Information Systems in the Organization: A Comprehensive Analysis

This report delves into the crucial role of information systems within organizations, focusing on the FedEx organization as a case study. It examines the information needs of different functional areas, explores various types of information systems, and investigates current trends in using information systems to solve business problems. The report also evaluates the suitability of different information systems for specific functional areas and analyzes the use of information systems to generate valid and accurate information. Finally, it explores alternative methods for addressing organizational challenges and improving performance.

INFORMATION SYSTEM IN THE
ORGANIZATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Evaluate the information needs of the different functional areas of an organization............2
LO2..................................................................................................................................................5
2.1 Describe different types of Information Systems..................................................................5
2.2 Investigate the current trends in using Information Systems applications to solve business
problems......................................................................................................................................7
2.3 Evaluate the suitability of Information Systems for different functional areas of an
organization.................................................................................................................................9
LO3................................................................................................................................................11
3.1 Use of information system to generate valid and accurate and useful information for a
given problem............................................................................................................................11
3.2 Evaluate the alternate methods to solving the problem.......................................................13
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................16

Introduction
Information system can be used in the organization to achieve the simplicity, easy management
and automation. There are various types of the information system that are used for storing,
processing and managing the high accuracy, performance and reliability of the data. This report
will mainly discuss about the information system that will be used by FedEx organization as they
are dealing courier sector so require accurate information system to store their data. The report
will discuss about the requirement of the information in various departments of the organization.
Some of the current issues related to the organization will also be discussed along with the
strategies which will be used to resolve the issues. The report will mainly focus on discussing
about tools for resolving their lack of performance and management issues.
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1.1 Evaluate the information needs of the different functional areas of an organization
Information system is an organised system for the collection, organization, storage and
communication of the information within the organizations. It also includes the study of
complementary networks that organization used to collect, create, filter, process and distribute
data and information. There are various functional areas in the organization such as human
resource, finance, marketing, distribution, customer support service, etc. which equally
contribute in the growth and development of the organization. Following are some functional
areas in the FedEx organization which is courier delivery service organization and their
importance in obtaining information to achieve business objectives:
Human resource
Human resource management plays an important role in collecting, gathering and
communicating information within the organization related to employee professional data, rights
& regulations and their needs in the organization. Human resource department manages all the
aspects related to employees in the organization such as salary, safety, security, rights, growth
and development in the organization. Human resource department of FedEx courier delivery
service organization require the information about employees to know their needs and provide
training to improve their skills and knowledge. At the same time, organization also needs
information from the management and employees to formulate plans, policies and strategies for
enhancing productivity and growth of the organization (Laudon and Laudon, 2016).
Organization also require information about others functional areas such production, marketing,
etc. to know the employees required in performing task and selection and recruitment of new
candidates for conducting operation of the business. Human resource needs this information in
details with accuracy and it can be collected through interviews, survey and other means of
gathering information.
Finance
Finance department is responsible for financial planning, controlling, reporting, short and long
term business investments, cash management, auditing and accounting. This department fulfils
the financial need of all other department of the organization and controls the financial flow.
Finance department of FedEx organization plays a crucial role in obtaining data or information
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about the financial decision of other department such as human resource department to enhance
the productivity and minimize the cost of operations. Financial department collect information or
data from the data base which includes description in amount and data and numbers are very
useful to analyze the profitability and growth of the organization (Coronel and Morris, 2016).
Financial and accounting department of the FedEx organization require data or information from
the human resource department and other department to distribute funds to them for their
operation and functioning activities. On the other hand, organization needs information from the
management and finance department to formulate plans and strategies for enhancing productivity
and profitability of the business.
Marketing
Marketing is very essential for every business organization to aware customers in the market
about products or services provided. There are lots of competitors available in the courier
delivery services which are giving tough competition to the FedEx organization so it is important
for the organization to promote its service and keep update with the current trends and
technology. Marketing includes promoting existing and new products or service in the market to
aware customers so that they can avail more service and hence it enhances profitability and
growth of business. Organization needs information from marketing unit about the taste,
preferences and demand of customers so that it can design product or service according to the
need of customers in the market (Church and Waclawski, 2017).
Distribution
Distribution channel is essential for the FedEx organization to provide products or services to
customers so it needs information about the customer orders, needs and desired of products or
services. It needs information about the customer payment method that they will use to accept
payments for the delivery of products or service to customers at doorsteps. There are various
types of payments methods available for customers so organization needs to gather information
about the willingness of customer in paying bills by which method. Distribution units need to
gather information about various stores of the FedEx organization available at different location
so that it can collect orders from customers and deliver products or services efficiently and
effectively (Hollenbeck et.al, 2018).
