HI5019 SIS (GROUP ASSIGNMENT) - A Case Study of Flight Centres

This report examines the strategic information system (SIS) of Flight Centres, a leading travel agency in Australia. It defines the business processes, develops business requirements, determines system requirements, and explores software and vendor selection. The report also evaluates the efficiency of technology implementation, examines potential security risks and data breaches, and provides guidelines for mitigating these risks. The case study highlights the importance of a robust SIS for managing operations, improving efficiency, and ensuring data security in a competitive travel industry.

HI5019 SIS (GROUP ASSIGNMENT)
A case study of Flight Centres
1

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
1. Define business processes...................................................................................................4
2. Develop business requirements..........................................................................................6
3. Determine the system requirements....................................................................................7
4. Software and vendor selection............................................................................................8
5. Determine at least three (3) ways which companies or organizations utilize such
technologies to improve business efficiency..............................................................................9
6. Evaluate the level of efficiency of the technology implementation.....................................11
7. Examine potential security risks, data breaches...................................................................13
8. Provide guidelines on how these risks could be mitigated..................................................14
Conclusion................................................................................................................................15
References................................................................................................................................16
2

Introduction
A strategic information system is being defined as the significant information system that is
being developed so as to give a response to the business initiatives of the corporate. They are
being designed in order to provide a competitive advantage to the business associations.
Strategic management of the information is the salient feature in the area of the information
technology. This system is being designed to support business in planning various strategies
for the company which will support them in achieving goals as well as success. In this report,
the chosen case study is of ‘Flight Centre’. In this report, there will be proper information in
regards to the association as well as procedures that take place in the company and explains
support, operational, managerial processes. The requirement of the software will be discussed
and the selection of appropriate vendor is also done. Evaluation of the efficiency level
regarding implementation of the technology and the data breaches as well as the risk of the
security will also be explained. At the end of the assignment, guidelines will be given in
regards to the mitigation of the risk and the valid conclusion will also be provided.
3

1. Define business processes
Flight center limited is being considered as one of the best travel agency of Australia and
having the workforce of around 12,000 staff members and around 2000 businesses and shops
in 11 nations, generating approx AUD 1 billion per month. The organization with the support
of its corporate and retails brands gives appropriate travelling facilities for business as well as
leisure travellers in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, US, UK, Hong Kong, Dubai, South
Africa, Singapore, China, and India.
In addition to it, corporate travel administration network of the company, FCm Travel
Solutions makes its extension in more than 40 countries with the support of agreements of
strategic licensing through independent operators. In the ‘Flight Centre', there are two main
operations of the business, namely Front office, and the Back Office. These two business
operations will be defined in detail as follows:
Front Business Operations
In the Front office part of the business, there are various functions like:
 Booking: The travel business makes a revolution around the development of a booking by
analysing the selected marketplace, managing them, and quoting an appropriate option with
the support of a fully paid up holiday. Development of a booking in modifiable as well as
clear manner will make smooth operations (Chen and Zhao, 2012).
 Administration of customers: An opportunity to understand the customer initiates as they
make consideration of the right booking with the support of trip and booking. The key to the
business growth as well as smooth operations is the collection of the necessary data and
utilising that for the future market campaigns and booking.
 Presence of travel shop and website: It will be tough to make images of the business
without the customer-facing travel shop and the website. This will support clients in getting
best deals for travelling.
 The market campaign, advertising, and literature: In the travelling business network,
there are lots of crucial activities as well as data to consider.
Back office operations
4

There are various functions in the back office of ‘Flight Centre’, defined as follows:
 Administration of booking: Once the booking has been done, managing suppliers, ticketing,
and payments all go away and it is very necessary to administer customers as well as the
overall flow of cash.
 Administration of the travel suppliers: There are many suppliers associated with the travel
agency and the company will be having a distinct level of commission and deals with
everyone. Each one of needs to be managed on the behalf of the customers.
 Administration of finances: It is necessary to have proper management of the cash in and
out of the company so as to make proper planning as well as smooth business operations.
 Management of people: The second biggest cost will be the cost of hiring people. Be
specific regarding what is being expected of them, their working hours as well as their
rewards (Pearlson et. al., 2016).
 Diary of the company: The main reason for developing its that the management and creation
of the booking is the procedure of various steps, it will be helpful for the organisation to
know whom to chase when to chase and when to make have a final payment.
5

