Information Systems in Organisations: A Case Study of Tesco PLC

This report explores the role of information systems in organizations, focusing on Tesco PLC as a case study. It examines the information needs of different functional areas, describes various types of information systems, investigates current trends in using information systems to solve business problems, and evaluates the suitability of information systems for different functional areas. The report also analyzes the challenges of enterprise integration and explores alternative methods for solving organizational issues.

INFORMATION SYSTEM

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO1..................................................................................................................................................2
P1.1 Evaluate the information needs of the different functional areas of an organisation..........2
LO2..................................................................................................................................................5
P2.1 Describe different types of Information Systems................................................................5
P2.2 Investigate the current trends in using Information Systems applications to solve business
problems......................................................................................................................................8
P2.3 Evaluate the suitability of Information Systems for different functional areas of an
organisation................................................................................................................................11
LO3................................................................................................................................................12
P 3.1 Use an information system to generate valid, accurate and useful information for a given
problem......................................................................................................................................12
P3.2 Evaluate alternative methods of solving the problem.......................................................14
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................17
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................18

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Types of Information Systems.........................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
For effective execution of various business operations in an organisation, it is the responsibility
of the organization to incorporate and understand all required information precisely. In case the
gather information is not appropriate it may yield unexpected or erroneous result. The present
report discusses about information systems in organisations. It covers various types of
information required in an organisation for it proper functionality and they employment of needs
different information systems within the organization for effective process of decisions making
associated with various business activities after information analyses. The report also discuses
about the employment of information systems for producing management information linked
with analysis of various department including sales and marketing.
1

LO1
P1.1 Evaluate the information needs of the different functional areas of an organisation
Tesco PLC is a British organisation which is related to general Merchandise retail and grocery
that has services internationally. Store having more than 4 40000 stuff that’s sir millions of
customer both online or true stores this organisation operates in finance retail activities banking
etc one of the most significant factor that the organisation must consider is information that helps
in determining growth system in sustainability and future strategies as well. Various internal and
external operations using various information present four major unit 4 major units that please
important role regarding meaning of information for supporting and achieving objective and
goals of the organisation is stated below:
Human resource
In the organisation human resources management has significant role in managing employee
information regarding their personal and professional information, expectations and rights. The
department of HR effectively manage the resources by sharing enough benefit between both
organisations along with employees. The HR department must have information of the
employees so that proper training g and developmental needs can be fulfilled by the organisation.
Along with that factors of motivation can be offered and employee’s expectation with respect to
organisation can be determined eventually. The information about skills and knowledge of the
employee is needed in the organization and management so that proper strategies can be
developed and applied for enhancing productivity and profitability along with improvement of
overall performance by achieving goals more accurately.
Information related to different functional unit of the organisation is required for selecting and
recruiting candidate as per the present environment and need of the organisation. The HR
department must have information all details and documents that are president and accurate.
Information is collected mostly through meetings, internal communication, surveys etc.
Accounts and finance
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The finance or accounting department of an organisation controls the flow of finance in the
overall business system. This department is interlinked with departmental heads of various
departments so that the financial needs for developing and applying strategies can be fulfilled the
department. Tesco should have information for improving performance of the HR department
and for minimising the cost required it is the responsibility of financial department for generating
various reports and to perform data analysis so that it can help to make effective decisions
regarding fund allocation. However, for collection of data and information all the other
department must sum up the financial department stores and manages information from the
database which has information and description regarding various financial transactions this
numbers and fact present in the database are quite helpful for analysing profitability in the
business. The accounting department present in the organisation must have information from the
HR management along with marketing unit for allocating funds for performing their respective
operations. The senior management of the organisation must need information regarding finance
so that proper strategic planning and resource accountability can be done effectually.
Sale and marketing
Track PLC need to complete with various other retail organizations for its survival and
sustainability in the present market. This to gain competitive advantage the organisation needs
continuous updates. The organization must understand the current trends customer’s demands
and market scope in the department of sales in the organisation. Is responsible maintaining and
managing the sale and has to work for increase the sale rate for gaining profit. Thus the sale
department of the organization need to collect information from its regular customers through
feedbacks and surveys regarding their need, satisfaction of the service and demands. Promotion
of the organisation and new product launching or promoting the existing product and service is
done in the market. Therefore the organization has a requirement for understanding the
behaviour of customers, new tools and technology and market scope this will be effective in
increasing customer base that will ultimately lead to high profit and return. The department must
have information related to every product they retail including g there quality, type and other
feature. This organisational department must have detailed information so that they can use
suitable tool and technique for planning strategies for promoting the business as well product in
the market to attract more customers.
