Kiwibank's Global Information System Strategy: IT and Big Data Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Kiwibank's global information system (IS) strategy, focusing on its IT infrastructure and the potential of big data. The introduction provides an overview of Kiwibank's mission, business processes, and strategies. The report delves into Kiwibank's current IT infrastructure, identifying its components and discussing the challenges the company faces in managing it. Furthermore, it explores emerging technologies, recommending the adoption of cloud technology to address data management issues. The report then examines big data, defining it and assessing its potential benefits and drawbacks for Kiwibank, including business opportunities and challenges. A strategy for leveraging big data is recommended to help the business achieve its objectives. The conclusion summarizes key findings and offers recommendations for improving Kiwibank's business operations. The report uses a journal format to document the research process, including website visits, email correspondence, and literature reviews to support the analysis and recommendations.

Running head: GLOBAL INFORMATION SYSTEM STRATEGY
Global Information System Strategy: Kiwibank
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

1
GLOBAL INFORMATION SYSTEM STRATEGY
Table of Contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................4
2. IT Infrastructure and Emerging Technologies.......................................................................5
2.1 Description of the Organizational Current IT Infrastructure...........................................5
2.2 Identifying the Issues as well as Challenges faced by this Company in the Management
of its IT Infrastructures...........................................................................................................7
2.3 Emerging Technologies regarding Organization having a Strategy for taking
Advantage of the Recommended Emerging Strategy............................................................9
3. Big Data its Background as well as Recommended Strategy..............................................10
3.1 Details regarding Big Data in an Organization..............................................................10
3.1.1 Definition of Big Data.............................................................................................10
3.1.2 Potential of Big Data in Kiwibank..........................................................................10
3.1.3 Process of Businesses with Big Data......................................................................11
3.1.4 Business Opportunities as well as Benefits from Big Data in Kiwibank................11
3.1.5 Major Problems and Drawbacks of Big Datum in Kiwibank.................................12
3.1.6 Future of the Big Data and Next Steps for taking Advantage of Big Data.............12
3.2 Recommendation of a Strategy for helping the Business in leveraging Big Data to
achieve its Business Objectives...........................................................................................13
4. Conclusion............................................................................................................................14
4.1 Key Findings..................................................................................................................14
4.2 Recommendation............................................................................................................14
References................................................................................................................................16

2
GLOBAL INFORMATION SYSTEM STRATEGY
Part A: Journal
18th September: I went to the official page of Kiwibank https://www.kiwibank.co.nz/ and
checked about every detail regarding their corporate mission, vision, business strategies and
business processes. I even noted down the details of their unique IT infrastructure and IT
governance. I came to know that they want to spread their products and services in other parts
of the world as well and ensuring that the business becomes extremely effective and efficient,
in comparison to other banking organizations. I was able to write the entire introduction part
of my report with these data.
20th September: I emailed the IT department of Kiwibank about their physical IT
environment. The type and number of servers, computing platforms and software platforms
as well as other four components of IT infrastructure were noted by me, so that I am able to
understand their detailed IT infrastructure.
21st September: After getting prompt reply to my email to the management of Kiwibank, I
started searching on Google about types of issues and complexities faced by Kiwibank
regarding management of their IT infrastructure. The cognitive domains of the organization
were well identified after I did a peer reviewed analysis. To write the second part of this
report, which was details regarding IT infrastructure, I ensured that every detail is known by
me.
24th September: I started writing the current IT infrastructure and probable challenges and
problems faced by Kiwibank while managing their infrastructure. These issues were
extremely vulnerable for the business growth, however could be resolved with proper
precaution. I identified four distinctive issues of IT infrastructure for them.
26th September: A recommendation of emerging technology was needed to be provided to
Kiwibank to make sure that their business becomes extremely effective and efficient in
comparison to others. After searching in different articles and journals, I found out that they
are not using cloud technology in their business and since data storage and data management
is one of the major identified issue in Kiwi, I recommended them to use cloud services in
their business. It would ensure that every complexity related to data management is well
resolved without much issue.
28th September: I understood that implementation of big data is another vital aspect that can
provide several advantages to Kiwibank for managing and analysing complex data sets. To

