Business Analysis For Hosted Desktop Solutions

Analysing business goals and objectives

Evaluation of old system actual data and metadata, organisational policies

Investigation of issues to determine business problem

Identification of clients, service needs and level of service

Identification of possible IT solutions

Outcomes to enable evaluation of proposed solutions

Current capabilities of enterprise and desired objectives

Capabilities required to achieve the desired future state and assess gaps

Identification of technology and electronic commerce opportunities

Assumptions to facilitate decision making 

Solution options and capabilities 

IT options to meet the business objectives 

Assumptions and recognize constraints affect choice of solutions

Operational or technical assessment 

Development of draft proposals

Rank solution options on business value and advantages and disadvantages of alternatives 

Analysis of Business Goals and Objectives

The organizations are always impacted by the external forces that ultimately determine the performance and effectiveness of the organization. The case study of this report revolves around a small enterprise named, "Hosted Desktop Solutions" (HDS). It provides hosted "open-source" IT solutions for both the small and medium sized businesses.  

Business Analyst is an advisory role which has the responsibility for investigating and analyzing business situations, identifying and evaluating options for improving business systems, elaborating and defining requirements and ensuring the effective implementation and use of information systems in line with the needs of the business.

Some business analysis roles extend into other areas such as strategy implementation, business case production, benefits realization, specification of IT requirements.

A good business analyst can make the difference between a poor and a great investment in business and IT improvements. A good Business Analyst must have some competencies such as good personal qualities, great business knowledge and professional techniques.

The personal qualities are the skills and characteristics that are useful for a business analyst. These can be explained as communication, relationship building, influencing, team working, political awareness, analytical skills and critical thinking, attention to detail, problem-solving, leadership, self-belief and professional development.

Business Knowledge is an essential as a background and foundation for the business analyst’s work. The essentials of business knowledge can be explained by business finance, business case development, domain knowledge, subject matter expertise, principles of information technology, organization structures, supplier management and business architecture.

The professional techniques can be considered with the following skills: Project management, strategy analysis, stakeholder analysis and management, investigation techniques, requirements engineering, business modelling, data modelling, gap analysis, facilitation skills, portfolio management, benefits management and agile thinking.

HDS is located in IT hub of North Ryde, in Sydney. It offers full services like installation of hardware, software, configuration and managing systems, then creating websites, intranets and extranets. Bob and Jeff are the founders on the company, who actively participate in all the business activities. The company comprises of two individuals administration team i.e., a senior and a junior IT technician.  The marketing and Customer Relationship Management is managed by the Bob and Jeff, as it is still a flourishing company. The main service offered by the company which is handled by the founders include, delivering certain hosted services, from equipment within the premises; then for clients it develops open source solutions; it also develops and deploys its own applications. Cloud computing is pushing the company towards its growth. This company has realized that cloud computing can bring more opportunities and help the company to expand its services in education sector.  Ultimately, increasing the company’s revenue, market share and open opportunities to enter other markets. HDS is known for its high quality customer service with competitive pricing so most big customers prefer to work with this company.

Current IT Infrastructure

The organizational culture followed by HDS is, "Small family business" culture, which has unclear roles and responsibilities. The organization contains staff with junior to mid-level roles. However the exception is the senior technician, but he is not assigned with any important management responsibilities. The staff of the company are not sure about their future in the company, due to its ad hoc strategic planning. Tactical decisions are always taken by pressing the operational service delivery requirements, which increases the instability of the workplace culture.

In HDS, I have been appointed as the Chief Information Officer (CIO). It is a small firm that provides hosted "open-source" IT solutions to businesses that are either small or medium sized.  This business was started by the founders just with their two laptops. Though they give all their time and effort to meet the IT needs of their clients, their own business’s IT infrastructure has become ad-hoc which is not worthy to meet the  current’ growth’s demands. Thus, the main objective to analyze this case is that, the company faces internal IT constraints and issues. The founders, are suggested to carry out a whole business’s IT analysis, to find effective solutions to solve the encountered constraints and issues.

HDS’s networking capacity is underdone and a four years old server is utilized for the following purposes:

• Storage
• Networking
• File Sharing
• Legacy Hosted Applications for customers.

It is observed that the server box has insufficient processing power/RAM, to add to this problem over the years the server set-up has become unstable, because of the instant remedies implemented by the founders and senior technician, when things don’t work.  On the other hand, the computes used by the staff have become old, with a junk operating system, hardware and software versions.

