Risk Management In Systems: Analyzing The Case Of Beijing Capital International Airport Essay.

The purpose is to research current trends in the theory and application of Risk Management at the systems level. Review a project or system where risk management has gone wrong. Review the consequences which have occurred at the system level and comment on the the cascading effects. Did the organisation or enterprise have the risk appetite for the consequences? Use the learnings from the second intensive where applicable to examine the way risk has been managed. Critique the techniques used in the organisation against those discussed in scholarly papers. Where could things have been improved?

In this assignment, you are to demonstrate your awareness of systems thinking within the area of risk managment.

This exercise requires wider research and reading such as The Australian newspaper (business section) or the Risk Management Magazine, or Harvard Business Review magazine.

1.Brief introduction to the project or system.

2.Summarise the views of scholars, extrapolating on the learnings from the second intensive.

3.Choose a project/enterprise/system which is known to you or from the paper. Discuss the system, systemic risks, links and cascade risks within the project/enterprise/system, referring to your scholars via citation.

4.In a leadership role such as that of a Project Manager, how would you best manage the risk associated with this project? What would you have done better? Could the consequences have been avoided? 

Brief introduction to the project or system

The project report is based on achieving a delicate balance between the risks and outcomes into large scale IT project which is related to Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA) airport security system. In this selected IT project, the risks related to the airport security system are analyzed and managed (Goh, Zuo and Pan 2016). The risks are identified at the time of implementing large scale IT projects throughout the construction of terminal 3 projects. For the airport management team, airport security is one of the key concerns (Pyke et al. 2017). Passenger screening is considered as important component for the aviation security which is considered as real time screening strategies for maximizing effectiveness to identify terrorist attacks.

The report is based on summarizing views of various scholars related to the selected project topic so that their views are to be analyzed properly to compare their views and arguments with each other. The proposed airline security system, its risks and cascade risks of the system are discussed so that the reader can understand importance of proposed system in the airport industry. The risks are to be managed so that there should be proper prevention of risks with respect to business requirement.

Shaw (2016) stated that risk management for the airport operations is related to vulnerability of the system threat. There is prioritization of critical risks as well as opportunities which exist at the airport and emerge in future. It develops of action plan which can reflect best practices as well as settle in decision making to manage the organizational performance in undecided environment. Rampini, Sufi and Viswanathan (2014) argued that risk management contributes to process and ensure that higher level of safety is maintained throughout the airport activities. Burghouwt (2016) discussed that security in the airport system is commensurate with the risks. It is a process to determine which security controls are proper as well as cost effective, and complex. The scholars identified that security management is identification of organizational assets, system and information assets which are followed by development of airport operations and implementation of terminal for protection of assets. The airport security system is used to protect the passengers from any type of terrorist attack.

Eckles, Hoyt and Miller (2014) viewed that the security system allows the security of airport to place as well as sense intrusion on the airport. The main challenges while implementation of airport security system are to keep the project on time, on budget as well as maintain a high quality. According to Bazargan (2016), there is enterprise risk management which is consisted of risks which have positive as well as negative impact, and the positive risks are seen as IT project opportunities. The common risks which are faced by BCIA airport in two areas. Reason (2016) stated that the first area is employee due to which people are unpredictable and it is huge risk for the companies. Hiring and training of the quality of employee is a challenge for the company as it causes a huge expense as well as bad reputation for the organization. For BCIA airport terminal 3, it is risks which are required to manage. Lack of productivity from the employee side can have great impact on the project work and plan for implementation of new products as well as services. Patankar and Taylor (2017) concluded that second area is technology as usage of new technology is expensive and it is not properly worked when it takes an organization down on both sides, loss of profitability as well as retention of the customers. As the airport is keeping up with new airport security system; therefore it may be a risk for the company.

Summarize views of scholar

Hopkin (2018) stated that integration of the security system is proved to be a challenge at all the security levels. At the organizational levels, new technology has implications on the training as well as workforce structures. From the perspective of security, there is a divide among cyber as well as physical security in the organizational structure. The organization is focused to help the customers quantify with the outcomes which are achieved throughout the security system. Carroll and Buchholtz (2014) criticized that new technologies are making changes into the security landscape. The airport is running remote security screening. Teece, Peteraf and Leih (2016) observed that among the risks there are both positive and negative risks which can provide high and low impact on the project work. It is risky to operate and develop a successful business operation and it becomes critical if the operation is huge like implementation of terminal 3 project work of BCIA airport. It is critical that all the risks to business organization are considered strategically at senior level and not the financial risks are used throughout use of valuable tool to manage it.

