IT8414 Assignment 1: Information Strategies at Spark New Zealand

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the alignment between information strategies and business strategies at Spark New Zealand, a leading telecommunications company. It explores the importance of aligning these strategies to achieve sustainable competitive advantages in the telecom industry. The report begins with an introduction to information management and business strategies, followed by a background on Spark New Zealand, including its long-term goals and business strategies. A literature review examines relevant concepts and considerations in operational processes, customer satisfaction, and database management. The core of the report focuses on Spark NZ's information management strategies, emphasizing their digital ecosystem, CRM system, and agile transformation. The analysis then evaluates how these strategies contribute to sustainable competitive advantages, highlighting the importance of customer engagement and data-driven insights. Recommendations for achieving sustainable competitive advantage are provided, including market analysis, consumer engagement, and digital innovation. The report concludes by emphasizing the significance of data and information in business organizations and the effective integration of information management systems to enhance business outcomes and ensure customer satisfaction.

Alignment of information strategies to business strategies at Spark New Zealand
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Abstract
Information system plays an important role in organizational success. However, for effective
application of information system, information strategies should be designed in accordance
with business strategies. This report provides a comprehensive overview regarding
information strategies in Spark New Zealand and how it might help them to achieve
sustainable competitive advantages in telecom industry. It also provides recommendations for
maintaining marketing dominance through sustainable competitive advantage as well.
Keywords: information system, competitive advantage, information strategy
1. INTRODUCTION
The strategy of information management is
the main strategic document which will
assist the align practices of the information
management for meeting the necessities of
any framework of information governance.
It defines the approach of the agency’s
plan to the information management to
achieve the present also future needs and
the monitoring requirements of the
organisation (Cooper, 2018). There is a
template that can provide perfect guidance
about main features to contain in the
information management strategy which
are purpose, the statement regarding
strategic direction, strengths and the
weaknesses, the action required for
achieving goals of short term, medium-
term and long term, responsibilities,
reporting, review and endorsement of
senior management. On the other hand, the
business strategy is the sequence of the
action or the set of any choices which can

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assist entrepreneurs to accomplish definite
business aims (Barata et al., 2018). It is the
major plan which the company
administration executes for protecting a
reasonable position in the market, continue
its operations, fulfil the consumers and
accomplish the chosen ends of the
business.
2. BACKGROUND OF SPARK NEW
ZEALAND
Spark is the company of the biggest
telecommunications and digital services.
The purpose of this company is to win the
big in the world of digital and to complete
this purpose, this company must do the
perfect things by their stakeholders,
employees, the consumers and mainly the
citizen of New Zealand.
2.1 Long term goals of Spark New
Zealand
The long term goals of this organization
are as follows:
i) The improved emphasis on the services
of wireless and investment.
ii) They decided that it is better to serve
the customers who are price sensitive.
iii) This company has the minimum
operating costs in this industry in New
Zealand.
2.2 Business Strategies of Spark New
Zealand
The commitment to being the globally
attentive, the business of low-carbon to the
diverse culture and the engaged talent and
for retaining the strong framework of
governance which make stronger the
market position of Spark also goals to
improve the confidence of the investor in
the long-term sustainability of their
strategy of business (Clemons, 2019). The
important progress in contrast to three
main areas that can give this company
confidence to change to the operating
model of Agile which will radically
maximize the speed to the market, deeply
embed the consumer centricity and also
foster highly empowered, much more
productive and engaged all the people.

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3. LITERATURE REVIEW
According to Eid & Abbas (2017), certain
aspects are to be considered in the
operational process. The major questions
that are considered in the process are
verification of the customers, verification
of the customers and collection of money
and bill distribution process. These are the
major considerations that have been
benefitting the entire process. Call that is
received in the process is also traced.
Registering complaints have been one of
the major aspects that are considered. Data
that is sent in the departments, as well as
the identification of the problems, are
considered in the process. Analysis
regarding the processing of the data
segmentation has been ensuring the fact
that there have been specified departments
and hence this has been bettering the entire
working process. Again analysis of the
problem satisfaction is considered.
Problem solution has been another aspect
that is to be considered. Again if the
clients are not satisfied with the service
that has been provided, it is considered. It
is seen that the customer's feedback has
been one of the major aspects that are
considered in the process. It can be stated
that tracking of the faults and complaints
have been ensuring that better service is
provided to the clients. Customer
satisfaction has been the major prospect
that is considered in the section. Again
when the customer gets satisfied after the
escalation process, the entire section gets
performed in a better manner. The SAP
database is suggested in a process. This
considers the fact that the database stays
properly assessed and controlled properly.
4. INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
STRATEGIES OF SPARK NZ
The goal of the Spark is to make the
seamless experience within the service,
help desk and the sales. The actual concept
of this is that consumer can self-service
that retrieving the help also purchasing
between one application personalised to
the needs of them. The very first stage was
to fix all the hard problems and put perfect

