HS3021 Strategic IS Management: Global Bike Inc. Case Study Report

This case study examines the strategic information system approach implemented by Global Bike Inc. (GBI), focusing on their use of SAP ERP software and business intelligence to improve operational efficiency. The analysis includes external (PESTEL) and internal (value chain) environmental assessments, a review of disruptive technologies like SAP ERP, and an evaluation of the drivers and barriers to business intelligence adoption. The report also discusses strategic planning, project management, and implementation approaches, with an emphasis on change management and IS/IM alignment. It concludes by highlighting the importance of strategic information systems in enhancing GBI's competitive advantage and future growth, including the need to embrace new technologies like machine learning to remain competitive.

Running head: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Strategic Management and Information Systems: Global Bike Inc
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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Abstract
The main objective of this report is to know about the case study of Global Bike Inc. Strategic
information system is the subsequent feature for information technology. It is extremely important
and significant for helping out the business or other organizations in categorization, storage,
processing and transferring of information, which are being created and received. SIS offers
significant tools to help the organizations for applying metrics as well as analytical tools to
information repositories. This report has properly analysed the importance of strategic information
system so that better opportunities are being recognized to enhance growth and effectiveness to a high
level. Moreover, operational efficiency in Global Bike Inc is being improved with the help of this
information system. The report has analysed and discussed about the external and internal
environments, main drivers and barriers, strategy evaluation, business IT/ IS and IS/ IM alignment are
properly done for this particular organization with relevant details.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction.......................................................................................................................................3
2. Background.......................................................................................................................................3
3. Analysis and Discussion of the Case Study.......................................................................................4
3.1 External and Internal Environmental Analysis of Organization...................................................4
3.2 Strategic Information System or Disruptive Technology Review................................................8
3.3 Drivers and Barriers of the Business Intelligence........................................................................8
3.4 Strategic Planning, Project Management and Implementation Approach with Change
Management......................................................................................................................................9
3.5 Strategy Evaluation, Business IT/ IS and IS/ IM Alignment........................................................9
3.6 Force Field Analysis..................................................................................................................10
4. Conclusion and Future Direction.....................................................................................................11
References...........................................................................................................................................13

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1. Introduction
Strategic information system or SIS can be referred to as the significant approach, which is
being developed in response to the corporate business initiatives. These comprise of the core intention
of providing competitive advantages to any specific organization. The following report outlines a
brief discussion on implementation of strategic information system approach within one of the most
popular and significant organizations in the world, Global Bike Inc or GBI (Galliers and Leidner
2014). They implemented SAP ERP software for better execution of business operations and business
intelligence can promote efficient inventory management. A proper evaluation and business alignment
will be done in this report after considering external and internal environments, disruptive technology
review, major barriers and driver as well as strategic planning, project management and
implementation approach to maintain IS/ IM alignment.
2. Background
The main objective of this report is to understand the respective strategic information
approach in Global Bike Inc and evaluate its effectiveness for completing business alignment with
technology. Since, they have to exchange information that is being stored within the current
framework of OLTP or SAP ERP, information is being stacked into the data stockroom. The main
scope of the report is to empower the simplified access of models and data for providing business
directors with the significant capacity of leading major investigation. For successful implementation
of strategic information system, it is highly needed to analyse the external and internal environments
of Global Bike Inc so that the requirement of such approach is being identified effectively (Pearlson,
Saunders and Galletta 2016). Moreover, the respective disruptive technology review is also being
provided in the report so that it becomes easier to understand how to execute a comprehensive
perspective for dealing with all types of business issues and problems without much complexity
(Willcocks 2013). The approach is extremely helpful for aligning the information technology and
information system within GBI and hence analysing the several barriers and drivers of the company
with major effectiveness. The main constraints of the report include taking into account the major

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requirements of GBI for actualizing to use SAP BW and BO that is to be sourced from SAP
frameworks.
3. Analysis and Discussion of the Case Study
Global Bike Inc is a popular organization that manufactures bicycle to its customers. They
have making extremely effective bicycles for their customers with proper involvement of unique
strategies and technologies.
3.1 External and Internal Environmental Analysis of Organization
External Analysis of GBI with PESTEL Analysis
The external analysis of GBI can be completed with the help of PESTEL analysis. It is a core
framework and tool that is being utilized by the marketers for better analysis as well as monitoring of
the macro environmental factors, having significant impact on the specific organization (Arvidsson,
Holmström and Lyytinen 2014). The specific type of strategy and tactical plan could be easily
deployed for the core purpose of conducting a situational analysis. The details of this analysis are
provided below:
i) Political Factors: These factors are responsible for determining the respective extent until
which the government policy and government might eventually impact on the specified industry or
organization. It mainly includes political policy or stability including taxation policies, fiscal and
trade policies (Cassidy 2016). For the organization of GBI, since they are involved into the bicycle
industry and have clients mainly in Germany and USA, they should consider the political aspects and
barriers effectively. They have got major impact on several important areas for businesses like quality
of products after intervention of national and local government. The main political factors affecting
GBI include changing policies in other countries, governmental resource allocation as well as time
scale, political stability in existing market, regulatory practices and few others.
ii) Economic Factors: The second factor is economic factor that is responsible for increasing
liberalisation of the trading policy for investing further into those regions that are off the limits from
GBI (Majchrzak and Malhotra 2013). The efficiency of the financial markets is the next significant