3

Distribution
Tesco PLC has many branches all over the world thus the organisation. Need to manage a proper
distribution channel. The organisation also offers online service that means door to door product
delivery thus those channels they are operating need to have Information. Regarding g order,
product and address for reaching the customer for product delivery. The distribution channel
should have adequate information about different payment methods through which a customer
effortlessly can make payments. The distribution channels for solding the large scale require
information about different stores of the organisation in different location. For delivering a stock
to a store the distribution channel must have information about distance, location person in
authority. The information in this department is shared and store by inventory department along
with the management (Sekaran, and Bougie, 2016).
All the departments of the organisation communicate with one another for collecting
information. The functional unit of the organisation sharing informing between them for
reducing both coat and time this will be effective
4

LO2
P2.1 Describe different types of Information Systems
Data can be defines ad set of values based o. Qualitative and quantitative variables. Data is
considered as the bas e for calculation, reasoning and even discussion. While information is
referred to set of systematic data that can be exacted to some kind of meaningful sentences or
phrases. For an instance, 12% of profit is data whereas the information is the organisational goal
is to increase its profit by 12% by the year end. Information system is a software tool that is
implanted and installed for managing, organising, storing analysing and processing information,
this tool is very effective to make decision and reason can also be achieve. Tresco PLC can
implement about six information system in different functional unit of the organisation business
(Marshall, and Steinbart, 2017. ).
Figure 1: Types of Information Systems
Transactional processing system
Transactional processing system this system is mostly used in departmental stores is very
effective in managing fund transfer for the selling of a product and employees payment the
transaction process system is mostly used for storing records managing and processing
transactions done by the organisation customers using a single business account the transaction
5
TypesOfInformationSystemsDecisionSupportingSystemTransactionalProcessingSystemKnowledgeWorkSystemManagementInformationSystem(MIS)OfficeAutomationSystemExecutiveSupportSystem

processing system can also be used for building and maintaining proper customer relationship
and assisting them in case of queries associated with their transaction for product purchasing the
same system what’s the organisation in managing employees salary as well as transaction made
by different functional units of Tesco this information system is effective even to generate report
regarding decisions and financial statements the transaction processing system can also be
applied in the organisations execution level through which employees can effectively update
records of accounting during customer interactions through the system Tesco managers and
control the flow of capital in various business activities at different levels accurately and
automatically.
Knowledge work system
This system is implemented in the organisation for its capability to ensure integration and
availability of information and knowledge associated with the entire business operation and
activities to the organisation and employees. This in turn will be effective in achieving better
skills and abilities of the employees to expertise in their work. The organisation has to mange
proper knowledge of the workplace that will be helpful for standardising the practice of product
selling and managing the customer by maintaining proper relation among them. This system is
helpful or the organisation in business as through this system proper strategic planning and
decision can be made through systematic approaches for performing a business fu action.
Knowledge work system supports the organisation and reduces the time requirement for
completing a task and also minimises the failure risk through knowledge.
Office automation system
With an automated system in an organization various back office task such as client
communication, data management, generating reports, document preparation etc. This helps in
offering high accuracy and performance using automated system. Through, the automated
system in the organisation the productivity and performance of the employees in the back-up can
be enhanced. The regular operation of the business such as back-up, feeding, communication can
be maintained automatically through software.
Management information system (MIS)
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MIS system plays has significant role for managing the overall information that supports
managerial operations. The MIS helps the management team for making decision effectively.
Information can be processed using different computing devices and different application
software (Laudon, and Laudon, 2016). For an instance, the management can effective gather
information concerning the investment made and return achieved from functional units, this
eventually helps in understand present capabilities for attaining benefits from the upcoming
market scopes. The organization has various departmental stores, thus it can implement
management information system for both medium and senior level of management for getting
effectual returns through strategy application.
Executive support system
The organization need to manage various action and the decisions mainly for the management
units. Hence, the organisation implements different strategies and techniques for managing the
employee’s operations for generating returns and profit from their practices and business actions.
Thus, the organisation need to maintain proper executive information systems for collecting
various information from both external and internal sources that will ultimately will be helpful in
understanding and determining the organisational goals and strategies.
Decision supporting system
The organizations implements the decision supporting system for assistance to different
functional units such as marketing, management, planning, etc. This system helps the
organisation to take proper and effectual decision related to standardization of various business
operations and to support the overall organisational business (Galliers,. and Leidner,., 2014).
