HI5019 - Strategic Information System Report: Virgin Australia

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the strategic information system employed by Virgin Australia, focusing on the implementation of an ERP system to enhance business efficiency. It begins by defining key business processes within the airline, followed by a detailed examination of the business requirements that necessitate the ERP system. The report then outlines the specific system requirements for the ERP, including design, maintenance, performance, and security considerations. Furthermore, it discusses the software and vendor selection process, highlighting the competencies of ACA Pacific. The report identifies three ways in which Virgin Australia utilizes ERP technology to improve business efficiency, such as customer service enhancements and streamlined billing and financial management. An evaluation of the technology implementation's efficiency level is provided, along with an examination of potential security risks and data breaches. Finally, the report offers guidelines on how to mitigate these identified risks, ensuring the security and integrity of the airline's information system. Desklib offers a range of solved assignments and past papers to aid students in their studies.

HI5019 – Strategic Information System
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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
1. Define business processes........................................................................................................4
2. Develop business requirements...............................................................................................5
3. Determine the systems requirements.......................................................................................7
4. Software and vendor selection.................................................................................................9
5. Determine at least three (3) ways which companies or organizations utilize such
technologies to improve business efficiency.............................................................................11
6. Evaluate the level of efficiency of the technology implementation......................................12
7. Examine potential security risks, data breaches....................................................................13
8. Provide guidelines on how these risks could be mitigated....................................................14
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................16
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Introduction
Strategic information system can be referred as those information systems which are developed
by business enterprise for managing organisational activities. By taking help of information
systems business enterprise can easily achieve competitive advantage. Apart from this, it helps in
producing business products and services on lower price and making them different for substitute
goods. This research report would be based on the Virgin Australia which is second largest
airline of Australia after Qantas. This organisation is considered as first largest airline
organisation as per its fleet size (Laudon, and Laudon, 2016). This airline organisation will take
help of ERP system for managing its business activities as well as resources. The ERP system
will help Virgin Australia in addressing business challenges and fulfilling business requirements.
This report will include the business processes, business requirements, system requirements and
three ways in which business enterprise use ERP system improving its business efficiency. Also,
this report will evaluate the level of efficiency of ERP implementation. At last, there would be
discussion of security risks and guidelines for mitigating those risks.
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1. Define business processes
Virgin Australia is highly popular airline organisation of Australia which comes on top position
by its fleet size. This airline is located in Bowen Hills, Brisbane and it is established by Brett
Godfrey and Richard Branson. In present time, Brett Godfrey has become CEO of organisation
and Richard is considered as co-founder of organisation. In 1999, this organisation was known as
Virgin Blue but later it collapsed with Annett Australia. In starting time, it used to provide low
cost carrier services so that it can attract huge number of customers. The organisation improved
its services for becoming the self-described in the new world carrier which is the business model,
which offers the guest for purchasing the tickets in low cost or pay little more for receiving the
services to compete with Qantas more effectively in the market of business travel. In the year
2011, this strategy was reached further by introducing new uniforms by giving new options of
catering on the board and the new wide-body aircraft for competing with Qantas. In January
2012, the concurrent business class was introduced with the new livery and renaming of the
brand to the Virgin Australia.
Operational process: The virgin Australian provide many services to their customers, the
services are of broad range such as the facility of customer service, the meal which is provided in
the flight. The services provided by the Virgin airlines in the entire international and domestic
services with the wireless in-flight entertainment systems which are available on the Boeing and
the Fokker aircraft and also the seatback entertainment is available in the Boeing aircraft (Yu, et.
Al., 2015). The Virgin organisation collaborates with the government for giving the training to
the students of the hospitality department and the air hostess for the future workforce to the
airline sector. The company is expanding itself in the market of foreign and providing the quality
of services.
Support process: This support process help the business in its performance in its services such
as finance, human resource and others (Hoffmann, et. Al., 2014). The department of finance look
of the profits of the business and the profits which is earned in the period of time, the human
resource department give training and do recruitment. The department of IT develop and
establish and create the technology for the effective process of the technology in the business.
