Business Process Modelling, Web 2.0, And Sales Data Analysis: A Case Study Of BalognePty Ltd Essay.

Business Process Modelling

Questions:

1. What is the role of business process modelling for organisations such as Balogne? What are some benefits to the General Manager, Ms Erica Norris in viewing a Process Model such as your Swim Lane diagram for Balogne? Include your Swim Lane diagram (from Task B) as part of your explanation
2. How could using a software tool such as Microsoft Excel support Erica’s business decision-making? Refer to the two (2) graphs (from Task C) as part of your explanation.
3. How could Balogne use Web 2.0 applications to better collaborate inside and outside the organisation? In your explanation include two (2) different types of Web 2.0 applications you would recommend for adoption by Balogne. The first application must address the use of Web 2.0 for internal communication while the second application could be used to communicate with farmers or distributors.
   
   

The report comprises of three parts. The first one describes the business process modelling of the company BalognePty. Ltd. The second part includes how the web 2.0 will effective for the communication of internal and external processes of the company (Andriole 2012). The third part have sales data analysis from using excel and net profit index of the years 2014 and 2015.

Business process modelling, its usefulness for Balogne

A business process modelling is a series of activities in a diagram connected through lines. A flow chart of activities that an organisation goes through to achieve the product that are sold in the market. It is essential for higher-level organisations and has continuous improvement of their operational activities (Tredinnick 2013). It includes both Information technology process and people process. The flow chart includes the resources and activities that are there for combining the work. The bigger the organisation the more scalability and complex the operations and the process involved. The purpose of this flow diagram is to materialise the outcome of the performance parameters and focus improvement. Increase value added actions for the customer and reduce cost for the company. It also makes divisions of activity and makes distinct responsibility points.

The process model of the activities of Balogne makes distinct process that the company goes through and different departments that are there to handle different responsibility (Chen, Chiang and Storey 2012). The general manager can view the different department and the activities that are there in the process flow diagram in part B. The five different departments consolidate the process the company goes through to make consumable sugar. It is helpful in decision making with the help of the sales data and analysis part. It also helps in identifying redundancies, gap and if there is any duplication of process.

Utility of Microsoft excel in business decisions

The software tool is helpful for analysis and drawing conclusion from the sales data that are collected from the business tool. The functioning (fx) in Microsoft excel is rather easy to use for calculation and if the data and its observations are huge in number one can easily draw conclusion.

The explanation of the graphs and their analysis

The values got using the functions of Microsoft excel are given in the spreadsheet. The golden syrup component of sugar is the most profit making and the percentage of growth from 2014 to 2015 is the highest near about 51% of growth in earning as well as profit. The ascending order of growth is brown sugar > raw sugar > icing > caster are accordingly in making growth in earning.  The loss making components of sugar are in ascending order white sugar > sugar cubes > treacle. Graph 2 suggests the difference in the earnings in 2014 and 2015. This gives the insight that the company is growing by years and their earnings are growing. The difference in earnings in dollars is $13, 42,300. The investment decisions can be made by this information and where the sale is increasing and where the products are making loss and what are the future steps that can be taken for recovery from loss can be identified from the excel sheet. The outlook of the % growth or loss in difference is given in the V-lookup function and the intensity of growth and loss can also be calculated.

Web 2.0 and Its Benefits

Use of web 2.0 for Balogne

Web2.0 is worldwide websites that are used for better communication among the organisations and the companies that use this have really benefited from this.69% of users of web 2.0 has benefited from this new technology. This enable the company by introducing more innovative products, marketing that is more effective, idea sharing, improved communication, better access of knowledge, lower cost of doing business, higher revenues(Jussila, Kärkkäinen and Aramo-Immonen 2014). This also enhances the cultural benefit of the organisation and better networking of internal and external stakeholders’ (Venkatesh Croteau and Rabah 2014). The integration of the whole organisation process can also be benefited as that may include the whole Enterprise resource planning affective (Sigala 2012). The features that make it unique are

• user generated content,
• interoperability(Kim, Lee and Lee 2013)
• Collaborative consumption’
• Mash up applications
• Ease of use 

