SBM4202: IS Strategy, Management, and Acquisition Report

This report analyzes the Information Systems (IS) strategy employed by Woolworths, an Australian retail giant. The study focuses on the company's use of Xero accounting software, evaluating its advantages and disadvantages compared to other options like MYOB. It examines Woolworths' enterprise structure, identifies operational challenges stemming from its bureaucratic system, and discusses sales processes. Furthermore, the report addresses potential fraud risks, including occupational, sales, and purchase frauds, and suggests mitigation strategies. It traces the evolution of accounting software, highlighting the development and adoption of various systems, and identifies market leaders. The analysis also includes recommendations for improving Woolworths' IS strategy, aiming to enhance efficiency and address customer satisfaction. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of inventory management, fraud prevention, and the continuous development of IS to maintain a competitive edge in the retail sector.

Running head: IS STRATEGY MANAGEMT AND ACQUISITION
IS STRATEGY MANAGEMT AND ACQUISITION
Name of Student
Name of the Organization
Author Note

1IS STRATEGY MANAGEMENT AND AQUISITION
In this particular study, it has been discussed about the Information Systems strategy
which has been utilised by the company named Woolworths in the country Australia. This study
will be comprising the accounting package of software which is being utilised by the
organization in the country. The specific software of accounting which is being utilised is Xero.
A discussion is also going to be done regarding the structure of the enterprise and all kinds of
problems which are mostly operational which it may or may not even face due to this particular
framework, which is the most likely acquisition system, process of sales of the organization, how
can all the problems which are identified as well as controlled for several cases of fraud which
may be possible in the specific system. There is also a further discussion regarding both the
development as well as the adoption of all the several packages of software which are
accounting, the recent size of the market, identification of all the leaders within the market and
what will be providing them with a huge competitive advantage, identification of all the recent
gaps or rather the challenges which are mostly encountered by several customers or users of all
the software or packages which are accounting and finally make some suggestions or rather some
recommendations.
Woolworths Group Limited is a huge company of Australia with an extensive interest in
retail throughout the entire country. It is considered to be the second largest company within the
country as per the revenue is concerned. Additionally, it can also be said that the group of
Woolworths forms the largest retailer of liquor and also the largest machine operator of gaming
poker in the country. As per the recent structure of the organization is concerned, a Managing
Director is mainly responsible for controlling all the directors of some other departments. The
specific system mostly seems to be like a system which is bureaucratic where a number of both
rules as well as regulations are being strictly followed. It has been observed that a number of

2IS STRATEGY MANAGEMENT AND AQUISITION
operational problems are also present within the enterprise. The inefficiency related to the
operation can be the authority’s hierarchy as well as the system of decision making which is
mostly centralised. It can also be a number of strict rules as well as regulations which are
actually making the process of decision making to be both stagnant as well as slow. It directly
affects the organizational innovation. The creativity of the organization is also affected due to
high rigidity. Although this particular system is mostly claimed to be a perfect one but due to a
huge number of rules and regulations, several complaints as well as huge dissatisfaction are seen
to taking a huge amount of time in the resolution which is ultimately making the system dull and
much slower. This is ultimately being disliked normally by all the customers.
The software of accounting which has been seen to have been utilised by the enterprise is
Xero. The company utilises both the software which are available as well as custom. The
company currently utilises both Myob as well as Xero for a number of purposes. Both the
software are known to be offer huge number of different advantages. As per the cost is
considered, Xero is far better than Myob as it is capable of offering a strategy of pricing which is
totally straightforward. On the other hand, Myob provides larger number of options as compared
to Xero. The number of usage of the accounts by Myob is much more than Xero as it has the
capability of offering two accounts of company with each subscription in the subscription of
account which is premium. While it is known that Xero is offering only a single account of the
company, it mostly requires a full new subscription for the addition of new account within the
system. It is both fast as well as intuitive and it is also a very responsive application during
working on an interface of mobile. While on the other hand, Myob is much slower. Invoicing is
very much easy in case of Xero than in case of Myob. It even offers a particular invoicing which
is totally customized while with that of Myob this type of facility is totally unavailable. The

