Information Technology - Emirate Airlines - Assignment Example

Contents Contents 1 Information Technology: Emirate Airlines 2 Information Technology: Emirate Airlines 1.0. Introduction An information system is defined as a collection of procedures, people, data, software and hardware to bring forth long-range, short-range and the day-to-day supporting information regarding organization’s users (Jessup, & Valacich, 2008). There are different IT systems used in different organization for different purposes some include: Transaction Processing System, Management Information Systems, Decision Support Systems, Office Automation System, Knowledge Work System and Executive Support Systems. Business processes have to take place throughout the life of the enterprise. Business processes refer to the manner, in which a business focuses, coordinates and organizes work to produce a service or a product which is valuable (Laudon, and Laudon, 2007). This report will focus on Transaction Processing System (TPS) and Decision Support Systems (DSS) in reference to the Emirates airlines company. 1.1. Company overview Situated in Middle East at Dubai; Emirates is one of the national airlines which serves over 100 locations within 60 countries around the globe originating from the international port of Dubai with 137 aircraft fleet. Emirate has been in service for 25 years (Oleason et al., 2008). Despite being a young airline, emirates has emerged among the top respected brands worldwide in the last ten years. The cornerstone to their success is employment of new information systems and technology systems in all their business processes (Laudon, and Laudon, 2007). 1.1.1. Mission of the company Each year emirates has had 20% or more growth and the airline has always given a substantial profit record annually. Their mission is to increase their growth percentage and keep on ensuring their explosive growth is unbeatable (Oleason et al., 2008).. Any organization has four managerial levels responsible for decisions and plans in the firm. Which are operations levels, knowledge levels, tactical levels, and strategic levels. Different information systems are used in different levels to help the managers make the best decisions. 2.0. Decision Support System 2.1. Description Decision support system (DSS) is defined as an information system which is computer-based that supports decision-making activities in an organization or business (Jessup, & Valacich, 2008). DSS uses both external and internal sources of data. Internal sources includes factors such as financial data, inventory, sales acquired from the database of an organization. External sources include the cost of new equipment or installation, population trends and interest rates. DSS users who actually are managers are able to manipulate DSS data and in turn come up with decisions (Power, 2006). The emirates company uses DSS in the tactical level. Tactical level deals with decision that supports the strategic decisions (Oleason et al., 2008). Tactical levels decisions they are usually of medium significance, medium range and with moderate repercussions. These decisions are build from the routine transactions data summaries such as orders of sales from the next classification or levels. For example; one of key strategic decisions in emirates is increasing the annual profit. The tactical decision brought on board by the managers in the middle level will look at how the processes in the middle will support the strategic decision to bear fruits. DSS is a fundamental system particularly to help in decision making among the management in circumstances where the expected results of the decisions made cannot be predicted. DSS assist the emirate managers in gathering any necessary information and analyzes alternatives and options to unpredictable outcomes of made decisions (Laudon, and Laudon, 2007). The system then, provides databases and spreadsheets to create models referred to as “what-if” and in turn offer the managers with best choices on the decision in case of uncertainty. Compensation Analysis System is an example of DSS used in emirate. This system offers an overview in a comprehensive manner regarding the benefits, salaries, wages monitoring for the manager and the expenditures of the organization so that they can plan. Executive Information System (EIS) is another special type of DSS its main objective is supporting the executive management needs. In EIS information is presented in form of tables and charts that indicates any form of managerial statistics in addition to ratios and trends. EIS relies on the data from the external sources as EIS basically looks into strategic matters. The external data source can offer the latest information regarding the leading economic indicators, commodity prices or rates in interest. 2.2. Objective The objective of the emirate airline is to increase their profits annually. This can only be achieved if careful decision regarding the hypothesized uncertainties on the outcome are made and synthesized. Therefore, the main DSS objective is to come with the best models that can be relied upon during the fateful events to ensure the challenges are cornered and best decision made (Power, 2006). 2.3. Flexibility DSS should be highly flexible and able to adapt different models depending on the circumstances to necessitate different decision to overcome foreseen threats (Power, 2006). DSS should enable the user to produce customized reports in reference to different data and specifically to a given phenomenon (Jessup, & Valacich, 2008). 2.4. Speed DSS process is very fast. Ones the online system is fed with information it quickly assesses and analyzes the information and provides the predicted outcome (Power, 2006). 2.5. Dependability DSS is highly reliable because it has a data warehouse (Jessup, & Valacich, 2008). Data warehouse is quite a big database that stores all vital information that is necessary in data decision making (Power, 2006). A data warehouse, therefore, manages and stores the required information or data that is used to analyze both the current and the historical business circumstances. 2.6. Quality DSS are of high quality as they employ interactive computer-based-systems that assist decision makers to utilize models and data to come up with quality solutions to unstructured problems (Power, 2006). Information provided is of high quality since it is synthesized from different reliable sources. 2.7. Cost It is much cost to implement DSS and, therefore, small organization may not invest on this system. 