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economic factor for GBI, which could access vibrant financial markets or easier availability of
liquidity in equity market.
iii) Social Factors: These factors mainly emphasize on social environment after identification
of emerging trends and it helps the marketer in better understanding of needs and wants of customers.
The first factor is power structure that is an incrementing income inequity trend after considering the
societal hierarchy and norms (Amrollahi, Ghapanchi and Talaei-Khoei 2013). The customers are
mainly from Germany and the USA and hence demographic factors are major for the organization.
GBI also enhances on gender roles and are providing special bicycle to the women.
iv) Technological Factors: These technological factors consider the rate of technological
development and innovation for GBI. Since, the regular information is being recorded within the
current OLTP or SAP ERP framework, proper technologies are required to be analysed (Peppard and
Ward 2016). They can bring innovations in the segment so that it is possible to bring high safeguards
for protecting their data and resources.
v) Environmental Factors: Environmental factors are related to better influence of
surrounding environment as well as impact of ecologic aspect. Major factors for GBI include
renewable energy, customer activism, environmental norms and finally waste management (Peppard,
Galliers and Thorogood 2014). These factors ensure that a proper balance is being maintained
effectively and they are not vandalizing environmental properties.
vi) Legal Factors: These factors demonstrate about legal aspects and help to understand the
impact on business operations. GBI is following environmental laws, data protection laws and legal
protection of intellectual properties and many more. Due to data protection laws, they are able to deal
with complexities such as dealing with data security in SAP ERP software.

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Figure 1: PESTEL Analysis of GBI
(Source: Amrollahi, Ghapanchi and Talaei-Khoei 2013)
Internal Analysis of GBI with Value Chain
Value chain analysis is a procedure to divide several activities of business in the primary and
support activities for better analysis. It helps in creation of value to the final product. It is a process by
which internal analysis of GBI is being done.
Figure 2: Value Chain Analysis
(Source: Mignerat and Rivard 2015)

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The primary activities for GBI are inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics,
marketing and sales and services. The support activities for GBI include firm infrastructure, human
resource management, procurement and technology.
i) Primary Activities: Since, GBI is a part of bicycle industry, the primary activities can add
value to the production process and these are extremely important in comparison to support activities.
They can gain competitive advantages from involvement of this business intelligence software and
bring innovations and better business models and processes (Altameem, Aldrees and Alsaeed 2014).
The cost of raw materials and cost drivers are being analysed so that advertising costs, frequency of
new models sales per year, number of dealers are observed in a better manner. Moreover, automated
warehousing system, computer controller machines and systems are also present here. As they have
customers in US and Germany, outbound logistics is extremely important for GBI.
ii) Support Activities: The support activities of firm infrastructure, technology and
procurement are the most important support activities for GBI to enhance major effectiveness and
efficiency in business. Human resource management is done properly so that they are able to deal
with their employees as well, hence ensuring workforce planning system. Computerized ordering
system is being used for procurement.
Figure 3: Value Chain Analysis of GBI

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(Source: Rainer et al., 2013)
3.2 Strategic Information System or Disruptive Technology Review
This particular approach of SIS is responsible for delivering any product or service, which is
of low expenses and mainly focuses on the specific market segment that is innovative. Few important
and significant factors of the strategic information system include value chain, competitive advantages
with proper analysis of the data sets for working in the strategic level. This approach would be helpful
for GBI in implementation of business strategies, which are required for understanding the major
resources of information services, being applied to gain business initiatives (Rainer et al., 2013).
Disruptive technology review is important for faster, cheaper and simpler inventions for threatening
market leaders. They have been using disruptive technology of SAP ERP. It is an ERP software,
which helps in incorporating major business functionalities in any company. The business processes
mainly included in this software involve sales and distribution, production planning, financials and
few others. The new processes of BI in GBI are analytics powered and these could be extremely agile
as well as responsive towards change. The new approaches of machine learning are required to
upgrade themselves. SAP is the leader in traditional process and it provide leadership towards new
processes of digital transformation. Hence the issues related to disruptive technology would be
resolved effectively and decision process would become better.
3.3 Drivers and Barriers of the Business Intelligence
The drivers of BI include market related factors like competition, customer demand
components like delivery speed, and technology inputs like innovation and societal pressures like
government regulation (Ismail and King 2014). Being a part of business industry, GBI can bring
major effectiveness in the business. On the other hand, the barriers of implementing BI in GBI are
employee resistance to adoption of new technologies, lack of participation from CIO towards decision
making and few others.

