INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT : CHOOSING ONE WEBSITE - LAZADA.COM

The website that I chose is www.lazada.com 

• Effectiveness IT Metric - measure the impact IT has on business processes and activities including customer satisfaction, conversation rates, and sell-through increases.
• Efficiency IT Metric - measures the performance of the IT system itself including throughput, speed, system availability, information accuracy, web traffic and response time.

EFFECTIVENESS IT METRICS

• Usability 

Usability is the ease with which people perform transactions and/or find information. A popular usability metric on the Internet is degrees of freedom, which measures the number of clicks required to find desired information. In other words, the information gained are easy for users to access and find the seconds they click. If the users try to access the websites and it's does not work, for whatever reasons, that means the website itself become worthless. For instant, LAZADA provides information on online banking and making any purchasing so that their customer are aware in making transaction.

• Customer Satisfaction

Measured by such benchmarks as satisfaction surveys, percentage of existing customers retained and increases in revenue dollars per customer. LAZADA made the satisfaction of their customers as their priority in their business. For instant, on the upper side of the website they provided a customer care or customer center so that their customer can voice up their opinion. This shows that they really manage their customer well. They also provide an account for the user to use their website to know their existing customer. 

• Conversation Rates

The number of customers in organization “touches” for the first time and persuades to purchase its products and services. This is a popular metric for evaluating the effectiveness of banner, pop-up and pop-under ads on the Internet. Since LAZADA is the biggest e-commerce that is well-known in Malaysia, it can influence many customers from different target market to actually make a purchasing for an item or items. 

EFFICIENCY IT METRICS

• Throughput

The amount of information that can travel through a system at any point. In this case, LAZADA website provide a lot of information regarding their product line ranging from fashion, consumer electronics to household goods, toy and sport equipment. LAZADA also segmented their section neatly for instant, men's section, women's section, home and living, electronics and sports and travels.

• Transaction Speed

The amount of time a system takes to perform a transaction. As we know, the more faster the transaction are done, the highest customer satisfaction it can get. For instant, when a users using LAZADA as a medium to make a transaction which involve online banking and card credit number, it can become slow as it involve high security to secure their customer's privacy as a password and account are needed. 

• System Availability 

The number of hours a system is available for users. LAZADA website can be access 24/7 with the use of internet connection. LAZADA is giving their best service towards their customers as the website provided medium of purchasing the items which is online banking that operates 24 hours a day.

• Information Accuracy

The extent to which a system generates the correct results when executing the same transaction numerous times. LAZADA will show the same information no matter how many times the user access the website. For example, the user wanted to add an item to the cart in order to purchase them. The next day when the user access the website again to complete the order, the information of the item such as the price, warranty,the dealer and type of goods are still the same as nothing changes.

• Web Traffic 

Includes a host of benchmarks such as the number of page views, the number of unique visitors, and the average time spent viewing a web page. 

• Response Time

The time it takes to respond to user interactions such as a mouse click. For instant, when the users want to get information of any items in LAZADA website, they just have to click once to get all of the details of one item as it provided them in one page. 

CASE STUDY #3 : NEW TECHNOLOGY DISASTER - WHO OR WHAT IS RESPONSIBLE?

Failed information technology implementations have created serious financial problems for a number of corporation. Hershey Food Corporation, for example, issued a major profits warning because of massive distribution problems following the flawed implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System. This resulted in many stores lacking Hershey products before Halloween and Christmas. Whirpool Corporation had problems due to a problematic ERP implementations. Problem with an ERP implementation at the pharmaceutical distributor FoxMeyer caused the company to announce a $500 million lawsuit against SAP and Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). British organizations, include the BBC and Newcastle University, also experienced major ERP implementation problems.

Adapted from : Gordon, J.R. (2002) Organizational Behavior. A Diagnostic Approach. 7th ed. Pearson. Upper Saddie River, New Jersey.



