Analysis of Information Systems in Security Services Limited

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Case Study: Security Services Limited
Business Informatics System
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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................4
Q1 Analysis and Evaluation of Information Systems in SSL..............................................4
Analyzing The Portfolio Of IS In SSL.............................................................................4
Private Transport Division:..........................................................................................4
Business Security Division:..........................................................................................4
Domestic Security Division:........................................................................................5
Home Office Service Division:....................................................................................5
Headquarters:................................................................................................................5
Evaluation of the Case.....................................................................................................5
......................................................................................................................................5
Q2 Building and Extracting Benefits of Supportive IS Strategy........................................7
Building A Revised Strategy For IS At SSL....................................................................7
Benefits Over The Older IS Strategy...............................................................................8
Q3 Analysis of Strategic Potential for Grander Investments..............................................8
Strategic Potential For Investment In SSL.......................................................................8
Q4 Existing Locations of IS Functions; Best Location in Future Perspective...................9
Discussion on the location of IS functions within SSL...................................................9
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................11
References..........................................................................................................................12

List of Figures
Figure 1: Data Processing Diagram.....................................................................................5
Figure 2: Current IS Functions Diagram...........................................................................10
Figure 3: Proposed Location of IS function for Future.....................................................10
List of Tables
Table 1: Comparing IS strategies; old vs new.....................................................................8

Case Study: Security Services Limited (SSL)
Introduction
SSL is a company that provides security services as evident from its name. Having its corporate
headquarters in Milton Keynes Buckinghamshire and divisions spread across the England that
are separate geographically due to the distinctive operation of each department and the way the
business grew (i.e.) taking over companies and mergers provided with land in different locations.
Company provides for private transport security for the delivery of sensitive and valuable good
from place to place. Services include installation of security systems, domestic security services
and security services to manage the transportation of stuff and prisoners from jail to police
stations etc. Company has a division to keep a check on company’s growth and business
performance also to manage the records and information regarding the operation of company.
Q1 Analysis and Evaluation of Information Systems in SSL
Analyzing the Portfolio Of IS In SSL
This case mostly concerns with the picture of information systems/IT systems at SSL and how
does it affect the performance of company or how it contributes to the profitability of the
business.
Private Transport Division: Information systems section is looked after by an ex-policeman
who is trained for IT handling but is not a specialist. A network of three PCs comprises of the IS
section for this division responsible for managing financial ledgers, route planning for
transportation and duty roistering. Payments are managed manually. However Midwest bank is
responsible for managing payrolls in this division.
Business Security Division: IS functions in this division are looked after by a young business
computing graduate. It has systems/PCs for keeping sales data ledgers that are sent to
headquarters on floppy disk. Marketing section is not well developed in this division however
there is a separate finance section that receives manual purchasing data from purchase section
and have a range of stand-alone PCs that forward data ledgers to headquarters in hard form as

systems at headquarters are incompatible with systems at this division. Unlike in PTD the payroll
is managed at house using Pegasus payroll software.
Domestic Security Division: This division have not established any IS/IT functions despite
having local area offices that are coordinated by divisional office receiving data from area offices
manually and in different formats is passed on to headquarters manually. No specialist or
probationary staff for IS/IT functions.
Home Office Service Division: This office is well provided with IS facility under a hybrid
manager specialist for both IT and business. It has six regional offices having PCs linked to
divisional headquarters IBM AS/400 system over Wan. IBM AS/400 is equipped with useful
softwares. All the accounting information is forwarded to headquarters in hard form.
Headquarters: IS facility here is under DP manager (about to retire) heading the team of a
system analyst, 3 programmers and 2 computer system/operation programmers. IT department is
old school that receives hard copies of data from divisions and data is re typed in old mainframe
systems.
This scenario suggests that the information system at SSL is not well established specially at
headquarters systems are old fashioned, data is handled manually and no proper specialists are
present. In PTD however the payroll management is not done at house. DSD has the most under
developed IT facility and better of all is HOSD but owing to the function of company
advancements are needed.
Evaluation of the Case
Information system is about the use of software tools and tech facilities to get the meaningful
information by processing raw data.
Team members or staff enters every day and leave every day but the systems stays within the
business and is therefore beneficial to invest in quality systems. Lack of PCs in respective
departments and experts point out the company has not invested in IS/IT departments.
Data Processing Information
Figure 1: Data Processing Diagram

Investing in system = more worth of your business
Information system at Security Service Limited is not well setup. Observably the format and
design of information system within SSL is different in regions, divisions and headquarters.
Picture of faculty also proves to be insufficient in some divisions. HOSD has the most classified
and established IS with an expert handling it, BSD have reasonably ok IS facility with an
inexperienced but related faculty person which is not very fulfilling as this division is responsible
for improving the company in tech market and itself lacks in one, PTD lacks in IS in some areas
with the handler not much qualified and the DSD with most business generating capacity has
nothing in the name of IS with no handler for supervision at all.
Besides, company dismay headquarter has the most old school IT/IS department. Though
headquarter has the generalized responsibilities of receiving updates and reports from divisions
but being of the pivotal importance headquarter can’t benefit from the quality and efficient work
generated by divisions having improved IS. It has to be downgraded to manually produced
hardcopies because of incompatibility of computer systems of headquarters and divisions and is
then reconverted in soft form at headquarters that outshines the following plausible problems
 Producing data in hard copies for divisions (especially with upgraded IS) is arduous and
may contains error.
 A lot of extra resources required (i.e.) paper and material ,staff as data entry clerks(at
head office)
 Is time consuming to produce, and then to convert to soft form
 Inefficient and unsafe transaction of data that too of a security service firm
The company needs to thoroughly revise IS functions. And a good amount must be invested to
upgrade the IS of SSL. Company must consider these suggestions in order to efficiently
restructure its information systems.
There must be a uniformed information system throughout the company under the supervision
of highly competent IT /IS expert. Advanced computer systems must be installed at
divisional and regional levels that are networked into a hub and are controlled by master
computer via Wan at headquarters and reasonably qualified as well as experienced experts must
be hired to run these facilities. In this way, the data transactions are of uniform and high quality,
is faster efficient and safe and could be handled /supervised and accessed by the headquarters at
any instant.

