Need for IS/IT Intervention in Oman Express Restaurant: A Research Study

This research paper explores the need for IS/IT intervention in Oman Express Restaurant, a South Indian food restaurant based in Muscat, Oman. The paper identifies the main problems faced by the restaurant due to manual operations and recommends suitable IT solutions to address these issues.

Need for IS/IT Intervention in Oman Express
Restaurant: A Research Study
1st AlRiyami Salam
lMBA-IT (Candidate)
Middle East College
Muscat, Oman
[e-mail]
2rd Dr. Vishal Dattana
Department of Computing
Middle East College
Muscat, Oman
[e-mail]

Abstract—Information System (IS) and Information
Technology (IT) are both integral parts of successful
businesses in the current times. It can be rightfully said
that IS and IT have revolutionized the way the world
operates in terms of literally every sectors like business,
commerce, education, sports, administration and many
others. While most of the business organizations have
already adopted IS/IT at a fast pace, there are also some
growing business organizations who have not deployed IT
yet and are facing certain problems. In this particular
research paper, one such organization named Oman
Express Restaurant has been explored in order to identify
the main problems they are facing and the need for IS/IT
intervention in the current operational set up.
Keywords—information system, information
technology, operations, cloud, ERP
I. INTRODUCTION
Information Technology is referred to as the
technology that involves automation and
computerization of operations that were previously done
manually. In the last few decades, information
technology has grown considerably and has found
applications in almost every sector including commerce,
economy, education, sports, administration, defence and
many others [1]. However, the focus of this report is
mainly on business and hence, other sectors are not
discussed. Information Systems are the systems that
involve the use of information technology as a part of
the operations. All successful business organizations
have extensively deployed information systems in order
to keep up with the current state of affairs as well as the
growing competitions in the market [2]. Meanwhile,
some recently set up business organizations have not yet
deployed information system and as a result, they are
facing a number of operational issues. One such
restaurant is Oman Express Restaurant, a South Indian
food restaurant based in Muscat, Oman. This restaurant
has only been set up 3 years ago and is quite popular
among the people who visit here frequently. However,
the main problem is that the restaurant is entirely
manually operated and hence, the service is slow and
often error prone [3]. In this research paper, these issues
have been explored and the need for IS/IT intervention
have been analyzed and discussed.
II. APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM
As stated earlier, the main problem is that the
restaurant is entirely manually operated. Now, it is to be
seen what are the issues faced by the organization due
to manual operations.
A. Slow Service
Due to manual handling of all the restaurant
operations like taking order, sending order to kitchen,
serving food, bill payments, generating invoices and
others, the services naturally become extremely slow
[4]. Moreover, the number of human resources in the
restaurant is limited and hence, the work load on the
existing human resources is extremely high.
B. Errors in Service
Due to the heavy workload at the restaurant, the
workers are often prone to various errors like
misplacement of the orders, wrong order quantity sent
to the billing counter, wrong billing and many others
[5]. Due to these issues, in spite of providing good
quality food to the customers, the restaurant often
faces customer outrage and negative feedbacks.
C. Customer Waiting Time
Again, due to the slow processing and services,
during peak hours, the customers often have to wait for
a long time to get a seat or receive the food they have
ordered [6]. This issue often causes massive
dissatisfaction among the customers and the restaurant
loses many valuable and regular customers.
In order to approach the main problems related to
this particular research topic, it is important to identify
the problems that can be solved by IT implementation
and how effective will the IT implementation in
solving the problems [7]. Moreover, it is also important
to determine whether the implementation of IT in the
organization is feasible technically and financially.
In this case, it is seen that Oman Express Restaurant
is only a medium sized organization that is not
financially strong enough to invest a huge amount on
the extensive implementation of IT. Hence, it is
required to arrange the identified problems according
to the priorities to determine which issues must be
addressed first and the rest can be done later [8]. Based
on these identifications, a suitable implementation plan
can be created so that the proposed IT system can be
implemented over time to address the problems one by
one.
III. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Based on the analysis of the issues and problems,
the following research questions can be developed.