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3.4 Strategic Planning, Project Management and Implementation Approach with Change
Management
GBI have implemented the approach of strategic planning, project management and
implementation for better development of its business alignment and evaluation with the
implementation of SAP ERP software. This particular approach is a distinctive set of guidelines that
are required to help the organizations in setting certain plans as well as strategies as per their
previously existing norms and principles (Petter, DeLone and McLean 2013). GBI has been using
SDLC approach in their business. This approach highlights several stages of the entire development
process and is being utilized for understanding business activities properly. The most significant
objective for incorporation of this specific system is that it can enable the entrepreneurs in assessment
of every environmental change for utilizing the beneficial aspects. There are three important types of
strategic information system, which include strategic, operational and financial that are mainly
interrelated on the basis of the type of businesses, which are being employed in. The change
management strategies like cultural values and burden of change are required to be analysed properly
in GBI. Radical and transformative organizational changes for business intelligence are effective.
3.5 Strategy Evaluation, Business IT/ IS and IS/ IM Alignment
The strategy of BI is required for aligning business IT/ IS and IS/ IM. It is a process, where
the business organization can utilize IT for achievement of business objectives for improvement of
financial performances and marketplace competitiveness. Such distinctive alignment of business IT/
IS for bridging the gap within themselves for understanding their objectives and cultures. The
organizational goals and objectives are easily achieved with the help of business intelligence. This
technology would ensure business IT alignment by bringing better effectiveness in revenue streams
and business operations. A proper identification of strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities is
also required for such alignment.

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Figure 4: SWOT Analysis of GBI
(Source: Morecroft 2015)
3.6 Force Field Analysis
Force field analysis helps to maintain a proper balance between forces in any organization,
which could drive change and others, which could resist changes effectively (Pondeville, Swaen and
De Rongé 2013). It is a tool, which is required for making decisions after analysis of forces for and
against of a change and even for communication of the reason behind this decision. The force field
analysis of GBI is given below:
i) Description of Proposal or Plan for Change: In GBI, the major plan is to execute a
business intelligence arrangement by simply empowering the access of several models and
information so that business director could get the core capacity for leading major investigation (Park
and Lee 2014). This can change the information to relevant data that is being used for settling on the
significant choices and would be changed into activities.
ii) Identification of Forces for Change: The major forces are required to be identified, which
are eventually driving changes. The forces could be either internal or external for a company. The
internal forces in GBI involve outdated machineries and product lines and a requirement for
increment of profitability (Petter, DeLone and McLean 2013). The external forces for change in GBI
include disruptive technologies of business intelligence, volatile and changing operating environment
and changing demographic trends. Moreover, they have implemented SAP ERP for regular business

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operations and hence it is highly mandatory for each and every force to bring major effectiveness in
business.
iii) Identification of Forces against Change: The most significant forces that can be brought
against the changes are also divided into internal and external forces. The internal forces of GBI
involve existing organizational structure and unplanned activity (Morecroft 2015). These internal
resistors could easily stop the organization from getting advantages in the business. Moreover, the
external forces include obligations to customer and government legislation. Since, they are mainly
serving to customers in Germany and the US, it could easily help to proper analysis and understand
about gaps and weaknesses.
iv) Assigning Scores: The next step in this analysis model is assigning of scores. The weak
score is 1 and strong score is 5 (Ogiela 2015). After analysing the total score of forces for change is
10 and that of against change is 3, hence the changes would be appropriate for GBI and hence they
should bring these changes in their business.
v) Analysis and Application: Final step is analysis and application. They should implement
business intelligence in their business for bringing more effectiveness.
4. Conclusion and Future Direction
Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that Global Bike Inc is a specific
non profit company that support discount oriented bike rental as well as repairing programs for the
clients in the United States of America and Germany. The entire process of decision making is
extremely easy with the help of support system, which had helped Global Bike Inc in setting and
meeting the short term and long term business goals and objectives. The above provided report has
given a proper analysis of implementation of SIS in GBI with external or internal analysis, disruptive
technological review, strategic evaluation, business IT/ IS and IS/ IM alignment.
The future direction of SIS approach in GBI would be bringing some of the major and the
most significant advancements in software, hardware as well as device connectivity to make the entire
information management absolutely feasible and proper. Since, they are into the business of bicycle,