The airlines and Beijing Capital International Airport are presenting unique security challenges. The security is a main concern but along with turnaround time is also important. Screening of the passengers is required as passengers are standing in line for long period of time. Safety as well as security system is required to protect the passengers; therefore the airport management team takes decisions to implement airport security system. The proposed system facilitates reporting, communication, control of crowd, check-in of staff furthermore emergency management (Bromiley et al. 2015). At the time of emergency, the system must make sure that the security networks are not crash and staffs are not get inundated with the information. The proposed airport security system can facilitate decision making with revolve huge amount of data into accessible information (Laudon and Laudon 2016). The airlines are used of technology to innovative as well as help to meet with business goals.  

The possible risks facing BCIA airport are lack of universal implementation of the global standards and information sharing. The airline organization has unplanned expenses for the indeterminate period, when the governments are not agreed on measures required for security of the citizens. The risk based solution is required that can speed the screening of the low risk travelers (Peltier 2016). The identification system is modernized as well as controlled procedures of the airport operations perfectly to prevent the issues. Following are list of system risks which BCIA report is facing while implementing of airport security system in their airport operations such as:

Shortage of technical skilled staff: The staffs those are involved in implementation of BCIA terminal 3 and airport security system have lack of technical skills to manage the proposed system (Rittinghouse and Ransome 2016). Most of the staffs those are working in the airport are not having sufficient skill to manage the entire implementation work as they are not technically skilled, making decisions on the critical analysis and difficult to quantify the system.

Discussion of the system, system risks, links and cascade risks within the system

Physical threats: There are physical threats on the system when there is physical access and damage to the resources such as servers. There are included of theft and most common is unauthorized access to the secret data by means of the employee and outside person (Soomro, Shah and Ahmed 2016).

Electronic threat: In the airport business operation, security is the main concern of the management team as the hacker can access to the system by hacking the password of the system. Then, the system becomes infected by the computer virus and there could fall victim to fraudulent email along with website (Hopkin 2018). It is mainly caused for the criminal nature. It has possibility that the system is hacked when one person can share the sensitive as well as confidential information related to the system to others.

Technical and infrastructure failure: There is possibility that there is a computer crash as well as failure of the computer components which are used to implement proposed system in the airport. The system would be helpful for the companies as it will provide benefit to the customers those are using their airline services (Epstein 2018). The technical failure should be catastrophic as the users are not retrieving of data on the failed hard drive along with there are no backup copy which is available to record the data of system in other place. The system is affected by viruses and incorrect codes to finish system failure when no trades are input and processes are running (Abbasi, Sarker and Chiang 2016). On other hand, the infrastructure failure is caused due to loss of the internet connection which can interrupt the airline business operations.

Human error: It is major threat while implementation work is performed for the airport security system. The human can accidentally delete confidential data from the database system and they are also failed to follow security procedures which are mainly prepared to implement proposed system (Hammer 2015). Lack of user awareness to implement the system hampers entire implementation work and entire business reputation is affected due to this reason.

Laudon and Laudon (2016) stated that due to above mentioned risks, the operation of airport is affected which provides huge effect on the organization. If the organization can ignore the risks, then it provides huge consequences on the project. BCIA airport should focus on risk management strategies which help the company to mitigate and prevent from identified risks for properly balance their project outcomes. The company can also able to complete the project on scheduled time as well as budget to overcome with time and budget constraints.  

Peltier (2016) discussed that risk management is a process to identify the method require minimizing the impact of risks on implementation of airport security system. According to Soomro, Shah and Ahmed (2016), comprehensive analysis of the risks are occurred. At BCIA terminal 3, it is not demonstrating that the risks are to be managed successfully. The airport management team realized that decisions are taken to level of risks. Approaches to the risk management are included of competitive advantage. Rittinghouse and Ransome (2016) concluded that when reviewing the competitive advantage, it is best to create a grid to compare in addition to contrast various categories of the risks. Risk register helps the project manager and other stakeholders to identify the project risks and possible mitigation strategies to overcome with the problems such as:

Managing the risks associated with the project

Table 1: Risk Matrix Table

From the above table, it is analyzed that among five system risks, there are two high risks which can affect the implementation work of airport security system such as electronic threat and shortage of technical skilled staffs. Those two risks are negative risks which can hamper entire brand reputation of the airline industry. Other three risks are medium risks and possibility of changes is there when proper risk mitigation strategies are implemented in the implementation of proposed system (Hammer 2015). The project life cycle is a proper way to conceptualize the structure of IT project in BCIA airport over time. The risks can cause uncertainties about basic estimation of the project work, uncertainty about the design as well as logistics of proposed system, uncertainty related to the project objectives and uncertainty related to fundamental relationships among the project parties.