3
GLOBAL INFORMATION SYSTEM STRATEGY
fulfil this particular requirement of my report, I completed peer reviewed search regarding
big data and was able to find out importance of the technology, major business opportunities
as well as challenges in maintaining big data in a business.
30th September: I searched for online articles and took help from books and professors, in
understanding the future of big data and several steps that are needed to be undertaken for
implementing big data within the business. I was also able to provide suitable
recommendation to Kiwibank regarding their selection of big data strategy in the business.
3rd October: Finally, I was able to note down all the key findings and recommendations in the
conclusion part of this report for Kiwibank to improve its business operations.

4
GLOBAL INFORMATION SYSTEM STRATEGY
1. Introduction
IS strategies are being utilized by almost all companies to eradicate the major
complexities, faced in a business related to information system. It helps in eradication of
complexities of IT infrastructure to a high level. This report outlines a brief analysis of IS
strategy in Kiwibank with suitable details and recommendations. Major issues of IT
infrastructure will be identified with recommendation of a proper big data strategy in the
report.
1.1 Brief Idea of the Organization
Kiwibank Limited is one of the most significant and important banks in New Zealand
that provides few distinctive banking and financial services to its customers.
1.2 Key Products
The personal banking services and products of this bank involve personal loans,
savings accounts, home loans, insurance products, investment services and everyday
accounts.
1.3 Corporate Mission
The main mission of this bank is to win the trust of New Zealand people after
providing better and effective services, products, high interest rates and low fees (Kiwibank.
2019).
1.4 Corporate Structure
They are maintaining a proper hierarchy in their business and the organizational
structure followed by the management of Kiwibank is hierarchical structure and hence the
employees are following the instructions of their managers and supervisors. They have sub-
divided their employees into different divisions like digital function, finance, governance,
marketing, retail and many more.
1.5 Main Business Processes
The major business processes of this organization updating employee information,
providing different banking products and services, quality and process improvement, change
management, financial analysis, management responsibilities, product development and
ensuring high customer satisfaction (Kiwibank. 2019).

5
GLOBAL INFORMATION SYSTEM STRATEGY
1.6 Business Strategy
They are following few of the distinctive business strategies so that maximum
benefits are being obtained from their business and even branding is maintained under every
circumstance. Five business strategies of this bank include community marketing, product
bundling, premier services, teller referrals and pre-approved products.
1.7 Relationship with External Entities
They are even maintaining proper relation with the external entities like Banquer,
Microfinance, Mind over Money, Akina Foundation, FinTech Accelerator and many more
and these are referred to as the major partners of Kiwibank.
Homepage URL: https://www.kiwibank.co.nz/
2. IT Infrastructure and Emerging Technologies
2.1 Description of the Organizational Current IT Infrastructure
Kiwibank is considered as the one of the most popular banks in entire Australia and
New Zealand and have got such distinct popularity in short period of time. One of the major
reasons of their success is the unique information technology infrastructure that is being
maintained by them (Summers & Smith 2014). Security of the confidential information as
well as maintenance of data integrity is one of the major challenge that is being faced by
banking businesses. Due to the new emerging threats, there exists high chance of data getting
lost forever without any type of robust security solutions, however even protects them from
the futuristic threats, vulnerabilities and risks. They have involved a unique IT infrastructure
so that the information is safe and secured under every circumstance for ensuring
accountability, availability, integrity and confidentiality assurance for the most critical
business environment and processes. The IT infrastructure can be referred to as the proper
combination of software, HR, network as well as software that can enable the business for
distributing different services of IT to people (Laudon & Laudon 2016). Kiwi, being a
significant bank, has always ensured that the components are extremely updated and can
provide maximum advantages without much complexity.
Kiwibank has been using enterprise resource planning and customer relationship
management in their business to bring out more productivity and applications in the business.
The overall downtime of the system is being reduced with their effective infrastructure and
the total productivity of the business gets improved with their rim services. The IT