3IS STRATEGY MANAGEMENT AND AQUISITION
support of payroll by Myob is far better as compared to that of Xero as in a range of one price,
Myob has the capability of offering payroll which will be unlimited. On the other hand, Xero
requires a number of plans for several kinds of roles. Xero offers more than one running system
of reports while in case of Myob only one report runs at a single time. Inventory Management is
very much easy with Xero as compared to Myob because the inventory tracking in Myob is
mostly done on the system upon which there is the software installed. The support of
multicurrency is seen to be present only with Xero and it is totally unavailable with that of Myob
(Hubbard, Rice & Galvin, 2014). The structure of the tier in Xerp is very much simple and the
information is also such that it is easily understandable. Hence, it has been seen that Woolworth
has been using both the software of accounting for a number of purposes which are suited for the
best. The main aim of the company is to become a lean retailer and due to this a number of
changes has been made in the system of IT after there has been a massive turndown within the
business.
In the procedure of sales, it is mostly offering a number of products to all the customers
directly from all the supermarkets of it. It mainly focuses upon providing such prices which will
be very good as well as an appropriate range with awesome service as well as a number of
products which are fully fresh (Arli eta al., 2013). For incrementing the company’s sales, the
enterprise has made some alterations in the system of IT of it and even started a program of
renewal. There are particularly three steps sales which involves fixing the basics, efficient
customer delivery and the creation of the business future (Methner, Hamann & Nilsson, 2015).
There are mainly three kinds of frauds which may take place which are either occupational, sales
or rather purchase frauds. Occupational frauds are mainly those frauds which are totally
committed by the members of staff especially on the job during the employment course. These

4IS STRATEGY MANAGEMENT AND AQUISITION
are considered as the most common frauds and there is huge amount of loss financially to the
enterprise than some other kind of frauds (Seidel, Recker & Vom Brocke, 2013). Generally, all
the employees have the tendency of hiding all these frauds from the eye of the employer and try
to get for some other solution which will be a permanent one. This has made the probability of
such fraud much more common. The probability of such kind of frauds to occur again is much
high (Armstrong et al., 2014). All such frauds are kept hidden mainly by the employee for an
extended period of time. This shows that there is much more as well as a permanent loss in
finance.
All the frauds associated with both sales as well as purchases are mainly those frauds
which mostly involve huge stealing of items for the purpose of sale by the particular business
(Recker, Reijers & van de Wouw, 2014). In other words, it can also be said that these are
actually known as theft of the items which are inventory. Such type of stealing is kept hidden by
all the employees by totally altering as well as manipulating all the records of both purchase as
well as records (Juan Ding et al., 2014). It totally alters all the information which are kept as well
as recorded in all the record books of the business. Another alternative way of hiding such theft
is the altering the inventory and record manipulation.
A number of things must be considered for saving the business from such type of frauds.
It must always be kept in the mind that both the management of stock and that of inventory is not
at all safe from all the theft and the fraud by all the employees (Jie, Parton & Cox, 2013). Most
of the employees know a number of ways with the help of they can be able to hide all such type
of frauds as well as losses. They even totally falsify all such records with an ease. The
documentation which is totally false is even done by several employees such that they be able to
alter all the records which are inventory in an indirect way (Bhaskaran, 2013). All the assets

5IS STRATEGY MANAGEMENT AND AQUISITION
must have a security which will be maintained in a physical manner for staying it safe. If all the
employees are not able to obtain an access which will be direct towards all the assets then there
will be less chance of both stealing as well as theft. The security which will be provided in a
physical manner can be even useless of any theft is seen to be done while the item purchasing is
under process. All such frauds may occur with an ease by the manipulation of the inventory
system. All such items are not at all recorded in the business’s inventory system. There are a
large number of requirements for an appropriate control which has to be put in place for recoding
all kinds of transactions as well as in protecting the particular inventory from any kind of
manipulation.
It can be said that a development of an accounting software begins has begun in the year
1959 when it has been known that a particular software named 9PAC has been developed by the
company IBM and it is mostly considered as the first program generation of report of this period
of time. It has made a number of users for easily storing as well as accessing data in the database
form which are mainly structured rationally. It is a full new revolution in the storage of data as
well as the retrieval method of data (Patroni, von Briel & Recker, 2016). Whenever the
organizations have started the concept of departmentalization and a number of functions have
been done in several batches then all the enterprises have started to invest a lot in the systems of
accounting as well as the software which can easily perform a function which will be specific for
the company (Bepari & Mollik, 2016). Due to the huge development of computers of the
upcoming generation and huge increment of their capabilities, both the functionality as well as
the complexity of the software of accounting are developed to a huge extent. Accounting
software has been made available in several functionalities which are very much flexible (Hol,
Mubin & Ginige, 2014). It has also been suggested that the SAP RF which has been developed is

6IS STRATEGY MANAGEMENT AND AQUISITION
multifunctional and has the capability of handling a broad range of several functions as well as
operations of business. It has made possible for taking financial decisions faster as well as easier
and due to the limited interventions which are external (Mialon et al., 2016). The accounting
system which is name as Peachtree has also been developed for simplifying the procedure of the
storage of data so that a number of customers can be able to extract greater value from the
system of accounting within a smaller interval of time and also in a much easier way. The
interface of the system of software which is mostly user friendly has been introduced in the year
1983 by Intuit which has been named Quicken (von Briel & Recker, 2017). A package of
software has also been launched which has been able to catch huge attention of nearly about a
number of entities of business.
All the several disadvantages which have been posed by all the accounting systems which
are traditional are conquered by a number of different as well as innovative packages of software
which have been made available within the market. There are several software which several
other Australian companies are utilising nowadays. Recently, some of the market leaders like
Quick Books, Xero and Zoho Books are providing with software of accounting to all the
companies. All the features as well as all the services of the software which is available are
somewhat quite similar. Because of such immense competitions in between several companies
within the market, all of these companies are offering a kind of same features as well as services
in their recent software for accounting (Atapattu & Sedera, 2013). Some of the software even
lead in some kind of feature and some other software may lead to some other features. The
companies always keep on developing as well as innovating so that they can be able to create a
number of products and ultimately gain a competitive advantage within the market for
themselves. This is somehow least possible in case of some software industries as each of those

