Analyzing Strategic Information System: Software Applications For Business In Australia - Essay.

Software Packages Used by Businesses in Australia

Discuss about the Strategic Information System.

The report is prepared for analyzing the strategic information system of business by appropriately identifying several types of software applications that are used by business based in Australia. Various types of software have been illustrated and the analysis is done by selecting the organization Wise Tech Global. Wise tech is a company that has employed a single platform solution for enhancing the integration, productivity, communication and innovation of supply chain. It has helped global companies in efficiently managing the movement of information and goods since year 1994 and is based in Alexandria, Australia. Report is prepared for evaluating the various software packages used by companies in Australia in terms of market size and competitive advantage enjoyed by leading companies. Various products offered by company are forwarding, cargo one wise, land transport, warehousing, accounting, enterprise capabilities, gps tracking, scheduling and optimization (Wisetechglobal.com 2018). Moreover, report also incorporates discussion on the challenges encountered by the accounting software packages. All the advantages and disadvantages have been understood by placing importance on the selection of relevant accounting software.

Business firms use several accounting software packages and usage of such software is determined by the requirement of business. Hence, such software assists in meeting the domestic standard accounting needs for enhancing the accounting treatments. Accounting software is the software application that helps in recording and processing of accounting transactions such as account receivable, accounts payable, general ledger and payroll using functional modules (DeLone et al. 2016). Such software can be accessed by uses using the online platform.

WiseTech Global was established in year and has its operation based in Sydney, Australia and helps logistics companies by providing technological innovation. In order to deliver solutions to customers and making considerable contributions to staff members, customers, shareholders in the logistics industry by using latest software accounting tools (Contractor et al. 2016). Cultural foundation is the core value of companies that have high priorities, deeply held beliefs and fundamental forces driving the action. Company makes use of hardware and software as an innovator for creating new ways of living and working along with solving problems. All the products are produced by organization using the best hardware platform and latest software tools and pride is taken for delivering solutions making considerable differences to partners, customers, logistic industry and shareholders. Business is able to deliver industry leading solutions with the help of skill accumulation, individual skills and shared values. They are rapid expanding, profitable and mature business focusing on great products. Intellectual property of business helps in driving and creating brand along with serving the market and customers.

Evaluation of Wise Tech Global

It can be inferred from the analysis of the organizational structure of Wise tech Global that they face several organizational problems. Such problems are attributable to poor communication in case of horizontal communication. There can be problems in solving the needs of customers and the system being bureaucratic sometimes. Department is capable of taking appropriate decisions using the organizational structure for getting benefits as a whole (Grant et al. 2015).

Using such software, businesses are able to track the income, cost as well as profit figures. In order to perform the additional function along with the simple accounting software functioning, using software such as MYOB proves very useful to organization. Initially, development of MYOB incorporated many accounting characteristics and assist business enterprise in gaining real time view of business financial operations by arriving at feasible decisions. For small business enterprise operating across Australia, an affordable cloud accounting software is rendered by this particular accounting software.

Identification of control problems in the system:

The current accounting system of WiseTech Global has been identified with the existence of some frauds. One of the main issues faced by organization across all industries and location is involvement of employees in conducting fraud activities.  Employees are involved in committing several types of fraud related to accounting system functioning. It has been ascertained from research conducted that employee fraud across the typical organization result in loss of at least 5% of the annual revenue generated. It is very essential on part of organization to detect and prevent employee involvement in fraud for generating reliable accounting results. It is required by Wise Tech Global to have proper plan for preventing fraud and such plan should incorporate implementation of accounting software such as MYOB for reduction of fraud (Mcauliffe et al. 2017). 

Adoption of accounting software packages in Australia have leapt to new heights in year 2014 and the market of cloud accounting are developing with the users embracing the immeasurable benefits. It has been found from research that the small and medium enterprise of Australia have gained considerable advantage with the adoption of cloud accounting software. 14% of small business in Australia is taking the advantage of such software in managing the accounts (Venkatraman and Fahd 2016). Accounting software implementation is common among the small and medium enterprises. However, such enterprises also face some challenges due to the implementation of such software’s. 

The accounting software packages have been developing in the present scenario where payment is done by business through interpretation exhausted invoice prints. Software accounting helps in automatic generation of receipts. It is required by organization to develop accounting software that helps in addressing the concerns of business and delivering high standard business solutions. Furthermore, huge development is involved for gaining proper security solutions as well as software solutions that helps in securing data and making it dependable at the same time. Therefore, for utilizing the software accounting packages, software developers should make the packaging easier and dispensed in an effective way by involving more clients. In such scenarios, businesses that are based in Australia make proper utilization of accounting software for development and growth of business. Furthermore, several firms have adopted and acquired application of cloud software. It has been found that business mainly adopt such accounting software that are effective and not expensive at the same time. On contrary to this, some of the clients have criticized the security concerns and its alignment with technological developments (Cassidy 2016). In such scenario, the development and design of software was being evaluated by the users of software accounting packages in Australia.

Accounting Software Packages Used by Small and Medium Enterprises in Australia

Small enterprise exceptionally votes for the MYOB software as depicted from the report for year 2015. The reason for such exce4ption voting is that there is several book keeping data structure that is incorporated in this particular accounting software. Furthermore, the design of MYOB software is done as a mechanism of accounting that is time saving and easy to utilize as it helps organization in keeping financial procedures in line with reports of financial budgetary. The possibility of MYOB Corporation helps in empowering the progression of MYOB software as in this particular area, the software merges with trading concepts (Hutchins 2016).        

