Analyzing Woolworths' Strategic Information System: A Detailed Report

This report analyzes the strategic information system of Woolworths, focusing on the company's IT decisions and the challenges it faces. The report discusses Woolworths' struggles with supplier relations, inventory systems, and slow consumer cycles. It examines the pros and cons of IT strategic decisions, including market expansion and customer interaction, while also addressing security and privacy concerns. The role of IT in supply chain management is highlighted, emphasizing the importance of maintaining relationships with manufacturers. The report also explores the responsibilities of the Chief Information Officer (CIO), the new IT foundation program, and the different information systems used, such as Transaction Processing Systems, Management Information Systems, Decision Support Systems, and Executive Information Systems. It also touches upon the stakeholders involved and functional requirements for the IT systems. Overall, the report provides a comprehensive overview of Woolworths' strategic IT initiatives and their impact on the business.

Running Head: STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
Strategic Information System
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
Deliverables:
Answers
1. In major context of the information Technology and the Information science,
Woolworths has decided to let go of five hundred employees from corner to corner its
support office and the supply chain network. It will also mark down the millions in
the IT benefits as the new chief executive officer Brad Banducci commences a
reconstructed operating representation (Woolworths.com.au 2017).
2. Woolworths is facing major challenges. The company has been struggling with the
supplier relations during its most current quarter. There were also issues with the
presentation of the replacement of the assets of the Company and the inventory
systems. The relationships with the suppliers have also been strained. The other
challenges that the company is facing is the slow consumer cycle. Then there is the
sales struggle, which is a major challenge. The deleverage of the Australian
supermarkets and the quality of the product has become an issue. The New Zealand
supermarkets are also facing greater competitive pressure.
3. Woolworths wanted better customer satisfaction and to gain advantage over
competition. The Company had the vision to increase the revenue and save more by
improving the productivity and the efficiency of the employees. The completion of
the projects of the Company should also be within the desired budget. The intention is
to invest in the advanced analytics.
4. The purchasing power of the customers is to set the increase in the near future. There
is an insistent push by the Federal government and the ACCC to a lower competition
barrier. Latest competitors have to be allowed to penetrate the market in order to
increase the choice of the consumer. The increase of the consumer bargaining power
would lead to the rise in price of the comparison websites. That will enable the
consumer to enable the prices and choose the cheapest alternative that is available
(Abeywickrama and Zambonelli 2012).
5. The pros and cons of these IT strategic decisions is the expanse of the Company in the
marketplace to the national and the international markets. The expanding of the base
of the customers and the suppliers will enable the organization to sell more at a
cheaper rate. The consumers will benefit from this and will be able to shop from any
location. The customers will also be able to interact with the company. The
disadvantages are regarding the security and the privacy concerns that deter the
customers from buying. For the long term, the level of online fraud is increasing. In
both short and long-term scenarios, some of the customers would like to touch and
feel the products. There is also the resistance from the customers regarding the change
of the shopping experience from the buildup store to the virtual store (Slack 2015).
6. The main role of the IT is for the supply chain management to manage the entire
supply chain in order to gain the competitive advantage. It is important to maintain
the trusted and respectable connection with the manufacturers. The IT helps the
company regarding the issue of the distribution. IT is the key business driver. The
implementation of the new software is still in process but he has seen a material
improvement in the performance.
7. The decision of the new management in writing down the millions of dollars in the It
investment is a good move. This will help the business to expand the required skills in
both the area of data analysis and the undeviating selling to renovate its supply chain.
Woolworths is now focussing on the online performance of its singular brands. The
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supplier relationships have also been strained over the last year due the troubled six
year of the Company that will be fixed with the help of the new management system
(Benlian and Haffke 2016).
8. (8.1)The chief information officer has certain responsibilities to fulfil. He has to be
the one who will take the decisions regarding the purchase of the IT equipment from
the suppliers or the creation of the new systems. They have to direct the workforce of
the organization. (8.2)The retailer has the new IT foundation program which aims to
catch up on the underinvestment in the IT infrastructure with a specific focus on the
self-service checkouts and the point of sale systems. (8.3)If the CEO rejects the idea
then idea and the objective should be reframed and conveyed to the CEO. The ideas
should meet the goals. The response to an objection should be available and has to be
supported with a reason (Laudon et al. 2012).
9. The information systems to be used are the Transaction Processing systems that are
operated directly by the shop floor workers and the data is obtained through the
automated or semi-automated tracking of the basic transactions. Then the
Management Information systems can be used to ensure the smooth running of the
Organization in the short to medium term. The Decision Support System will support
the ill structured decisions and have an analytical capacity. The executive information
system will help to predict the future and support the unstructured decisions (Stair and
Reynolds 2013).
10. There was poorly thought out strategy and there was selling of the wrong stuff. Part of
Woolworths’ plan was to introduce a leaner operating model and to replace and
implement a number of company-wide systems. This was done to improve underlying
processes. This is about the process of stability. Woolworths has also introduced the
success factors HCM across the company. The new ERP system in the merchandizing
platform is now stable and has been implemented. When the platform went live for
Big W mid-last year, the store was unable to process orders for suppliers, leaving
empty shelves and millions in lost sales.
11. The Stakeholders are the customers, employees, unions, suppliers, franchisees,
shareholders and the investors and the business partners.
12. The functional requirements for the IT systems are: for Transaction Processing system
the inputs for the transaction events, for processing the validation and sorting and for
the outputs lists and detail reports are required. The Management Information systems
requires internal files and structured data and in the processing field requires sorting
merging and summarizing. The Decision Support System requires modeling for
processing along with simulation, analysis and summarizing (Ricciardi and De Marco
2012).
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References
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2012 IEEE 19th International Conference and Workshops on (pp. 33-42). IEEE.
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Galliers, R.D. and Leidner, D.E. eds., 2014. Strategic information management: challenges
and strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.
Laudon, K.C., Laudon, J.P., Brabston, M.E., Chaney, M., Hawkins, L. and Gaskin, S.,
2012. Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm, Seventh Canadian
Edition (7th. Pearson.
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Services Science (pp. 258-270). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Slack, N., 2015. Operations strategy. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Stair, R. and Reynolds, G., 2013. Principles of information systems. Cengage Learning.
Woolworths.com.au (2017). Welcome to Woolworths. [online] Woolworths.com.au.
Available at: https://www.woolworths.com.au/ [Accessed 25 Aug. 2017].
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