With the help of this information system in the organisation faster and effective decision can be
generated using the collected data. Different functional unit of the organisation collects and
manages the data in Tesco. The Decision supporting system is also helpful for the planning unit.
Softwares are installed for classifying and identifying various risk and issues which the
organisation can come across during the undertaking project process. However, the same system
can also be implemented by the management of the organisation mainly to understand the
employees need and demand for accomplishing particular pre-determined goals of marketing and
distribution in an estimated time period.
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P2.2 Investigate the current trends in using Information Systems applications to solve business
problems.
Presently the organizations implement Information systems with a purpose of achieve high
productivity and profitability. Through the application Information systems, the organisation is
capable of managing organisational information is most effective and organize manner for its
accessibility and updating (Eason, 2014). The business operation of the organisation is managed
with the help and support of various tools and application like spreadsheets, MS-words and MS-
Excel. However, the organisation has come across few issues related to management of
employee's information, customer reach, customer service, information control, analysis of
market competency and erroneous strategy predictions etc. Some of the present business trends
that are used for solving business related issued associated with information system and
applications are disused below:
Operational quality: Due to low productivity and high rate of errors, presently it has been
found that traditional business approaches, manual processing and management practices are not
efficient enough to fulfil the need and demands of both organisations well as customers
associated with TESCO (Cassidy, 2016). Therefore, business organisation is presently moving
towards digitalisation, automation, data management and more customer services. Tesco Plc. is
currently using information system and various applications for achieving operational excellence
through automation, high service productivity, and accuracy. Information system thus helps in
resolving issues of performance and productivity.
Global opportunities: With the implementation of Information system, the organizations can
effectively determine various business opportunities globally. Global opportunities includes
customer services and business scalability in which information system like synchronized
database system so that organization can collect the information from the market at the global
level to understand the presence of suppliers, distributors, supporters, and scope to establish the
business and increase product sale (Burrough, et al 2015). Information system is applied mostly
for understanding and utilising the organisational scope internationally. The decision supporting
system along with transaction processing system can be effective in resolving various issues
associated with global reach for the organisation, through generalising the cash flow in the
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organisation. This information system can be supportive for optimising the business operation
and automatically save both time and expenses required for performing them.
Business models: The organization may face various issues related to business model for
standardising it product and practices. Thus, Tesco chooses to implement various information
applications for describing the business model applied in the organisation that allows simple data
access along with user control among the employees. Business models maintain and controls
security with the organization along with resources protection for effectual carrying out of
organisational operations. Through the application of a proper business model in the organisation
various issues and risks like, access control, employee’s information security, distribution of
roles and responsibilities within the organization can be resolute (Arvidsson, et al 2014). The
implementation of Information in Tesco is mainly for managing the stuff and team members so
that the business operation cans effectively performed along with information and resource
sharing that will be helpful in minimising the work load and manual operations and will also
offer flexibility in activities to offer better quality of service to the customers involved.
New product and services: Information systems are widely used in different organizations in
different sector for introducing or launching new service or a product in the market. Information
system includes the use of various application and software tools that supports the organisation
to evolve their services and operation in the global market. Information system also ensures
proper business practices execution so that quality services and products are offered to the
customers or buyers by meeting their needs and demands. While launching a new product, the
organisation can directly reach the target market through the Information system used (Alpdemir,
2003). Issues related to understanding the current market can be resolved and the organisation
can collect precise and accurate data and information regarding customers and their behaviour,
needs, demands as well as feedbacks regarding the offered product or service. Before taking any
important decision regarding a product or service the organisation need to consider the decision
supporting system applied to understand the market scope and to attain high accuracy regarding
the application of policies and strategies within the organisation for reach and attracting more
and more customers.
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Tesco presently implements the information system based on present market demand and scope
the organisation has to achieving productivity and profitability along with services for
communication between the stuff working for the organisation. By analysing and managing
various data and information digitally, the organization is supported to resolve and overcome
different issues like erroneous decision making process and improper management that will
ultimately help in attaining competitive advantage for sustainability.
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P2.3 Evaluate the suitability of Information Systems for different functional areas of an
organisation
Analysis of the current Information systems employed in Tesco along with future trends, the
organisation need to implement distributed information system through Cloud-Computing that
will be very beneficial for the organisation. Reduction in infrastructure cost of licensing,
scalability and easy deployment can be compared with old IT paradigms. Information system is
achieved after implementation of the present information system at the organisation. Tesco
utilize DSS along with MIS for performing business operations and to fulfil customers’ needs.
