Evaluation of IS Strategy for Security Services Limited (SSL)

This report evaluates the information system (IS) strategy of Security Services Limited (SSL), a UK-based security provider. The report assesses the value of current IS investments, focusing on departments like Private Transport, Business Security, and Domestic Security divisions, and identifies areas needing improvement. It examines the need for a comprehensive IS strategy, including business process re-engineering, the expertise of IS professionals, and the integration of advanced technologies. The analysis covers strategic potential for IS investment, including marketing, finance, and purchasing. The report provides recommendations for the location of IS functions and suggests strategic improvements to optimize business processes, enhance financial management, and improve overall performance. It highlights the importance of data analysis, cloud infrastructure, and the integration of enterprise resource systems to achieve greater efficiency and profitability for SSL.

Running head: EVALUATION OF IS STRATEGY
EVALUATION OF IS STRATEGY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
1. Assessment for identifying value of information system.......................................................2
2. Developing a proper IS strategy for SSL...............................................................................3
Requirements for developing a comprehensive information system strategy:......................3
Analysing if information system is accordance with the business requirements:..............3
Analysing expertise of IS professionals:............................................................................3
Hiring professional for managing IS services and executing IS strategies:.......................4
3. Analysis of strategic potential for IS investment...................................................................4
4. Description of the current location of IS functions within SSL and recommendation for
investment..................................................................................................................................6
Existing IS functions:.............................................................................................................6
Description of locations of IS functions:...........................................................................6
Recommendation for the best location for IT services in the future......................................7
Best location for IT services:.............................................................................................7

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1. Assessment for identifying value of information system
It is important for SSL to conduct a proper assessment so that they may identify the
value that it obtains from its current portfolio of information systems and evaluate the
techniques that may be used in assessing future IS investments.
The best strategy to identify value from the IS system is to evaluate the applications
which is provided by the IS in various departments where IS service is deployed. A
department wide assessments will help in identifying if the IS investments is providing
strategic value or not.
SSL has specific goals to accomplish through the investment in IS technologies and
analysing IS services in accordance with this gaols is best strategy for identifying values
derived from IS system.
Here in this context, it will be hence an effective approach to analyse application of IS
in each department:
Private transport division (PTD):
Information Systems section – this is a subpart of the Transport section; the division
executes its operations through a network of three PCs running the following applications:
 Financial ledgers (Sage Sovereign)
 Route planning (AutoRoute)
 Duty rostering (end-user developed spreadsheet). Payroll processing is not part of the
IS service as it is contracted out to Midwest Bank Business Services
Business security division (BSD):

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An objective of this division is to continue with this organic growth, while at the same
time increase its profile in the hi-tech marketplace.
2. Developing a proper IS strategy for SSL
As identified in this report that in many parts of the company, SSL do not have a
comprehensible IS strategy. Hence it is required for them to construct an IS strategy that is
not only consistent with the business requirements but also supportive of its business strategy
and this will help them to ensure that the benefits that it would derive from the information
system is consistent with the business goals and objectives.
In order to develop a coherent IT strategy SSL should consider the following aspects:
 Does the information system provides the required features that is required for
executing business services?
 Does the company has expert team to manage the information system in which the
company invest?
 Is there any requirement for integrating new and advanced information system for
enhancing the business process?
Requirements for developing a comprehensive information system strategy:
Analysing if information system is accordance with the business requirements:
The company has already invested in developing some information system, which
include ledger software, which is a standalone system, and run on organizational computers.
now it is required for SSL to analyse if services provided by this software has any
performance issues for which strategy is to conduct regular assessment on the system so that
it easier to identify any issue and requirement for system improvement .

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Analysing expertise of IS professionals:
Information system strategy is not effective if required expertise is not available to
execute those strategies and manage the information system in accordance with the strategies.
Private transport division (PTD), the IS requirements are managed by an ex-policeman who
have learned some IT skills, but his expertise is not consistent with the system requirement
and technical competency and for this he has considered consultancy support. Hence the
strategy is to arrange for department wise training and assess what professionals have learned
from the training and if their knowledge is consistent with the system requirements which
will help in ensuring that the IS strategy is consistent and in accordance with the business
requirements of SSL.
Hiring professional for managing IS services and executing IS strategies:
One of the important requirement for SSL for ensuing development of effective IS
strategy is to analyse need for hiring new IS professional. For example, in Domestic security
division (DSD), there is no IS investment and along with that there is no IS professional as
well which means that if an IS system is deployed in that department and a IS strategy is
developed, it is not effective and it will make the IS strategy ineffective as well. Hence, the
strategy is to hire new professional for that department to analyse the requirements to deploy
new IS system in that department
3. Analysis of strategic potential for IS investment
In order to obtain benefits from the investment in IS, it is required for ISL to analyse
the strategic potential that will provide the context for greater investment required in
information systems and technology at SSL, not only from a divisional but from company-
wide perspective as well. Business process re-engineering in this context might prove to be a
useful tool in maximising the potential of IS and IT within the company