When it comes to Email, it is hosted using the Google Apps, whereas the website is hosted externally.  Paper work and excel files are both used for customer management system. Due to this mixed method, it is difficult to find the mistakes from the customer’s records. It has incomplete CRM system and even Telephony has become inadequate. Whereas, intensified pressure is on the helpdesk email monitoring and response management.  Even after completing the external hosting services for the clients, the old clients are yet managed by HDS’s IT. Additionally, through internal IT even some of the client’s IT system monitoring and maintenance is undertaken. However, HDS has a separate application development named as, “box”, but it lacks optimal maintenance when compared with other systems and is highly slow.

Issues and Challenges for Hosted Desktop Solutions

Even after hiring a senior technician, the founders handled all the internal IT fixes, thus leading to unclear and unsystematic in future when there is customer growth.

Therefore, this case study revolves around a small owner-operated business.  The founders are not able to manage the increasing problems. The case clearly projects the future of the company i.e., if the company grows with the current organizational systems, then there are less chances for the company to effectively operate for a long term.

This case study focuses to improve the business of HDS. In general, as a newly appointed Chief Information Officer, I will concentrate on “IT Focused Business Analysis”. The objective is to resolve the internal issues faced by the administrative staff and the stakeholders.

Thus, I have responsibilities in terms of main internal and external strategy, tactical and operational responsibilities, for helping the business to increase its sustainable growth. The following are the roles which I will be concentration more on:

• Reducing tactical and operational decision making for the founders.
• To help the founders with strategic planning.
• To manage the internal operations.
• To contribute IT deployment into larger companies.
• To contribute in developing the application.

As a Chief Information Officer (CIO), this report ensures to undertake the following objectives from which the founders, Bob and Jeff can have opportunities:

• To concentrate on the internal strategic activities, for enabling growth of the business, along with maintaining the company’s current culture which is caring and supportive. Moreover, it is also effective and efficient.
• To concentrate on the company’s strategic activities, for benefiting with favourable market opportunities/conditions along with its development.
• To concentrate on the application development strategy that is delayed and interrupted frequently by new, larger, and ever increasing service delivery requirements.

The goals of HDS’s company is to provide hosted open source IT solutions for the enterprises which ranges from small to medium size. Whereas, the objective is to start analyzing the business’s IT and to determine effective IT solutions for the encountered problems in the company.

In HDS, the present ad-hoc IT infrastructure fails to meet the demands of current business growth. HDS’s networking capacity is underdone. It has four years old server which is utilized for, storage, networking, file Sharing and for legacy hosted applications for customers. The paper work and excel files are both used for customer management system. Due to following this mixed method, it is difficult to find the mistakes from the customer’s records. The Telephony has become inadequate. Whereas, intensified pressure is on the helpdesk email monitoring and response management.  In HDS, the systems are not maintained well and the application development has gone down.

When it comes to organizational policies, it is necessary as it ensure to add value to any business ("The ten most common HR challenges for small businesses", 2016). But, HDS has no specific organizational policies that are followed at present.

The issues encountered in the company is that the staff feel more strain due to lack of resources which increases challenges to meet the expanding cloud computing services. Because of no increase in the revenue, it is effecting the investment of resource (Johnson, 2016). Lack of resources is a serious problem for a small business (Bendall, 2014). The investigation of the case study states that, in HDS the cloud computing services are expanding but the IT expense is not changed accordingly. Thus, the issues of resource persists in budget, knowledge management, staff and organizational plan.  

Organizational Culture of Hosted Desktop Solutions

The organizational culture followed by HDS is, "Small family business" culture, which has unclear roles and responsibilities for its staff. As they are prioritizing the new clients, the company is failing to establish effective customer relationship with the old clients. This is decreasing the margin of the incoming projects. The Company is facing cash flow issue due to delayed payment from new clients, in large number. This is impacting the development of business and also effecting the maintenance of the internal infrastructure. Moreover unclear roles and responsibilities points at the gaps in the governance system of the organization ("Unclear roles, responsibilities and processes", 2016).

Unclear roles and responsibilities increases stress due to the following reasons (Brearley, 2016):

• In a team, it increases difficulty to understand the importance of task.
• Increases confusion at workplace (Blazek, 2016).
• Then, the members do the work which they must not do.
• The skills of the individual is not developed, due to undefined job.