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2. Develop business requirements
The business requirement is the critical activity for the business which should be performed for
meeting the objectives of the organisation. The requirement of the business documents are
detailed in the solution of the business for the project which include the need and wants of the
customers. The business requirements find the solutions for the issue which is faced by the
Virgin Airlines
Functional requirement
Type Requirements Priority
Inventory Tracking of the stock in the
business
High
Inventory Preparing of purchase High
Database Maintaining the record of the
customers
High
Database Scheduling the services High
Database Maintaining the flight
schedule of the customers
High
Billing Maintaining and recoding the
bill of the customers and
generating the records of the
accounts
High
Accounts Maintenance of the flights
receipts
high
Accounts Updating the information
about the flights and the
clearance of cheques
high
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Non-functional requirements
Type Requirement Priority
Human resources system of
management
Update the records of the
employee
Normal
Processing of the salary Processing of the salary of the
staff, air hostess, management
Medium
Payment of the salary Paying the salary to the staff,
air hostess and other
employees in the organisation
medium
Performance Access of the real time in the
performance
high
Availability of the flights Availability and the
accessibility of the flights to
the customers
High
security authorisation of the user high
security Passwords of admin and the
information of the customers
and the role-based
authorizations
high
This table shows about the functional and the non-functional requirement of the system of ERP
which is used in the organisation of the Virgin Airlines.
 The system of ERP records the data in the very systematic way of the customers.
 The system ascertains the actual cost which is provided by the virgin airlines to the
customers.
 The system helps in improving the efficiency of the operational work and also reduces
the wastage.
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3. Determine the systems requirements
The requirement of the system NYSE-SAP of the organisation Virgin are:
Designing requirement
Database: The system needs the platform for using the ACIMS (Airline customer information
management system), the software which is used is NYSE-SAP.
Operating system: The platform which is used by the organisation is NYSE-SAP which is used
by both windows and the mac devices.
Maintenance Requirement
Backup: The new software SAP is supportive of taking the backup of the data on the daily basis
which is transferred to the cloud-based system which is the storage on the internet.
Performance requirement
Capacity: The software SAP is able to record the data more than 2000 at the same time. And
more than 1000 of users can be supported by the software.
Response time: The system must be quickly responsible; the software must response within
neon second after confirming the inputs in the system.
Security
The right of the user: The NYSE-SAP is restricted to the right of the user for accessing the
information and the rights of the users must be based on user designation.
The right of the admin: The important information must be provided from accessing the login
id of admin which can avoid the unauthorized use of the data.
Specific requirement of the software
 Adding the new record of the customers: The software NYSE-SAP allow to add the
details of the new customers in the system.
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 Providing the customer ID: The software NYSE-SAP helps in the front office for
creating them and assigning the ID of the customers, the ID is used to identify the
customers easily at the time of boarding and departure.
 Deleting the customer ID: The software in the admin office must allow deleting the
detail of the customer after the instruction given by the upper management.
 Adding the vacant seats in the flights to the list: The staff of the hospitality which
takes care of the vacant seats in the flights is able to add the details in the system.
 Information of the customer: The system must provide the information of the
customer such as name, ID number, Flight, seat number and the destination.
 Personal detail: The software must be able to add the personal detail of the customer
such as name, last name, address detail, contact detail, etc.
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4. Software and vendor selection
Managing the information of the customers in the airlines is not so simple because of hacking,
fishing. The organisation must develop such systems which help the business in keeping and
maintain the record of the customer safely. The information of the customers must be updated on
the real-time basis. The ERP system NYSE-SAP is the solution which is faced by the
organisation, the information can be allocated from the different location. The system is very
useful for the organisation Virgin as the company operates across the world.
The benefits of the NYSE-SAP:
Efficiency: The SAP solution eliminates the process of repetition and also reduces the need of
the manually entering of the information (Kalaitzoglou, et. Al., 2014). The system helps in
streamlining the process of the business and makes it easier and efficient for the companies of
collecting the data.
