INF30003 Business Information Systems Analysis: BIA Company Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Benefit Investment Agency (BIA), an old government department facing a series of interconnected problems. The analysis identifies key issues such as a lack of infrastructure changes, high customer service costs, government policy changes, industry competition, and challenges related to their COBOL-based IT system maintained by a third-party vendor, Alcatraz. The report categorizes these problems as either 'hard' or 'soft' and specifies one IT-related problem for further examination. It also identifies key stakeholders, including the government, clients, employees, and Alcatraz. The report recommends using methods and tools like data flow diagrams, class diagrams, sequence diagrams, and UML diagrams for analyzing the business system. Finally, a rich picture diagram is included to visually represent the complex relationships within the organization, concluding that the company must develop its own resources to survive in the evolving business landscape.

Running head: ANALYSIS OF BUSINESS APPLICATIONS IN THE BIA COMPANY
Analysis of business applications in the BIA Company
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ANALYSIS OF BUISNESS APPLICATIONS OF THE BIA COMPANY
Executive summary
This report discusses about the main business aspects of the Benefit Investment Agency. The
chosen country is Australia. This report mainly lists the various problems associated to the
company prospects. These are properly evaluated on the terms of soft or hard level problems.
Moreover, a stakeholder discussion is listed in this report and a rich picture is used to describe
them.

2ANALYSIS OF BUISNESS APPLICATIONS OF THE BIA COMPANY
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
1. Key problems associated.........................................................................................................3
2. Problem specification..............................................................................................................5
3. Specification of the problems..................................................................................................6
4. Stakeholders.............................................................................................................................7
5. Various methods and tools.......................................................................................................8
6. Rich picture..............................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

3ANALYSIS OF BUISNESS APPLICATIONS OF THE BIA COMPANY
Introduction
The company Benefit Investment Agency is considered to be a very old department of the
government which was established in the year 1940. Its main business purposes include
providing financial services to the public servants and the clients associated with superannuation
funds. Moreover, in the year of 1970, their business service was expanded to meet the demands
of the financial services. Their services include life insurance, superannuation (management and
planning), financial planning based services and related aspects. These were mainly provided for
the employees of the state government and the public servants retiree.
The utilization of business applications are mainly involved with the analysis of the
associated problems with the system such that it can be addressed in a proper way. This helps in
meeting the demands of the business and on the same time reduce the resource needed for
achieving them. The business applications can be termed as application specific software which
is intended for the sole purpose of solving only one requirement. For this reason, these
applications are developed in many companies and systems for meeting the demands of the
system. This report lists all the problems associated with the BIA system. This report also lists
the stakeholders of the system. Lastly, the tools and techniques that can be used for the analysis
of the system problems are also been discussed in this report.
Discussion
1. Key problems associated
There are various problems associated with the BIA Company. These are listed below:

4ANALYSIS OF BUISNESS APPLICATIONS OF THE BIA COMPANY
No changes in infrastructure: The Company has made no changes in their current
infrastructure due to the fact the staff associated is not taking any action.
Higher customer services: The Company is mainly involved in providing higher
customer services to their clients. This has led the clients to come and have a long conversation
with the staffs. This results in the company losing some of their revenues in addressing this.
Government related problems: The changes in the government policy due to the passing
of newer legislation were the first problems ever faced by the company. The government forced
the company to change their status to a profit making organization. This was followed by the
company to show their profit and losses and maintain taxes. Moreover, the main consideration of
the government was that the company must not get loss from their services.
Changes in policy: The changes in the policy of the superannuation as imposed by the
government made the company very financially weak. This was mainly because there were a lot
of processes involved in the compliance policies for superannuation and thus, this resulted in the
increase of cost of the services to maintain profits. As a result, this had to be considered for
keeping the business alive in the market.
Lack of modification: The maintenance of the business application has been considered
for meeting the demands of the business. However, the old staffs of the company are not able to
modify the system.
Industry competition: As the company rates for services were considered to be very high
as compared to the industry standards, the need to address them was required. This is mainly to
be done for retaining the public service customers as they are getting a choice for investing their
superannuation funds in whichever service they want.