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Therefore, various functional areas of the organization play a very crucial role in collecting and
gathering information about different aspects to provide support to business operations and
achieve business goals.
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LO2
2.1 Describe different types of Information Systems
Information refers to the data that provide an answer to any question that are related to
knowledge, data represents values attributes and that are used to extract some meaningful
answer. Information system is an organised system for the collection, organization, storage and
communication of the information within the organization. Information system is the software
tools come into use to manage, store, process and analyze the information so that effective
decision and reasoning can be achieved by the organization (Argyris, 2017). There some
information system that can be used by the FedEx organization to obtain information from
various functional areas:
Management information system
The management information system use by the management of FedEx organization to operate
various business activities as it support management to take effective decision for performing
various tasks to achieve business goals. Organization management needs to collect information
from all the functional units to know about the investment made in performing various task and
output so that it can make planning about future growth and development of business in the
market. In the FedEx organization, various departmental stores which deliver products or service
to customers at the doorstep used management information system to achieve their business
targets by satisfying customers efficiently and effectively (Eason, 2014).
Office automation system
In the business offices, there are various types of back office activities conduct such as document
preparation, reports generations, management and customer communication which enable to get
the accurate information from this automated information system. This information system is
very helpful for the organization at it enhance the productivity or efficiency of the employees
working at the back office of the organization. These all operates with the help of automated
information system that provides information about customer communication with the
management regarding the orders and delivery of products or services.
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Transaction processing system
Departmental offices of the FedEx organization from there couriers are delivered to customers,
transaction processing system manage the fund transfer of customers on delivery of products and
employees payments. This system is very useful to manage the salary of employees and other
transactions done by various functional units of that organization and also helps in decisions
making process of the organization by generating financial reports (Rowley and Hartley, 2017).
Employees can be update about accounting recording during their interaction with customers
with the help of execution of transaction processing system in the organization.
Decision supporting system
This system can be used by the FedEx organization to help the various units such as planning,
marketing and management so that they can take effective decision to operates various functions
in the organization to achieve business goals. It uses the data which are gathered by other
functional areas of the business and helps in taking faster decisions to perform various activities.
In the planning unit, this system is very useful to identifying various problems which will
impacts the business tom achieve its objectives. In the management unit, this information system
is used to know the needs of employees to achieve objectives of marketing and distribution
within given time duration.
Knowledge work system
This system is very helpful for the business organization as it provide complete knowledge,
integrate and make available information about the business practices and operations to the
particular group of employees so that they can improve their skills and knowledge and perfect in
their filed. Organization needs to manage the knowledge of employees so that they can provide
best services to customers and this system also minimize the time to accomplish operation which
is very helpful to achieve business goals (Davenport, 2015).
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2.2 Investigate the current trends in using Information Systems applications to solve business
problems
Organization information system is very useful to manage the information in an efficient and
effective manner so that each members of the organization can use it to accomplish their tasks.
FedEx organization can use various system applications such as word, excel, access, etc to
operates or manage business information in accurate manner so that it can use whenever it
required. Organization faced many problems while operating business such as employee data
protection, dissatisfaction of customers, less control over organizational information, tough
market competitions, etc. which impacts the growth and profitability of the business (Davenport,
2015). Following are some current trends in which information system applications can be use to
resolve various business problems in the organization:
Operational excellence
Now days, business organization are more focusing towards the automation and high accuracy in
the services and information management because traditional business approaches and
management practices are not working efficiently due to some errors and fault. FedEx
Organization can use information system and applications to achieve operational excellence in
the form of automation, accuracy and high productivity in the service for customers and
employees and that lead to improve in productivity and performance of the business.
Business models
FedEx organization can use information system applications to describe its business model so
that easily data can be access and used by members in the organization as sometimes it faces the
problem of standardize the practice of business model, protection of employee data, accessibility,
controlling of data and improper distribution of roles and responsibilities among employees. All
these problems can be resolved by using current information system applications in the business
organization (Newell, 2015). Organization can use recent information system applications to
manage the activities of members for effective operations and easy sharing of information to
reduce the manual operational problems and provide more flexibility to take quality actions.
Global opportunities
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Information system is very helpful to develop business opportunities at global level as global
opportunities in the sense that customer services in which information are like coordinated data
base which help business organization to gather information from the global market to know the
availability of distributors, suppliers that support to develop business and promote it services. To
enhance global scope, organization can make use of information system and resolve the
problems which are impacting the business to develop at global level.
