IS/IT Intervention To Enhance Performance Of Raysut Cement Company.

Problems

Raysut Cement Company was established on 15^th March 1981 and was registered as an Oman Joint stock company in Salalah, Oman (Raysutcement.com.om 2017). After three years, this company started commercial production and after that until the present, it has become the biggest producer and regional leader of cement production in Oman. It has played its role in enhancing the way of living through success in Salalah and made its contribution in the economic development of the country. This company is continuously widening its scope of the consumers in all over the world through strong partnerships, high quality products, major acquisitions, and rapid growth in the field of cement production (Avgerou and Walsham 2017). This report aims eliminating the problems in this management system and implement IS/IT strategy for the enhancement in the performance of the RCC. It is the need for IS/IT intervention within RCC in manner to improve the decision-making system and thus enhance the productivity. This report critically analyse the strategic choices and emphasizes on barriers that might affect these implementation of strategic choices.

Transactional operations and data or information related to the import, exports are still being organized manually, and there is not any automatic system for these data recording.

Storage of data or information related to the operational activities are being saved on the files or systems itself. This led to the access of those data only when the employee or staff is near the system otherwise an employee cannot access to those information.

Data redundancy is another problem in the existing system of the organization. Individuals are not connected to those stored information always and cannot access them without being physical present at the office premises.

There is not any connection between the internet world and social medias and is still using traditional way of advertisement through televisions and newspapers. This is not capable of targeting all the consumers and limits the scope for targeting the consumers.

Q1. What are the problems that could be eliminated by IS/IT intervention in the RCC?

Q2. What are the benefits of the IS/IT intervention within the existing system of the RCC?

Q3. What are the problems in the implementation of this new system within the existing system?

• Identify the problems and issues within the existing system of RCC those could be eliminated with the IS/IT interventions
• Implement a system that can provide data accessibility 24*7 for the employees in manner to be connected with the RCC every time
• Manage the exchange of products and items from the warehouse, suppliers, and consumers with the help of Information Technology or Information System
• Widening the scope of target consumer through connecting the organization with the social media

RCC has transformed and advanced its traditional way of delivering operational activities through replacing pen and paper with computer systems. However, this is not enough for the sustainability of the organization in this competitive market as the competitors are implementing much advanced information system and information technology for their existence in this sector (DeVaujany et al. 2017). Warehouse management is the most concerning problem for the organization as; it is continuously increasing the production every year in manner to compete the big competitors such as Oman Cement Company and others (Bloom et al. 2014). Peppardn and Ward (2013) suggested that data accessibility is another concern that is still an obstacle for the organization to reach at the top. It is the need for the RCC to implement the IS/IT for the data accessibility or hire a third party for the data management in manner to be active 24*7 whenever there is need (Fauzi 2016). Social media is a crowd of consumers and the customers, and this sector is still untouchable by the organization that could lead to limiting the target customers (Ettlie et al. 2017). Globalization is a strong factor for the success of the RCC however, IS/IT intervention is necessary factor for the organization in manner to manage the supply chain-management and managing the suppliers and consumers without any boundaries.

Research Questions

The organizations who have successfully implemented IS/IT are becoming the vital competitors for the RCC. The production of the organization is continuously increasing as shown in its annual report and thus managing the import and export data or information have been one of the greatest concern or the managers at the warehouse (Shevchuk and Oinas-Kukkonen 2016). IT/IS intervention could be helpful in implementing a warehouse management system and along with this implementing RFID with the materials or lots could be helpful in automatically collecting the record of data or information related to when the parcel was received and where to deliver (Lucas et al. 2013). This will eliminate the extra effort for the manager and other employees to track the records of transaction. The target of the RCC to provide products and services to the consumers outside the Oman too and thus the map of supply chain management is being larger in size (Niosi 2014). IT/IS intervention could be helpful in managing these objectives within very few time and deliver these objectives in efficient manner without any error. RCC wants to enhance the productivity and this could be achieved if the awareness among the consumers is increased through advertising at social media (Livari 2017). IT/IS intervention can provide the RCC biggest crowd of the customers and thus could aware them about the products and services being offered by the organization.

