Strategic Information Systems of Flight Centre, Australia: Analysis

This report provides a strategic information systems analysis of Flight Centre, Australia, focusing on its current systems, critical success factors, and objectives. It identifies control weaknesses within the existing system and proposes a new, improved system leveraging Drupal and EDI technologies. The report details the primary features of the new system, emphasizing the relevance of advanced technologies like Drupal for web content management and EDI for operational efficiency. It also addresses technological platforms, potential security risks (malicious hackers, Trojan horses, phishing attacks), and proper accounting controls. The analysis includes a mission statement, organizational structure, and recommendations for enhancing the company's digital platform to improve customer experience, streamline workflows, and gain a competitive edge. The report emphasizes the importance of security measures and risk management within the new system, ensuring a robust and efficient information system for Flight Centre.

Running head: STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS OF FLIGHT CENTRE,
AUSTRALIA
Strategic Information Systems of Flight Centre, Australia
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s note

1STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS OF FLIGHT CENTRE, AUSTRALIA
Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................2
1.1 A Brief Introduction of Flight Centre, Australia...................................................................2
1.2 Critical Success Factors and Primary Objectives of Flight Centre, Australia.......................2
1.3 Information Helpful for Achieving the Objectives................................................................3
1.4 Mission Statement for Flight Centre, Australia.....................................................................3
2. A Brief Analysis of Flight Centre, Australia...............................................................................3
2.1 Current System of Flight Centre, Australia...........................................................................4
2.2 Identification of Specific Control Weaknesses within Flight Centre, Australia...................4
3. New Improved System for Flight Centre, Australia....................................................................4
3.1 Primary Features of the New Improved System....................................................................4
3.2 Relevance of New Advanced Technologies..........................................................................5
4. Other Kinds of Requirements......................................................................................................7
4.1 Technological Platforms for the System................................................................................7
4.2 Potential Security Risks within Flight Centre, Australia.......................................................7
4.3 Proper Accounting Controls over the New Improved System..............................................9
5. Conclusion.................................................................................................................................11
5. References..................................................................................................................................12

2STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS OF FLIGHT CENTRE, AUSTRALIA
1. Introduction
1.1 A Brief Introduction of Flight Centre, Australia
The Flight Centre Travel Group is regarded as the largest retail based outlet in Australia.
The company was primarily founded in 1982. The headquarters of the company is located in
Brisbane, Australia. This report is based on the various kinds of strategic measures that are
adopted by the organization to increase the base of the business and thus overcome some form of
future prospective and challenges (Worthington 2016).
1.2 Critical Success Factors and Primary Objectives of Flight Centre, Australia
With the growth of technological platforms, there are different kinds of challenges that
are primarily faced by Flight Centre. These kinds of challenges include the issues related to
security of the IT systems, the rising fuel prices and different other issues.
Some of the critical factors of success of the CBA includes:
1. Proactively working with low cost flight carriers
2. “Smart” product suite that are offered to corporate travel customers
3. Journey Packages and Unique travel experience
The primary objectives of Flight Centre is:
1. Retaining of low cost structure for customers
2. Expanding of the company by providing rich experience to the customers
3. Meeting the level of customer expectation (Arif, Gupta and Williams 2013)

3STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS OF FLIGHT CENTRE, AUSTRALIA
1.3 Information Helpful for Achieving the Objectives
The objectives that are set by Flight Centre could be achieved by ensuring world class
travel experience to the customers. The business of the company should ensure that people
would book their flights and other services with their company. This could be achievable by
implementing a blended model for providing the rights to the customer for booking from their
site. As there is a high level of competition within the market, hence they would have to adopt
new kinds of strategies for the business in which they would excel in the art of customer
satisfaction (Lovelock and Patterson 2015).
1.4 Mission Statement for Flight Centre, Australia
The mission statement for Flight Centre, Australia is – To offer high level of services,
ensure customer satisfaction and meeting the business requirements.
2. A Brief Analysis of Flight Centre, Australia
(Fig 1: Organisational Structure of Flight Center, Australia)

4STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS OF FLIGHT CENTRE, AUSTRALIA
2.1 Current System of Flight Centre, Australia
The company has made their vast form of online presence in the global market. They
have hence decided to capitalize their market with the aid of the 30 retail websites and one of the
corporate travel based website. The company currently focuses on a “Killer Theme”. It is a
particular form of their journey based on their current travel agent to the best retailer in the travel
experience (McNutt et al. 2014). They have also implemented blended form of travel theme
based on the journeys that are provided. The company is dedicated towards the deliverance of
high form of) booking experience to their customers. One of the major consequences of the
blended form of travel is that they want their customers to receive a convenient model of
booking their tickets. This would ensure the fact that the customers would return many times for
the purpose of booking websites. The customers are also able to book their tickets with the help
of an SMS, email or any other electronic means (Forsyth 2017).
2.2 Identification of Specific Control Weaknesses within Flight Centre, Australia
Based on the assessment of the current trends of the operations performed at Flight
Centre, Australia it could be discussed that the company has expanded in the recent years. There
was increased form of pressure for refreshing the contents of the web on a regular basis. This
problem that was being faced by the organisation had reduced the opportunity for adding value
to the websites and was creating problems for supporting the sales department and meeting the
goals of marketing (Maurino et al. 2017).
3. New Improved System for Flight Centre, Australia
3.1 Primary Features of the New Improved System
With the impacting problem of support of sales and not being able to meet with the goals
of marketing, it was decided by Flight Centre that they would need to accelerate their digital

5STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS OF FLIGHT CENTRE, AUSTRALIA
platform and adopt certain key mobile strategies. This would be made possible with the help of
migrating their systems to the Drupal open source platform of management (Demir et al. 2015).
They would also be supported by Acquia and hence they would be able to ensure a greater form
of digital experience both for their external audiences and internal staff.
They could also leverage the use of Search Engine Optimisation (CEO) and online
conversations based on the queries. The use of SEO based systems would be mainly used for
simplifying the processes within the workflow (Zaw and Mon 2013). With the help of the new
improved system, it would provide the vast availability of supporting the updating of contents
across various countries with minimal form of localization. This would be made to be extremely
easy and thus would be able to save a considerable amount of time and efforts taken by the
organisation. Additionally this would be able to provide huge form of ability for the
implementation of a repository for global based content and assistance with content based
strategy (Molinari, Arrieta and Ermanni 2015).
3.2 Relevance of New Advanced Technologies
The impact of the Drupal based platform would prove to be highly beneficial for the
company. They should be able to implement a new form of web content management system
(CMS) that would be overlapped by architecture and home-grown applications. On previous
investigations of the reports of Flight Centre, it was found that the existing CMS systems has led
to elusive speed of market growth (Becerra-Fernandez and Sabherwal 2014). The system was
also not being able to provide agility and flexibility that would be majorly needed by the Flight
Centre in order to support the campaigns within the market and online form of interactions with
their customers.

6STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS OF FLIGHT CENTRE, AUSTRALIA
The implementation of best kinds of software systems would be based on Electronic Data
Interchange (EDI). These systems would have a major purpose within Flight Centre. The use of
EDI systems within the organisation would improve the format of operations within the business
(Waurzyniak 2013). EDI systems would also help in the services of Flight Centre for the purpose
of avoiding of different kinds of risks within the systems.
They would also be able to support the hardware and operating system softwares of
Flight Centre (Moir, Seabridge and Jukes 2013). They mainly would support the platform of
cloud technology and web based servers. This would be supported by the team of Technical
Accountant Management in order to ensure that the company would be on track with the
framework supported by Drupal based on the performance and security issues. The Flight Centre
strategic systems would also have to keep the fact of consideration that there is a full form of
access to technical specialists within Acquia based on testing of performance issues (Demir et al.
2015).
With the migration of the existing platform to the new kinds of CMS systems, it would be
helpful for providing various kinds of opportunities in order to supplement value for the
websites. The implementation of the new systems for Flight Centre would prove to be highly
beneficial as they would be able to gain a higher form of competitive advantage in terms of
support of innovation and providing higher kinds of skills based on career.
With the implementation of the improved form of systems, it would be highly improve
the global support for the switch over to the Drupal platform. They would be able to establish a
good relationship with Acquia in order to develop strong kinds of bonds with the community of
Drupal. This would lead to drive of the future kinds of development in the areas of software
development (Kumar and Sharma 2016).

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4. Other Kinds of Requirements
4.1 Technological Platforms for the System
The technological platforms that would be highly required for the implementation of the
new system would be provided by the open source management platform by Drupal. With the
help of this form of migration, the Flight Centre would be able to provide higher from of growth
in the qualities of leadership and great amount of support to the Global Development Team
(Deng et al. 2014).
With the high level of engagement of Drupal based technologies and Acquia, it would be
helpful for Flight Centre for the creation of an agile based platform. This would help in creation
of multiple channel based digital experiences for their customers. The digital marketers at the
organisation would be able to match the high level of flexibility provided by the newer kinds of
proposed systems. They would also be able to mix the high level of content and social kinds of
capabilities with the help of responsive form of websites (López and San-Juan 2013).
4.2 Potential Security Risks within Flight Centre, Australia
The Flight Centre has an effective form of risk management policy that would be
effectively implemented within the new system. The Risk Management Policy of Flight Centre
could be defined as the predominant form of policy statement that discusses the various roles of
management of risks by the organisation and the associated forms of responsibilities based on the
internal staff and management (Olson and Wu 2015). The various kinds of security risks that
could be affecting the new kind of system are:
Malicious Hackers – Different kinds of hacking groups could be the main cause of
affecting the website of Flight Centre and thus gain the access over some form of confidential
information. The idea of hacking is a much prevalent topic in the recent times. Different