1) What are the main issues and problems faced by
the chosen business organization?
2) How can IS/IT intervention solve these
problems?
IV. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The main research objectives are listed as follows.
a) To determine the issues caused by manual
operations
b) To determine how IS/IT can improve the
performances of the business organization
c) To determine how the chosen organization
can benefit from IS/IT intervention

V. THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK
IS/IT intervention means the deployment and
integration of information system and information
technology within the operational structure of an
organization such that the performances of the
organization can be enhanced. IS/IT intervention often
means reduction of the human resource requirements as
most of the operations are handled by the computers or
computerized devices [9]. Hence, it can be said that
IS/IT intervention enhances the overall performance of
the organization while also reduces the wage costs that
are required to pay the huge number of human resources
every month. However, it is also required to appoint
skilled resources who will be able to handle the
information system as required [10]. Although IS/IT
intervention and implementation requires a high amount
of initial investment and marginal maintenance costs, it
often provides high value of cost benefit to the business
organization. Again, this is not such a big deal for
large-scale business organizations, but for small and
medium sized organizations (SMEs), the investment
cost is too high compared to the maximum amount of
cost benefit that they can gain from the market [11].
Hence, a suitable implementation plan is required so
that IT can be implemented in a controlled manner such
that the investment requirement is not too high but there
is an improvement in the services [12]. Oman Express
Restaurant currently falls under the SME category and
hence, it requires only controlled intervention of IS/IT.
It has been discussed earlier that due to limitations
of expansion space and budget for IT implementation
for the chosen organization, it is important to develop a
suitable plan that will help to implement IT phase by
phase without making a huge investment right at the
beginning of the project [13]. It is also required to
determine what the requirements of the proposed IT
implementation are.
Oman Express Restaurant is a medium sized South
Indian food restaurant that is quite popular among the
residents of the surrounding area. However, without the
assist of information technology, all the operations in
the restaurant are done manually and hence, several
issues have arisen [14]. The issues include slow
processing of orders, slow services by the waiters, slow
and error-prone billing, miscommunication and
misplacement of the ordered food and others. These
issues can be solved by the following recommended
measures.
Computerized Billing – Since all the bills are
prepared manually on sheets of paper, there are often
errors in calculating total bill amount. As a result, the
customer has either to overpay or underpay [15]. Due to
overpay, the customers become dissatisfied and due to
underpay, the restaurant misses the profit from the
services. With the computerization of the billing
process, the errors can be completely removed [16].
When a customer orders a food item, it will be entered
into the bill corresponding to the table number the
customer is sitting on. When the customer orders more
dishes, these will be added accordingly to the bill and
during check out; the total bill will be generated and
printed by the computer.
Cloud Computing – Cloud computing is able to
change the entire landscape of the restaurant if it is
integrated within the IT setup. Cloud computing will
provide unlimited amount of virtual storage space in
which, all business data of the restaurant can be stored
and managed as per the requirements of the
management team [17]. In addition, the cloud can also
serve as a platform for an online inventory system
where the resource inventory can be updated from time
to time. When a food is cooked, the amount of resources
spent is deducted from the inventory that reflects the
resources that are existing in the restaurant [18]. This
will allow the waiters to communicate with the
customers and tell them that the ordered food item is not
available right at the time of ordering. However, this
particular implementation will not only require high
amount of investment but also need a technically skilled
manager who has the experience of working with cloud
and other high-level technical features of a computer.
Order Entry Device – The waiters can be provided a
handheld device in which they can enter a order check
inventory and others. These devices will be connected
to the main central server of the organization and will
update itself accordingly with updates from the server.
VI. LITERATURE REVIEW
According to [19], information technology is
currently an integral part of any business organization
that aims to earn big and compete with the rival
organizations in the market. Information technology has
a large number of benefits including automation of
many operations, multitasking, online database, quick
calculations and processing, reduction of monthly costs
and many others [20]. Hence, it is always seen that all
the successful business organizations have already
adopted information technology in their systems.