The very first approach for the data accessibility could be gain through the implementation of Cloud Computing within the existing system of the organization in manner to perform the operational activities in an efficient and effective manner. Cloud Computing is not the very latest IT/IS rather, it is being practiced since decades. There are many beneficial aspects with the implementation of this technology rather than data accessibility (Laudon and Laudon 2016). The maintenance and implementation of this technology much less than any other system and is completely operated by third party, which provides an agent for the data management. There are much software such as ERP, Warehouse management, Database management system, and many more those could be implemented within the existing system of the RCC in manner to manage the data and information related to the supply chain, warehouse, transactions, and other operational activities (Diatmika, Irianto and Baridwan 2016). Widening the scope of target customers could be accomplished through the involvement of RCC in the social media and increasing the consumers about the services and products on that platform. Creating an official page and interacting with the interest and loyal customers will be helpful in maintaining the loyalty of the consumers on the organization. There are various problems those might be raised in the implementation of this new system such as employees might not understand how to use, what are the scope of that technology and many more (Schwalbe 2015). However, a single solution to these problems is proper education and training program about the specific applications of these systems and technologies. IT/IS intervention within the existing system of the RCC will not be a completely new for the employees or staffs but interchanging the whole environment into an automated and digital system might lead to less understanding about the technology to the employees (Oliveira and Welch 2013). Thus, these training and education program will be helpful in ensuring that employees or staffs are completely aware with all the objectives of these new software and hardware applications.

Research Objectives

Most vital challenge will be IT infrastructure of the organization. RCC is well structured but there are many modifications will be needed for these implementations such as strong network connection, mobile devices for the employees or allowing Bring Your Own Device policy, and various other necessary objects for the establishment of the network and systems. Implementing new software will need certain education and training programs for the employees (Gunasekaran, Subramanian and Papadopoulos 2017). Security and privacy issues related to the data and information about to be saved in the cloud should be given importance before implementing cloud computing as the basic system for the organization (Majchrzak, Markus and Wareham 2016). Policy related to the usage of technology is ‘necessary’ factor for the organization before implementing such a drastic change in the system and should be created in manner to protect the intellectual property and be secured from any legal allegations (Weaver et al. 2016). Proper management and leadership is another challenging factor for this intervention and it will need an educated and experienced project manager in manner to handle the roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder as per the requirement of this intervention.     

The official webpage of the RCC explains about the organizational structure and functioning of the organization, which was helpful in collecting the needs, which are required for the organization to enhance the output and productivity of the organization. The problems were identified from the annual report 2016 presented by the RCC and that was helpful in collecting the actual needs for the organization and thus, the problems and needs of the RCC were identified. Various journals, research papers, and trusted websites have been searched in manner to find the solutions of the identified problems through the IT/IS interventions. Thereafter, these data and information are combined as a method to produce this report with a support of the literature review based on various peer-reviewed journals.

Findings And Conclusion

Based on the above discussion it can be concluded that RCC can enhance the performance of the organization in efficient and effective manner through the implementation of IS/IT as an intervention for the existing system. IS/IT intervention will be always a positive aspect for RCC and will be helpful in managing all the operational activities with proper efficiency and lesser efforts. However, there are various challenges that RCC might face while implementing this intervention and thus need a proper managerial stand up in manner to deliver the objectives of the project successfully. This report presents the benefits that could be gained through this change and how much beneficial could it be for RCC considering its supply chain management, warehouse management, database management, and target customers. The future study could be made related the issues that might be faced by RCC after the implementation such as cyber attacks, data intrusion and other threats. This paper put emphasis on the topics related to problems that organization is currently facing for its sustainability in the market and the solutions that could be accomplished through the IT/IS interventions. 

References

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