Introduction of new service
FedEx organization can also use information system to introduce new products or services in the
global market as it helps in proper execution of business practices in providing quality delivery
services to customers. Information system also helps organization to connect directly with
customers while introducing new service to customers and aware them about its usefulness. It
also provides opportunities to obtain accurate data or information about customer needs and
understand the market demand. Decision supporting systems also help organization to take
relevant decisions about the future scope of service in the market or helps in reach to customers
in the global market (Kavanagh and Johnson, 2017).
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2.3 Evaluate the suitability of Information Systems for different functional areas of an
organization
As per above study, there are various types of information systems for different functional areas
of the organization for gathering information for taking business decisions, preparing plan and
strategies to achieve business goals by providing best delivery services to the customers in the
market. FedEx which is courier delivery service organization has used different information
systems to support the business operations such as management information system, transaction
processing system, Decision supporting system, Knowledge work system, etc (Yeoh and
Popovič, 2016). Following are the explanation about the suitability of information in different
functional areas of the organization:
Decision supporting system
This information system can be suitable for or used by the senior management in stock control
and distribution department to receive more orders and take decisions on utilization of human
resources for the time delivery of packages of products. Decision supporting system is also very
supportive to lead the members to identify the human resource and other business operations that
can be used to deliver packages of products to customers in most efficient way and also this
information system also helps the FedEx organization to make planning and execution of that
plans in efficient and effective manner to achieve business objectives.
Management information system
In the FedEx organization, management information system can be used by the managers and
leaders to assigned roles & responsibilities distribute work among employees, direct & motivate
and control the performance of employees so that they can contribute more towards the growth
and development of the business at worldwide. This system is very helpful for the managing and
controlling internal operations of the business. In the above system, stock control can enhance
the work liability of the employees while distribution department can enhance the accuracy in
job assignment to courier employees and to manage the information accurately and efficiently
(Galliers and Leidner, 2014). It is also useful in data control and processing in various
departments and manage the data in reliable and accurate manner which help in operates
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business activities in the effective manner in the business organization. This system is also helps
in business operation with availability of data in real time with full security.
Executive information system
In the FedEx organization, top management can use this system to gather information from other
information system in the organization. This is very useful to obtain information from other
functional areas so that top management can take decisions effectively and prepare strategies for
the future growth and development of courier service business worldwide. With the help of this
system, FedEx organization management can analyze data automatically within given time
duration and provide more accurate information about the outcomes of the business practices that
lead to strengthen the business plans and strategies. It is most suitable system for the
management of the organization to gather the information from all other department of the
organization (Valacich and Schneider, 2015). Therefore, executive information system is very
useful for the FedEx organization to prepare business plans and strategies and achieve its
business goals.
Therefore, it is concluded that organization use various information system in different
functional areas of the FedEx organization which is a leading courier delivery service provider
organization to frames plans and polices and achieve business objectives.
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LO3
3.1 Use of information system to generate valid and accurate and useful information for a given
problem
FedEx organization use Microsoft Excel from various types of the information system as this
wills most effective and proper basic software that mainly helps the organization to deal with
information and processing management. In the organization the middle and senior management
will easily generate and create accurate, valid and useful information by using this information
system. Within the organization, the manager and leader need to be related with the distribution
and selling in financial year through which they can make sure about their employee productivity
for achieving the organizational goals. In the FedEx organization the information management is
required to assist their team in very fast process so that they can take effective decisions and their
middle management team need accurate information on availability of the resources, deadline
and work progress. The organization can also use DSS for this type of purpose and they can take
effective decisions to support their systems.
Middle management team of the organization will connect or linked with the top management
team and other employees with the help of the DSS (Tarafdar et al., 2013). It is essential for the
organization to provide proper system to their manager, leader and middle management to
support them because through this they can identify the market benefits and scope which will
also support to enhance the employee capabilities. The process of decision making and the
information sort is also used for faster decision making process and executive and reporting. The
senior management team of the organization have the liability for defining the sustainability path
in the organization for their continuous growth and development with the help of the effective
business strategies. Top management team such as- administrative department and board of
director within the organization will also use information system for managing the market
research, benefits and productivity for achieving finance and time.