6
GLOBAL INFORMATION SYSTEM STRATEGY
infrastructure present in the Kiwibank is solely responsible for providing comprehensive
managed services, which can easily and promptly address each and every requirement of the
customers globally (Laudon & Laudon 2015). The flexible and scalable service delivery
models as well as dedicated service centres can allow high and better asset usage for
improvisation in infrastructure up time or productivity. Kiwi is also able to efficiently
manage and monitor their services after leveraging on the SLA based metrics. The IT
infrastructure services mainly involve monitoring, management or administration of several
databases, network devices, and backup and storage devices. Moreover, they even offer the
clients with a multi-level security framework for the data centres to eventually ensure that the
up time is better.
The current IT infrastructure of Kiwibank comprises of 7 distinct components, which
are responsible for making their processes much easier and these components are provided
below:
i) Internet Platform: It is the first as well as the most significant component of the IT
infrastructure in Kiwibank is internet platform (Ahmad, Maynard & Park 2014). They are
currently using Apache in their infrastructure and are constantly upgrading the systems, so
that they are able to provide maximum advantages to the customers.
ii) Operating System Platforms: The second important and significant component of
the IT infrastructure in Kiwibank is operating system platform. Although, there are numerous
alternatives of this type of platform, they are utilizing Mac OS X, in their business, hence
getting maximum advantages from the services. Moreover, they even use UNIX, Linux and
Microsoft Windows.
iii) Enterprise Software Application: The third distinct and noteworthy component of
the information technology infrastructure within the respective bank is enterprise software
application (Zhou et al. 2014). Middleware is also included in these applications and they
have involved SAP and Oracle for their business processes.
iv) Networking or Telecommunications: Kiwibank is eventually using Cisco as the
networking or telecommunication in their business and hence there exists high profit potential
as it is majorly responsible for reducing the overall administration time in the business
processes. Networking or telecommunications can easily reduce the complexities for data
management majorly and hence Kiwi is able to achieve infrastructure effectiveness and
efficiency.

7
GLOBAL INFORMATION SYSTEM STRATEGY
v) System Integrators and Consultants: This is yet another vital and significant
component of the information technology infrastructure in Kiwibank. Currently they have
implemented EDS in the business for better integration of systems (Theorin et al. 2017). With
the help of system integration, it is being ensured that the new infrastructure is working
perfectly with every legacy system.
vi) Data Management and Storages: Regarding data management as well as storage,
Kiwibank is using Oracle and SQL Server; hence ensuring that the business is gaining
maximum advantages related to data handling and management, without much complexity.
vii) Computer Hardware Platforms: Kiwibank is utilizing different computer
hardware platforms in their business like desktop PCs, laptops, mobile devices and many
more. Moreover, they are also considering different blade servers that are ultra-thin
computers stored within racks and IBM mainframe in the business (Bajdor & Grabara 2014).
2.2 Identifying the Issues as well as Challenges faced by this Company in the
Management of its IT Infrastructures
Kiwibank has been using information system strategies in their business. IS strategy
eventually considers the type of information, required at operational, tactical and strategic
organizational levels for fulfilling business objectives. A proper IS strategy has the core
capability to deliver every tangible advantage like increased profit and operational
effectiveness. This type of strategy includes interlinking of all types of business activities that
obtain and process data to give relevant information. It even highlights the information,
required for business objective achievement so that it can easily form to utilize information
resources and generate new business opportunities (Fountas et al. 2015). IS strategy has the
ability of meeting demands of a business and is completely based on functions. Kiwi is able
to manage their IT infrastructure for the presence of these strategies.
However, although they comprise of such distinctive advantages, there exists few
issues and challenges that are confronted faced by the organization of Kiwibank while
managing their IT infrastructure. These popular and distinctive issues and challenges are as
follows:
i) Issue in Data Management Services: The first and the most significant issue that is
being faced by Kiwibank related to IT infrastructure is the issue in data management services.
The main reason for such distinctive issue is that they are lacking efficient data storage
architectures in their business (Spiegel et al. 2014). The specific existing data storage does

