Strategic Information System: Westpac Bank Essay.

Discuss About The Strategic Information System: Westpac Bank.

The Information system which has developed for the purpose of supporting the initiatives of various types which are generally regarding the corporate business is known as the Strategic information systems (SIS). The business initiatives can be of different types and this depends on the type of business or organization. This are generally too fulfilled in order to make the organization successful and for making the organization achieve all the goals and objectives that they are having. The SIS is also associated with providing the organization with various kind of competitive advantages that helps the organization in becoming popular along with being significant almost all the other organizations belonging to the same field (Galliers and Leidner 2014). The delivering of the services which are typical is done by the SIS, along with the delivering different kinds of products which are very low of cost is also provided by the SIS. Focusing on various segments of the market is also done by the SIS. There exists another benefit due to the adaptation of the SIS and this benefit is that they are associated with the providing the organization with a way by which they would become more innovative along with providing of different kind of innovations related to the different kind of operations and processes that the organization is having. The SIS acts as an important part of the information technology. This is mainly due to the reason that the SIS is associated with helping in the process of storing, categorizing, processing and transformation of the information become much easy. The integration of the various business processes of the bank is done in an efficient and effective way by making use of the ERP or the enterprise resource planning (Arvidsson Holmström and Lyytinen 2014). Due to this reason the ERP is also termed as the integrated management system that is adopted by most of the large organization and is mediated by different kind of software.

The report provided below has been associated with providing a brief discussion about one of the top banks of Australia the Westpac bank. The report would also be focusing on the selection of the appropriate ERP that would be helping the bank in conducting its various operations. In the report a detailed research has been done regarding the usage of the ERP for the requirements of the business and the system along with helping in the vendor section process, mitigation of the security risks and adaptation of specific strategies that would be favouring the bank in conducting its business.

Developing Business Requirements

Business process can be generally defined as the set of different tasks which are connected to each other and is associated searching the ends in order to deliver a specific product or service to the customer. It is also defined as the collection of various kind of activities or tasks which is associated with helping the various organizations in achieving the goals and objectives (Van Der Aalst La Rosa and Santoro 2016). The different kind of business process that the organization is having are generally co related with one another and all this processes are adopted in order to achieve a specific goal that would be helping the organization is achieving success in its own business domain. Often a flowchart is used for the purpose of depicting the business process of a specific organization. There exists a sequences that is followed by the organizations in order to conduct the various process or activities (Haux et al. 2013). The major advantage that lies behind the usage of the business process is that high provisioning of the customer satisfaction is done besides this there exists the feature of agility to react to any kind of changes or alterations that are taking place inside the market in order to make improvements.

There exists three different business process and this includes the operational processes that is associated with providing the definitions regarding the main processes and also for the creation of the preliminary value streams such as the taking of orders or manufacturing any kind of product. Secondly come the management processes which are associated with overseeing the different operational processes and this is mainly done by the involvement of the corporate governance, oversight of the employee and lastly the overview of the budget (Cassidy 2016). Thirdly comes the supporting processes which are associated with providing support the major operations of the business.

In Westpac bank there exists several business processes and the major business process that are included in the system has been listed below:

1. Lending of personal loans:The bank has been associated with providing personal loans to individuals for various purposes.
2. Lending of business loans:The second process that is involved in the business process of Westpac bank is the providing of loans to certain business or to certain organizations.
3. Lending of loans related to security:Thirdly comes the providing of loans for different kind of security purposes and this type of loans are generally provided to any kind of organization.
4. Customer Accounting: The next important business process that is involved in the system of Westpac bank is the accounting of the customers.
5. Processing of Cheques: This can be considered as an another important business process that has been included in the system of Westpac Bank.
6. Processing of Other Payments: The other payment processes done by the bank are done by this particular bank is also included in the business process of the bank.
7. Handling of Cash: The liquid cash are handled by the bank so this can be considered as another important business process of the bank (Hoch and Dulebohn 2013).
8. Maintenance of Accounts: The customer accounts are maintained by the bank in a proper way and this is to done in order to make sure that there exists no problem regarding the security of the money.