Payroll proceedings and marketing must be controlled by headquarters and thus must be
uniform for every division. Information provision to the clients of the firm must be considered
and information regarding the upgraded services and security installations may be granted to
clients through the websites or other forums so that they may efficiently contact the company for
services and installations, may know about the new services and upgrades about the company,
can track the status of the ordered services and ask and may have a forum for customer care and
FAQs.
Q2 Building and Extracting Benefits of Supportive IS Strategy
Building a Revised Strategy For IS At SSL
The information system strategy at SSL is not coherent as evident from the above discussion.
Revised business information system strategy is needed for a proper upgrade.
Step 1: Focusing on the motives of the business
This business is about to provide advanced security services to the end user. Enhance is growth
and improve the company profile in tech market. That clearly highlights the need of advanced IS
systems and requires a healthy amount of capital to make the above discussed amendments.
Step 2: Getting to know the information needs of company
The company authorities must be able to understand the importance of information and
information system as this is a tech based company and a lot of customer profiles are to be dealt.
Four divisions with respective geographically separate local offices produce a lot of data that too
highly variable depending on the nature of security systems or services demand by the customer.
This poses for a lot of information of various categories to be produced (i.e.) company budgeting
and costing record, faculty bio data, data sheets of security systems, record and tracking details
of orders , marketing and financing records , financial ledgers and route plans etc. which
accounts for diverse big data.
Step 3: Realizing the current status
It is productive to understand your goals but far more important than this is to realize the current
status which is clearly not the case with SSL as it does not have uniform strategy which shout
outs for the company to realize its torn out IS strategy. Along with it the amendments needed
must be implied to improve the existing situation.

Step 4: Consolidation and evaluation
After implying the required changes (suggested above) the company must evaluate it on tough
scale and merge all the pieces of picture together, changed and unchanged, so it would work in
harmony.
Benefits over The Older IS Strategy
To estimate the benefits of amendments applied in SSL, here is a comparison table for the
existing (old) and required (new) information system strategy of SSL.
Table 1: Comparing IS strategies; old vs new
Sr.No. Advanced
Technology
and experts
Coherence
Or
uniformity
Time
consumptio
n
Quality Centralized
system
Effectiveness Customer
satisfaction
Old
Strategy
No No More Average No Nil Average
New
Strategy
Yes Yes Less Improved Yes Improved Improved
Q3 Analysis of Strategic Potential for Grander Investments
Strategic Potential for Investment In SSL
Key attributes to make investment decision are fidelity of resources and certainty of resources to
not be fully exhausted in short span. Company’s long term growth and profitability depend on
the investment decisions. These may be for tangible or intangible assets. Strategic investments
are a tool for long term profitability (Hallikainen, 2002)
Investments in information systems is crucial for the well-being and survival of the company
having notable impacts on the company that may bound company’s resources but provides
benefits in the long run both at headquarter and divisional level (Hallikainen, 2002) as the
incubation of resources only at headquarters will make the supervisory efficient and may be
experienced a little at divisional level but the headquarters have mostly generalized resources
and the first drafts come from beneath level which would not make the end result as effective as
it needs to be.

On contrary if only the investments are focused on the divisional level, it may be pretty much the
existing scenario of some divisions, no matter how authentic and competent drafts are generated
at regional or divisional level if the headquarters are not opt for it or incompatible the data must
be downgraded which would again reduce the quality of result so investments must be generated
strategically efficient for both levels.
The basis of re-engineering is to maximize the productivity of all processes (Hari lal bhaskar,
2014).Process re-engineering will let the productivity to be maximized and will make the money
well spent by eradicating the useless methods, inefficient ways of data processing, reducing on
the cost on excessive paper use of making hard copies and its transactions and will be replaced
by efficient and convenient methods of data processing.
Q4 Existing Locations of IS Functions; Best Location in Future
Perspective
Discussion on the location of IS functions within SSL
The IS functions are located currently in every division except DSD and headquarters of SSL
incoherently and separated from each other.
Figure 2: Current IS Functions Diagram

For future it is recommended the system to be centralized and mainly supervised from
headquarters, specific tasks performed at division and corresponding area offices and
information provided to end user.
Figure 3: Proposed Location of IS function for Future
Conclusion
SSL company’s IS/IT profile is presented which looks pretty uncoordinated and requires new
information system strategy and process re-engineering in order to optimize and homogenize the
system’s efficiency and IS functions for both the company faculty and end user by applying
above discussed amendments.

References
Hallikainen, P. (2002). Evaluating Strategic It Investments:An Assessment of Investment
Alternatives for a Web Content Management System. Proceedings of 35th Hawaii
International conference on system sciences-2002, (pp. 1-10). Hawaii.
Hari lal bhaskar, D. s. (2014). Business Process Reengineering:A Recent Review. Global
Journal of Business Management, Vo.l 8 No.2,(ISSN:0973-8533), 25-51.