Conclusion

It is concluded that the airline industry faces problems related to entire airport operations. The BCIA airport is implemented of airport security system for securing the assets of the company. The project manager considers all the project risks and takes them at highest priority to overcome and mitigate the risks on time before it can provide high impact on the airport operations. In order to mitigate the risks, at first it is required to be proper planning of the project schedule. There should be strict set of the project time so that the project manager can manage all the airline project related tasks. Therefore, this project work achieves a balance between project risks and its outcomes in large scale IT project such as implementation of airport security system for BCIA.

It is analyzed that the large scale IT project is exposed to uncertain environment due to delay in project schedule and over budget of the project work. Both risks with uncertainties affect the size of project which provides major impact on the project success. The risks factors are based on complexity of project, speed of the proposed system and location of this project work. It is main responsibility of project manager to manage the risks and mitigate them as it will decrease variability of the value of organizational firm. The risks affect the passengers in good time and in bad as it affects the airline operations. In the future, it is analyzed that as the airline industry has to maintain profits in face of increase in price, therefore risk management strategies are used to make improvement in the business functions. The airline staffs should also follow all the organizational security guidelines to prevent from security risks to be occurred.

References

Abbasi, A., Sarker, S. and Chiang, R.H., 2016. Big data research in information systems: Toward an inclusive research agenda. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 17(2).

Bazargan, M., 2016. Airline operations and scheduling. Routledge.

Bromiley, P., McShane, M., Nair, A. and Rustambekov, E., 2015. Enterprise risk management: Review, critique, and research directions. Long range planning, 48(4), pp.265-276.

Burghouwt, G., 2016. Airline network development in Europe and its implications for airport planning. Routledge.

Carroll, A. and Buchholtz, A., 2014. Business and society: Ethics, sustainability, and stakeholder management. Nelson Education.

Eckles, D.L., Hoyt, R.E. and Miller, S.M., 2014. Reprint of: The impact of enterprise risk management on the marginal cost of reducing risk: Evidence from the insurance industry. Journal of Banking & Finance, 49, pp.409-423.

Epstein, M.J., 2018. Making sustainability work: Best practices in managing and measuring corporate social, environmental and economic impacts. Routledge.

Goh, J.C.L., Zuo, M.Y. and Pan, S.L., 2016. Achieving the delicate balance between risks & outcomes in a large-scale IT project–a case study on BCIA’s airport security system. Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases, 6(1), pp.36-44.

Hammer, M., 2015. What is business process management?. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 3-16). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Hopkin, P., 2018. Fundamentals of risk management: understanding, evaluating and implementing effective risk management. Kogan Page Publishers.

Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2016. Management information system. Pearson Education India.

Patankar, M.S. and Taylor, J.C., 2017. Risk management and error reduction in aviation maintenance. Routledge.

Peltier, T.R., 2016. Information Security Policies, Procedures, and Standards: guidelines for effective information security management. Auerbach Publications.

Pyke, D.F., Shi, R., Sibdari, S. and Xiao, W., 2017. Integrated risk management in the airline industry. INFORMS. Houston, TX.

Rampini, A.A., Sufi, A. and Viswanathan, S., 2014. Dynamic risk management. Journal of Financial Economics, 111(2), pp.271-296.

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Rittinghouse, J.W. and Ransome, J.F., 2016. Cloud computing: implementation, management, and security. CRC press.

Shaw, S., 2016. Airline marketing and management. Routledge.

Soomro, Z.A., Shah, M.H. and Ahmed, J., 2016. Information security management needs more holistic approach: A literature review. International Journal of Information Management, 36(2), pp.215-225.

Teece, D., Peteraf, M. and Leih, S., 2016. Dynamic capabilities and organizational agility: Risk, uncertainty, and strategy in the innovation economy. California Management Review, 58(4), pp.13-35.