Scalability: the system help in adding the new users with it and the functions for growing the
implemented solutions.
Cost saving: The SAP system reduces the cost of operations and administration (May, et. Al.,
2015). The system allows the manufactures for managing the operations; help the users to take
the decisions more quickly, it prevents the delays.
Vendor selection
Selecting the vendor for the software is most important function as the vendor should able to
fulfil the requirement of the business and provide the suitable product for the company. The
software which is provided by the vendor must be genuine and reliable, the organisation must be
able to use the all the features of the software NYSE-SAP. The vendor is identified which is
specialised in selling such software to the big business. The vendor is ACA Pacific is the vendor.
The competencies of the ACA Pacific are:
Document management- The organisation ACA Pacific is the leader in the IT market for
providing the software for the organisation (Massand, 2016). The company provides the
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document scanners, OCR, process application development, capture, an electronic document of
management for the low volume of the desktop for the level of production.
Data storage and protection: The Company provides the comprehensive range of the products
which are tape, disk, cloud storage devices, storage and data networking, network and direct
attached storage and the total storage management from the desktop to the level of the enterprise.
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5. Determine at least three (3) ways which companies or organizations utilize such
technologies to improve business efficiency
The business needs to use the new technologies for the activities in the business for improving
the efficiency of the operational activities and also to record and maintain the data properly for
making the decisions for the business. It is very important for the business to deal with the
services which are provided to the customers and the facts which improve the quality of the
services for the customers and also updating the records and maintaining the information and
data related to the customers. The benefits of using the NYSE-SAP in the organisation of Virgin
airlines are:
Service of the customers: The software NYSE-SAP is the advanced software which is very
helpful for maintaining and recording the information of the customer. This helps the user to
record its information correctly which can be used by the staff of the airlines. The record
information related the personal detail and the travelling detail of the customer can be utilized by
the organisation for providing them the benefits and offers (Hayashi, et. Al., 2015.). This helps
the staff to identify the regular customers easily and effectively. The details of the flight, cost,
departure will all are provided to the customers through message or emails. The detail of the
available flight, departure flight, all the details are analysed easily.
Billing and the management of the finance: By using the software NYSE-SAP helps in
recording and maintaining the detail of the bill and helps in tracking the detail of payment of the
customer. This is a very important task as the profit of the organisation are analysed and the
amount received by the customers are analysed. It helps the organisation to find out the offers
and discounts given to the customers by the Virgin Airlines are identified (Blackhurst, et. Al.,
2015). This helps the management to identify the ways of minimizing the cost of the travel and
also helps in identifying to reduce the wastage of cost and to generate more revenue for the
organisation. As the business use the NYSE-SAP which help the business to maintain the record
of the stock in the airplanes and the billing of the customers. The management of the business
will able to identify the profit from the online websites and from the flights and the technique
used in the company help in minimising the cost of the product.
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6. Evaluate the level of efficiency of the technology implementation
It is very important for the entire organisation to use the advanced technology which helps the
business to develop the strategies the strategy to update the new technology. The advancement of
technology depends on the size and the nature of the business and the issues faced by the
organisation can be solved out by using the proposed technology. The new technology helps the
firm to solve the problems and improve the work efficiency.
The solution which is used by the Virgin Airlines is NYSE-SAP for improving the performance
of the operations in the airlines and reduces the efforts of the humans for performing the different
activities and reducing the errors in the work.
Technology: The technique NYSE-SAP does many activities and helps in recording and
maintains the data properly. This technique helps in securing the data of the customers. The
tickets of the flight and the offers are generated quickly which is used in taking the important
decision in the business (Skinner, 2016). There is more advantage of the system it provides the
information of the activities which are performing by the business and it is very necessary for the
Virgin airlines as the company is globally operating and the decision taken are related on the
basis of the performance.
