or  when it’s appropriate to launch a promotion. Another benefit of CRM is that the conversations  generated are always personalised, relevant, and up to date producing a 45% increase in customer  satisfaction.  

CRM systems offer a range of capabilities that helped CyberTaxi to effectively manage their  operations and customer interactions. Some of the key capabilities include: 

• Customer data tracking and analysis: CRM was used to track customer data such as pick-up  and drop-off locations, ride history, and contact information, allowing them to gain a better  understanding of their customers’ needs and preferences. 

• Dispatch and scheduling: CRM are integrated with GPS and mapping technology, allowing  CyberTaxi to schedule and dispatch drivers in real-time, improving efficiency and reducing  wait times for customers. 

• Payment and billing: CRM are integrated with payment platforms, allowing CyberTaxi to  easily process payments and generate invoices for customers. 

• Customer communication: CRM allow CyberTaxi to centralise customer communication,  making it easy to respond to customer inquiries and resolve any issues that may arise. They  can monitor tweets to find out their customers’ experience regarding their journeys, delays,  and so on. They then identify negative tweets and does what’s necessary to remedy the  situation. By publicly addressing these issues and offering solutions, it helps them build good  customer relations. 

• Reporting and analytics: CRM provide detailed reports and analytics on customer  interactions, rides, and revenue, allowing transportation companies to gain insights and  make data-driven decisions. For example, prescriptive analytics can be used to maximize an  CyberTaxi’s profit. This type of analytics is used to build an algorithm that will automatically  adjust the taxi fares based on numerous factors, including customer demand, weather,  destination, holiday seasons, and petrol prices. 

By utilising these capabilities, CyberTaxi can improve their customer relationships, streamline  operations, increase revenue, and gain a competitive advantage in the transportation industry. 

“Another challenge is that CyberTaxi cannot afford a system failure. Ever,” said Cartrip. “If a  CyberTaxi customer cannot get an CyberTaxi car, then they will switch to another app. There is no  brand loyalty. The systems must always work.” 

Cartrip lists three key areas that CyberTaxi needs for a fully redundant system: 

• Performance: What types of tests do you run to ensure that your systems keep  running? 

• Data: How can data operate in an environment where a data connection is  intermittent?

• Future proofing: What technologies does CyberTaxi invest in to improve efficiencies in  its systems? 

A common thread through all of CyberTaxi ‘ssystems is performance, performance, and performance.  Each technology is chosen because it is the most stable and delivers the fastest response. In addition  to this, CyberTaxi looks to ensure that tools work independently of each other and are destructible.  To this end, CyberTaxi actively attempts to crash its systems, including networks, databases, and APIs.  The system must work even when it is down.  

The level of performance does not stop at the server. The communication channel, or RPC, is also  modified. CyberTaxi’s version is called TChannel. It is based on Twitter’s multiplex RPC protocol, Mux.  CyberTaxi needed to invent its own RPC communication channel because it supports more languages  than Twitter. Cartip added, “We are even looking to replace HTTP+JSON, a typical REST API, with Thrift,  as our tests are showing that it is 20 times faster. We need all the speed we can get.” 

Performance for CyberTaxi goes to extremes with data. The typical data structure for a company is a  relational database. The problem that CyberTaxi sees with relational databases is that the whole  system can come down if the database is not available. CyberTaxi uses Big Data tools and techniques as a foundation for its technologies, with tools such as Hadoop, MongoDB, Talend, Cassandra, STORM,  Kafka, Spark, and MySQL. Also, the company is extending MySQL with its distributed column store to  orchestrate the data processes. 

They also use Analytics as a business intelligence solution to help them understand their business,  make informed decisions, and measure the impact of the changes they make. Analytics shows what’s  working and what’s not, from start to finish, across the entire business, all in real time. They will  analyse several different factors, such as population, demographics, location, and more. With  visualization tools like Tableau, Big Data analysts at CyberTaxi can produce graphic visualisations of  the analysis. In the past, they use Excel to uncover opportunities in the business, but extracting data  can be difficult as can drawing meaningful conclusions. Also, Excel data focuses on what has happened  in the past…it’s like looking in the rear-view mirror. With business intelligence, processing of this big  data is in real- time, gaining instant awareness and act when it matters most. For example, Analytics  provides several insights to the drivers by showing them exactly which zones are underserved and  offer the greatest opportunity to increase their earnings. Analytics also help them detect, anticipate,  and respond to opportunities to engage customers anytime, anywhere. It allows them to deliver  targeted promotions to customers based on booking volume, location, time since last booking or to  reward (or encourage) loyalty. They can personalise their promotions based on situational awareness  by including reference to past and present customer behaviour and events. For example, as a  customer completes their journey home on a Friday evening, there’s a good chance they will require  a taxi home later on the weekend as they go out with friends. So instead of sending a standard ‘thank you’ text, the system sends them a $3 off voucher code that’s only valid that weekend – ensuring they  choose CyberTaxi fleet later. With Analytics the firm was able to segment their customer base not  only by the regularity of their bookings, but to cross-reference that with those who had not booked  via app. The promotional text was therefore two-fold in its intention – it both rewarded loyalty and  offered a link to download the company’s app… which in turn led to more repeat bookings from those  customers at a volume greater than before AND those bookings were now automated via the app. 