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basis systems in the right place. This
company associated the CRM system,
seven types of websites and the integration
layer for making the new ecosystem of
digital. For this reason, they have selected
the e-commerce system, the Hybris and
also carried in the CMS platform of the
Adobe (Gregory, 2016). The next stage
was setting substance for the
personalisation. For this reason, Spark is
operated by one virtual digital team. To
implement this, the main thing is the Agile
transformation in the workplace of the
Spark. Squads are created who are
responsible for the end-to-end planning
also the execution and the delivery of the
programmes. These workstreams are
cross-functional.
5. ANALYSIS OF SUSTAINABLE
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
To ensure market dominance while the
managing competition, it is not only
enough in competitive advantage, but the
organisation also need to make sure that
this advantage is sustainable as well
(Maheswaran & Asirvatham, 2018).
Sustainable competitive advantage is
achieved when it is not easy for
competitors to duplicate or offer products
that are of the same quality. It means that
products or services are not easy to
duplicate as consumers connect with them
for their superior quality and value for
money as well (Kamau, 2019). Although
in every industry competition in the market
is common but while it is analysed in the
telecom industry the competition is not
only significant but maintaining market
dominance requires effective Strategies
and proper implementation of those
strategies as well.
For Spark New Zealand which is a leading
Telecom organisation, it is easy to identify
that how important it is for them to ensure
that they are having proper strategies to
not only dominate the market but to
enhance their business process (Karia &
Asaari, 2016). While considering the
competition in the market as well. For
Spark New Zealand the main concept of

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their competitive advantage is to connect
with the consumer. By making relationship
beyond business and offer value to them
through their leading Telecom product and
services (Kontu et al., 2019). The focus is
not only to serve the consumer but to
engage with them in a way that helps them
connect with the organisation, not only
business purposes but through effective
consumer organisation relationship as
well.
In order to ensure an engaging relationship
with the consumers. It is not only enough
to ensure quality in the product, but
consumer queries and feedback regarding
issues in the product has to be properly
acknowledged and resolved as well
(Krush, Agnihotri & Trainor, 2016). In this
digital era, successful consumer
relationship and consumer management is
about access to quality data and obtain
insight through data analysis.
Therefore information management
strategies have to be properly integrated
with business Strategies for achieving
sustainable competitive advantage.
Therefore Spark New Zealand has invested
significantly in creating and digital
ecosystem that offers a seamless
experience to consumers in terms of
purchasing, submitting their queries and
feedback regarding product issues and get
those issues resolved in less time (Maljevic
et al., 2019). To manage consumer queries
effectively Spark New Zealand has
implemented a CRM system in their
organisation and they have integrated their
Website for accessing and purchasing
products with the CRM system for
complete control over consumer
management and therefore, enhancing
consumer satisfaction as well.
The business strategies of spark New
Zealand is to offer quality products at a
competitive price so that it offers
consumers value for money for their
purchase. However, various competitors in
the market are adopting similar strategies,
therefore, differentiate it from the
competition quality in consumer service is