2.8. Advantages and disadvantages Advantages i. One objective of the emirates is to increase profits annually as well as increase the fleet. DSS is a fundamental system as it helps the company come up with a tactical decision suitable in increasing the profits annually despite challenges probably faced like crew insufficiency per flight. Low priced ticket to attract customers as well as determination of ticket prices and offering promotion in some seasons to attract more customers. ii. DSS helps the emirate company in coming up with the policy for optimal booking for a number of multiple-fare classes. iii. Time saving DSS does reduce time taken to make a decision; provision of information on time required to make a business decision and increased productivity of the employees. iv. Enhance effectiveness: with use of DSS, effectiveness on decision making has been improved as well as coming up with better and reliable decisions. v. Improved interpersonal communication: DSS improves collaboration and communication among decision makers. This is because managers in a company do have equal access to data so that they may come up with the best decision a fact which is motivating to the participants. vi. Promotes learning: use of “de facto” training tools installed in some DSS; offers learning materials for new employees. In addition, DSS helps managers understand the decision making environment and the business in a better way either during the initial DSS usage and or during ongoing utilization of DSS. vii. Increased organizational control: data obtained in DSS avails information for business transactions, for ad hoc querying and performance monitoring; such system helps the managers understand business operations management. viii. Competitive advantages: firms are able to come up with better decision on how to sale same product over their competitors employing models of DSS. ix. Cost reduction: DSS reduces the manpower saving on labor cost and also lowers on infrastructures investment x. Increased satisfaction among decision makers: use of DSS has been found to prevent frustration that comes with decision as the decision makers always feel they are satisfied by the DSS choices. Disadvantages i. Monetary cost: the DSS calls for information system investment to gather data from numerous sources and do the analyses so as to back up the decision to be made. In addition, some DSS analysis calls for advanced information systems, econometric, statistics and analysis which costs high in case a business has to hire a specialist to do the analysis. ii. Overemphasized on decision making: using DSS leads to over reliance without putting into consideration environmental, political and social factors that also affect the business flow. iii. Assumption of relevance: upon installing a computer system the manager will always assume that it will provide relevant information which can be a challenge if DSS is commonly used in any organization as it can be used inappropriately. iv. Transfer of power: some managers may think that DSS makes better decision compared to the human power and hence over rely on the DSS decision than those given by men. v. Information overloads: most DSS increase the amount of required information leading to information overload. vi. Status reduction: DSS is likely to reduce the level of managers and false them to carry out the clerical work. 3.0. Transaction Processing System 3.1. Description A transaction is an activity carried in a day-to-day running of a business such as reservation order, payments or deposit. TPS is one of the latest systems adapted by airline companies. TPS helps in analytical processing and transaction support on all new operational information received in the company. TPS includes event derivation, source concentration and ability to offer states or initial view to applications of operational data. In addition, TPS updates these views hand in hand with the received events. The emirates clerical staff record business activity such as crew registration, order of the customer, client’s payments or employee’s timecard; confirming an action such as printing schedule for customers, sending an appreciation message to the crew, employee’s paycheck generation or client receipt issuance; maintaining data in reference to removing unwanted data, changing existing data and adding new data. 3.2. Objective The main objective of TPS is to provide fast, accurate and reliable data to the company and client. This allows quick profit generation. 3.3. Speed TPS offers information in a very high speed following adaptation of online transaction processing system. 3.4. Quality TPS is of high quality as the information is actually accurate. In addition, it deals with processes which are well structured such as application of record keeping. All transactions system do pass ACID test (durability, isolation, consistency and atomicity) to ensure they are of the best quality. 3.5. Flexibility TPS can be run like a program such that it follows organizational routine functions. 3.6. Dependability The TPS information is highly relied upon by growing business to provide fast and accurate information as well as offer information required for other systems on regular basis such as DSS. 3.7. Cost Transaction processing systems have been adapted almost by all the businesses. Internet use has expanded this software and systems use. Consequently, both the purchase and implementation cost of TPS software has greatly dropped allowing its use in many business as they make profits. 3.8. Advantages and disadvantages Advantages i. TPS came in to replace the existed manual system. TPS allows quick data processing; in fact, it takes only a few second and the information is availed. ii. It improved customer service and reduced clerical manpower costs as a company does not need to employ many clerics to do the manual feeding of information. iii. It is also fair in that it process files in the sequence of how they were ordered such as ticket booking. iv. Using TPS ensures that all transactions performed are durable, isolated, consisted and atomic Disadvantages i. There is a likelihood of double booking ii. TPS is unable to use serial access media like magnetic tapes and only uses direct access files which may be prone to some errors. 4.0. Conclusion Information technology is a great milestone to the growing business. Reliance on the IT has made many organizations meet their objective efficiently and effectively. In addition, the genesis of internet has created solution to both customers and business operators. Communication has been made feasible, timely and less costly. Emirate Company located in Dubai has realized the significance of relying on information systems to achieve its main objective of making profit. Investing on Decision Support System and Transaction Processing System has been of much benefit to the company despite their shortcoming. Therefore, any organization that looks forward to remain competitive in the market should consider employing IT systems. 5.0. References Jessup, L., M & Valacich, J., S. (2008). Information Systems Today (3rd ed), Pearson Publishing. Laudon, J. & Laudon K.,C. (2007), Management Information Systems-Managing the Digital Firm, 9th Edition, Pearson, Prentice Hall Oleason V., Schwan, K., Eisenhauer, Gplalae et al., (2008), Information system-an example from airline industry-article-college of computing Georgia Institute of Technology. Power, D., (2006), “Can computerized decision support systems impact, eliminate, exploit or reduce cognitive biases in decision making?” DSS News, Vol. 6, No. 20 September 2005. Read More