Journal Association For Information Science: A Discussion Essay.

Discuss About The Journal Association For Information Science?

The Strategic Information Systems are developed to help Organization’s business to compete and provide business initiatives. The Strategic Information System helps Organization to achieve better efficiency, control and effectiveness to grow economically (Cassidy 2016). The Strategic Information System is a type of Information System. The chosen Organization for Strategic Information System is Coca Cola Company. Coca Cola Company is a well-known and established beverage industry in the market. Coca Cola has high market share and it tops the list of popular beverages. The report focuses on the strategic goals that Coca Cola Company wants to include and their current and future prospective. The purpose of this report is to analyze the gaps between strategic goals, and current and present IT infrastructure of Coca Cola Company respectively.

The outline of this literature review report is to discuss Coca Cola Company in details, operations and functionality, Information Systems Strategy. The other inclusions are difficulties and problems of Information Strategy Systems with recommendations.

The chosen Company for Strategic Information Strategy is Coca Cola Company. Coca Cola Company is an American multinational beverage industry which is a manufacturer, retailer and marketer of beverages. The Coca Cola Company’s structure is huge as it has large number of employees. There are various hierarchical levels at the corporate level in the Coca Cola Company. Coca Cola is a manufacturing company which manufactures non-alcoholic soft drinks and other beverages and sells them in the market. The operating segments of Coca Cola Company are Europe, Asia, Africa, America, Bottling Investments and Corporate segments (Company 2018). The products of Coca Cola Company are soft drinks and juices including Coca Cola, Fanta, Sprite, Dr Peeper, Appletiser. The services provided by Coca Cola Company are manufacturing and distributing of soft drinks across the world.

The operation and functionality of Coca Cola Company is described through the terms given below.

The current process of Coca Cola Company is to improve their bottling footprint in several regions. They are currently investing on bottling manufacturing. The Coca Cola Company is restructuring their organization structure to improve their business functions. The current five processes of quality checks in Coca Cola Company are Bottle Inspectors, Filled Bottle Inspection Technology. The other three are COBRIX Analyzer, Flow Diverter Valve and Interlocks (Overview 2017). These quality-checks processes provide full proof of quality checks from packaging to bottling. The current manufacturing processes are production of beverages through consumption of less sugar and bottling process through Coca Cola’s own production unit. The next process is to produce glass bottles and inspect it to check for any dirt or crack. Finally the Coca Cola is distributed in the market. The Coca Cola Company current departments are Finance, Human Resource, marketing, Innovation and Planning departments respectively.

Identification of Company

The gap existing are production of beverages that are carbonated and can severely affect people’s health. The healthy lifestyle of people has contributed to less revenue as people want to have healthy drinks rather than carbonated drinks. The increased demand of healthy drinks among people has become a concern for Coca Cola Company. The distribution of only beverages is also a gap as their competitors like Pepsi has entered into the snacks segment. The Coca Cola Company still lags behind due to only core business in beverages. The introduction of some products such as Georgia is not well known to customers. (Paré et al. 2015) This product is not working properly in the market due to less advertisement and marketing. These are the gaps which exist in the current process and areas which are not working properly.

The specific issues of Coca Cola Company that the new system will fix are given as follows. The technology is considered to be an important aspect of Coca Cola Company due to potential it provides to make the business process simpler. The technologies have been adopted by Coca Cola Company and they are continuously trying to adopt new technologies. The technologies are driving the businesses of Coca Cola Company in several ways (Bravo, Santana and Rodon 2016). They have introduced their own bottle manufacturing machines. The bottling machines have made it easier for Coca Cola Company to reduce their cost of bottle manufacturing process. The machine has also reduced the labor work reducing the total time of manufacturing of bottles. The new business strategy also manufactured healthy drinks such as Honest to introduce in the market (Company 2017). This healthy drink will drive the Coca Cola Company’s businesses as people are preferring healthy drinks in the current scenario. The Coca Cola Company’s Research and Development team has done innovations which help the Company to expand their business unit and supply chain (Company 2014).