Defining the roles and responsibilities can benefit with the following (Blazek, 2016):

1. It can deceases the wastage of energy.
2. Can provide better understanding of their roles and increases productivity.
3. The set goals of the company can be met.

HDS services like hosting "open-source" IT solutions for its clients from small to medium sized firms. HDS’s clients can lean on time to deal with the staff who show loyalty towards the business. When compared to the junior support staff of HDS, its old clients are well aware of the issues faced in the company. Over telephone, these client must ensure to recognize and acknowledge, if not they fail to have satisfied communication with HDS.

For HDS, the possible IT solutions are to develop extranet and intranet for its clients, to meet their demands. Develop an effective website for the company, to help the junior staff know about the customer details, while handling client calls. CRM which is underdeveloped must be completed fully, fo managing customer management system. This will help to maintain good relationship with the clients. Improve the company’s IT infrastructure. Additionally, HDS must opt cloud computing services that exist in the market for fewer resources, to eradicate the issue of limited resources. In this way, the work of HDS can be done using online system. This will also ensure the company to maintain its performance levels. 

The proposed solution will result in improving the customer management system, which helps in providing better client relationships. Customer relationship management system can benefit as listed below:

1. It can improves company’s ability to provide better solution for the encountered issues.
2. It helps to build team collaboration for managing the capacity of the resources.
3. It will ensure client satisfaction and help with updating the information of the customers.
4. It will also help to increment the revenue and productivity at HDS.

At present HDS has the capacity to have a direct interaction with its old customers by using their staff’s help. HDS’s objective is to deliver social media, whereas the clients wish to effectively manage the social media activities. It desires to develop extranets and intranets for its clients, to meet their needs. This enterprise is capable to manage better timeframes and any kind of impacts on quality of their service.

Role of Chief Information Officer

The company must make itself capable to manage the informal policies and organizational procedures, for managing its increased business growth. It will require to have effective management, with fixed roles and responsibilities for its team. It needs responsive and updated administrative management system, to handle the clients. HDS can assess its gaps by assessing its project margins and services.

It is necessary that HDS must utilize the cloud computing services like technology and electronic commerce opportunities. Because, it has the capacity to facilitate effective hosted services for the company’s clients.  

The inventory is assumed to be managed effectively with the e-commerce services for an organization. Moreover, it costs comparatively less with other options for meeting the needs of HDS. This method is expected to help in managing the database of the customers with online database system.

It is very important that HDS must have the capacity of managing general process activities in a company, when the company is expanding. It is required to have an effective administration system to manage the activities of the business. HDS must implement policies and define the roles and responsibilities of its team, in a hierarchical order.  Customer invoicing must be administered with at most care. It must work on its goals

The following are a set of options to meet the business objectives of HDS:

• Include cloud based services, to satisfy the company’s customer needs.
• Work on improving the company’s IT arrangements.
• Facilitate open source answers for its customers.

It is necessary for any organization to examine and evaluate its current business operation and maintain them. Because, at the present case study on HDS makes it clear that no such steps are implemented so far. Additional, its IT infrastructure must also be assessed, for improving the technical requirements of the company.

The staff of the company are not sure about their future in the company, due to its ad hoc strategic planning. It is noticed that, tactical decisions are always taken by pressing the operational service delivery requirements, which increases the instability of the workplace culture.

The strategic tool used in this report is to analyze the organizational and environmental aspects of the business, where the organizational analysis is a common process followed by the organization to review its development, work environment, operational activities and personnel. Moreover, the organization analysis concentrates on the organization's structure and design, which are determined to check the organization's system, its capacity and its functionality’s influence on the organization's outputs. Thus, it is necessary for any organization to conduct this analysis periodically. On the other hand, Environmental analysis determines the internal and external elements in the process followed by the business ("What is Environmental Analysis?", 2015). It will help the founders to control all the internal environment that impact the functioning and growth of the company (Nordmeyer, 2018).

Evaluation of Possible IT Solutions

For a small business like HDS with limited resources, the strategy should identify the proficiency for implementing and fitting the values. It is determined that strategic planning is needed at a specific time internal that suits the business. However, HDS has to invest on it as it can benefit the business in future (Hathway, 2013).