QUESTION 1

Describe three (3) effects of ERP failure based on the case study above.

i)   Can created serious financial problems toward the corporation
ii)  Many stores are lacking of the product of the corporation due to ERP failure which means that it can disturbed the flows of an organization.
iii)  Lawsuit occurs between vendor and user of ERP


QUESTION 2

Describe four (4) factors that organization should assess in choosing ERP vendor.

i)  Flexible- an ERP system should be flexible and quick in order to respond to the changing needs of an enterprise.

ii)  Modular and open- an ERP system has to have open system architecture, meaning that any module can be interfaced with or detached whenever required without affecting the other modules. The system should support multiple hardware platforms for organizations that have a heterogeneous collection of systems. It must also support third- party add-on components.

iii) Comprehensive- an ERP system should be able to support a variety of organizational functions and must be suitable for a wide range of business organizations.

iv) Beyond the company- an ERP system must not be confined to organizational boundaries but rather support online connectivity to business partners or customers.

CASE STUDY #2 : AIR ASIA - NOW EVERYONE CAN FLY

Air Asia was established in 1993 and started operations on 18 November 1996. it was originally founded by the government - owned conglomerate DRB-Hicom. On December 2, 2001, the heavily - indebted airline was purchased by former Time Warner executive, Tony Fernandes's company Tune Air Sdn.Bhd for the token sum of one ringgit.

Through the slogan ' Everyone Can Fly ', Fernandes proceeded to engineer a remarkable turnaround turning a profit in 2002 and launching new routes from its hub in Kuala Lumpur International Airport at breakneck speed, undercutting former monopoly operator Malaysia Airline with promotional fares as RM1 ( US$ 0.27)

Air Asia operates schedule domestic and international flights and is Asia's largest low fare, no frills airline. Air Asia pioneered low cost travelling in Asia which then followed by Tiger Airways, Jetstar, Nok Air, Lion Air and Cebu Pacific. It is also the first airline in the region to implement fully ticketless travel and unassigned seats.

Air Asia operates with the world's lowest unit cost of US$ 0.023/ ASK ( available seat per kilometer) and a passenger break-even load factor of 25%. It has hedged 100% of its fuel requirements for the next three years, achieves an aircraft turnaround time of 25 minutes, has a crew productivity level that is triple that of Malaysia Airline and achieves an average aircraft utilisation rate of 13 hours per day.

Air Asia is currently the main customer on the Airbus A320. The company has placed an order of 175 units of the same plane to service its route. On December 27, 2006, Air Asia's CEO Tony Fernandes unveiled a five-year plan to further enhance its route network by connecting all the existing cities in the region and expanding further to Indochina, Indonesia, Southern China (Kun Ming, Xiamen, Shenzhen) and India. The airline will focus on developing its hub in Bangkok and Jakarta through its sister companies, Thai Air Asia. to date with a fleet of 72 air crafts, Air Asia flies to over 61 domestic and international destinations with 108 routes, and operates over 400 flights daily from hubs located in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia and has flown over 55 million guests.

Sources: Compiled from Air Asia, Tony Fernandes - Wikipedia, and from Air Asia.com.

QUESTION 1

Identify five (5) of competitive advantages used by Air Asia.

      i)  Asia's largest low fare
     ii)  No frills airline
    iii)  Implement fully ticketless travel
    iv)  Unassigned seats
     v)  A crew productivity level that is triple that of Malaysia Airline

QUESTION 2

Which of the Porter's Generic Strategies were applied by Air Asia in the case study and explain with examples.

According to the Porter's Generic Strategies, Air Asia has applied the cost leadership strategies which is, their business is operating in a broad market while offering the low cost airline fares. Based on the article, Air Asia is the first airline that implement fully ticketless travel and unassigned seat which means that their business was creating the competitive advantages. Air Asia also run it business not just in domestic but they also expand their schedules to the international places. For example, they have expanded the routes of their aircraft to Thailand, Indonesia and any other big and modern countries in the world. In addition, they also made a slogan that attract different status of life to travel which is "Everyone Can Fly". This slogan has been made as their goal which they offered the customers  who wants to experience a very cheap and low prices of tickets when travelling in order to made them believe in their company. This actually shows that Air Asia has applied the cost leadership strategies to operate their airline company.

QUESTION 3

Based on Porter's Five Forces Model, analyze Air Asia's buyer power and supplier power.

At first buyer power for Air Asia is low because customers do not have any other choices to buy flight tickets from a company that offered their ticket at the low price. Basically,  Air Asia has made that offered to their customers through their slogan which is " Everyone Can Fly ". By doing this, Air Asia has created their competitive advantages and the company itself as the first mover which offering the low cost fare for their customer. The slogan itself shows that different social life can travel under that airline company. But nowadays, their buyer power is high because buyers have many choices that they can choose, instead of choosing  Air Asia as their travelling agent. It is because the others airline companies such as Tiger Airways, Jetstar, Nok Air and Cebu Pacific has implement or duplicate Air Asia’s idea which is offering low cost fare to their customer.