The criteria which will be used to prove the proposed system meets the requirements are given as follows. The first criterion is checking of concentrations of carbonated mixture. This will help to prove the quality of soft drinks that are fit or not for consumption. The second criterion is proper functioning and maintenance of bottling machines. This will help to check whether the bottles manufactured are fit for packaging or not (Olins 2017). The other help it will provide is that bottles are not damaged. The third criterion is testing of innovations to check whether the developed innovations will contribute in business growth or not. The fourth criterion is to enter into the snacks segment for better revenue growth in the market.

Operations and Functionality

The constituents of Information System Strategy are Financial, Operational and Strategic (Laudon and Laudon 2015). The Financial systems are the basic systems where there are inclusions of accounting, budgeting and finance operation of particular Organizations (Revell 2016). The Operational systems are the basic systems where there are inclusions of business operations and its basic concern is managing details of the Organization (Yeoh and Popovi? 2016). The Strategic systems are the basic systems where there are inclusions of business and computer strategies link (Galliers and Leidner 2014). This is the major system for an Organization as this is the system where business strategies are developed to be realized using Information Technology systems. The Information System Strategy has characteristics which include linkage of Information Technology with business strategy and to analyze competitive advantage.

The need of Information Systems Strategy is necessary to manage and improve the quality and quantity of an Organization (Laudon and Laudon 2016). The need here is described from the perspective of each Information System exist in an Orgaization. The Financial System is needed for controlled measurement of all business operations and projects successfully. The Operational System is needed as it controls the details of business and help the Organization to manage the business operations (Liao et al. 2015). The Strategic information Systems are important as they are intended to give competitive advantage to the Organization’s business. The Strategic Information system uses Porter’s Model to define the rivalry pf competitors.

The need of Information System Strategy for overall Organizational Strategy is that it provides better communication among the systems within the Organization. The communication helps to achieve better results with quick and effective collaboration. The other benefit it provides is decision making facility for the Organization (Whittington 2014). The Information System Strategy helps to facilitate the better decision making ability to improve sales, costs and profits. The decision making becomes hassle free due to concise form of all data aggregated through Information Strategy system. The data are recorded through Information System Strategy to be used for enhancing future prospective of business operations. The recorded data are helpful in assessing the overall performance of Organization’s business operations. 

The difficulties in developing an Information System Strategy in an Organization are given below (Almalki, Al-fleit and Zafar 2017). The challenges are related to management, human, technical, environmental and time aspects respectively of an Organization.

Management Challenges- The challenges faced by Organizations today are alignment of Information strategy and business strategy. The difficulties that an Organization can face are budgeting, personnel and general management while implementing Information Strategy. The other difficulties are lack of internal interaction and weak manager support. Therefore, the recommendations for management challenges is to build effective relation with executive and senior executives. The replacement of management will help to achieve the implementation of Information System Strategy.

Criteria to Meet Requirements

Human Challenges- The challenges in lack of workforce, inability in recruitment of suitable staff and lack of Information Technology expert in an Organization. Lack of computer knowledge among employees poses difficulty in development of Information System Strategy. The negligence of workforce from learning computer skills poses a challenge for an Organization. Therefore, the recommendations for human challenges are that they should encourage existing workforce to learn computer skills. The Organization should employ Information Technology expert and provide training to entire employees of an Organization.

Technical Challenges- The technical challenges are the basic difficulty in an Organization which include hardware and software tools. The other challenges are telecommunications issues such as cables and devices and infrastructure for Information Technologies. The other difficulties are migration from old system to new system in an Organization. Therefore, the recommendations for technical challenges are to maintain stable network and proper infrastructure. The backup for database of old system is also necessary to retrieve the data further in new system.

Environmental Challenges- The environmental challenges are the factors which influence an Organization externally and internally such as work culture, change, behavior, poor coordination and others. The other less important environmental challenges are political conflicts in an Organization and misunderstanding among management and employees. Therefore, recommendations for environmental challenges are changing of attitude in office premises and improvement in coordination will help in better interaction and management.

Time Challenges- The time challenges are the factors such as lack of proper time management. The time is an important factor for an Organization. The extension of time for developing Information System Strategy poses a challenge for an Organization. Therefore, recommendations for time challenges are time management and developing the Information System Strategy at right time to avoid any glitches.