The requirements of the business can be described as the different kind of specifications which once delivered, are associated with providing of values which would be responsible for the purpose of describing the features of the system from the viewpoint of the system (Jeston 2014). The bank consists of various various business requirements and it is also possible to define this business requirements as the StRS or stakeholder requirements specification. Various type of systems along with the products, processes and software are included in the proper methods and this methods mainly helps the bank in determining the various procedures which are generally related to the delivering of the business requirements along with satisfying and meeting all the requirements that is business is having (Cassidy 2016). In order to develop and to procure the system or the software in a proper way there is an essential need of various kind of business requirements which are often referred as well as utilized.

The Different Kind of Business Requirements for Westpac Bank

Three major reasons are responsible for the acquiring of the different kind of business requirements. This business requirements mainly includes the understanding of several business needs along with fulfilling the various business outputs which are associated with satisfying the customers as well as the stakeholders. The business requirements are to be looked into properly for the purpose of obtaining high level products along with services (Majchrzak and Malhotra 2013).

1. i) Personal Credit which is good: The good credit can be considered as one of the major business requirement that the Westpac Bank needs. The evaluation of the personal credit is done with respect to the application of loan (Laudon and Laudon 2016). Being better than any other bank with respect to the providing of the personal credit can be acting as one of the most effective and important feature of the Westpac bank which is associated with operating within entire Australia and New Zealand.
2. ii) Good Business Credit: This has been acting as the second business requirement of Westpac Bank. The time when the business is associated with starting its operation in a year, the business will be associated with gaining credit score which is generally associated with the legal incorporation of the name along with the tax ID number (Amrollahi Ghapanchi and Talaei-Khoei 2013). The credit report is associated with showing the obligations along with the debts that are solely associated with the bank and are associated with showing the records of payments. A good credit is generally required by the Westpac Bank for the purpose of getting better amount of loan for the business.

iii) Base of Larger Asset: The various kind of larger assets are considered as the third important business requirement of the organization. The securing of the business loans are eventually done against any certain asset (Bryson 2018). Along with this the Westpac bank also makes use of the various kind of assets in order to proceed with their business so as to become much better and this generally done by receiving loans from the parent bank. This has been associated with helping the bank in acquiring the business processes in a proper way.

1. iv) A concrete Business Plan: The business plan is generally considered as the fourth business requirement that Westpac Bank is having. All the profits are reflected by the business plan that and this generally refers to the profits that would be coming in the future years(Leon 2014). The business plans are also responsible for providing help to the for the purpose of obtaining the finances that are subsequently related to the organization. Besides this the business plan is also predicting the rate of interest for each and every capital.

Each and every computer present inside the bank requires different kind of hardware components as well as software components in order to conduct the various type of operations. The requirements are generally known as the systems or the requirements of the computer are considered as the requirements for any kind of business. The utilization of the resources is done as the guidelines which are generally opposed by the basic rules that exists. There exists two type of requirements and this mainly includes the minimum as well as the sets which are recommended (Monk and Wagner 2012). Along with this the newer versions of the software consists of high processing power and are also having the availability of new resources which is helping in increasing the various business process. The business requirement can also be defined as the requirements that are associated with fulfilling all the designs that are present in as particular design or any other sub system. At the time of initiating the business the organization, has to maintain its systems requirements in order to get success in the various operations or processes of the business.

The bank is associated with dealing with the customers as well as with their money and from this it can be understood that the systems requirements of the bank are extremely important in order to make the bank operate in a proper way (Hartmann 2012). There exists different kind of system requirements by the Westpac Bank and the several systems requirements of Westpac bank has been listed below:

1. i) Requirements related to Hardware: HCL or hardware compatibility list can be considered as the basic set of requirements which are related to the hardware. The hardware requirements are mainly needed for the purpose of making the OS work in order to help the bank. The different kind of hardware requirements of Westpac Bank have been provided below:
2. a) Architecture: The designing of the each and every computer operating system is done according to the computers architecture. The application of all this software has been restricted in order to specify the OS that has associated with running on the computer architectures (Shaul and Tauber 2013). In case of absence of the architecture, the operating system would not be capable of working.
3. b) Power of Processing: The central processing unit also known as CPU are associated with having a basic processing power in order to make the systems work in a proper way. Besides this the speed of the clock present inside the CPU is also responsible for providing of definitions of the power related to processing.
4. c) Memory: The nest hardware requirement of the Westpac bank is the random access memory or RAM (Bansal 2012).The major function of the memory mainly includes the stringing up of various information and data which are generally confidential with the requirements. The operating system as well as the various types of applications are also checked along with the requiremnts.
5. ii) Software Requirements: The second business requirement mainly includes the requirements of the various kind of software (Sustainment 2014) .  This is associated with defining all the prerequisites which are generally installed on the system in order to make the system function in a proper way. The major software requirements of Westpac Bank have been listed below which mainly includes the
6. a) Platform: This is considered as the major software requirement of the organization Westpac bank which mainly includes the computing platform that would be responsible for the providing of  various kind of framework related to the software that are to be used. Operating systems can also be considered as one of the software requirement.
7. b) Web Browser: The need of web applications along with software which is generally dependent on the Internet. The bank is associated with the utilization of the default browser.