Conversely, unanticipated effects, exaggerate decision making, monetary cost, information
overloading associated with constraints can be minimised with the implementation of IS in the
organisation. For overcoming such issues, the management of the organisation need to integrate
technology of supply chain along with core systems of the organisation so that business
objectives can be achieve proficiently (Abbas et al 2016).
Advance management information system will be beneficial for UK base retail enterprise in
terms of taking strategic and semi-structured decisions at stipulated time and simplifies the
lengthy business processes effectively. In addition, by using this kind of IS, report mangers
would be able to prepare schedule reports, exception reports, Ad-hoc reports and routine
business decisions in a proper way (Fuller et al 2016) . However, DSS can implement by the
finance department or the organisation for analysing and preparing budget and for predicting the
sale of the future sales with respect to long term perspective. For an instance, the logistic
department can implement DSS for executing and fulfilling various processes in systematic
approach.
This order process can be used in Tesco for performing various functions like checking and
approving credits, invoice generation, shipping products with the estimated time. Along with that
MIS systems can be implemented by the management for integrating sales, accounting marketing
departments mutually for boosting up product delivery to the customers.
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LO3
P 3.1 Use an information system to generate valid, accurate and useful information for a given
problem
Tesco Plc. is comparatively a very big organization and it may come across different issues
related to its business operations. Integration of various business processes in Tesco is very
essential for synchronizing its operations with various supply chain. The management team of
the Tesco faces challenges of integration. For enterprise integration, the management has to deal
with different applications that are currently running for execution of variety of business
operations over diverse platforms. For the advancement of enterprise integration effectively the
organisation need to alter its corporate politics. Generally, most of the business applications are
familiarize over a particular functional region like the accounts, customer relationship
management, finance, sale and billing. As a result most of the IT groups line up diverse software
according to the functional areas (Laudon, and Laudon, 2016).
In order to evolve successful enterprise integration the IT system must be used for establishing
proper communication system among different computer systems placed in different
organisational departments. Thus through this single application will be get ridden of and every
application will become a part and parcel of entirely integrated application system. Major
constraint during the process of integration is mostly taking proper hold on the amount or
number of applications which are presently taking active part in the process of integration. It is a
common scenario that various application or software are mostly packaged applications which
are basically not designed or developed for integrating them over a single process. Thus the
software developer works for developing the application consequently.
For resolving issues during the process of integration process the developer uses diverse patterns
for integration. These integration patterns are not in form of software or code but are readily
available in market for carrying out the process of integration. For the deployment of the
integration pattern the management team appointed in Tesco must opt for hiring experts in this
particular field having at least 2 years of experience for analysing and measuring patterns. In
case of issues during the integration process the team decide and apply suitable methodologies
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for getting them resolved. Data sharing within the organisation must be in proper for effective
integration process involving different applications and merging must be done efficiently.
The process of integration can be classified into data replication, distributed business processes,
information portals, service oriented architectures, shared business functions and business-to-
business integration. For developing various kind of enterprise solution with respect to Tesco
meticulous information will be needed. Presently ESS and MIS systems are implemented in the
organisation for the process of proper decision-making. These systems are used for data
collection and the collected data is then are transmitted to the team of developer for analysing
them so that they can effectively develop a coordinated enterprise integration for the
organisation. These data are then transmitted to data warehouse which is located Tesco’s
headquarters. Through this strategy the developer will be supported in accessing information
regarding each centre in considerable way and the integration of the application can be done
accordingly.
Decision support system in the organisation will be helpful in supporting the evaluation of proper
decision of the management team along with control over budget and planning. This system is
effective for the organisation so that effective or best decision can be taken that favour the
organization in particulate. Information system is also required in Tesco for caring out various
activities related to marketing, sales, advertisement, administrative, customer service department
and management, it will be helpful in predicting risk related to planning and decision can be
taken accordingly for overcome and mitigating risks. For controlling the budget effectively
proper plan regarding budget for the retail business is required that can be attained through
decision support system. The Information system is also helpful to the senior management that is
supportive in creating resource table, table for cost required for quality management, total
revenue, etc it will include every record of financial information.
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P3.2 Evaluate alternative methods of solving the problem.
