Essay: Discuss Communication Tech Sustainability.

Strategic Information System for Enhanced Business Operations

Question:

Discuss About The Communication Technologies Sustainability?

Strategic information system defines a set of guidelines for the organisation. The organisations can make appropriate plans and strategies following the guidelines. The strategies will help the companies to enrich their business operations. The organisations can even get the competitive edge due to the adaptation of the strategic information system. The organisations can store data; the organisations can access data and process data better easily and effectively with the aid of the information system (Kamariotou and Kitsios 2018). The strategic information system provides several scopes to the organisations so that the existing business operations can get enhanced.

The report chooses St.George Bank as the case study. The bank is being suggested to take up the strategic information to enrich their business functionalities. The bank with the help of strategic information system can serve customers well (Asare and Conger 2018). The customers can get enhanced security, and they can enjoy St.George Bank’ banking service. St.George Bank can store data; can access data and process data in the agile and effective way. The strategic information system can help St.George Bank to accompany Westpac in conducting the financial activities (Baird 2018). The report illustrates the strategic information system's six major components. There are several risks and challenges associated with the project activities. The planners have faced several challenges while implementing the strategic information system on their premises. The report illustrates the challenges. The components like end-user computing, outsourcing has been defined in the report. The IS strategy definitely adds value to enterprises. The report elaborates on details how St.George Bank should use strategic information system for the betterment of the bank. The strategic information has the capability to bring innovations in the bank premises. The strategic information system also helps in evaluating the internal control.

St.George Bank is one of the banks of Australia, headquarter of the bank is located in Sydney. St.George Bank merges with Westpac Banking Corporation in the year 2008. The bank provides services to the customers of New South Wales. St.George Bank also offers service in Western Australia, Victoria and Queensland. They also conduct business activities and financial activities in Northern Territory and South Australia under Bank SA, Bank SA is a division of Westpac well (Asare and Conger 2018). St.George Bank has a large number of subsidiaries in Australia. The bank has also many ATMs based in Australia. St.George Bank conducts back office operations in India as well.

St.George Bank: A Case Study

In the year 2007, Paul Fegan was appointed as the CEO of St.George Bank. Gail Kelly was CEO of St.George Bank earlier. He departed St.George Bank in the year 2007 and became CEO of Westpac Banking Corporation group (Baird 2018). In the year 2008, both St.George Bank merged with Westpac.

St.George Bank is known to provide customer friendly and customer oriented services. The bank competes with the ‘big four’ banks of Australia, though they are part of Westpac. St.George Bank at one time was identified as the customer service leader, but they failed to retain their position. The big four’ banks of Australia grab the top position. However, recent survey illustrates that St.George Bank is trying to regain their position. They are trying to fill up their loopholes (Kamariotou and Kitsios 2018). St.George Bank provides specialisation in home and customer lending, however, the bank now provides funding service to the specialist industries. They also provide funding services to various market segments which include trade finance, invoice discounting, commercial property construction, automotive finance and foreign exchange. The Automotive Finance division works under St.George Finance Limited.

St.George Bank planned to shift their back office job operations in India. St.George Bank conducts cards and loan services work at IBM in Bangalore.

The financial organisations including the bank face several issues and challenges while implementing the strategic information system on their premises. The report will elaborate the challenges in details. The report has compared and contrasted the challenges in details (Bryson 2018). The public sector banks as well as the private sector banks while they try to adopt the IT strategy on their premises. The banks have also struggled to maintain the IT strategy on their premises.

i) Private Sector: The private sector banks have struggled throughout because of all the risks and the challenges in their sector and they are-

a) Risk Management: the private sector bank has struggled due to the issue of risk management. The government banks tend to get more security but the private sector banks cannot avail such security (Hassan and Mathiassen 2018). That is why they are more concerned about the security. For the security loopholes, the bank can face heavy losses.

b) Additional banks’ emergence: Many new banks have emerged in recent times and so the private banks compete with each other all the time. The involvement of other banks can be a threat to the private sector banks (Baidya et al. 2018). The private sector banks can face heavy losses due to the involvement of other banks.

