Business System Analysis

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Requirement

This assignment involves the development of a feasibility study around the viability of implementing a new social media presence in the School of Business and Law at ECU(Edith Cowan University). The document should clearly identify the current trends in CMS (Content Management systems) and any relevant inhibitors that may make the project unviable. To start the feasibility study you should conduct a review of trends and practices surrounding social media products – particularly those in similar organisational environments, and should include, at a minimum:
• Trend findings • Marketing approach and strategy
• Risks and issues • Organisational needs and requirements
• Research approach and methodology • Staff resourcing requirements for implementation
• Full schedule • Technology considerations (pros and cons)
• Product/Service marketplace • Description of product/service under review
• Financial projections • Findings and recommendations
The above inclusions should act as a guide for the preparation of the feasibility study, and may vary based on additional material gathered during the research phase or during other exploratory activities. The focus of the document should be on the process followed, academic research, scholarly writing and producing a compelling feasibility report supporting the findings. It should be submitted as follows:

Solution

Introduction:

Managing the customers of an organization is becoming increasingly difficult in the competitive marketplace. In recent days, the organizations face several challenges to attract and retain their customers and so, having an efficient customer management system (CMS) is being more important nowadays. However, while developing a CMS, the organizations should focus on implementing the recent trends also in order to make it relevant for the highly dynamic customers. There are several factors such as risks and issues, financial requirements , marketing strategies are associated with CMS development (Trainor et al.2014). The current assignment deals with development of a new customer management system at ECU for its School of Business Management and Law. The risks and issues associated with development of the new CMS and the marketing approach and strategy required for promoting it.

 Trend findings:

 To keep the new CMS compatible with the dynamic market, identification and incorporation of the latest trends is necessary. The latest trends which are dominating the current customer management systems are:

•  Use of cloud based software: Use of cloud based software helps the organizations to analyze the present sales data and identify the potential lead sources (Taylor et al.2015). In other words, use of cloud based software helps the organizations to identify and manage its potential clients. 

• Social CMS: Communicating with the customers through social media assists the organizations to understand their demands more accurately (Ingram et al.2015). Use of social media in communication helps the businesses to create a stronger bond with their customers.

• Use of centralized data: Use of centralized data is crucial for analyzing the contemporary customers. The organizations need to collect and analyze huge amount of data to understand the changing demands of customers (Khodakarami & Chan, 2014). Better understanding on the customers helps businesses to provide them with better services. It, in turn, helps the organizations to get a distinctive place in customers’ minds.

Risks and issues:

Implementation of the CMS is associated with a number of risks and issues. The risks and issues that can affect effectiveness of the newly implemented CMS are as follow:

•  Lack of knowledge in the organization: Implementation of the new methods in the customer management system requires adequate knowledge on the right data capture and data analysis techniques (Mullins et al.2014). Without proper knowledge on how to use the CMS, obtaining the optimum benefits for it is not possible. In case of ECU, the CMS system is being implemented for the first time. So, the risk of not having adequate experience or knowledge on such systems is quite common.

•  Lack of integration between CMS and supply chain management: Along with understanding the demands of the customers, organizations need to reshape their supply chain activities in such way so that the demands of customers can be mitigated effectively (Tzokas et al.2015). Lack of experience can cause problem in redesigning the supply chain activities in ECU. So, it can affect effectiveness of the CMS also.

•  Lack of visibility across the system: Everyone involved with the CMS need to access the captured data completely. Unless the data is shared among all the users of CMS, taking effective decisions for the organizations will not be possible (Agnihotri et al.2016). Hence the organization will not obtain the maximum benefit from the new CMS.

•  Lack of adequate resources: Lack of sufficient financial, technological and human resources can prevent the organizations from utilizing the CMS fully. In case of ECU, the CMS is being implemented for the first time. So, failure to employ adequate resources can reduce effectiveness of the system.

Research approach and methodology:

Before implementing the CMS, the ECU management should be fully aware of the system and its use. It will require huge amount of market research. The ECU management need to conduct both the primary and secondary research. In case of primary research , the organization requires collecting the qualitative data. In primary research , the organization has to collect opinions from the industry experts for perfect implementation of the system. Similarly, at the organizational level also, the ECU needs to consult with members of its management team for implementing the system smoothly. The organization can arrange face-to-face meetings with industry experts to stay aware of the key success factors behind successful CMS implementation. The face-to-face meetings help the management to get a deeper insight on the research issue (Choudhury., & Harrigan, 2014). Similarly, the organization can arrange brainstorming sessions and focus group meetings with the organizational experts to find out innovative solutions for the CMS implementation. Carrying out the secondary research from industrial journals will also help the management to stay updated about the standards of CMS implementation.

Product/Service marketplace:

 The CMS system will be closely integrated with the social media. It will depend extensively on the social media for capturing data on the customers. Emergence of social media enabled the consumers to share their opinions regarding any product or service easily. In case of ECU also, capturing data from social media will help the organization to identify the opinions of clients and recognize the new opportunities. In case of service delivery also, the CMS will use the social media. It indicates that for communicating with the clients, the CMS will use the social media also.

Financial projections:

 Items      Cost required (USD)
 New technology ( software and hardware)    30000
 Training for human resources    5000
 Development and testing cost    10000
 Cost for market research    7000
 Employing organizational experts     3000
 External industrial experts    7500
 Marketing and promotion of the new system    3500
Annual Maintenance cost    4000
Total    70000
Table 2: Financial projection for new CMS
 Source: Created by researcher

 Marketing approach and strategy:

 The new CMS system is expected to bring significant changes to the organization’s way of dealing with its clients. However, getting the benefits from the new CMS will be possible only when the clients become aware of the system and start using it. The organization should focus on use of the promotional mix models to make their customers aware of the new CMS system. Use of the promotional mix model enables the management to make the clients aware of the new CMS through advertising, direct marketing, and personal selling, public relations and sales promotion (Nyadzayo & Khajehzadeh, 2016). The organization can adopt the below strategies to promote their new CMS:

•  Personal selling to target customers: The ECU management can identify its most important group of clients and can promote the new CMS to them. As the new CMS is able to provide them with better services , satisfaction level of these customers is expected to increase a lot and it is beneficial for the organization.

• Public relations through social media channels: The social media channels help the organizations to communicate with large number of customers in shorter time and also in a cost-effective way (Taylor et al.2015). In case of CMS also, the ECU management can focus on promoting the system through social media channels to increase awareness on it to the maximum level.

•  Direct marketing through sending the users with regular updates: Sending the customers with regular updates related to the recent developments in the organization is not only effective for strengthening relationship with the customers, but it is also effective to encourage them to try out new services. The ECU management can send updates to the customers for encouraging them to use the new system.

• Advertisements: Advertising the new system though every promotional channel used by ECU can be another effective technique to enhance awareness of the customers on the new system (Kumar et al.2016). The ECU management can promote the new system through its traditional promotional channels also including the new papers and the journals.

•  Sales promotion through providing value-added services: Offering the customers with value-added services is one of the easiest techniques to increase usage of the new system among them. For example, the ECU management can respond to the clients’ queries faster if they are raised through social media based CMS. It will help the organization to encourage the customers about the CMS.

Organizational needs and requirements:

For implementing a new system in the organization, some new resources will be required (Wang, & Groth, 2014). To implement, the CMS also, ECU management will require some additional resources. Operating the CMS is not possible without skilled staffs . So, the organization needs arranging for the skilled staffs to implement the system. Advanced technology will be required to manage the he amount of data on customers. Finally, the organization will need sufficient financial resources to set up the new system.

Staff resourcing requirements for implementation:

Having the skilled staffs is crucial for implementing and utilizing the new CMS system successfully for the ECU management. As such system is being implemented for the first time in ECU, it is quite natural that the staffs are not aware with the process. Therefore, training the staffs is necessary to implement and utilize the CMS effectively. The resourcing requirements for staffs in order to execute smoother implementation of the CMS can be as follows:

1.  Providing the organizational users with manuals: Providing the potential users of the CMS with manuals will help them to gain detailed knowledge on the CMS.

2. Providing them with hands-on experience: The users also need to be provided with hands on experience on the newly implemented CMS. It will help the organizational users to understand what are the difficulties’ they are facing while using the system.

3. Assessing their progress: After the formal and on the job training, progress of the employees will be measured through a test. From the test, the management will become able to understand that to what extent the employees are being able to use the new system effectively (Dawson et al.2017).

4. Providing feedback and monitoring: The organizations should provide employees with feedback and monitor the performance in order to enhance their productivity. In case of ECU also, the management can provide the employees with feedbacks on their efficiency to use the CMS.

 Technology considerations:

The proposed CMS system in ECU will integrate the activities executed by the management on social media and will help the organization to serve its customers in a better way. The organization has to embrace a number of advanced technology to implement the new system. Such technologies are listed as follow:

• Cloud based system: Capturing , storing and accessing huge amount of data related to the customers is crucial for operating the CMS in an efficient way (Hassan et al.2015). In case of ECU, the organization can use cloud based technology to manage and store huge amount of data. Use of cloud based software will increase accessibility of the data across the organization also.

•  Big data: The CMS system will require using large amount of data for assessing the demands of clients and manage those. So the ECU management needs to use the big data based technology to handle the huge data base.

• Data analysis tools and software: Accurate analysis of data plays the key role to identify the changing demand patterns for the customers (Bhaduri, & Fogarty, 2016). The ECU management also, along with capturing and storing the client data, needs to analyze the data accurately for understanding what the customers want from them .

•  Access control system and encryption technology: The customer management system contains sensitive data regarding clients of the organization. It is evident that such data needs to be protected securely within the organization. Keeping the data in encrypted form is an effective way to enhance the data security (Thakur & Workman, 2016; Hsiao et al.2015). Therefore , the organization ECU can start using the encryption technology in order to keep the data protected. Limiting access to the sensitive data is another effective way for enhancing the data protection. So, for strengthening security of the sensitive data, the organization can start using the access control system.

•  Artificial intelligence: In the competitive business environment, the organization s need to communicate with their clients all the time. Use of artificial intelligence is effective for the organizations to improve the communication with their customers. The ECU management can use different applications of artificial intelligence such as the chat boxes or the virtual assistants to improve the communication with the clients.

 Description of product or service under review:

 The proposed customer management system in ECU can be described as a range of software applications which are able to capture, track , store and manage the data on the existing customer accounts or the potential accounts. The system will have a cloud based data base where the information will be stored. The proposed system will store sensitive information on the clients of the institution and so, it will be highly secured. The data handled by the system will be in encrypted form. To enhance security of the system, its accessibility will be available to limited number of persons. In other words, only few designated persons in the organization will be able to access the data. The new CMS will be highly interactive in nature. It indicates that the system will be able to communicate with the clients throughout the day using different applications of the artificial intelligence such as the virtual assistant and the chat boxes.

Findings and recommendations:

 Discussion on the proposed CMS indicates that developing and implementing the new system will not be easy. The management needs to invest significant amount of money and effort to make the system functional. However, in order to keep the implementation easier, the organization can incorporate the following recommendations:

•  ‘Buying’ the system instead of ‘making’ it: The s organization has to invest huge amount of financial resources in order to develop, test and maintain the CMS. However, the ECU management can go for purchasing a standard CMS prototype and customizing it as per their needs. It will keep the cost and effort lower.

•  Outsourcing non-core activities: The organization should outsource the non-core activities such as promoting the system, its regular maintenance works . It will also reduce the effort and cost required by the organization lower.

Conclusion:

 The discussion indicates that implementation of CMS is going to be a complex process although the system can benefit ECU in several ways. However, the management can outsource some activities to keep the project simple.

References:

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• Bhaduri, S. N., & Fogarty, D. (2016). Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to Avoid Cannibalization: Analysis Through Spend Intensity Model. In Advanced Business Analytics (pp. 101-111). Springer, Singapore.

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