What is the business value of information systems?

 

Learning Activity

 

CoolMutha manufactures and distributes snowboards to a range of customers. They have grown from a small operation in the back of one of the partner's garage, to three 10,000 sq.ft workshops, in the UK, Austria and France. All of the work is carried out in-house, from design through to production.

 

CoolMutha also makes bespoke boards for customers who have exacting demands, including extreme 'boarders. All of the boards come with a lifetime guarantee, and the company is conscious that it has an excellent reputation within the industry.

 

The company has decided to install an electronic information system for the organisation as a whole.

 

An initial investigation has narrowed the choice down to two suppliers of web-based IS solutions. Part of the analysis has been done in that some key areas of importance to the company have been identified.

 

 

Function

Weight

System 1

System 1 Score

System 2

System 2 Score

Ability to enter orders online

 

 

 

 

 

Access to suppliers information online

 

 

 

 

 

Check stocks in all three locations

 

 

 

 

 

Produce management accounts for all sites

 

 

 

 

 

Ability to check customer credit status online

 

 

 

 

 

Access to sales information for forecasting

 

 

 

 

 

Online invoicing

 

 

 

 

 

Automatic Bill of Materials generation

 

 

 

 

 

Ability to design own reports

 

 

 

 

 

Design package linked to manufacturing instructions

 

 

 

 

 

Totals

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which package should they choose?

 

  1. Using the case study above, get into groups and determine the weightings for each of the functions. You have 10 points to allocate across all of the functions. If you feel that the function is of major importance, then you should assign more of your marks. The total of all the weightings must not exceed 10 points.������������������������������������������������������ (15 mins)
  2. Your tutor will inform you of the System ratings when you have completed the weightings.
  3. Multiply each of the System ratings by the relevant weighting and get the System score.
  4. Add the columns up and get the total score for each system.

 

Looking purely at the scores, which system have you chosen?

 

Are there any other factors, including intangible benefits, that might have affected your decision?

 

How can scoring models be used to establish the worth of information systems?

 

 

Write a description of the implementation problems you might expect to encounter for the CoolMutha information system. Make a list of the steps you would take to solve or prevent these problems.