The required strategic change for HDS includes:

• Weekly performance report on objectives and earnings in the company.
• Regularly updated report on project activities and deliverables.
• Designing organizational policies.
• Undefined roles and responsibilities can be fixed by the following steps (Brearley, 2016):

1. Clarification on roles played by each member.
2. Use RACI matrix to clarify the roles in a team, which denotes:

R = Responsible (to complete the work)

A = Accountable (accountable for their work)

C = Consulted (consulting opinions of others in the team)

I = Informed (information about the company’s progress and other important details)

1. Ensure to take feedbacks this also improves communication and help to fix the unclear roles and responsibilities.

In the business, only the founders perform all the higher level management functions. On the other hand, HDS’s “Small family business" culture can have drastic impact on the workplace and workflow, which intern corresponds on the growth and performance of the firm. The following problems can occurs if the same culture is followed, which will impact on the future opportunities for the company ("The pros and cons of creating a family culture in business", 2018):

• Personality clashes
• Professional decorum is must in an office, which can be hut due to this family culture.
• It doesn’t have a hierarchical structure instead it has a flat structure. Only the hierarchical structure helps to see the flow of work and not in family culture.

Therefore, the culture of HDS must be changed, by adopting the trending culture.

However, the performance of the business must be analysed by the following ("Analysing trends to improve business", 2018):

1. Performing financial calculations.
2. By checking the ratios.
3. By creating information tables.
4. With the help of visualizing the results with effective graphical tools.

The family business culture in HDS mainly dominates the functional or integration perspective based on shared values (Adiguna, 2015). The organization must have a set of policies, standards and code of practice. All these can be taught to the staff by providing effective training program, which motivates the employees to meet the goals of the company.

Apart from effective training program, the following factors play a vital role:

• Quality
• Cost estimation
• Time for managing the activities in the company

The following plan is an effective strategy for monitoring and evaluating the performance and sustainability of key systems and processes in HDS (Mizell, 2005) ("Instructions- Monitoring Progress for Sustainable Improvement", n.d.):

Step 1: Design a blue print

Step 2: Evaluate the data required to be monitored, to increase the company's performance.

Step 3: Design effective data collection system.

Step 4: Identify and remove the weak measure in the current process.

Step 5: Implement reporting system with a regular schedule, for clear communication.

Step 6: Access sustainability on a periodic basis.

Step 7: On a timely basis correct the emerging issues in the firm for ensuring sustainability.

Step 8: Don’t deviate from the plan ("Basics of Monitoring, Evaluating and Deviating from the Strategic Plan", 2018).

Step 9: Cost estimation

Step 10: Implement the plan

Step 11: Strategically hire the required employees.

Conclusion

It is observed that, it is necessary for the organization’s management to focus on examining its internal and external environments. Because, it help in understanding the dynamic and influential changes that occur constantly in the organization.

It is determined that, the organizational analysis is a commonly followed organization process which helps to review its development, work environment, operational activities and its personnel. Moreover, the organization analysis concentrates on the organization's structure and design. It is necessary for any organization to conduct this analysis periodically. Whereas, the environmental factors ensure the organization to analyze its needs, for improving its strategic options.

Therefore, a new system is proposed and it is expected that the company’s income, quality of service and so on will improve automatically when the new changes are implemented

References

Adiguna, R. (2015). Organizational Culture and the Family Business.

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Instructions- Monitoring Progress for Sustainable Improvement. AHRQ Quality Indicators Toolkit. Retrieved from https://archive.ahrq.gov/professionals/systems/hospital/qitoolkit/e1-monitorprogress.pdf

Johnson, C. (2016). 5 of the Biggest Marketing Challenges for Small Business Owners. Blog.cmkmarketing.com. Retrieved 2 May 2018, from https://blog.cmkmarketing.com/5-of-the-biggest-marketing-challenges-for-small-business-owners

Mizell, L. (2005). Evaluating for Sustainability: Eight Steps to Success. Philanthropy News Digest (PND). Retrieved 2 May 2018, from https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/columns/the-sustainable-nonprofit/evaluating-for-sustainability-eight-steps-to-success

Nordmeyer, B. (2018). What Is an Environmental Analysis for a Business?. Yourbusiness.azcentral.com. Retrieved 2 May 2018, from https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/environmental-analysis-business-1017.html

The pros and cons of creating a family culture in business. (2018). Virgin. Retrieved 2 May 2018, from https://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/pros-and-cons-creating-family-culture-business

The ten most common HR challenges for small businesses. (2016). Small Business. Retrieved 2 May 2018, from https://smallbusiness.co.uk/ten-common-hr-challenges-small-businesses-2535299/

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