People: The human resources of the organisation such as employees and staffs help the airlines
as they help the management to achieve its goals by performing their assigned tasks. The
software NYSE-SAP is the user-friendly software which can be operated. There are many
operations and the features in the software in which the employees and the staff can maintain and
record the data. This helps in improving the performance and also motivate the employees as in
this software the errors are reduced.
Process: The task which was done by the organisation was the manual task which increases the
errors and was also very time consuming, the staff need to double check the performance which
was the record in the data. By using the NYSE-SAP the entries are minimized and the process of
the double check was finished and the user can see the result at the same time. The information
which is given by the ticket giver can be can be quickly by the ticket checker on the airport.
Hence the different operations can be performed quickly and smoothly.
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7. Examine potential security risks, data breaches
The advanced technology increases the efficiency in the performance of the work of the
organisation and helps the business to expand and grow even in the international market. The
advancement of the technology can become the source for the hackers to find the data of the
organisation and steal the important data which affects the performance of the business, the
information which can be used by the organisation to gain the advantage in the competitive
market. The security risk by using the NYSE-SAP by the virgin Airlines follows:
Control of the server: The control on the server of the organisation is must for the business.
Giving the security to the server is the most effective task as the most important data are stored
off the customers and very personal data are stored in the server of the organisation. As in
today’s time, it is not so hard for the hackers to hack the server of any organisation. As the
advancement in the technology and the high skills of the hackers can put the organisation in deep
problem. So it is very important for the organisation to secure its server.
Inadequate control of the users: The activities which are performed in the organisation are the
type of information required for performing the task. As see the receptionist of the airlines
provide the suitable ticket for the flight which is available. Elsewhere the ticket receptionist must
know the suitable information about the customer for providing the best deal to the customer.
The role of the user control is to secure the data of the customer. The employees and the staff of
the IT department must be fully trained and skilled how to secure the data of the customer and
the information like bank details, current flight in which the customer is travelling etc. which all
are given by the customers.
Protection of the firewall: It is very important for any system to protect from the firewall or the
anti-virus. The protection software must be installed on the server which can detect the virus and
the threats on the server. If the firewall protection is unable to stop the virus from entering in the
system then it can damage the data which is stored in the server. The system can lose the most
important information of the customers which can affect the performance of the business as the
management of the company takes the very important decision after analysing the information.
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8. Provide guidelines on how these risks could be mitigated.
These risks can be avoided by the Virgin Airlines as the risk can affect the performance of the
organisation and can also harm the reputation of the organisation. The steps which are taken to
reduce the risk in the organisation are:
Protection of the firewall: The each and every system of the organisation must be secured by
the firewall which can help to remove and reduce the risk of entering the unwanted virus in the
system of the organisation (Liang, 2017). If the user has inserted any external storage it can also
harm the information of the since the external devices are not so secure and may contain the
viruses. It is very important for protecting the pcs and the system of the organisation from the
virus as the viruses can give heavy lose to the data and so the organisation.
Controlling access: As the most confidential data is given by the customers such as pan card
number, aadhar card number, and credit/debit card number etc. this is the responsibility of the
organisation to protect the personal data of the customers. The access of user should be allowed
to check the information which is required to fulfil that activity. The password of the admin
which are provided to the systems must be changed from time to time which can help to secure
the data from the threat.
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Conclusion
By evaluating this research report, it has been concluded that enterprise resource planning is
most effective management business process which is mediated by technology and software.
This information system helps Virgin Australia in tracking raw material, cash, and capacity and
production activities. The biggest finding of this research report is that it creates information
flow among business functions and also manages the connection with outside stakeholders. The
most important functions of ERP are to integrate business systems and facilitate error-free
product as well as transactions so that organisation can increase its efficiency as well as
effectiveness. The airline company can easily manage its resources, data and business activities
by implementing enterprise resource planning software. Also, it assists the business enterprise in
taking most successful investment decisions. Hence, it can be said that ERP solution is most
effective information system which will allow Virgin Australia to improve its efficiency as well
as effectiveness ineffective as well as in a systematic manner. There are various requirements of
Airline Company which can be fulfilled by implementing enterprise resource planning software.
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References
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