CyberTaxi uses drivers’ phones as the method of distributing data, achieving a kind of “super  distributed computing.” The result is that stress on replicating data is eliminated from the data  centres. The trick is achieved by the phone checking in with a server every four seconds to receive an 

encrypted digest. If a server does not respond, the phone moves to a new server. The whole data  environment is redundant. Also, the more drivers, the more redundancy is added to the system. 

In addition to the core supply-and-demand dispatch systems, CyberTaxi does have a third system:  Disco. Cartrio said, “Disco is the dispatch optimisation system. Disco’s main function is to match supply  with demand. Disco, however, allows CyberTaxi to investigate the future. We can match predictive  supply and demand, whereas our old system could only match what we knew then.” The advantage  Disco provides CyberTaxi is clear: Through data, CyberTaxi can help busy drivers keep efficiently  picking up riders. To do this, CyberTaxi needs a global index that requires a massive amount of data:  over 1 million writes per second. CyberTaxi is using Google’s S2 Geometry Library to break down the  data and get it out. This library is designed to split data into smaller geographical sections. The result  is that each section is not handling only the writes for that geographical location. This in turns helps  the company send drivers rapid updates on where riders are located and provide more accurate ETAs  for trips. It also gives CyberTaxi the opportunity to expand its business into a specific geography. 

You Tasks: 

After reading the case study above and conducting further research, you now need to answer the  following research requirements below. 

1. Critique the alignment between CyberTaxi’sinformation systems strategy and business strategy. a. Identify the strategic vision and mission of the company 

b. Identify the IT solutions they use to manage their operations (e.g., CRM, Business  Intelligence (BI), etc) 

c. Answer the question, “Are they able to meet their strategic vision using their current  IT solutions?” Why? Why not? Justify your answer. 

2. Critically review the role of business intelligence and business analytics in supporting business  decision making at CyberTaxi. 

a. Describe how they are using their current BI tools to make business decisions (e.g.,  Analytics, Tableau). 

b. Answer the question, “Are they able to make good data-driven decisions using  Analytics and their BI tool?” Why? Why not? Justify your answer. 

3. Review and evaluate contemporary tools and techniques for accessing information from  databases to improve business performance (e.g., Hadoop, Spark, Cassandra, MongoDB, STORM,  etc) 

4. A report of 3000 words summarising your analysis must be submitted by the due date.  Reasonable assumptions are allowed. 

Penalty for Late submission: a deduction of 5% of the total mark shall be imposed on each of the next  subsequent days.  

Submission requirements 

1. Use a typical report structure, with a Cover Page, Table of Contents, Executive Summary,  Introduction, Body, Recommendation/Conclusion and References format. Since this is a group  project made up of a maximum of 3 people, you need to allocate sections of the report to a  specific group member and should be clearly identified in the report. You will be given  separate marks based on how well you contributed to your allocated research area. For

example: 

 

2. The Executive Summary and the References are excluded in the word count. 3. The Cover Page should clearly indicate the names of each person in the group and the word  count. 

4. You can use task above as Headings in the Body of your report, and after the question is the  name of the group member(s) who discussed that topic. For example, “Alignment between  CyberTaxi’s information systems strategy and business strategy” by Jaspreet Singh. 

5. All References should reflect quality citations from relevant academic journals and adhere to  the correct Harvard format (Wikipedia NOT allowed). If you want to get the maximum marks in  referencing, you must correctly follow the correct standard format (Harvard) and must provide  at least 5 journal references.  

6. This is how I will mark the Writing Quality & Adherence to Format Guidelines:

Marking Information: The Case study-2 will be marked out of 100 and will be weighted 30% of the  total unit mark. 

Marking rubric: