Information Technology Planning

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Student Name: Myint Oo @ Amirul Hassan

UOG Student Registration ID: 000805763

Coursework Title: Strategic Evaluation Document for Grunge Hotels

COMP1647: Information Technology Planning

Due Date: 15/11/2013

Section No: BIT-14

School Name: KMD (Yangon, Myanmar)

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Table of Content

1. Introduction

1.1 Background……………………………………………………………………3

2. Strategic Evaluation

2.1 SWOT analysis………………………………………………………………..4

3. Impact of IS

3.1 Key Processes…………………………………………………………………5

3.2 A major system that the Grunge Hotel needs…………………………..……..6

3.3 Compare and contrast to the information needs of

managing director and hotel manager…………………………………………7

3.4 Biggest organizational changes………………………………………………..8

3.5 Processes for outsourcing…………………………………………………...…9

3.6 Disaster Recovery Plan ………………………………………………………10

3.7 Persuading the Managing director…………………………………………....11

3.8 Reference……………………………………………………………………..12

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Introduction

Background

Grunge Hotel was founded in 1991 and is inclusive of 43 1 star hotels in the UK. The hotel

group has good image on the website. Many of the employees working in the hotel are Eastern

Europeans with expertise. It is going to be renovated with a view to provide better services as well as

basic accommodation with reasonable prices. The hotel group will attend an auction in the hope of

getting properties with low prices. The managing director wants it to be standing as the number one

group.

Due to the recent changes of the government, it has been decided that all European employees

have to hold UK passport, otherwise they have to leave the country. So, it has a high impact on the

organization. So, the organization may lose the qualified employees and will have hardship to find the

qualified staff instead which cost a lot. The organization can’t offer satisfactory services to the guest

because the organization doesn’t have an IT system while other competitors are running IT system.

Other competitors have broad audience base and the hotel doesn’t have much audience. It is obvious

that some managers are worried of changing their accustomed work and some hates the changing of

IT system. All the transactions are done manually such as record bookings on phone, financial record

kept by the clerk. There is no standard way of keeping financial details which has to be sent to the

Head Office on a daily basis. The organization has to hire external auditors as the financial staffs are

lacking essential skills of keeping financial records. It needs to spend more money to set up an IT

system as well as hire qualified IT technicians. Because of more money spent on these things, the

organization may have to charge more their audiences to stay at the hotel which is completely against

their purpose.

There are many factors that the organization has to concentrate on focusing on the investment

in order to get return on investment in a specified time so that the organization has to be careful over

investment to prevent from wasting. Secondly, it needs to target the qualified employees because the

organization will probably lose the qualified employees. So, they will have to target local qualified

employees to use in the organization instead of European employees. Thirdly, it needs to develop an

IT system as soon as possible in order to make all manual transactions to be easier and smooth.

Fourthly, it needs to keep an eye on the competitors because they should know what their opposed

competitors are doing and how they provide services to the audience. Fifthly, it needs to improve the

skill of the financial staff and the director because they are lacking essential skills to record financial

records. So, they need to be trained to improve their skills. Sixthly, it needs to motivate the managers

who want to stay at the accustomed work and hate the change system of IT in order to accept the

organization changes.

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SWOT Analysis

Strengths

- Enough budget in hand

- Have strong status on the websites

- All European employees have competence and skills

- Can pay low rates to the employees compared to the market level

- Has strong basement as well as other required equipments

Weaknesses

- Take time to develop an IT system

- The financial records are kept below the standard

- Has to hire external auditor to check the financial records

- The director is lack of essential skills

- Owing to the lack of IT system, the organization has to use many man power

- All the transactions are running manually

Opportunities

- Organization’s images will be on the rise for cheapest price

- No need of many man power for the same work

- Many changes to get the auction properties with low prices

- No need to spend money for places and equipments to set up IT systems

- Many opportunities to get qualified local employees

Threats

- Need to spend more on the development of IT

- Hotel charges may arise.

- Competitors will get broad audience base during the renovation

- May lose the qualified European Employees

- Heavy rain can reach to the basement

- Manager’s unwillingness on IT systems

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Impact of IS

Key Processes of Grunge Hotel

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Major System

Grunge Hotel needs a major system which is called “Financial Management System”. For the

following problems of the hotel, FMS should be first set up in the organization. The organization is

overcoming various difficulties such as recording financial records with account books which are

done by the clerks. All the details of finance are sent to the head office which takes time. There is no

standard way of keeping financial records. As the financial records are not correct, they have to hire

external auditors to check financial records. It’s very expensive to do that.

The FMS will hold all financial records about 42 hotels and allows to be accessed to them to

the authorized person. It will show enough cash is available at the right time in order to run the hotels

well. Cash will be required to invest in necessary things for hotels, pay employees etc. It will optimize

cash management and cash flow problems when they go up. It will also let the organization know how

definite possible scenarios like acquisitions or extra new business unit may impact its financial status.

This leads tactical planning more successful. It will show daily, weekly and monthly income and

expenses with complete details. It will clearly show how much budget is used for what .It will also

record the audience information and payments for his or her stay and other services with names and

date. It can also produce invoices, payments, and reminder letters for outstanding payment. It will also

handle all the details of employees to arrange salaries for employees. It will also display how much

salary has been provided to the employees each month in each hotel.

The system will generate correct and consistent balance sheets, profit and loss statements and

budget allocations. As it offers in-depth ad hoc analysis capabilities, enable financial experts simply

create custom reports to assure their own unique information needs.

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Compare and Contrast to the information needs of MD and Hotel managers

Decision making is very important for the hotel management team for further improvement because

wrong decision may take their hotels to disaster. So, information about all hotels is needed for them to

make effective decision. Without information about the hotels, they will be unable to make correct

decisions. If the correct decisions are not made, the organization will have to overcome many

difficulties and problems. What’s worse they may even lose the audience and the reputation. The need

of information needed by the managing director and hotel managers will be different because MD will

need summarized data or information while hotel managers will need detail information. The

following are some required information which will help the managing director make correct decision

strategically while hotel managers operationally. Based on the following information, MD will be able

to invent solutions for hotels performance for example if any of the hotels has lower income and

audience base, then he can consider which hotel needs to use much resources and which not.

Managing Director Hotel Managers

1. Needs to know the total daily income and

outcome of all hotels

Need to know the daily income and outcome

of a hotel

2. Desires to know which hotel has highest

and lowest income

Desire to know to know each week’s highest

income in a hotel

3. Monthly overall profit and loss of all hotels Weekly profit and loss of a hotel

4. Performance and progress of each hotel Which team has better performance (for

example chefs)

5. Would like to know what type of audiences

are most stayed at his hotels

Would like to know the audiences complaints

and feedback on their stay

6. Requires to know the number of audiences

stayed monthly at 43 hotels

Require to know how many audiences have

checked in and out daily

7. Which hotel has broad audience base What type of rooms are most stayed by

different guests

8. Making sure that all hotels have enough

resources to operate

Ensuring that resources has effective used in

their hotels

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Biggest Organizational Changes

Whenever a new system is introduced to an organization, there are always changes and

difficulties it has to overcome. Likewise, the Grunge group is going to have an IT system to improve

their processes. On having a new system, there will be many biggest changes they have to overcome

for example, employees’ training, employee’s disappointment to apply IT on their works etc,

misunderstanding of employees on IT system etc.

The first change of the organization can be staff training because without the staff, the IT

system is nothing to do. By choosing the right employees for example those who are interested in IT,

should be well-trained to run the IT systems. The training should be targeted solely on application of

the new IT system in the situation of the processes and employees’ role. When proving training to the

employees, the trainers should establish with the essential knowledge and expertise together with a

good plan for reducing the likely risks and problems to occur.

The second biggest change can be staff unwillingness to apply IT on their work. It’s widely said

that the success of a system is completely relying in the keenness and ability of its users in order to

adjust to the new technology and efficiently use with their work. So, the top management should

educate and motivate them by letting them know how each process will change in IT system and the

benefits of using IT system such as it reduces workload, their way of working becomes faster and

smooth. Using IT system, they will reach to their goal of standing as a number one hotel group from

which employees and employers can get benefit.

The third change will be reallocating the hotel employees depending on the IT systems. After

setting up IT systems, all current processing will become faster and smooth. So, the organization

doesn’t need to use man power for daily operations. So, the excessive employees should be appointed

to other required fields which are in need of employees.

The fourth change will be hotel layout or structure. The organization should make preparations

such as choosing the right places and decorating them before setting IT systems at all hotels. If

possible, they should be put at the safe place of the hotels and put restrictions to touch them by

allowing authorized employees.

The last change can be misunderstanding of employees on the new IT system and new IT

environment. They may think that by applying IT system in the organization, the employees will be

reduced to save cost. So, they should be clearly convinced by explaining why IT system is for, where

it will be used and how it can help them with their daily process.

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Outsourcing

As Grunge Hotels are 1 star hotel, there are not many services to outsource. But depending on

the need of the hotel, there will be processes to outsource to get audience’s satisfaction and make their

processes faster. The Grunge Hotel group has many difficulties with their current way of working

such as record bookings on phone, keeping incorrect financial data etc. So, the Managing Director is

very willing to have an IT system for his organization. So, the organization may outsource IT system

as he doesn’t have IT technicians and employees who have knowledge of IT. Hiring IT technicians

and make them develop an IT system in the organization will be very expensive rather than

outsourcing it at software house. This may cause ethical and social issues between IT technicians and

existing employees through communication. The management team will also find it difficult to

manage IT experts as they don’t have relevant knowledge and management experience to supervise

them. Unwanted workload will come up in the organization. The important point is that his hotels are

1 star hotel and he can’t use much money for solely on IT as charges for the stay at his hotels may

come arise. Otherwise, the purpose of providing basic accommodation with the cheapest price will not

come into possible.

As no IT systems are perfect, there are always the needs for them even if after well-

developed. The systems will always be required maintenance for better performance. Appointing

permanent IT experts to maintain servers and IT systems will be expensive. So, the organization will

also outsource required services and sever maintenance for the IT systems. It should be done every

three months or six months. Not also it saves cost but also it reduces workload. This will also help top

level management offer much attention on improving their business as they don’t need to focus on

operational issues. So, they can easily get to their goal of being a number one hotel in UK.

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Disaster Recovery Planning

There are many types of disaster such as fire, eminent hurricane, flood, human attack, storm

and earthquake. It is possible that a disaster called flood may likely to occur according to the case

study. No matter how high or low the disaster is the organization should have beforehand preparation.

Only then, it can help resume the business in a hurry way.

Before a disaster happening in the organization, it must have a good plan (which contains the

details guidance and procedures of restoring all destroyed servers and finding a place nearly to set up

them for temporary, who will do what during the disaster etc) on how to overcome a disaster if

happens. The key contact data should be put in front of the plan. As information and data are the

most important to run the hotels, it must be backed up safely using hot site before doing anything else.

If possible, the important information should be kept on cloud computing such as Google Drive etc.

There should be a secure computer room with climate control to store back up and other hardware

such as networks, servers, wireless device for server restoration and software applications for data

restoration etc.

During a disaster happening, all responsible employees will be informed immediately and

enforce them to act according to the plan. The general manager will seek emergency help from the

near Emergency Service Agency or Department by using key contact information such Police or fire

department etc. Before contacting the IT professionals, the responsible employees will try to save

servers not to get much destruction before IT professionals are contacted to come quickly and recover

the servers with responsible employees.

After the disaster happening, the organization must call for an urgent meeting and make a

quick decision for resuming the business in a short time by seeking help from a nearly environment to

locate servers in their area to run till the damaged office is renovated with an agreement. The data will

be restored by using hot site data restoring software. All servers will also be restored by using

necessary equipments at the secure room. In this way, the organization will succeed resuming their

business within short time.

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Persuading Managing Director

It’s widely said that IT systems are very expensive to set up in organization. The managing

director of the Grunge hotel group also thinks like that and worries that he has to invest much money

for IT systems required for his organization and he has to charge more for his audience for the basic

accommodation at his hotels. As he is the decision maker of investing for IT systems, he needs to be

persuaded to invest for the required IT systems in his organization.

As he has to set up IT systems for 43 hotels, he has to buy necessary equipments such as

computers accessories; network accessories etc expect the equipments in the basement. So, he should

be advised to order and buy all required equipments together as there are many chances that he will

get with reasonable prices. So, he can save cost. The cost of developing IT systems and installation

will not be too higher as the same development team will develop IT systems and install them at 43

hotels. They will also train the employees on how to use the system with their respective roles. So,

there will not be cost anymore for employees training.

The current way of doing financial transactions cost more as they have to hire external

auditors to check them. So, there will be no need of hiring external auditors when they new systems

are introduced. The new systems will enable the financial transactions to be secure and correct. The

current way of recording bookings over phone may make audience annoyed when the phones are

engaged and they have to wait. The new system will help the audiences to book from anywhere

around the world simultaneously and the employees can manage their bookings in a standard way and

send messages over the network when required. So, they can get broad audience based from which the

organization can profit. It can also help reduce man power for the booking process. Not only it saves

time, but also it reduces workload.

Presently all the operations are done manually. So, they have to record everything on papers.

The more the papers used, the more places is required to store it. What’s worse is papers can easily be

lost. It’s also hard to search the specific record or data on time. When the new systems are used for it,

no paper and places will be required. All data will be systematically saved in the system. The specific

data can be searched easily with a second.

In conclusion, by setting up IT systems in the organization, all the current processing will

become easier and smooth. Employees can get job satisfaction which is very important for an

organization. He would get return on investment within short period of time for what he would have

invested for the IT systems. So, it is the best way to invest for IT systems.

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References

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http://www.netsuite.com/portal/products/netsuite/erp/financial-management.shtml. [Accessed 05

November 13].

Jim Riley. 2012. Introduction to financial management. [ONLINE] Available at:

http://www.tutor2u.net/business/accounts/finance_management_intro.htm. [Accessed 05 November

13].

Paul Kirvan. 2009. IT disaster recovery (DR) plan template. [ONLINE] Available at:

http://searchdisasterrecovery.techtarget.com/feature/IT-disaster-recovery-DR-plan-template-A-free-

download-and-guide. [Accessed 07 November 13].

H. Wold, Geoffrey, 1997. Disaster Recovery Planning Process. Disaster Recovery Journal, [Online].

Vol. 5 #1., 1. Available at: http://www.drj.com/new2dr/w2_002.htm [Accessed 07 November 2013].

John Dudovskiy. 2012. The Grange: Information & Knowledge Needs for Decision Making.

[ONLINE] Available at: http://research-methodology.net/information-knowledge-needs-for-decision-

making/. [Accessed 07 November 13].