2. Develop business requirements
A travel agency like ‘Flight Centre’ supports customers in the development of the travel
arrangements. There are various requirements of the business that needs to be discussed and
can be explained as:
 Daily requirements: It is necessary for the travel agents to have a good amount of
knowledge in regards to the various places in the world. Customers rely on agents to
recommend the best transportation modes, facilities of hospitality which will meet
requirements and budget, as well as entertainment services and facilities. Travel agents are
required to explain and understand client's customs regulations. It involves, obtaining visa,
passports etc. Travel agents must book all the arrangements on customer's behalf. They make
a reservation of the seats on trains and airplanes (Chen and Zhao, 2012). They make a
booking of rooms in ships and hotels and make sure any kind of special interaction.
 The requirement of education: Business of the travel agency needs that successful
applicants of the job must possess proper training in the industry related subjects. An
educational background in the history and geography, as well as the capability to speak
different languages, is required among candidates in this area.
 Qualitative requirements: Candidates needs to possess different types of skills to attain
success in the business of travel agency. Prospective agents in the travel business should be
well organized. Planning in regards to the international travelling needs attention which must
be paid for the intimation of the details like filling out applications and policies of hotel
cancellation. Success in the business of travel agency needs communication skills. Agents in
the travelling business should be able to listen carefully by making sure needs and desires of
the customers (Pearlson et. al., 2016).
6

3. Determine the system requirements
Providing the size of the association in regards with the number of employees, the number of
stores as well as the scope of geography, the capability to report, manage and collect related
data on the issues in relation with compliance and risk is the main challenge. This thing was
compounded in regards to the manual procedures that are being utilised to make coordination
of various activities.
Flight centre required an integrated management of the risk as well as compliance framework
which will provide senior management and board with the capability to manage, monitor,
evaluate and identify important risks to improve the value of the shareholders and make
protection of the various strategic assets (Farber et. al., 2012).
The company secretariat was being tasked with the several challenges to oversee matters of
compliances and management of risk that will make the inclusion of the global and legal risk,
audit teams and regulatory compliances. An important role is being played by the audit and
global risk teams in the monitoring as well as collecting compliance and risk-related
information and data in a proper manner around the whole network of 2000 stores.
Previously, recording of such kind of audits and their outcomes were being performed in the
decentralised and disparate system, for instance with the support of spread sheets.
Without having a proper framework for the suitable compliance and risk and the centralised
database, it will not be possible to make identification of the trends and themes, monitor risk
in an effective manner and give assurance to the board that Flight Centre was gathering
regulatory obligations and compliance. This is the main system requirement as well as the
daily challenge for the owner of Flight centre’s audit team and global risk. He explained that
the main challenge is to make the process of the business transparent (Haux et. al., 2013).
They required making implementation of the system where there will be a centralised
gathering of the information and data where they will be capable to monitor accountant's
productivity and the risk of the shops as well as consistent and professional reporting
regarding the auditing of data.
7

4. Software and vendor selection
There is various travel software in the market as well as a number of vendors but it will not
be easy to make choice for the appropriate software that will suit best for the requirements
and needs of the company. Before making a selection of the software, it is very important to
make the preparation of the list regarding all the features that a company wants to have. It is
necessary to have a proper understanding in regards to the daily procedures which will be
time-consuming and difficult. The software will be able to have proper management
regarding reservation, invoicing, payment management and online booking (Farber et. al.,
2012). Before making application of the software, it will be necessary to have proper
demonstration so as to check any kind of issues and faults. Flight centre also provide proper
training so as to have proper knowledge for the implementation of the software. It is the most
significant thing before buying software. If there will be improper training, the company will
probably end up making solutions.
Flight centre makes use of the ‘Rezdy' software in their association. This software works on
the basis of cloud-based reservation as well as a system of booking that is being designed for
the operators of a shuttle bus, tour, sightseeing, and activity. Rezdy makes easy and seamless
integration with the company’s website with the support of the direct link and pasting code of
the HTML in the CMS.
For the selection of the vendors in the travel agency, various factors must be analysed. In the
overseas market, there should be a careful establishment. It will be the best idea to have a
meeting with the potential partner where company should know them properly for the
successful business. The vendor that is being selected by the travel agency must have a
relevant experience in the field of travel and tourism. It will not be of good sense to have a
proper partnership with the type of agent who has not sold any kind of tour activity as there is
no demand from the customer base (Galliers and Leidner, 2014).
8