Determination of Systems Requirements

The Westpac bank would become capable of making all their business processes better by making use of the enterprise resource planning or ERP software. The ERP software that is to be used is the SAP. SAP is considered as one of the most important vendor of the ERP which can be applied by any of the organization. The ERP system that the bank would be having would be the major one for performing all the business processes in an easy way and this processes mainly includes the finance, production, accounting, and sales. The business process also includes the human resources which are generally present in the integrated environment that is very much significant for the organization (Hoch and Dulebohn 2013). The various types of integration that are conducted are associated with helping in the process of flow of information form a component of SAP to the corresponding component which is mainly done even without the presence of the  any kind of need for the redundant entry of data. This is mainly responsible for helping in the processes which are generally related to the enforcement of the facts related to the legal, finance and processing control  (Seo 2013). Along with this the important advantage that SAP is having is that the Westpac Bank would be including an effective utilization of resources which might include the capacity of production, capacity of machines and even manpower.

The various advantages or benefits of the SAP that is present within the organization of Westpac Bank have been listed below:

1. i) Competition: SAP would be very much useful for the organization because this would be helping in the enhancement of the competition that the organization is having in the market and this would be associated with providing a competitive advantages to the organization (Seethamraju 2015).
2. ii) Efficiency: The repetitive business processes are eliminated by making use of the ERP software by the organization Westpac bank along with this the ERP is also implemented in order to reduce the basic requirements which are needed for the purpose of manual entry of the information(Chofreh et al. 2014). Besides this the streamlining of the business processes are also done with the software.

iii) Collaboration: This is the third significant advantage that the organization is having by making use of the SAP software. This is associated with helping in the collaboration that amongst all the departments which are associated with functioning in a separate way. The data is also centralized by making use of the SAP software.

1. iv) Cost Savings: the use of the SAP software is associated with working as an extremely cost effective software which does not incur any type of huge costs.
2. v) Scalability and Flexibility: This acts as the next significant advantage of the SAP software. The structured ERP system is associated with enabling the amendments of new users so it can be considered that this is very flexible.
3. vi) Integrated Information: The acts as the next significant advantage of the SAP software for the organization of Westpac Bank. This is associated with helping in the integration of the information in a proper way and for this reason the CRM software has been integrated with ERP (Matende and Ogao 2013).

vii) Process Streamlining: The various operations of the business is very much complex so there is a need of streamlining all this processes. By taking help from the SAP software all the processes of Westpac can be streamlined in a very easy way (Chang et al. 2015).

viii) Customer Service: It is considered that the customers are associated as acting as on eof the major element responsible for the success of any band and this similar for the Westpac bank as well. The SAP software that is present in the organizations is associated with proving assistance to the bank for the purpose of providing services which are of high quality

The points that have been discussed below are the 3 ways by which the technology can be utilized by the Westpac Bank for the purpose of making certain improvements in the business efficiencies:

1. i) Increasing Productivity: The important reason lying behind the utilization of the SAP enterprise resource planning software in the business processes of Westpac Bank is for the purpose of increasing the productivity. This would be helping in the reduction of the complexities in the business process and thereby increasing the productivity of the bank.
2. ii) Improving Efficiency: The SAP software can be utilized for the purpose of improving the overall business efficiency. Different kind of business processes ate needed by the bank which would be extremely efficient as well as effective. By taking help from the SAP enterprise resource planning software there would be great reduction in the chances of inefficiency at a greater level and for this reason it is widely accepted all over the world (Ononiwu 2013) . Along with this the business data is stored with this software which is responsible for the reduction of the complexities related to the maintenance of data in a manual way.

iii) Improving Decision Making: The SAP ERP software helps in the process of improving the decision making process. The entire process related to decision making would become extremely easy and simplified by making use of this particular software. Westpac Bank thus would be extremely helpful by making use of the SAP ERP software (Altamony et al. 2016).