This type of information system enables the organization to manufacture and then distribute their
products at all their stores in effective manner (Willcocks, 2013). The information system along
with analytical data and manipulation processing support is needed by the senior team of
management in the organization as they can attain the short benefits of market and conduct
control over their product distribution. Microsoft Excel software is used by the organization
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which can be used by taking proper decision for their information system. This is the most
effective application which can be used by the FedEx organization as this will support the
middle, senior and top management teams performance and effective analyze their performance
for taking further decisions in the favour of the organization (Seethamraju, 2012). For example:
in the organization the middle management team can use this Microsoft Excel application for
making the spreadsheet and tables that contains information regarding their products sold and
distributed in the whole year according to their category and revenue generated.
FedEx organization can use this suggested information system Microsoft Excel as this will also
provide them information presentation features in the diagrammatical form, tabular structure,
automate work for arranging the information in sort. This will also provide cell function through
which they can avoid some unwanted or wrong functions and mathematical calculations and
inputs for performing the business operations. This is very effective information system
application that can be used by the organization as this will provide good and effective
performance because they can maintain all the records of their activities so that in future they can
generate the effective and analytical data and charts results, pivots and graphs. The management
team of the organization such as middle team can access and properly manage their information
and further can also modify it as per their requirement (Power et al., 2015).
On the other side, the decision supporting system also helps the organization to evaluate the
management effective decisions, budget control and planning. This is effective for the
organization to take the proper and right decisions for the organization which help them in their
future growth and development. This type of information system is required by the
administration, marketing, sales, customer services and management departments of the
organization as that they can easily predict the associated risk in their plans and after that they
can take proper steps to overcome the risk.
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3.2 Evaluate the alternate methods to solving the problem
There are some problems which are faced by the organization because of which their
performance level is getting affected and decreased on the same time. The organization is also
failed to analyze their proper and effective strategies regarding marketing, sales, distribution and
customer services because they are not using decision making system in proper manner. The
organization is also facing issues which are related to the recording of their information and data
for their future consideration. The organization has various stores which are located at different
places and that creates difficulty for the team to manage the data and information. It is important
for the organization to install and use information system for resolving these types of issues from
the recording of the information and also manage their functions for future aspects (Van Aken
and Berends, 2017). The organization is facing many issues but performance determination and
issues avoidance is the major issue which is faced by them and this will decrease the customer
satisfaction level. The management information system within the organization distributes by the
resources improper use, productivity of the employee and decision making process of the
organization.
Following are the steps which can be used by the organization to resolve the issues that are
occurred in the organization and decrease their performance:
Analyze the issues: It is required by the team of the organization that they firstly identify or
analyze the issues which are occurred in the organization. This will reduce the chances of future
issues in the same condition and they can take proper actions.
Analyze the strategies: After identifying the issues in the organization they need to identify the
effective strategies or ways to resolve the problems. They can use those strategies to enhance
their performance and generate the positive outcomes.
Backup strategy: When organization identified the strategies for resolving their issues then it is
essential for them to set a backup plan by covering all the risk which can avoid the chances of
loss. For example: It is important for the organization to reduce the product and services cost
which is goes down in the market. Downfall in the sales may be occurred and faced by them
during new trends in this competitive market (Brown and Chandrasekaran, 2014).
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Execute the strategy: After covering and conducting all the above four steps it is essential for
the management team to implement or execute the plan or strategies for resolving the issues.
This is effective to manage the resources in effective manner by improving their working
efficiency and productivity.
Apart from this, organization can also use TQM (Total Quality Management) technique through
their information system. The employees of the organization feed the data which flow from the
employee towards the management team. All the information are related to the market scope,
benefits and competition through which they can take proper decision for further betterment and
improve their performance. Following are key suggestions that may be used by the organization
for solving their issues or problems in performance:
 Proper allocation of the work as per the employees skills and abilities and they can also
define the distribution criteria regarding their products and services.
 Proper use of equipments and tools by the employee from that they can effective deliver
the outcomes and attain high profit (Goetsch and Davis, 2014).
 It is essential for all the team members to understand the organization goals and keep this
in the mind so that they can work as per the set objectives only.
 It is also essential for them to review the practices of their workers or employees through
which further improvement can be done.
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Conclusion
The report has concluded that Microsoft Excel and decision supporting system can be used by
the organization as the information system for storing, processing and managing their
information and records in the system. The report has also discussed about the effective of these
information system in the context of the FedEx organization that are currently facing many
issues that are related to their performance and internal information management. The report has
also concluded that DSS information system provide accurate and reliable information in future
also and help them to solve the current issues facing by the organization. The report has also
concluded that by using information system the organization can achieve support for decision
making, automation, storage and other performance benefits.
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