8
GLOBAL INFORMATION SYSTEM STRATEGY
not eventually provide any needed architectures of data storage that can accommodate several
application. The entire IT community requires high flexibility that is absolutely beyond cost
or space in the storage options. Although, they are using Oracle and SQL Server for effective
data storage, there exists a high risk that the data could be lost and confidentiality would be
completely lost (Lloyd 2017). Being a banking organization, it is extremely important for
them to save and secure their information and hence due to this particular issue, they could be
in major problem and complexity.
ii) Improper Connectivity and Networks: The second noteworthy issue, faced by this
popular New Zealand based bank, Kiwi is improper or inappropriate networks and
connectivity (Soppera, Bossant & Dupont 2014). It is quite vital for them to ensure that the
network that is being faced used in the business, is absolutely safe and secured. Without a
reliable and proper network connectivity, management of IT infrastructure could eventually
become one of the most difficult tasks for all IT managers in the business. The new software
based methodologies and network architecture design is required for better data optimization.
However, due to the presence of improper network and telecommunications, the business
decisions could not be considered properly for better infrastructure management. Currently,
they have been using Cisco networks in their business and thus maintenance of this network
is required periodically (Dahlstrom & Bichsel 2014). However, it often becomes extremely
problematic for the business as data optimization could not be done properly and the network
cannot optimize the delivery of traffic for service improvement.
iii) Issue in Maintenance of Computing Platform: This is yet another vital and
significant issue, faced by the Kiwibank while managing their IT infrastructure. They are
presently using Mac OS X in their organization. One of the major disadvantages of this
particular operating system platform is that it requires regular maintenance under every
circumstance and as a result, excess expenses or costs are incurred in their business (Tarhini,
Arachchilage & Abbasi 2015). The humongous amount of data, which is available could be
extremely vulnerable for the business, as high performance computing of the larger data sets
need automation and virtualization for avoidance of adding extra people to the respective
processes. This particular issue of IT infrastructure is simplifying the tasks and also speeding
up of the entire process. To effectively resolve this challenge, Kiwibank should use
distributive systems and these distinct systems eventually sub divide the complicated tasks
into small independent bits that could be substantially processed by the individual systems,
linked with the network (Marchewka 2016).

9
GLOBAL INFORMATION SYSTEM STRATEGY
iv) Issue in Managing Physical Facilities Management Services: The next distinct
and noteworthy issue, faced by the Kiwibank while managing their IT infrastructure is
management of physical facilities management services (Al-Sakran 2015). The physical
facilities of the business are needed to be maintained properly and these physical resources
could should be extremely effective and efficient for ensuring that the entire business is
gaining high advantages. However, Kiwi is facing high issues in management of physical
facilities management services, which is reducing the chances of facility management
majorly and could even increase business expenses majorly.
2.3 Emerging Technologies regarding Organization having a Strategy for taking
Advantage of the Recommended Emerging Strategy
IS strategy or information system strategy is responsible for involving better
alignment of information system development with any type of business needs
(Malekmohammadi & Blouchi 2014). This particular strategy is completely business focused
as well as demand oriented for any particular organization. Kiwibank has not involved any
emerging technology in their business, in spite of using the most advanced and effective
business strategies. These distinct technologies involve a variety of different technologies like
information technology, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, nanotechnology,
psychotechnology, biotechnology and many more. Although, Kiwi is concerned about the
data security and privacy, they are unable to reduce the complexities and challenges, faced
within the business for increasing their effectiveness (Dutta, Geiger & Lanvin 2015). As a
result, there is absolutely no growth and development in the present situation.
One of the most effective and efficient recommended current emerging strategy for
Kiwibank for their business and services would be SaaS of cloud technology (Fang et al.
2015). Cloud emerging technology is the major technique, in which the respective data
owners or users could remotely store their confidential data and information within the cloud
for enjoying on demand higher quality services and applications from a distinct shared pool
of different configurable computing resources This particular technology is the Internet based
computing model, in which every shared information, resource and software is being
provided to the devices and computers as per demand (Schwalbe 2015). It eventually enables
all users in successfully accessing the resources of cloud computing anytime from every
suitable platform like a laptop, desktop, mobile computing platform and a cell phone.