The SAP ERP software is to be implemented within the business of Westpac Bank, which would be helping the process of improving the efficiency level. The section provided below is associated with evaluating the efficiency level of the bank by making use of the technology.

1. i) Customer Satisfaction: the success of any bank lies behind the satisfaction of the customers. The customer satisfaction is mainly obtained after the implementation of the SAP which would be helping in the streamlining of the business processes.
2. ii) Increased Profits: due to the fact that the business processes would become integrated into one, which would be associated with the elimination of the extra costs which would be thereby increasing the profit that is gained after the implementation of SAP ERP software is done (Tian and Xu 2015) .

iii) Good Control on Business: The SAP ERP software has been associated with helping in having a good control over the entire business of the bank and thus the implementation of the SAP would be earning a lot of benefits.

The Westpac Bank has been listed as one of the major of Australia which has been operating in the country for almost more than 100 years. Westpac bank from the very beginning of the its business processes has been associated with facing a lot of problems as well as difficult situations which includes many vital issue amongst which one of the vital risk is the risk related to the security. Various type of security risks as well as possibilities related to breaches of data exists inside the system which is present in the Westpac Bank. Some of the major security risks and data breaches that might be faced by the organization have been provided below:

Phishing: This is one of the significant type of security risk. Phishing attacks can be considered as one of the major and the basic way that is associate with helping in the process of getting access to the information or data which are confidential and might be including components like the usernames or passwords or even credentials of bank account and credit cards. This type of risk mainly occurs when the attacker is associated with disguises himself as a trustworthy entity within any electronic device (Hong 2012).

Trojan horses: This is a malicious program present in the computer which is eventually associated with misleading the real intention of the user. The major medium of spreading this type of security risk includes the social engineering which is associated with tricking a user by making them click on various malicious emails (Pendergraft III and Niles 2014).

Insider Attacks: This acts as another significant security risk which is faced by the Westpac Bank. In the bank a situation might arise where an employee of the bank is associated with making of breach in the data or information deliberately or accidently.

Segregation of the Duty in an improper way: The improper segregation of the duties amongst the employee’s acts as one of the major security risk and this mainly happens due to the fact that if this is not done in a proper way then it might lead to various type of confusions.

Application Controls are Misaligned: The application controls is associated with helping in the process of controlling all the applications that the Westpac bank is having. Misalignment of the application control acts as one of the major security threat faced bt the bank.

Inadequate Vendor Management Processes: This acts as another important risk which is faced by the Westpac bank. Major problems can arise due to this in the Westpac Bank.

Infrastructure Security Vulnerabilities: This is the final significant risk faced by the Westpac bank. It is necessary to maintain the infrastructure of the bank properly as it is vulnerable to various kind of risks (Argyris 2017).

The SAP ERP software is associated with helping the bank in mitigation of various kind of risks that has been provided above. Some of the major guidelines in order to mitigate the threats have been listed below:

1. i) Alignment of Application Controls: There exists an in built alignment of application control in the SAP ERP software which is associated with mitigation of the risks related to the misalignment of the controls.
2. ii) In Built Cyber Security: This is an security feature which is considered as one of the major feature that the SAP software is having. Various type of cyber security related risks can be mitigated in an easy way by adaptation of the usage of the specific ERP software (Ding and Keh, 2016).

iii) Insider Attacks are to be Resolved: SAP is associated with segregating the duties that the employees are having within the bank. Due to this reason the accessing of the confidential information is controlled. Thus it would be helping in the reduction of insider attacks by making use of the ERP software (Hasan 2013).

1. iv) Management of the Infrastructure: The infrastructure of the bank has been secured by making use or the SAP and thus it is necessary for Westpac bank to implement the software of SAP ERP.

Conclusion

The report helps in concluding to the fact that, the strategic information system is associated with providing solutions which are having a long term as well as short term objectives for the business. The applications can be easily managed and collected along with being stored, interpreted and managed, by making use of the ERP software. The Westpac bank includes different business processes. The above report has been associated with providing a clear pros and cons of the Enterprise resource planning that is used by the Westpac Bank. The report has properly highlighted all the requirements of Westpac bank, along with the systems requirements and also the suitable software and the selection of vendors for the bank. Moreover, three methods to improve the business efficiency are also been provided in this report. The major challenges that are faced by the bank has also been provided along with the ways by which the challenges can be eliminated.

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