Challenges and Risks Associated with Implementing the IT Strategy

c) Launching new items: The private banks always focus on innovation. They always try to bring in new features and new schemes in the enterprises. The customers and the clients can dislike the new approach and the new schemes. In this case, the bank can face heavy losses.

d) Interest Rate: The private sector bank can suffer from the high-interest rate challenge (Hassan and Mathiassen 2018). The bank offers many services, but it is of no use if the customers are not able to afford the bank services.

The company planners can face issues while adopting the IT strategy. The private banking sectors also face issues while maintaining the IS strategy on their premises. St.George Bank is a private sector faces all these kind of issues (Baidya et al. 2018). The issues have been discussed n details in the report.

ii) Public Sector: The public banking sectors face several challenges and risks like the private banking sector while adopting the IS strategy. The business planners will have to face several challenging scenarios while carrying out the business activities. The probable challenges that they can face are-

a) Capital Base: The public sector bank can suffer due to the poor capital base. The banks collect the capital base through a public offering. The public sector banks earn relatively low capital base in comparison to private sector banks.

b) Less number of bank branches: The public sector banks have less number of bank branches (Foote and Halawi 2018). The public sector banks contain a minimal number of branches. The less number of branches can prove to be a threat or challenge for the public bank. Moreover, they have fear of losing subsidiaries.

c) Technology gap: Technology gap can be a serious threat to the public sector bank. The public sector banks are using technologies which are obsolete, the technologies they use contain security concerns and at the same time, the technologies are inefficient.

d) Poor quality service offered: The public sector banks offer services that are of poor quality. They are heavily criticised for the poor quality (Peppard 2018). The banks are not offering the desired service; also the banks are not meeting the demands of the customers.

The report illustrates the challenges the public banking sectors are suffering from.

St.George Bank can implement the IS strategy for their own benefits and they must undertake-

1. i) Updating existent St.George Bank’s IS strategy: St.George Bank must take the responsibility to make necessary update in the system (Foote and Halawi 2018). The updated system will be fast and effective; it will include the security patches so the bank will not have to worry about the security breaches.
2. ii) Assigning new workers: St.George Bank must discard the prevalent information system. St.George Bank will have to take up the new management system. The management body can be benefitted with the aid of the latest IS strategy (Peppard 2018). They will have to hire talented, diligent and creative individuals, these individuals will improvise the business operations if the bank.

iii) Appropriate maintenance of St.George Bank’s system and database: St.George Bank can manage the financial services and the business activities with the help of advanced IS strategy (Wu and Raghupathi 2018). The advanced IS strategy can be helpful in maintaining database and system.

Private Sector Bank Challenges

iv) Managing Security: The IS strategy can assist in ensuring the privacy and security in St.George Bank premises. Security is an important aspect that every organisation must consider and they should not compromise at any cost. Security can help St.George Bank to gain customer trust (Bergamaschi 2018). The customers can feel safe while conducting online internet banking, mobile banking with the help of the information system.

St.George Bank can enhance the financial activities of the bank with the aid of the strategic information system. There are seven approaches associated that can improvise the business activities and they are as follows-

i) Mandate creation: Creating mandate is one sort of approach. The approach can be beneficial for St.George Bank to enrich their business activities. A mandate paves the ay by which St.George Bank can implement changes in their bank premises. the mandate contains certain strategies and these strategies can improve the bank operations of St.George Bank. The top-level management of St.George Bank will have to respond to create the mandate (Bergamaschi 2018). The top-level management will have to take the initial step. The management body will have to assign people having passion for creating mandate. The new employees will have to take initiative for the improvement of the bank.

ii) Be any Model: Be any model is an initiative and St.George Bank following be any model can bring innovation in the bank premises. The top-level management must choose appropriate methodologies so that that can work smoothly for the bank (Wu and Raghupathi 2018). St.George Bank should give priority to the creative thinking that can facilitate the business activities.

iii) Discuss issues and challenges with workers as well as stakeholders: St.George Bank should make use of information system effectively so that it can analyse and mitigate the issues. St.George Bank will have to fill up the existing loopholes and must focus on the problem solving methodologies. They must make critical decisions so that the business operations can get enhanced. St.George Bank should train their employees in such a way that they can resolve the issues (Mao et al. 2018). The employees must have the expertise and the skills so that they can mitigate issues and come up with some best solutions.

iv) Developing diligent dedicated team: St.George Bank must have a dedicated team that is capable to analyse the issues, in this way St.George Bank can acknowledge the best possible ways by which the issues can be minimised (Vom Brocke and Mendling 2018). The team can find out any other alternate solutions by which St.George Bank can improve their business operations.