Therefore, employment of accounting software by organization will help in item execution enhancement that is utilized by Australian organization.

MYOB software currently captures 60% of the total market share as it is the largest service provider of business management and accounting software in Australia. Online solutions are chosen by clear majority of small and medium enterprises with total new registrations of MYOB software up to 81%. The uploading programs offered by the software are utilized by more than 20% of the customers of business enterprises (Kennedy et al. 2015).

The small as well as medium enterprises based in Australia prefer to use the accounting software such as MYOB. In countries such as Australia, small and medium enterprises have become the leaders and they are relying on using accounting software for creating environment that helps in seamless operations of business. The market share of MYOB is pressurized by the growing preference of cloud accounting software. MYOB employment helps organization in gaining competitive advantage over other players in the market (Mageto 2017).

The strong first mover and significantly greater competition in the cloud competition is provided by the accounting software such as XERO. It is accounting software that is leader in issuing of accounting software packages and captures huge market share by the firms operating in Australia.  Any new entrants in the market of accounting software packages are threatened by strong brand recognition and market position of XERO. The online market share is being grabbed by a major churn event of one off desktop to cloud migration with XERO being the largest beneficiary in this regard. Accountant might be required to support multiple platforms with this particular accounting software launching its own management products form practice (Kaefer et al. 2015). However, for the time being in the land grab for users of cloud accounting, the key differentiator is the leadership practice market of MYOB. Since, market have shifted to online platform direct sales of such software have become more prominent. The market growth rate of accounting software is accelerated by shift in the cloud computing. For the period of 2013-2015, the revenue of three largest players in the domestic market of Australia that is Reckon, MYOB and XERO have increased by over 40% (Ramli 2015).

Challenges and Benefits of Accounting Software Packages

MYOB is remaining somewhere behind XERO despite the fact that later is first mover advantage in providing online solutions. This is so because XERO is able successfully convert the desktop users.

Employment of MYOPB software by business organization helps in gaining competitive advantage over their competitors. In order for WiseTech Global top gain competitive edge over their competitors in terms of software solutions, it is recommended to employ software such as MYOB as they facilitate the enterprise of user interface by providing both online and offline solutions (Tanaka and Sithole 2015). Therefore, most of small enterprise located in Australia has been inspired by the employment of MYOB software. Organizations are required to consider some of the factors before selecting cloud based accounting solutions such as data, annual fees, integration, mobile and multi platform and bank feeds. The cloud accounting systems are becoming increasingly connected that comes with variety of features such as business intelligence, e commerce, point of sales and debt chasing. The software market of Australia is facing increasing competition and the market is dominated by the biggest players such as Intuit, XERO and MYOB.

Since the features offered by such software’s are almost similar, there exists stiff competition in the market. In addition to this, the competitions among such software are based on price (Tanaka and Sithole 2015). Therefore, it is required by company to select the software’s that is based on factors such as business nature, scale of operations and banking requirements. It can be inferred from the discussion that a remarkable history of development is experienced by software market in Australia. Development of cloud based software is faced with the challenges of security threat. Organization can make use of some strategies for dealing with the threats associated with such software implementation such as information centric security, authentic measures and predicate cryptography.

The leading software accounting packages is mainly based on cloud computing software and WiseTech Global would face difficulty in shifting to cloud based. One of the most critical elements of the software solutions opted by WiseTech global is consideration of security of several accounting records when seeking accounting software solutions. Excessive level of security would be required by the company as their online content is prone to threat, fraud and hacking. Moreover, it needs to be taken into consideration that accounting software such as XERO and MYOB is subjected of security concerns. Employment of such software packages would require organization to provide training to their accounting staffs involved in performing practical actions (Grant et al., 2015). Since the company such as WiseTech Global does not have well qualified personnel to handle such cloud based software, it would be difficult on their part to reap the benefits provided by the accounting software. 

Fraud Detection and Prevention in Accounting Systems

Pricing of software- Additional cost are also consumed in terms of technical support and back up data for using such software’s. It contributes to increasing cost incurred by organization while implementing the software’s.

Security threat- Nevertheless, such software increase the risk of malware, phishing and other and business information confidentiality might also be at risk. There can be temporary slowdown of operations of business due to the implementation of accounting software (Husin and Ibrahim 2014).

Use of consultants- Accounting software differs considerably from one program to another and it becomes hard for consultants to become familiar with the wide arrays of program that is available. It is required by business to be very selective when selecting consultants for the employment of any particular software and the business needs should be understood well by such consultants.

Implementation issue- Computerized accounting is less flexible compared to manual accounting system and it is required by organization to have set of some pre requisite before the implementation of such software. Such pre requisites will lead organization to incur additional cost that might be difficult to be borne by some organizations.

Difficulty in using- Staff of organizations faces difficulty in using such software because they are accustomed to traditional accounting method. It requires firms to hire additional staffs that possess skills of handling such software and might require providing training to them (Stewart et al. 2015).

Conclusion and Recommendations:

It can be inferred from the analysis of the above mentioned accounting software that organizations are required to have an understanding of the application of such software. However, there are various accounting software packages that can be utilized by WiseTech Global and they can choose based on efficiency and costs. The present study conducted is on the analysis of several accounting software and their usage in reference to the application of such software’s by the company. Application of accounting software’s would help in overcoming limitations of traditional accounting system. The competitive edge of firms against their rival would increase by two benefits attributable from such software usage that is integration of accounting functions and usage. Therefore, it is required by WiseTech global to consider several pre requisites before the employment of accounting software packages.

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