IT Considerations

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IFSM-300 Stage 3

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IT Considerations

Development of new IT solution for the UMUC Haircuts business requires the developer to make various considerations. There must be assessment made by the specialists for checking the importance of the technology then ranking them in an appropriate manner. In designing the new system, steps must be taken to deal with any arising issues in all technical areas. The various considerations which must be taken into account include usability, maintainability, scalability, reliability, security, portability among others will be discussed in greater depths in the table below while ranking them and explaining their importance.

Consideration High/Medium/Low Importance or Relevance or Not Applicable (N/A) Explanation for the ranking

Usability High The system must be designed in a manner to ensure simplicity so that its usage is easy. It must be efficient and effective in order to meet the specified goals and satisfy the user. Also, for the system to be useful to the customer, it must be having a graphical user interface which is friendly to the user.

Maintainability High For the system to be useful for a long period of time, its ability to be maintained should be very good. The process of maintain the system should be easy and its repair and debugging should be easy. The time taken to repair the system should be short in case of a breakdown. The system should also allow for routine maintenance and improvement.

Scalability Low importance The number of devices connected to this system is not an important feature to consider. However, the UMUC Haircuts system should be able to adapt to changes in the number of device connected. Although the system of UMUC Haircuts should be able to adapt to a change in the number of devices connected, this is not a significant feature for the system since the system’s use does not involve the connection of many different devices. It is useful to maintain the customer database, scheduling of customers and employees and keeping inventories which help in making orders of products to use in the salon. There is a network connection which is required to research on the suppliers who offer the lowest prices for the products. The system should however allow for expansion when new branches of the salon are opened in new location.

Reliability/ Availability High This system should be highly reliable for it to support all the planned processes during execution. This system should be available always and it should be reliable. The system must maintain accuracy in the process keeping inventories and also in the scheduling of both the customers and workers. The system should be always accessible to the users when on demand.

Extensibility High Addition of new functionalities when need arises should be an easy task. This is because UMUC Haircuts is a growing business and new services can be developed at any given time. During the expansion of the salon, new services and processes will be introduces and this will involve the alteration of the system to accommodate them. The system must be able to allow new functionalities for the development of the salon

Portability High The system should be highly portable so as to allow for the compatibility with different operating systems or platforms. This is because technology is very dynamic nowadays and the system should be able to respond to the changes. The system should be able to run on different hardware and operating systems so as to cope with any change in the platform which may arise.

Security High Security is one of the basic considerations to be made when developing any system. All systems must be secure to prevent unauthorized individuals from accessing it. Issues might arise due to attacks. In UMUC Haircuts’ system, a database of the customers is kept and it should be secure to ensure that no unauthorized individuals gain access to it because this is the heart of the business. Also, if the contacts or any information of the customers land in the hands of any unauthorized person, it may lead to legal battles between the customer and the business. There must be a control of access of the resources of the system from third parties.

Information quality Medium This describes the quality of the content provided by the system. The system should provide reliable information for the comparison of products’ prices and suppliers who are effective and more efficient in delivery.

The information provided by the system should be accurate and consistent with the expectations of the user.

Authentication High Correct verification of the identity of the user wishing to access the information in the system is very important. This can be termed as the key to the system. It should be accurate so that only the authorized people can gain access to the system. This is important in ensuring that any person who changes the information in the database can be held responsible for their action.

Business continuity plan High The system should be able to allow for the continuity of the business in the future. The system should be robust and easy to adapt to changing business environment. The system should be resilient and able to allow the business to continue in the event of adverse conditions. There is a cycle of steps which are important for the business. They include analysis, solution design, implementation, testing and acceptance and maintenance.

Cloud computing Medium The system should allow for cloud computing as it is one of the most important technologies today. It is important for the system to allow for the storage of data in a network server and not a local storage. This will be important because in case the system develops some problems, the information is very secure.

Enterprise Systems (ERP, CRM, SCM) High This is the primary functionality of the system. It must be able to carry out the different allocations of staff, scheduling of both staff and customers, management of supply chain among other functionalities. It should perform well to satisfy the customers.

Communication High In UMUC Haircuts’ system, there should be a provision for the transfer of data to different people. This will allow for the communication between the employees and the customers and the manager.

Database, data warehousing, data mining High The system should allow for keeping the data of customers. Also it should allow for data warehousing. The data should be stored in a way that is secure, easily retrievable, and easy to manage. The process of storing information should be easy.

Business intelligence High The tools of this system should be useful in strategic planning of UMUC Haircuts. It should aid in decision making and is very useful in customer profiling, market research, and customer support and market segmentation.

Transaction processing High The system should be very efficient to allow for quick transaction processing which will help to quickly serve the customers in a more effective way.

Decision support High The business system should support the decision making activities in the salon. This will allow for the quick decision making in the business.

Executive information High The system should have executive information which provides the managers with the information they require in order to help in decision making process.

Business –to- Business ecommerce Medium Online transactions between the salon and its suppliers are very important. UMUC Haircuts should be in a position to make online purchases in an efficient manner.

Business –to-Consumer ecommerce N/A The services offered in UMUC Haircuts must be carried out in the premises. The business has no services which can be offered online or through the network.

References

Becker, J., Kugeler, M., & Rosemann, M. (Eds.). (2013). Process management: a guide for the design of business processes. Springer Science & Business Media.

Jeston, J., & Nelis, J. (2014). Business process management. Routledge.

Teece, D. J. (2010). Business models, business strategy and innovation. Long range planning, 43(2), 172-194.

Van Der Aalst, W. M., Ter Hofstede, A. H., & Weske, M. (2003). Business process management: A survey. In Business process management (pp. 1-12). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.