The study of the two cases given below will help to understand the problem due to Information System failure in an Organization. The typical problems that might be expected to arise within an Information System projects are given in the following paragraphs. The

The study on information systems in hospital shows the problems that raised were human cultural and environmental factors. The failure factors are unclear goals, absence of a project champion, poor health resignation, time, poor technical assistance and insufficient technical staff (Verbeke, Karara and Nyssen 2015). Another other study on United States Healthcare Government website shows the failure factors as follows. The first issue is interaction among sub-contracts working on different segments of the Information System projects. The second issue is lack of leadership while working on Information Systems project (Anthopoulos et al. 2016). The third issue is lack of testing of Information Systems project aspects. The fourth issue is choice of unusual and unfamiliar databases for Information Systems project.

Information Systems Strategy and its Need

The recommendations for the problems of Information Systems project in the case studies given above, are suggested in the following paragraphs.

• Realization of human systems- The realization of human systems and systems engineering completely. The human resources contribute a major part in resolving the problems.
• Providing Information Infrastructure- The recommendation of providing proper and effective information infrastructure for every problems of Information System.
• Time Management- The time management is necessary to outperform the associated problems of development of Information System and its failures.
• Stable network- The stable network is necessary for communication and management of Information System and its failures.
• Coordination and communication- The coordination and communication among employees is necessary for better improvement of Information System functions and operations.

Conclusion

The discussion conclude that Information System is an essential part of an Organization. The report shows that Coca Cola Company’s current process and their strategic goals has huge differences which is fixed by the Information System Strategy. The Coca Cola Company is taken to analyze its aspects and operations. The Information Systems provides strategies for Organization’s functions and operations. There are difficulties in Information System strategy developments however they can be overcome through recommendations provide in the discussions. The problems raised through Information Systems projects should be managed and remedies should be suggested for better performance of Information Systems. Therefore, the report shows the benefits that Strategic Information System provides analysis and alignment between the strategic goals and present scenario of an Organization.

References

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Anthopoulos, L., Reddick, C.G., Giannakidou, I. and Mavridis, N., 2016. Why e-government projects fail? An analysis of the Healthcare. gov website. Government Information Quarterly, 33(1), pp.161-173.

Bravo, E.R., Santana, M. and Rodon, J., 2016. Automating and informating: roles to examine technology’s impact on performance. Behaviour & Information Technology, 35(7), pp.586-604.

Cassidy, A., 2016. A practical guide to information systems strategic planning. CRC press.

Company, O. (2014). How Coca-Cola Brings Outside Technology In. [online] The Coca-Cola Company. Available at: https://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/cool-hunting-how-coca-colas-shell-huang-and-team-find-new-tech [Accessed 29 Jan. 2018].

Company, O. (2017). Coca-Cola and Honest Tea Team Up to Bring Healthy Tea Options to Great Britain. [online] The Coca-Cola Company. Available at: https://www.coca-colacompany.com/coca-cola-unbottled/refreshingly-honest-coca-cola-gb-launches-new-organic-bottled-herbal-tea-brand [Accessed 29 Jan. 2018].

Company, O. (2018). The Coca-Cola System. [online] The Coca-Cola Company. Available at: https://www.coca-colacompany.com/our-company/the-coca-cola-system [Accessed 29 Jan. 2018].

Galliers, R.D. and Leidner, D.E. eds., 2014. Strategic information management: challenges and strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.

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Olins, W., 2017. The new guide to identity: How to create and sustain change through managing identity. Routledge.

Overview, C. (2017). 5 Process Quality Checks Ensuring Quality for Drinks | Coca-Cola India. [online] The Coca-Cola Company. Available at: https://www.coca-colaindia.com/choices/5-in-processes-checks-across-product-lines-that-ensure-quality-for-your-drinks [Accessed 29 Jan. 2018].

Paré, G., Trudel, M.C., Jaana, M. and Kitsiou, S., 2015. Synthesizing information systems knowledge: A typology of literature reviews. Information & Management, 52(2), pp.183-199.

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