Organisation may come across different issues that inversely impact the level of performance in
business activities. Due to improper or ineffective process of decision making applied in the
organization, it may fail to evaluate strategies for distribution, sale and marketing, and even for
offering proper customer care services. The organisation also has some issues of performance
while recording and storing various data and information and the process of decision-making
applied. From studies it has been found that organisation having different stores in different
location faces issues of managing and organising the vast information collected. Therefore, in
order to resolve these issues the organisation needs to implement proper Information system.
This information system should be capable enough of recording, collecting, storing , organising
and managing all the gathered information that can be used in future as referrals.
The organization faces issues while determination of the performance limit. And to avoid such
issues is required for maintaining the level of customer satisfaction. Due to improper resource
utilisation, planning accuracy, process of decision making and employee’s productivity the
management system of the organization may get disturb. By considering the mentioned five steps
effectively this problems can be resolved in the organisation. The suggested steps will be
effective for the organisation to solve various problems and also support performance and
outcomes of the retail business (Hollenbeck, et al 2018).
Identification of problems:
The organisation initially needs to identify the actual issues and problem the organisation is
currently facing that impact the overall performance of the business activities. Identification and
classification of the problems in the organization can be understood though this step.
Identification of the issues and risk help in reducing the chances of occurrence in the near future
and proper steps can be implemented accordingly to the problems for solving them effectively.
Identification of strategies:
Finding the problems and issues is not a solution. The organisation and the team need to identify
and classify the strategies and ways for solving those identified issues. It is the responsibility of
the organisation to identify effective plans and strategies that can be applied in different
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organisational activities to resolve the issues accordingly for maintaining the performance and
service quality. The organisation therefore needs to follow and plan strategies for generating
proper result and outcomes. .
Backup strategies:
Once the issues and problems are found along with the strategies to be implemented, the
organisation need to cover risk that will be required while solving the issues related to
performance. For an instance, the organisation need to minimise the expenses of product or
services in case the demand or sale rate goes down in the current market. The sale drop of the
product occurs mainly and mostly because of competition among the market due to similar
product or due to new market trend.
Strategy Implementation:
For the organization one of the significant steps that need to be followed is implementation of
proper strategies that are effective in minimising the issues related performance. The
productivity of the work in the organization can be enhanced through proper resource
management and also by ensuring that the customers are offered with proper services both online
and offline regarding the product delivery (Pearlson et al 2016). The organisation can identify
and analyse the level of performance in certain manners by understanding the present market
condition, sale, customer expectations, demand etc.
Along with the mentioned steps the organisation can also implement the concept or approach of
total quality management using the implementation of proper Information system. Whenever any
data is fed by the Employees of the organisation it tends to flows from the employees towards
the management. Information regarding any activities such as sale or purchase can be entered by
employee into the information system. This data can be fetched as well as processed by the
management team as well as senior management within the organisation. Information regarding
market scope, benefits and even competition is offered to the organisation that will be very
supportive in making proper or best decision and accordingly the organisation can undertake
suitable actions in order to improve the overall performance.
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Some of the suggestions that the organisation can work on for the purpose of resolving issues
related to the performance is discussed below:
1. The work allocation in the organisation must be according to the skills, knowledge and
experience of the employees. And the employees need to have information regarding the
process of distribution that is to be followed for standardisation of the overall process.
2. The employees of the organisation need to be offered with advance tools and equipments
so that they can cope up with the present market trend and effectively deliver services
and maintain high performance.
3. The aims and objective of the organisation must be kept in mind and share among the
workers for attaining results accordingly and with respect to estimated time and cost.
4. It is the responsibility of the organization to optimise and review the overall practices of
the organisation for enhancing the employee’s performance.
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CONCLUSION
The above report is effective in drawing various conclusions regarding the necessity of the
information system in an organization for enhancing and managing the performance of the
business organisation. The above report describes the importance of information in various
organisational departments. From the studies it has be found that information system is needed in
almost all the department for keeping track and record of transactions that can be used later for
future referrals. The report has discussed about various types of information system, and also
discussion regarding decision support system is made that has been suggested here for the
purpose of taking right decision regarding sales, marketing, customer service, etc. MIS and DSS
information system has been discussed in the report, this system are effective in generating valid
as well as accurate information related to various issues. The report has also discussed about
additional methods that an organisation can implement to solve organisational issues and risks.
The report has provided conclusion that the organizations is implement information systems for
achieving services like automation, for making proper decision and for simple data management
that ultimately lead to attain high performance, work quality and reliability. Through proper
utilization of Information system the organization can effectively decrease time and cost
requirement for achieving the operations.
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