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Business security division (BSD):
A business process reengineering is required in Business security division (BSD) as
improvement is required in certain business process and the way the services in this
department in conducted. The following analysis provides a comprehensive overview in this
regard:
Sales – Sales data, which is documented on a PC-based sales ledger, monthly sales figures,
are delivered to Milton Keynes and this is sent on floppy disk. This department has a stand-
alone PC-based system that helps in activities related to sales tracking and marketing system.
Marketing – no dedicated strategy or system that is deployed for dealing with this. Marketing
is considered as just a mere advertising and leaflet drops in each geographic area. As
marketing is not considered as an important business strategy in the organization and hence it
is left to the sales force to accomplish this.
Marketing is one of the main aspects of any business and this should not be
considered just an extension of advertising. It is something that should be considered as
important as other organization strategies. It helps company to promote its services along
with its strategy and this an essential requirement for promoting business. Marketing is also
important for consumer engagement as it helps people to know what the business is offering,
how it provides benefits to the business and what is the vision of the company that it wants to
promote through its products and services.
Now to do that organization should consider promoting its business across different
platforms, specially through digital platforms as it is way more engaging and also effective
for reaching to maximum number of people in less time and this is economic too. Therefore,
SSL should invest in developing a social media network for promoting its services and
connect with the consumers. However, having a digital presence is not enough in modern

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business context, it is also important to collect data from different platforms and analyse
those data to derive intelligent information to personalize advertising based on consumer
profile. This is required to make the advertising way more effective and increase the potential
of advertising to turn into sale, which is something that is missing from the business process
of SSL.
Finance section –Purchase and General Ledger information is communicated to head office
on hard copy – this is because the ledgers are incompatible with the systems used at head
office.
Purchasing section – this is a subset of the finance section that deals with equipment
procurement for the installations section. Manual purchase data is sent to the finance section
for processing. Now if a company invest in developing cloud infrastructure and integrate big
data Technology with it will help in collecting purchase related data and it will also help in
accessing the data from anywhere anytime. Therefore there will be no requirement for
collecting purchase related data manually and send it to the finance section for processing.
All this thing will be done by cloud services and analytics on this data will be done by big
data Analytics. This modification in the business process related to purchasing management
will significantly benefit SSLC.
Although purchasing and ledger services are done by ledger software, improvement is needed
in the way this information is delivered. As identified, ledger information is provided on hard
copy that is not at all efficient, if somehow these copies are lost or accessed by someone else
this means drawback to organisational security. This information needs to be stored in digital
storage and send it to head office. Systems that are installed in the head office need to be
improved as well and for this advanced analytical software like Oracle, Data Analytics need
to be installed to make the processing of ledger information compatible with the analytics

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software which it is an important issue right now in the organisation. Therefore SSLC should
invest in this regard.
Domestic security division (DSD):
The key issues for this division are associated with the expansion of the customer base
by (1) increasing the number of customers; (2) marketing new services; and (3) emphasising
the need for ongoing maintenance of existing security systems.
Domestic security division which has been established recently does not have any specific
information strategy. No dedicated information system is presented in this division. It is
extremely difficult for SSL to accommodate consumer data that is increasing each day due to
the service and popularity in the market. Due to increase in business demands and to bring
new services in the market Financial Management is an important requirement of this
department. Right now only the Divisional manager is responsible to collect data regarding
financial aspects from each of the branches. Now issue with this process is that this financial
data are provided manually and there is no specific standard format for presenting this data.
This manual process not only makes this process inefficient but there are other key issues as
well. For example, if the data is provided manually there might be issues with data processing
as human errors are a significant part of manual data processing. If data processing is not
accurate it will not help them to analyse their business process properly which will have a
significant impact on the way design and marketing services are executed. Analysing
financial data and deriving insights from the stator is what modern business organisation does
for reducing the cost of operation and increase efficiency in managing financial aspects.

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Hence a complete modification is required in this business process and they should invest
information system that automates this process. There are varieties of enterprise resource
systems in the market that not only automates this process but also helps in automating data
collection and data processing. Along with that it also helps in reducing workforce as most
of the business process regarding financial activities are automated through this enterprise
resource systems, it helps to reduce workforce, bring efficiency in financial management and
ensure overall profit for the organisation. SSL should invest in deploying new information
system in this aspect for enhancing business strategies and performance.
4. Description of the current location of IS functions within SSL and recommendation
for investment
Existing IS functions:
Description of locations of IS functions:
As of now, in the following departments, SSL has deployed IS functions:
Private transport division (PTD):
This department has developed a network of three PCs are considered for following services:
 Financial ledgers (Sage Sovereign)
 Route planning (Autoroute)
 Duty rostering (end-user developed spreadsheet)
Business security division (BSD):
 Sales – This department has a stand- alone PC-based system that helps in activities
related to sales tracking and marketing system.
 Finance section – this division responsible for executing separate finance function has
deployed a range of standalone PC-based financial ledgers. Payroll processing is
executed in-house using the Pegasus payroll package on a stand-alone PC.

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Recommendation for the best location for IT services in the future
Best location for IT services:
 Marketing – no dedicated strategy or system that is deployed for dealing with this.
This is required to make the advertising way more effective and increase the potential
of advertising to turn into sale, which is something that is missing from the business
process of SSL.
 Private transport division (PTD) - IS in this department should be deployed for
automating job costing which is as of now managed manually.
 Domestic security division (DSD) - No IS investment is there however this
department needs to manage important services for the SSL which include managing
an increasing number of consumer, bringing new services in the market and ensure
security of existing systems. Hence IS investment should be done in this aspect.

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