Supplier power is also the same. At the beginning , Air Asia's supplier power is high because it is the only company that implement the low cost fare ideas in the airline markets. So, customers can purchase tickets from Air Asia if they want to cut their budget. When there are competitors that also offering the low cost fare airline, Air Asia supplier power becoming low because at that time the buyers or customers already have a lot of choices that they can select to travel which also offering the same specialty  and characteristics as Air Asia.

       

CASE STUDY #1 : APPLE - MERGING TECHNOLOGY, BUSINESS, AND ENTERTAINMENT

QUESTION 1

Explain how Apple achieved business success through the use of information, information technology and people.

As we know, information define as data converted into a meaningful and useful content. Based on this, Apple's founder actually had created products that are interesting and follow the trend nowadays. With the used of information, Apple analysis and make decision on making their product in order to increase in profits as well as satisfy their customer's need.In addition, Apple produced beneficial products toward its customer regardless their expensive price. For example, I-Pod is an mp3 device that have evaluate from time to time. I-Phone for instant, also have been upgraded and now had been released the I-Phone 7 in the market and it announcement actually had made the I-Phone's lover excited. I-Phone is a great invention that actually helps Apple beside I-Pad to compete with other companies such as Samsung and Lenovo. 

The role of information technology on how it help Apple to achieve business is by managing their information effectively. Based on the case study, we know that Apple had various products line that had it own specialty. For instant, I-Phone, I-Pad, and I-Pod. Under this product lines, it has it own functions based on their product's version; either oldest or latest. Apple's latest offering is iCloud which help to secure their products and also secure customer's privacy. This shows that Apple had upgraded their services and technology and can create a better future forward.

As for people, Apple's teamwork are among the trusted people and important in every department in order to create a promising organization. Apple had achieve a huge amount of profit which one of the reason is people inside the organizational itself. As we know, right people are being trusted to use technology in order to analyse data and I believe that this is what the organization who wanted to success in this case, Apple are practicing in each department.

QUESTION 2

Describe the types of information employees at an Apple store require and compare it to the types of information the executives at Apple’s corporate headquarters require. Are there any links between these two types of information?

Types of information employees at an Apple store required is daily, routine or day-to-day information which is also known as Transactional Information. The data that they required is more details, accurate and complex in order to help them in making analysis in every and across department. As for executives Apple's corporate headquarters, they required an information that are abstract in order to make a good decision making. This information is also known as Analytical Information. There is a links between the two types of information as it shared the same database for both employees and executives to refer and making conclusion towards the information that they received. 

CHAPTER FIFTHTEEN : OUTSOURCING IN THE 21ST CENTURY

OUTSOURCING PROJECTS

Insourcing (in-house-development) – A common approach using the professional expertise within an organization to develop and maintain the organization’s information technology systems

Outsourcing – An arrangement by which one organization provides a service or services for another organization that chooses not to perform them in-house

Onshore outsourcing – engaging another company within the same country for services

Near shore outsourcing – contracting an outsourcing arrangement with a company in a nearby country

Offshore outsourcing – using organizations from developing countries to write code and develop systems

Big selling point for offshore outsourcing “inexpensive good work”

Factors driving outsourcing growth include;

·         Core competencies-

·         Financial savings

·         Rapid growth

·         Industry changes

·         The Internet

·         Globalization

Most organizations outsource their noncore business functions

OUTSOURCING BENEFITS

Outsourcing benefits include;

o   Increased quality and efficiency

o   Reduced operating expenses

o   Outsourcing non-core processes

o   Reduced exposure to risk

o   Economies of scale, expertise and best practices

o   Access to advanced technologies

o   Increased flexibility

o   Avoid costly outlay of capital funds

o   Reduced headcount and associated overhead expense

o   Reduced time to market for products or services

OUTSOURCING CHALLENGES

Outsourcing challenges include;

o   Contract length

1.            Difficulties in getting out of a contract

2.            Problems in foreseeing future needs

3.            Problems in reforming an internal IT department after the contract is finished

o   Competitive edge

o   Confidentiality

o   Scope definition