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malicious hackers could try to break into the database servers of Flight Centre and thus gain the
access over the vital information (Samtani and Chen 2016).
Trojan Horses – The attacks based on Trojan horses could be another major cause for
the breaking into the systems of Flight Centre and thus steal vital information. In these kinds of
attacks, the attacker is invited within the security systems without the knowledge of the user.
This attack could be launched with the help of a key logger program that would be primarily
based on the computer of a particular user (Bhasin et al. 2013). This normally occurs when the
user would be accessing some other websites. During the accessing of such kinds of websites,
the key logger program would get installed within the systems without the knowledge of the
user. When the user would log in to the website of Flight Centre, then the information would be
captured by the key logger program and hence the information about that particular session
would be passed to the attacker.
Phishing Attacks – The Flight Centre should have a high level of security programs as
they are now on the process of implementing an improved system (Arachchilage and Love
2013). These new improved system would be storing the necessary details. Misuse of the vital
information of the customers that includes the social security numbers, driving license numbers
or the bank account details of the individuals is not tolerable within the systems of Flight Centre.
This sector have majorly felt the problem of such kind of activities within the previous systems
and hence this is considered as a factor of risk for the sector (Alsharnouby, Alaca and Chiasson
2015).
Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) Attacks – In the cases of these kinds of attacks on the
systems, a fake kind of website would be created that would be exactly similar to the existing
systems and it would gain the attention of a wide number of users (Conti, Dragoni and Lesyk

9STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS OF FLIGHT CENTRE, AUSTRALIA
2016). These kinds of attacks are intended on the systems by disguising the identity of the real
systems and thus assuring the customers that they are visiting the original system. On a
successful attempt, the users would be redirected towards the fake website and thus the hacker is
able to gain vital information without the knowledge of the user. Thus the credentials of the
individual would be shared with the attacker and hence the attacker might misbehave with the
gained information (Karapanos and Capkun 2014).
The breach of data within the internal systems is another major area of concern within the
Flight Centre systems. The data breaches could lead to tremendous forms of impact within the
system. With the implementation of the new improved system, there should be proper form of
security measures for the benefits of the customers as they would entirely depend on the new
systems for securing their information (Edwards, Hofmeyr and Forrest 2016). The activity of
data breaches are mainly being conducted by various kinds of hacker groups who put their main
target on the weak form of security aspects. They look for loopholes within the systems and try
to enter into those systems to gain hold of the vital information of the customers. The security
experts should be much more concerned about the level of protection within the devices and
hence should take measures on designing and implementing higher forms of security measures
within the implemented systems.
4.3 Proper Accounting Controls over the New Improved System
There are various kinds of systems of accounting control and several procedures that
should be properly followed for the purpose of controlling the private data within the systems of
Flight Centre, Australia. Some of the control measures that could be taken are:
Access over Controls – There should be a proper form of control over the Flight Centre
systems. This could be achievable with the help of lockouts, electronic forms of logs and

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passwords. These could be helpful for protecting the systems against any form of unauthorized
users from accessing the system. There should also be a robust form of tracking over the access
for the serving against any form of fraudulent activities that might take place within the system
(Tucker 2014).
Physical Audits – These are the kinds of checks within the internal system that
determines the protection and process of audits over the information systems within the
organisation of Flight Centre. These kinds of physically based audits within the system would
help for the continuous form of evaluation over the systems in order to secure the systems
(Edwards et al. 2013).
Approval Authority – After the proper form of evaluation over the internal systems,
there should be a certification committee who would hold the responsibility of deciding upon the
results whether the website would be approved for fit. These would be the responsibility of
highly qualified managers who would hold the responsibility of detecting any kinds of fraud
within the systems (Jategaonkar 2015). As Flight Centre is a highly reputable website, which
deals with the bookings of customers and hold the vital information of the customers hence they
should take higher forms of checks on the security aspects. A proper form of approval would be
highly needed for ensuring the trust of the customers and thus prevent any kinds of unscrupulous
activities within the systems.
Hence, it could be discussed that the Information Systems that would be implemented
within the systems of Flight Centre should be properly secured in order to secure the data of the
customers and thus be able to maintain a high form of customer relationship and thus increase
the base of the business.

11STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS OF FLIGHT CENTRE, AUSTRALIA
5. Conclusion
Based on the discussion from the above report, it could be concluded that the use of
information systems for the business of Flight Center proves to be one of the most important
technical aspect within the business organization. Different kinds of strategic systems are
enabled for the proper functioning of the internal systems. Hence these form of security systems
should be properly maintained and updated at proper intervals for the proper functioning of the
systems.