Public Sector Bank Challenges

v) George Bank catering access to the users and customers: St.George Bank works with the customers. St.George Bank must provide the customers with proper login access. The feedback of the customers is absolute necessity for running the business (Mao et al. 2018). The bank can only improve or can make further progress in business on the basis of the customers’ feedback.

vi) Designing Systems and Building System: St.George Bank must modify the existing system in such a way so that the bank makes profit. The new management system will give St.George Bank the competitive edge so that they can stay ahead of all other banks. The management team will provide the best solutions by which they can be benefitted.

vii) Implementing a business network with all employees of the bank: The employees working in St.George Bank must establish a business network (Carugati et al. 2018). The employees must discuss with each other and make appropriate plans so that the business activities as well as the financial activities can be carried out smoothly and effectively.

Outsourcing is the approach following which St.George Bank can offer numerous functionalities to the service partners. St.George Bank can get the scope to work with the best partners or the best employees in the business (Kasemsap 2018). The outsourcing also involves the transfer of employees from one organisation to another organisation.

End-user computing offers a platform to the non-programmer, there the non-programmers work with various applications. The end-user computing engages the end-users into the computing environment.

Outsourcing has been chosen for this report. The IS/IT strategy adaptation can be turning point for St.George Bank. The Director can deploy it in their premises to gain huge profit (Hajrullahi, Idrizi and Rahmani 2018). The report explains how the Director can be benefitted with the aid of the IS/IT new strategies and they are-

i) George Bank should focus on Basic Actions: St.George Bank can embellish their business activities with the aid of the information system. The outsourcing activities can ease the financial activities of the bank. St.George Bank should focus on the basic activities to attain the maximum profit (Kasemsap 2018). St.George Bank must focus on outsourcing of financial operations as well as the business operations of St.George Bank.

ii) Expenses Savings and Efficiency in St.George Bank: St.George Bank must focus on the outsourcing activities and all these activities can assist in expense savings. The efficiency of St.George Bank can get enhanced (Baporikar 2018). St.George Bank can gain maximum profit via savings expenses.

Approaches for Improving Business Activities

iii) Reducing Overhead: Outsourcing activities assist in reducing the overhead cost. The approach of lessening cost overhead can be beneficial for St.George Bank (Demertzis, Iliadis and Anezakis 2018). The overhead cost to conduct the back-office operations is quite expensive at times. 

iv) George Bank Control in Operations: St.George Bank’s financial activities can go beyond control, the outsourcing activities help in maintaining those business operations. There are several departments of St.George Bank; those departments can struggle as a result of poor administration (Ding, Jiang and Su 2018). The outsourcing activities can cater St.George Bank the best solution by which they can furnish the business activities. the bank can get cost-effective service as well.

v) Flexibility of staff in George Bank: The adaptation of new management system can create problems for the organisations irrespective of the financial organisations. St.George Bank is one of them. The flexibility in staffing is one of the aspects that must be taken into consideration related to outsourcing (Havakhor, Soror and Sabherwal 2018). The employees working in the bank contribute to large extent. All the departments of the bank can be managed well with the assistance of outsourcing.

vi) Risk Management in St.George Bank: The risk management is another aspect that must be taken into considerations by all the organisations. St.George Bank risk management team must look at the potential risks for which the bank can suffer (Demertzis, Iliadis and Anezakis 2018). The employees and the management team of St.George Bank must analyse the risks well, the outsourcing activities can help to mitigate those risks. St.George Bank after minimising risks can be able to invest more to the business.

vii) Develop Internal Staff in St.George Bank: Each and every project can become successful if the employees and the staffs work well in the project. In St.George Bank, the management team must provide appropriate training to the staffs (Baporikar 2018). The training will assist the workers so that they can sharpen their skills and deliver their best (Chan, Mo and Moon 2018). The employees can bring innovations within the bank premises and the St.George Bank can acquire several advantages due to the innovative approaches taken by the employees.