As per Wu, Straub and Liang [21], information
technology plays a major role in enhancing the
performances of the human resources as well. Without
IT, a human resource in a business organization has a
high workload and he needs to perform all his activities
and duties alone. However, with the assist of
technology, his workload is significantly reduced and he
can easily perform all his duties using the technology.
According to Avgerou and Walsham [22], an SME
that wants to implement and integrate IT within their
existing state of operations, they need to make a suitable
plan as it is often risky in terms of finance and

maintenance. SMEs often cannot afford to pay for the
high costs of implementation and there is also not
sufficiently skilled human resources to work on and
handle the information systems. Hence, additional
training or recruitment of skilled resources is required
that also further incurs additional costs.
Alles et al. [23] said that IT intervention is only
successful in a business organization when the
organization managers know how to fully utilize the
benefits of the same. For instance, an organization can
use 50 or more computers in the system but they will be
useless if the computers are not sufficiently updated or
do not have the features like cloud computing,
accounting software and others. Again, if the computers
have all the necessary features, the benefits of IT cannot
be realized if the employees and the managers of the
organization are not skilled enough to use the features
as per the requirements.
According to the works of Goldratt [24], business
organizations currently rely heavily on IT as it provides
multi-fold benefits to the organizations. From
accounting process to inventory update to analytics,
every operations are now effectively handled by IT
without the need for excess manual handling.
Furthermore, in order to compete and hold the place in
the market, the business organizations rely heavily on
the benefits provided by information technology.
Thus, from the literature review, it is evident that
any business organization that wishes to grow to gain a
suitable place in the market, the implementation of IT is
necessary. Some organizations have the misconception
that increasing the number of human resources can
solve their problems but that will only aggravate the
issue, as the company has to spend more and more for
compensating the human resources. On the other hand,
after the investment cost of IT, the company will have
the expenses reduced due to less requirement of human
resources and very marginal maintenance costs.
VII. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In this particular research, in order to collect
sufficient data to support the conclusions, literature
review has been used. In the literature review, works of
some highly renowned researchers have been analyzed
and discussed. Furthermore, qualitative research method
has been used to gather sufficient data and to determine
the best possible solution for Oman Express Restaurant
regarding the IS/IT intervention and its benefits.
VIII. KEY FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
From the analysis, the main finding is that IS/IT
intervention will be very much beneficial for Oman
Express Restaurant and all its highlighted problems can
be solved. Some of the recommended IS/IT
implementations include automated order management
system to process the customers’ orders (sending to
kitchen automatically and entering into the billing list),
cloud computing services (in order to save the billing
history and other business related information like
marketing analytics, past records, etc.) and others [25].
However, it is also seen that Oman Express Restaurant
is categorized under SMEs and hence, the
implementation costs will be too high. Hence, in order
to avoid such costs, it is recommended that the
organization can implement IT phase by phase so that
the investment is spread out over significant period of
time. Once the investment is complete, the organization
will be able to gain full benefits of the information
system and will be able to grow from the current set up.
IX. IMPORTANCE OF THE RESEARCH
The importance of the research is that with the
revolutionization of business by IS/IT, the SMEs are
looking for appropriate solutions for investing in IT but
are failing to do so due to high costs of implementation.
Moreover, many business organizations are also not so
sure about the benefits of the IS/IT intervention and
hence, they are often discouraged to proceed with the
same. Hence, this research aims to encourage them to
implement IS/IT as it will be very much beneficial for
them. Moreover, this research also seeks to find suitable
solutions for the SMEs who cannot afford IT
implementation within a short period of time.
REFERENCES
[1] Lee, A.S., Thomas, M. and Baskerville, R.L., Going back to
basics in design science: from the information technology
artifact to the information systems artifact. Information Systems
Journal, 25(1), pp.5-21, 2015.
[2] Kakabadse, A.K., Kouzmin, A. and Kakabadse, N.K.,
Technostress: over identification with information technology
and its impact on employees and managerial effectiveness.
In Creating futures: Leading change through information
systems(pp. 279-316). Routledge, 2017.
[3] Avgerou, C. and Walsham, G. eds., Information Technology in
Context: Studies from the Perspective of Developing Countries:
Studies from the Perspective of Developing Countries.