5. Determine at least three (3) ways which companies or organizations utilize such
technologies to improve business efficiency
The business efficiency is the major role which the company focus on playing so as to
maintain the cost efficient and time efficient operations. The use of technologies helps in
attaining the organisational goals and objectives with the improvement in the business
efficiency. The IT information of the company helps it to gain the effective understanding of
the organisational operation (Giménez-Figueroa, et. al., 2018). To achieve the same there is a
need for the organisation to consider various methods or ways which helps the companies or
organisation in utilising such technologies and in improving the business efficiency. There
are some ways which help in improving the business efficiency with the use of technologies.
These methods are-
Information systems- A very common method and used all over the world for maintaining
the efficiency of the organisation with the information system is done. The information
system is actually a technology. The IT infrastructure includes the information systems which
affects the business in improving the operational balance in the companies. The phase in
which IT infrastructure lowers down after the duration of time, the business efficiency and
operational balance also lower down (Giménez-Figueroa, et. al., 2018). This makes the use of
technology in upgrading or updating the systems and ensuring the effective and efficient
work in an organisation.
Internal talent- With the effective technology there is a need for skilled and talented
employees in an organisation to handle the technology. To help the organisation in attaining
the efficient results there is an effort of an individual who is skilled and talented in his work.
The technology could be used effectively in the way of having skilled employees of an
organisation. This balances the technological impact in a positive manner to the organisation.
Technology process- The technological process is an effective way which helps in
maintaining and improving the efficiency of the organisation (Giménez-Figueroa, et. al.,
2018). It is very uncommon for the organisation to drain their time and cost on the effective
tools for technological processes. The situation in which the employees or the people of an
organisation has to put their time and cost on the technological tools such as spread sheets,
excel etc. then there is no motive of installing them. These are designed in the manner to save
the cost, time of the company or organisations.
9

In the provided case study a method of information system has been used by the company
Flight Centre Limited so as to improve the efficiency of an organisation. The use of IT and
ERP systems helps in getting the technological process to the company in an effective
manner (Giménez-Figueroa, et. al., 2018).
10

6. Evaluate the level of efficiency of the technology implementation
Technology is designed and introduced in the world with the motive or objective of making
the situations and operations easy. The evaluation of an organisational efficiency could be
measured in different ways. The technological implementation affects the company in the
manner to provide effective operational results (Sun, et. al., 2017). The technology
implementation in an organisation helps in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the
various tools and aspects of the working of tools help in saving time and cost of an
organisation. This helps in getting the work done in an effective manner to the company.
The provided case helps in analysing the same. The technological implementation in the case
of flight centre is necessary because the company or organisation has lost the efficiency and
they want to get the external data centre provider from the IT team to focus on the objectives
or projects like 900-plus stores and eight head offices nationally.
The solution which the company found is to install the technological implication of ERP and
AIS systems which could help in managing the operations and project work effectively. The
Technological implementation in an organisation namely Flight Centre has some improved
statistics but it has been projected much higher in the upcoming years. It is an effective
working towards the organisational projects (Sun, et. al., 2017). It is effective and has a
positive result in providing an effective working to an organisation.
Figure- 1
Source- (Sligo, et. al., 2017)
11

The provide graph tells that the Flight centre has attained some improve business operations
and working but with the same, the company has not worked properly up to the expectations.
Although the results are good they are expected to be the best and as expected. The above
graph shows the similar (Sligo, et. al., 2017). The reason which could be found in the
organisation for such gap is unskilled talent in an organisation to deal with such technologies.
The efficiency has been reduced to a level but there is a need of skilled and talented
employees to work upon such technology for better efficiency of the technology (Sligo, et.
al., 2017).
12

7. Examine potential security risks, data breaches
Every technology has some positive and negative impacts. The technology if used properly
and smartly will pay back the effectiveness of the efforts to the organisation. With an
improper use of technology, the association with the risks becomes easier. The risks which
affect the organisation and the operations and productivity are majorly identified by the
organisations using ERP. The use of such systems and technology is done with the motive of
protecting and securing data of the clients and organisation but there are some important risks
which should be understood to every organisation before working on it (Garg and Khurana,
2017). These systems help in providing assistance to the organisation in making it effective
but at the damage time they associate with huge following risks which can damage the
organisational security and database.
Un-patched software- The un-patched software is basically the security issue which is due
to the complexity of the ERP systems. These un-patched software impact the organisation in
getting the systems least secure. The companies need to be aware of the unpatched software
and maintain the level of the complexity down.
Poor configuration- The poor configuration is also on the important issue which provides
the company with the security issue (Garg and Khurana, 2017). The security issues related to
the poor configuration as the company does not handle the security concerns of the software
so strictly. There is a casual behaviour of the companies using the software regarding
security.
Inadequate access controls- The inadequate access controls of the organisational software
are also a security risk which may affect the company and its operations (Saa, et. al., 2017).
There is a need of managing all with a proper implementation and control over the systems
The above risks are some important and very common risks found in the organisations. The
ERP systems are effective yet little risk (Saa, et. al., 2017). To maintain and avoid also the
software risks a proper use of these technologies and software should be conducted by Flight
Centre in the company future.
13