10
GLOBAL INFORMATION SYSTEM STRATEGY
Kiwi can even use the computing resources like software and hardware, after
delivering as the services over a network (Liu et al. 2017). The banking services could be
successfully delivered from computing power to the respective computing infrastructure,
applications and services to their customers, so that they can use the services wherever and
whenever needed. These software applications and the data needed by them will not be stored
on the systems, instead these would be successfully stored on the remote servicers that are
completely under the control of any other host. Moreover, Kiwi can even enable their
delivery of the computing as a service and due to better management of data and easier data
accessibility, information can be saved easily and promptly in cloud technology and thus they
would be able to reduce these complexities without much issue. Furthermore, they would not
require to involve traditional computer setup for removing their need for being in the same
physical location as hardware, which could store the data (Chen, Chang & Huang 2014).
SaaS of cloud technology would also lead in increasing different categories of virtualization,
scalability, standardization and agility.
3. Big Data its Background as well as Recommended Strategy
3.1 Details regarding Big Data in an Organization
Big data can is the field, which treats different methods for better analysis, systematic
extraction of information as well as dealing with different sets of data that are extremely
complex and large to be dealt with the traditional processing of data application software
(Chen, Mao & Liu 2014). Kiwibank would be extremely benefitted in management of bulk
amount of data and information in the most effective manner.
3.1.1 Definition of Big Data
Big datum can be defined as the extremely larger sets of data, which are analysed
computationally for the core purpose of revealing patterns, associations and trends that are
related to human interactions and behaviour (Lazer et al. 2014). Big data is majorly
characterized by 3Vs or volume, velocity and variety of different data types. Proper analyses
of data sets could even search for new correlations in spotting business trends and many
more. The complex sets of data can grow rapidly, as they are increasingly collected by
cheaper and several devices of IoT like mobile device, software log, camera, RFID reader,
and microphone and wireless sensor network.

11
GLOBAL INFORMATION SYSTEM STRATEGY
3.1.2 Potential of Big Data in Kiwibank
This potential of big data would be quite higher for Kiwibank as most of the strategies
of big data arise when the respective executives feel that there exists an urgent requirement
for responding to any type of threat or attack and can eventually disrupt the industrial value
pools (Chen & Zhang 2014). An alignment of strategic alternatives is possible and it is
extremely important for a banking organization like Kiwibank. The data strategies are
properly intertwined with strategy and hence need proper planning, as soon as an
organization takes the decision of resources focusing on the business for successfully
achieving every desired result. In few distinct cases, it even refers to putting powerful data
analysis tools within the hands of different frontline employees. Kiwibank would be able to
acquire few of the data vendors and ensuring long term strategic potential in the most
distinctive method (Kitchin 2014). A range of sharing of data as well as analysis activities are
present within the organization for bringing out major innovation and creativity in the
business processes.
3.1.3 Process of Businesses with Big Data
Different popular organizations are using big data in their business for reducing
complexities related to complex data management. It provides them with new insights, which
open up the new opportunities or business models. There are three distinct actions, by which
business utilize big data and these three actions are as follows:
i) Integrate: By this particular action, big data can bring together the complex data
from several applications and sources (Kitchin 2014). The traditional mechanisms of data
integration did not provide high advantages for this purpose. However, the business needs
new technologies and strategies for analysis of bigger data sets. The data could be easily
processed so that the business analysts are getting maximum advantages from it.
ii) Manage: The second action is managing the data. Big data needs good storage and
this storage could be on premises or on cloud (Hashem et al. 2015). Big data allows data
storage in every possible form and the desired processing requirements could be brought
without much complexity.
iii) Analysis: The final action is analysis, by which the confidential data is being
analysed effectively. Moreover, major clarity is provided with visual analyses of the different
sets of data and building of the data models with AI and machine learning.