Routledge, 2017.
[4] Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P.. Management information
system. Pearson Education India, 2016.
[5] Kasemsap, K.. The role of information system within enterprise
architecture and their impact on business performance.
In Global Business Expansion: Concepts, Methodologies,
Tools, and Applications (pp. 1078-1102). IGI Global, 2018.
[6] Alles, M., Brennan, G., Kogan, A. and Vasarhelyi, M.A..
Continuous monitoring of business process controls: A pilot
implementation of a continuous auditing system at Siemens.
In Continuous Auditing: Theory and Application (pp. 219-246).
Emerald Publishing Limited, 2018.
[7] Heinrich, R., Merkle, P., Henss, J. and Paech, B.. Integrating
business process simulation and information system simulation
for performance prediction. Software & Systems
Modeling, 16(1), pp.257-277, 2017.
[8] Xu, B., Da Xu, L., Cai, H., Xie, C., Hu, J. and Bu, F..
Ubiquitous data accessing method in IoT-based information
system for emergency medical services. IEEE Trans. Industrial
Informatics, 10(2), pp.1578-1586, 2014.
[9] Gomez-Uribe, C.A. and Hunt, N.. The netflix recommender
system: Algorithms, business value, and innovation. ACM

Transactions on Management Information Systems
(TMIS), 6(4), p.13, 2016.
[10] Sekaran, U. and Bougie, R.. Research methods for business: A
skill building approach. John Wiley & Sons, 2016.
[11] Julien, P.A.. The state of the art in small business and
entrepreneurship. Routledge, 2018.
[12] Wu, S.P.J., Straub, D.W. and Liang, T.P.. How information
technology governance mechanisms and strategic alignment
influence organizational performance: Insights from a matched
survey of business and IT managers. Mis Quarterly, 39(2),
pp.497-518, 2015.
[13] Kim, Y.J.. Convergence of Business Information System
Process using Knowledge-based Method. Journal of the Korea
Convergence Society, 6(4), pp.65-71, 2015.
[14] Kateb, M., Swies, R., Obeidat, B. and Maqableh, M.. An
investigation on the critical factors of information system
implementation in Jordanian information technology
companies. European Journal of Business and
Management, 7(36), pp.11-28, 2015.
[15] Goldratt, E.M.. Necessary but not sufficient: a theory of
constraints business novel. Routledge, 2017.
[16] Greasley, A.. Simulation modelling for business. Routledge,
2017.
[17] Ptak, C.A. and Schragenheim, E.. ERP: tools, techniques, and
applications for integrating the supply chain. Crc Press, 2016.
[18] Lu, J., Wu, D., Mao, M., Wang, W. and Zhang, G..
Recommender system application developments: a
survey. Decision Support Systems, 74, pp.12-32, 2015.
[19] Wirtz, B.W., Pistoia, A., Ullrich, S. and Göttel, V.. Business
models: Origin, development and future research
perspectives. Long range planning, 49(1), pp.36-54, 2016.
[20] Perlmutter, H.V.. The tortuous evolution of the multinational
corporation. In International Business (pp. 117-126).
Routledge, 2017.
[21] Arthur, W.B.. The economy as an evolving complex system II.
CRC Press, 2018.
[22] Yeoh, W. and Popovič, A.. Extending the understanding of
critical success factors for implementing business intelligence
systems. Journal of the Association for Information Science and
Technology, 67(1), pp.134-147, 2016.
[23] Conforti, R., de Leoni, M., La Rosa, M., van der Aalst, W.M.
and ter Hofstede, A.H.. A recommendation system for
predicting risks across multiple business process
instances. Decision Support Systems, 69, pp.1-19, 2015.
[24] Chuang, S.P. and Huang, S.J.. The effect of environmental
corporate social responsibility on environmental performance
and business competitiveness: The mediation of green
information technology capital. Journal of Business
Ethics, 150(4), pp.991-1009, 2018.
[25] Bicevskis, J. and Bicevska, Z.. Business process models and
information system usability. Procedia Computer Science, 77,
pp.72-79, 2015.