8. Provide guidelines on how these risks could be mitigated.
The security in an organisation for the important database and information of the
organisational operations and projects is necessary. These of ERP software systems are
considered by the organisation for ensuring the improvement in the business efficiency as
well as the controlling of risks under the process of operations to the company (Tenhiälä, et.
al., 2017). The software always helps in doing the same with proper instructs to be followed
by the use of the software. Here are some of the guidelines which could help in mitigating or
controlling the risks associated with the ERP or AIS software-
Manage who can access the information- There is a feature in the ERP systems about
managing who can access to what information in the organisation. Of course, when you work
in the team on the same project there is a need to provide or access the information to the
project available, but this information is on high security with the management of providing
who can access to what information (Tenhiälä, et. al., 2017). Instead of appointing a person
for managing all this use of ERP system Exact Macola 10 is useful. Flight Centre Limited
should use it.
Reduction of the fraud- There are various cases which are depended upon the Fraud in an
organisation. This is because of the improper use of ERP systems (Tenhiälä, et. al., 2017).
There is a feature in ERP software where the tracking on the user activity can be put on. An
audit trail is created with this which makes it easy for the company to gather the information
related to the fraud from the internal sources.
Prevention of the mother nature- Cloud-based data ERP hosted software helps in
maintaining the super security of the business data in an effective manner. From the use of
such data, it is clear that they can provide a secured data or information no matter what
happens (Li, C.Z., Zhong, R.Y., Xue, F., Xu, G., Chen, K., Huang, G.G. and Shen, G.Q.,
2017). In the current scenario, there is always a risk of attack from nature which may destroy
the companies and business. The ERP cloud-based software helps in securing such damage of
information.
14

15

Conclusion
From the above report, the conclusion can be made that it is very important for the
associations to have proper strategic information system so as to have smooth business
operations. It has been analysed that application of the various new technologies will support
association to make a performance of the several activities in an efficient manner. This thing
is very necessary to have effective survival in the competitive market as well as to have
growth in the demand among customers of Australia regarding travel and tourism activities.
There are two main operations of the business defined as front and back office and there is
the requirement of the risk management system in the ‘Flight Centre’ for increasing
reputation and success of the business. Appropriate software is also required for the proper
collection of the information that can be retrieved any time whenever there is the requirement
by the company. This will also support company in taking accurate decisions of the business
and will also improve the efficiency of the operations that will make sure development as
well as the continuous growth of the company.
16

References
 Chen, D., and Zhao, H. 2012. Data security and privacy protection issues in cloud computing,
Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, Vol. 1, pp. 647-651
 Farber, F., Cha, S., and Lehner, W. 2012. SAP HANA Database: Data management for
modern business applications, ACM Sigmond Record, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 45-51
 Galleries, R.D. and Leidner, D.E. eds., 2014. Strategic information management: challenges
and strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.
 Garg, P. and Khurana, R., 2017. Applying structural equation model to study the critical risks
in ERP implementation in Indian retail. Benchmarking: An International Journal, 24(1),
pp.143-162.
 Giménez-Figueroa, R., Martín-Rojas, R. and García-Morales, V.J., 2018. Business
Intelligence: An Innovative Technological Way to Influence Corporate Entrepreneurship.
In Entrepreneurship-Development Tendencies and Empirical Approach. InTech.
 Haux, R., Winter, A., Ammenwerth, E., and Brigl, B., 2013. Strategic information
management in hospitals: an introduction to hospital information systems. Springer Science
& Business Media.
 Li, C.Z., Zhong, R.Y., Xue, F., Xu, G., Chen, K., Huang, G.G. and Shen, G.Q., 2017.
Integrating RFID and BIM technologies for mitigating risks and improving schedule
performance of prefabricated house construction. Journal of Cleaner Production, 165,
pp.1048-1062.
 Pearlson, K.E., Saunders, C.S. and Galletta, D.F., 2016. Managing and Using Information
Systems, Binder Ready Version: A Strategic Approach. John Wiley & Sons.
 Saa, P., Moscoso-Zea, O., Costales, A.C. and Luján-Mora, S., 2017, June. Data security
issues in cloud-based Software-as-a-Service ERP. In Information Systems and Technologies
(CISTI), 2017 12th Iberian Conference on (pp. 1-7). IEEE.
17

 Sligo, J., Gauld, R., Roberts, V. and Villa, L., 2017. A literature review for large-scale health
information system project planning, implementation and evaluation. International journal of
medical informatics, 97, pp.86-97.
 Sun, L.Y., Miao, C.L. and Yang, L., 2017. Ecological-economic efficiency evaluation of
green technology innovation in strategic emerging industries based on entropy weighted
TOPSIS method. Ecological indicators, 73, pp.554-558.
 Tenhiälä, A., Rungtusanatham, M.J. and Miller, J.W., 2017. ERP System versus Stand‐Alone
Enterprise Applications in the Mitigation of Operational Glitches. Decision Sciences.
18