The two different types of application that will be useful for the Balogne are

• Integration and communication – The interdepartmental communication is very essential for and organisation to have a smooth process (Tucker 2014). This application can be used for communication between the departments and thus it enhances the use of email, fax, feed processor, file sender, instant messenger, polls, voicemails, micro blogging and web conferencing.
• Integration, writing applications and networking – office suites, boards, feed reader, which includes Google Reader, Blog lines, Feed Lounge, Feeds 2.0,News Alloy, NewsGator, News hutch, Rojo, Wizag. Writing applications like Gmail, Fleck, Google Notebook, Helipad, Magnoto, Posticky.com, shortText.com, Snap Bits, SNIPPit, StickyTag, stikkit, Workspace, Wridea will be useful to communicate to the farmers and distributors (Laudon and Traver 2013). The utility of flash card exchange, notemesh can be advantageous as any message can be communicated at the time of emergency in manufacturing process.

The process model

Assumptions

The swim lane diagram of the process flow is the consolidation of beginning point, activities, decision, and terminal point. The swim lane diagram the beginning point is the harvesting of the sugar cane from farmers, which is given in the shape of rounded rectangle (O’reilly 2012). The end-point is collection of data for the sales team of BalognePty Ltd. The activities or the functions that undergoes for this manufacturer are

• Harvesting – where sugar canes are harvested and delivered to the mills for further processing.
• Crystallising – this activity includes the drying up of the juices extracted from the sugar cane.
• Refining – the juices are refined from further impurities and filtered and centrifuged
• Packaging – this activity is for the end users of the sugar consumers
• Distribution and Sales – this function is for the company’s own requirement. The sales team keeps the data for analysing the earnings and profit that the organisation is making.

The swim lane diagram

As per the values in the excel sheet the 2014 earnings comes to $1,42,19,900 and 2015 earnings comes to $1,55,62,200. Therefore, the total increase in dollars are ($1,55,62,200 - $1,42,19,900) = $13,42,300

Graph1

That suggests the percentage of growth or loss in two years in 8 categories of sugar is below.

Graph 2

Suggests the yearly earnings and difference in earnings between 2 years 2014 and 2015 in dollars.

Net profit index

Therefore, from the above table we can conclude that the profit for raw, brown and icing sugar are more profitable in both the years.

Conclusion

It can be concluded from the above report that the company is in growth in terms of sales and earnings. Further, they can integrate the web 2.0 technology for more effectiveness in communication. The report is useful to interpret with the help of excel sheet.

Reference

Andriole, S.J., 2012. Business impact of Web 2.0 technologies. Communications of the ACM, 53(12), pp.67-79.

Tredinnick, L., 2013. Web 2.0 and Business: A pointer to the intranets of the future?. Business information review, 23(4), pp.228-234.

O’reilly, T., 2012. What is web 2.0.

Kim, H.D., Lee, I. and Lee, C.K., 2013. Building Web 2.0 enterprises: A study of small and medium enterprises in the United States. International Small Business Journal, 31(2), pp.156-174.

Jussila, J.J., Kärkkäinen, H. and Aramo-Immonen, H., 2014. Social media utilization in business-to-business relationships of technology industry firms. Computers in Human Behavior, 30, pp.606-613.

Laudon, K.C. and Traver, C.G., 2013. E-commerce. Pearson.

Chen, H., Chiang, R.H. and Storey, V.C., 2012. Business intelligence and analytics: From big data to big impact. MIS quarterly, 36(4).

Tucker, S.Y., 2014. Transforming Pedagogies: Integrating 21st Century Skills and Web 2.0 Technology. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 15(1), pp.166-173.

Venkatesh, V., Croteau, A.M. and Rabah, J., 2014, January. Perceptions of effectiveness of instructional uses of technology in higher education in an era of Web 2.0. In System Sciences (HICSS), 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on (pp. 110-119). IEEE.

Sigala, M., 2012. Exploiting Web 2.0 for new service development: findings and implications from the Greek tourism industry. International Journal of Tourism Research, 14(6), pp.551-566.