1. i) Establishing Strategic Information Role: Strategic information system adaptation definitely adds value to each and every organisation. Strategic information system is capable to provide multiple benefits to St.George Bank and all these strategy aspects have been explained in details in the report (Agola 2018). The strategies have been elaborated below. They are-
2. The first phase provides the appropriate information that is needed to investigate the business operations. The first stage includes the management staffs’ behavioural traits (Karajeh, Maqableh and Masa’deh 2020). The stage also includes the expenses that the management team of St.George Bank must pay. In this stage, St.George Bank can acknowledge who are their competitors.
3. the second stage involves the specific strategies-

1. To target the relevant market
2. Location of the office premises

1. Launching new items
2. Promoting the products
3. Budget allocated for the project
4. Identifying customers’ needs: St.George Bank must fulfil all the demands of the customers. The bank must give priority to the customers. St.George Bank should cooperate with the customers and will have to listen to the queries, in this way they can serve the customers well and can gain customer support. St.George Bank can increase their customer base. The bank can enhance their market share as well (Weinman 2018). St.George Bank can get competitive advantage as well due to adaptation of the information system strategies.

iii. Market segmentation: Market segmentation is another aspect of the running the business operations. The market segmentation can help St.George Bank in segmenting the business process and office departments (Chan, Mo and Moon 2018). The market segment helps in creating a group of customers.   

Conclusion

Each and every organisation must consider the Good Internal Control. The report explains the characteristics of good internal control. The business activities can get furnished with the aid of the effective internal control (Song, Arnott and Gao 2018). The business assets can be made secure with the aid of the internal control. 

Control Environment: Control environment involves the company’s approach towards internal control. The report illustrates St.George Bank’s initiative towards the internal control of the business activities (Tahir 2020). The mishaps can occur in St.George Bank if the bank’s management system overrides the controls that are in place. The internal control can be at risks as a result of management override of controls.

Risk Assessment: Risk Assessment can measure the threats and the risks associated with the bank. St.George Bank via implementation of effective risks management can acknowledge the threat beforehand. This can help the bank to identify the threats earlier and they can take initiative based on the threats (Shen 2018). St.George Bank thus can safeguard their branches from challenges and threats.

Communication: The communication elements analyse components that are associated with the internal control. The communication elements are helpful for the workers; the workers can be able to perform efficiently due to all these communication components.

Monitoring: The effective monitoring can assist St.George Bank in various ways. The management body of St.George Bank can manage the business and the financial activities with the help of the effective monitoring. The management body can track the ineffective control within St.George Bank premises (Sassen 2018). St.George Bank can acknowledge the changes made in the system and they can be able to accomplish the business activities within the given time period with the help of effective monitoring.

Control Activities: The management body of the organisations generally carries out the control activities. St.George Bank’s management team must implement the internal control efficiently. The control activities can assist St.George Bank to know the problems which they are facing (Chan, Mo and Moon 2018). The analysis result is prepared and the analysis result can help the employees, the management body and the stakeholders of St.George Bank to design the system. Thus the internal control can help St.George Bank in performing the business activities.

Conclusion

It can be concluded from the above discourse that the strategic information system is helpful for organisations to enhance the business activities. St.George Bank can be similarly benefitted by the help of the strategic information system. The bank with the help of innovative approach and effective decision making can earn maximum profits. St.George Bank with the implementation of strategic information system can meet the business deliverables. St.George Bank must adopt the strategic information system and should improvise the existing management system. The strategic information system will change the prevalent system and the database. They can gain the competitive edge with the help of the help of the strategic information system. The stakeholders, the customers and the employees of St.George Bank can be facilitated with an adaptation of strategic information system. Enterprise Resource Planning is the option St.George Bank should adopt for their bank premises. St.George Bank can become famous and can become one of the top four banks in Australia. The report explains about end-user computing activities and outsourcing activities. The report illustrates the internal control too,

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