E-commerce Migration Plan for BMF: Benefits, Risks, and Impacts

E-COMMERCE MIGRATION PLAN
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Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Question......................................................................................................................................................4
Methodology...............................................................................................................................................4
Migration Plan.............................................................................................................................................4
Impacts to Organization and Infrastructure Changes...............................................................................4
Benefits of E-Business System....................................................................................................................6
Measuring benefits..................................................................................................................................7
Risks............................................................................................................................................................8
References.................................................................................................................................................11

Introduction
Changes in technology and the general business environment along with the need to better meet
client needs often push organizations into making changes that far reaching effects and
outcomes. In undertaking such changes, such organizations’ must make adequate plans and
handle the migration to a new system competently otherwise; the envisaged benefits may be lost
(Myler, 2014). In this paper, a hypothetical company called BMF is evaluated’; the company
provides computer services and products to customers, including sales of computers,
maintenance and repair services, and networking, training, and consultancy services. Since its
founding in 2005, it has targeted local clientele and has since grown from a small computer
company with two employees to a major firm in the IT sector with over 15 branches and outlets
within the region and in major towns with over 300 employees. Because of its humble
beginnings and no defined policy on the adoption of innovations and technology, the firm uses
legacy systems and technology including its hardware and software resources, its sales systems,
and how it communicates and interacts with customers.
This has made collaboration unwieldy and customer interaction weak and poor, while also
denying the company an obviously large market with no geographical restrictions possible
through e-business. Data and information is stored in paper records or in spreadsheets. The
company uses a phone and fax systems as the main means of communication and interaction
with customers as well as collaboration, with open source e-mail services also being used for
communication with clients and within the organization. An evaluation of the present systems
has determined that BMF is not tech-ready and is losing a lot in terms of possible revenue as well
as competitiveness and efficiency that would be afforded by a modern, e-Business based
enterprise system. As a result, the firm has been underperforming, mainly because of poor
decision making support systems, poor communication within the company, with partners, and
with customers. Changes are needed in the business and infrastructure model of the company,
such that it will have an upgraded IT enterprise system where it will have new hardware,
network systems, and software to form a new enterprise system that meets modern business
needs. Further, it will use e-commerce as a revenue model by having an e-commerce website
developed with all the functionalities of a brick and mortar store.

Question
Can BMF attain greater competitiveness through an IT (information technology) based BPR
(Business process Reengineering)?
Methodology
This paper will use a systematic review of literature methodology; this entails the use of
systematic approaches to gather secondary data. The gathered data is appraised critically and the
studies from past research and other scholarly articles synthesized to provide complete and
exhaustive information (Smith et al., 2011)
Migration Plan
The overall migration plan will be a stepwise migration plan in which the migration to the new
enterprise IT system will be done iteratively, in order to ensure adoption and success (Dantes and
Hasibuan, 2011). The existing paper and excel systems will be digitized and migrated into a
database while new enterprise and communication systems, including an e-mail server, a web
server, and applications servers will be implemented in a hybrid cloud system. This will entail
having some data inn a data center designed with scalability through virtualization and a public
cloud service provider to host applications and infrastructure. The strategy is to have BMF use
platforms, infrastructure, and software as a service with a data driven e-commerce website. The
cloud architecture will ensure the firm spends less on ICT infrastructure and equipment, plus the
added costs of upgrading and maintenance
Impacts to Organization and Infrastructure Changes
The proposed system will have a significant impact on BMF’s infrastructure; the entire
infrastructure will be changed and upgraded to a new platform that is based on hybrid cloud
architecture and new communications systems. The culture and operational processes at the
company, including on customer service, sales channels, decision making, and strategy
development will be completely changed (Ignatiadis and Nandhakumar, 2006). The hybrid cloud
system will be a database driven enterprise system with an e-commerce website running on Web
2.0 (Wainewright, 2010). This means that customers (existing and new) will have a new way to
interact with the company through the website and linked social media accounts. The website