7IS STRATEGY MANAGEMENT AND AQUISITION
companies has almost same kind of needs for accounting (Dos Santos, Svensson & Padin, 2013).
The two benefits which have been offered by all the software packages mainly include
integration and automation. By playing both of these benefits, a huge competitive advantage will
be gained within the market by the organization.
The demand for the software of accounting has been incrementing at a high rate in the
market of the country of Australia. All the large as well as the small organizations of business are
rapidly turning towards the software system based upon the computing of cloud. Both integration
as well as automation have been offered by the software of accounting and this has been making
them very much popular (Dutta, Lawson & Marcinko, 2016). It has also been increasing the
demand in a rate which is exponential. Recently, about 99% of all the organizations are utilising
several accounting systems which are both automated as well as cloud based. The computing of
cloud has the capability of providing facility of utilising the software of accounting with any
kind of installation within the system because it mostly works on the connection of internet
which is available (Weill & Woerner, 2015). Hence, due to this particular reason, it has become
very much popular within the business. The computing system which is mostly based upon the
cloud is contributing a lot in incrementing the demand of the software of accounting in the
business. Several accounting software which are mostly available in the country are Zoho Books,
Xero as and Quick books. All the different features which have been provided by the feature are
quite same to an extent which mostly offers great competition to them. Enterprises mostly
compares all these packages of software and also install them as per all the different
requirements. Some of the enterprises even install a software which is combined with all the best
features which are mainly offered by them. Actually the ultimate competition within the market
mostly depends upon the offered price in between all the enterprises. All the different companies

8IS STRATEGY MANAGEMENT AND AQUISITION
mostly opt for their particular packages of software depending upon their own requirements like
the need of banking, business’s nature and the business operation scale (Kamal et al., 2015). By
considering the business operation scale, the software of accounting are very much popular with
all those business which are both medium as well as small sized as compared several businesses
which are large (Moscardo et al., 2013). Woolworths is using a conventional accounting method
by taking a back from the software which is mostly based upon the cloud (Hattersley, 2013). The
enterprise is ultimately utilising a combination of the software of accounting and finally mould
the use as per their own needs. The demand for the software of accounting has been predicted to
be highly increasing within the country with the incrementing GDP as well as with the increment
of both the small and the large sized organizations (Phillipov, 2016).
Setting up the cost for the accounting software is not very easy because due to the
addition of the cost the enterprise will be needing to maintain all the needed levels of the
standards of the minimum system like ROM, RAM and the system processor field (Pulker et al.,
2018. The system of the accounting system based upon the cloud which is much complex has
resulted in a number of difficulties in using. The software of accounting is not at all based upon
the conventional system and have a specific design which is really very much tough for
understanding sometimes (Cheng, Green & Ko, 2014). All the employees who are using all the
methods of accounting which are traditional are the most reluctant to utilise this specific
software. All the members of staff are seen to be facing a number of difficulties for both
understanding as well as operating the particular software (Jones et al., 2016). During the starting
phase of the installation of the accounting software a lot of time will be consumed because
creation of both the excel sheet as well as a ledger may take a huge amount of time rather than
the invoice creation in the software. A lot of time is also consumed for training all the staffs of

9IS STRATEGY MANAGEMENT AND AQUISITION
the business so that they become used to of all the functions of the software. There remains a risk
of cybercrime associated with the installation of the accounting software. Several risks may also
arise like phishing and malware.
It can be recommended that a number of sessions of training are to be conducted after the
installation of the package of the software within the business organization. This will be helping
a lot in making all the staffs ready for dealing with all the technicalities of the full new software
which has been added. It can be concluded that the organization is integrating the accounting
system based upon cloud within the business model. This software system will be helping a lot in
invoicing, management of the inventory, management of payroll and also in several transactions
which are done online. But it is also to be remembered that a number of risks are also associated
with the accounting system based upon the cloud and hence all these risks must be removed by
the installation of an appropriate antivirus and all the staffs are also to be trained properly so that
all of them can utilise the accounting software based upon the cloud in an efficient manner. This
will be making the entire process of accounting secure and totally free from any kind of risks of
data loss.

10IS STRATEGY MANAGEMENT AND AQUISITION
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