5ANALYSIS OF BUISNESS APPLICATIONS OF THE BIA COMPANY
Outsourcing business: The Company has decided to outsource their business system to
Alcatraz who is comprised of staffs for the modern system. As a result, the company is being
charged much for the services.
Risks: The policies of the government have been subjected to changes in the system and
Hugh is aware of the fact that the involvement of SAS is a risk to the system.
Programming language: As the company was involved with the use of COBOL
programming language for their business applications, it became a problem to maintain them.
Moreover, it was done by outsourcing the applications to Alcatraz Company which was
responsible for considering their business solutions. This was also responsible for increasing the
cost for maintenance as they were charging much amount due to this.
Staff based problems: The front office staff of the company considered themselves to
excel in their services but this is the reason for the allocation of company resources.
Replacing staff: The Company has been recommended to outsource their solutions to a
BPO which will replace the staff networks of the company.
2. Problem specification
For this report, the IT related problem is adopted. The requirement for solving the IT
based system is considered for this section. The IT based problem needs to be solved because an
old system which runs in the COBOL programming environment is costing a lot to maintain by
the company. Moreover, the third party company is also asking for a much amount to BIA
Company for maintains their system. This result the companies to lose a lot amount of resources
for maintaining them. As a result, this must be solved in an effective manner such that it can be
used to meet the demands of the business in the future.

6ANALYSIS OF BUISNESS APPLICATIONS OF THE BIA COMPANY
Approach to the problematic situation Problem/Situation
Absolution The manager of the company can try to ignore
the problems. This will lead to the company
incurring losses from their business.
Resolution The company can decide to implement past
experiences of outsourcing. This will remove
the old staffs in the system and will give rise to
remote monitoring.
Solution: This problem is to be treated with the highest
priority as this is the main business application
which supports the processing of the company.
In case the company is able to make in-house
software system by considering all the demands
associated of the businesses it can be able to
meet the requirement with a lesser amount of
expenditure faced for achieving them.
Dissolution The company can change the aspect of their
environment by reducing the time spent by the
customers for counseling. This will reduce the
customer satisfaction rate.
Solution of the problem
According to the four ways of Russel Ackoff framework, the need to consider the
solutions is required. This will be done by adopting the third aspects of the framework which

7ANALYSIS OF BUISNESS APPLICATIONS OF THE BIA COMPANY
involves making a solution. This will be done by commissioning the development of a project
which helps in developing a system by using recent programming languages like Java or C
(Forouzanfar et al. 2015). This will involve researching against the problem and analyzing for
alternatives. In cases like this, the application of alternatives involves the adoption of third party
solutions which will be responsible for acquisitioning charges for maintaining their solution.
3. Specification of the problems
Problem name Description
No changes in
infrastructure
This is a soft problem as this is dependent on the management decision’s
perception.
Higher customer
service
This is a problem of the soft level as the satisfaction level is dependent on the
type of services received.
Government related
problems
This problem is termed as a hard problem mainly due to the fact that this
problem is well-defined by the government associated.
Changes in policy This is also a hard problem as this is also legislated by the government of the
country associated with the company.
Lack of modification This is a soft problem as this is dependent on the perceptions of the clients.
Industry competition This is also a soft level problem as the market share is not regulated by the
company. It has high liquidity rate and can be subjected to changes very often.
Outsourcing business This is a hard problem as the regulations regarding the current system of BIA
are maintained by Alcatraz.
Risks This is also a hard risk as the policies are mainly due to the government
regulations.
Programming language This is a soft problem as the policies are dependent on the regulations of

8ANALYSIS OF BUISNESS APPLICATIONS OF THE BIA COMPANY
Alcatraz.
Staff based problems This is also a soft problem as this is dependent on the perception of the front
end staffs.
Replacing staffs This is a hard problem due to the fact that the current staffs will be removed
and remote monitoring will be provided which will be regulated by Alcatraz.
4. Stakeholders
There are various stakeholders who are associated with the company.
Government: The first stakeholder is the government and the need to maintain their
actions is required.
Clients: The next group of stakeholders is the customers or the clients associated with the
company. They are the main source of income for the company (Restrepo, Uribe and Manotas
2018).
Employees and staff: The third stakeholders are the employees who are responsible for
the normal processing of the business operations.
Alcatraz or the third party companies: The last stakeholders are the third party
companies and the competitor companies. They are required for meeting the business objectives
like staying on top of the market.
5. Various methods and tools
There are various methods and tools which can be utilized for analyzing the network of
the current business system (Reason 2016). This can be done by making a data flow diagram or

9ANALYSIS OF BUISNESS APPLICATIONS OF THE BIA COMPANY
by making a class diagram. Another network analysis tool is the sequence diagram and the UML
diagram. These four tools are used for making an analysis of the processes involved.
6. Rich picture
Figure 1: Rich picture diagram
(Source: Created by the author)
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded that the company must include the development of its own
resources if they need to consider the survival of their business processes. This will be done by
addressing all the associated problems of the company such that the business prospects will
survive. This report has thus listed all the problems that have been faced by the company. This
report has also made a discussion of the associated problem and the stakeholders associated to it.

10ANALYSIS OF BUISNESS APPLICATIONS OF THE BIA COMPANY
Moreover, a problem description has also been discussed in the report along with a rich picture
diagram depicting the whole process.

11ANALYSIS OF BUISNESS APPLICATIONS OF THE BIA COMPANY
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