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of prime importance. For this creating an
effective digital ecosystem is required and
information system of Spark New Zealand
is designed following their business
strategies as well (Medudula, Sagar &
Gandhi, 2016). Offering online purchase
through their website and bringing
automation in obtaining consumer
feedbacks and queries and integrate them
with service design and delivery Are some
of the important strategies That have been
considered by this organisation in this
context.
A leading organisation like Spark New
Zealand knows how important consumer
satisfaction is forever business and how it
helps the Organisation in implementing
innovation for making a reasonable
advantage in the market. Therefore along
with investment in digitalization and
automation, a significant Emphasis is
provided on enhancing consumer value
through their products and services. This
strategy has helped Spark New Zealand in
creating a market dominance and
maintaining a competitive advantage as
well.
6. ANALYSIS OF
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR
SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE
ADVANTAGE
To accomplish sustainable competitive
advantage first of all complete analysis of
the target market is significantly important
(Nemati et al., 2018). If market
requirements and consumer expectation
from an organisation are not properly
identified then it is not possible to create
an effective business strategy.
The company cannot create proper
strategic management through
digitalization and application of
Technology if consumer requirement for
not identified an integrated with digital
innovation within the organisation.
Therefore extensive market research has to
be done (Paterson, 2018). And consumer
requirements have to be identified and then
strategies are to be defined. For managing
those requirements so that consumer

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service can be improved and consumer
values and expectation are offered through
product and services.
Competitive advantage is not only about
designing quality product and services but
to ensure that those product and services
are offered in a way that helps the
organisation to differentiate it from the
competition. All the product and services
may not be different but the approach to
offer them to the consumer need to be
innovative. It is important to identify that
for sustainable competitive advantage
creating and engaging relationship with the
consumers is significantly important. If
organisations are not capable of attracting
consumers through their quality and
innovation then it is not possible to ensure
market dominance which is an important
aspect of Sustainable competitive
advantage (Wang et al., 2016). Automation
and digitalization are important in the
modern business context because without
access to quality data about consumers it is
not possible to design and effective
consumer management strategy. When
companies are successful in integrating
consumer requirements and feedback with
the design of their product and services
consumers feel that the organisation values
their ideas. And this is what makes
consumer attracted towards a company. It
is not only product and services that attract
consumers but the organisational value and
their approach to consumer service are also
important. Therefore for an effective
strategy for comparative advantage should
include an emphasis on enhancing product
quality and services while considering
market requirements and consumer
expectation from the organisation with
their digital innovation strategies (Yu,
Mahanti & Gong, 2016). This will not only
help the organisation to differentiate it
from the competition but enhance
consumer services for ensuring That
Strategies for competitive advantage is
effective and efficient as well.

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7. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Data and information have been the
aspects that are considered to be the
functional processing unit of the business
organization. The information
management system has been another
aspect that is considered. This section
includes the fact that there has been a
proper assessment of business
management. MIS has been helping in
performing the mobile and technology
processing of customer satisfaction. Task
allocation has another aspect that is
considered. Verification cases have been
another major prospect that has been
ensuring that there is an increase in the
efficiency of the working process. From
the above-discussed report, it can be
concluded that in the selected organisation
that is the Spark New Zealand has its
specific business strategies as well as the
information management strategies. This
company has their long term goals and to
achieve this goal they are made their
business strategies. Also, they are aligned
with the information strategies to their
strategies of business to gain these goals.
Some gaps are noticed within the present
state and gaining this goal, but Spark can
remove all gaps to achieve the goal of their
business.
8. REFERENCES
Barata, G. M., Viana, J. A., Reinhold, O.,
Lobato, F., & Alt, R. (2018,
December). Social CRM in digital
marketing agencies: an extensive
classification of services. In 2018
IEEE/WIC/ACM International
Conference on Web Intelligence
(WI) (pp. 750-753). IEEE.
Clemons, E. K. (2019). Resources,
Platforms, and Sustainable
Competitive Advantage: How to
Win and Keep on Winning. In New
Patterns of Power and Profit (pp.
93-104).
Cooper, S. (2018). An Analysis of New
Zealand Intelligence and Security
Agency Powers to Intercept Private

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Communications Necessary and
Proportionate. UL Rev., 24, 92.
Eid, M. I. M., & Abbas, H. I. (2017). User
adaptation and ERP benefits:
moderation analysis of user
experience with ERP. Kybernetes.
Gregory, M. A. (2016).
Telecommunications market
evolution and the need for
legislative stability. Journal of
Telecommunications and the
Digital Economy, 4(4), ii.
Kamau, A. W. (2019). Impact of Growth
Strategies on Financial
Performance of
Telecommunication Companies: A
Case of Safaricom Plc (Doctoral
dissertation, United States
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Karia, N., & Asaari, M. H. A. H. (2016).
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competitive
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Technology, Policy and
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Kontu, A., Kantola, J., Vanharanta, H., &
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