Revision -06
Sample Question paper
Important Structure to keep in mind..
This is the new syllabus
QUESTION 1
a) Some broad issues arising from proposals have already been
identified by WeFix Senior Management. For EACH of the FOUR
proposals, critically examine TWO of these issues that have a
bearing on the likelihood of success and identify what needs to be
done in EACH case.
Marks 32
Instruction
What ever be the case study, please kindly take your pencil in your
hand, and the rough paper( the white paper that SIBME gives) and
analyse the case study as I explained below;
1. What is the name of the company?
2. What is the business of the company?(manufacturing, marketing,
software development)
3. What is the current situation of the company?( increasing cost, new
competitor, staff redundancies( too many staff or departments to do
a job), rising complaints from the customers, company merging, or
different departments are located in different parts e.t.c.
4. What are the proposed initiatives/applications/solutions/I.T systems/
I.S systems/proposals e.t.c
5. Is there any issues related to the new initiatives mentioned.
WeFix Corporation is a large company, which is dealing the
maintenance and service of domestic and industrial equipments.
The company is running smoother, however the staff and departmental
redundancies are higher in the company.(staff resignation, layoff ). This
prompted(made), the company to consider few proposals to improve the
situation.
There are four main proposals as mentioned;( please write the
proposals here.
However, each four having issues related to success, because of
the organisation culture, people, values and technologies.
(please draw the TOP diagram here)
Proposal - Call centre location (where should it be?)
This proposal crates the issue related the resources of the organisation.
Mainly that of human resource, here the organisation should think
about locating the call centre where they can access quality human
resource. The better the location the better will be the quality of the
staff. If the staff do not accept the location, it will affect the quality of
the company.
What to do – company should select a location with better coverage or
availability of resource. For example, company should keep main
managers and professionals, so there should be incentives and
motivation for the staff to move or stay according to the new proposal.
For example, the engineers will not be facing big problems due to the
new work practice. It would help them to work from home.
Staff redundancy raising – redundancies will happen due to two
reasons;
Because of the new call centre location and the multi-skilling of the staff.
Due to the new location there will higher redundacies. This is
because of the new location.
Another issue for redundancy is the multi-skilling of the engineering
staff.
What to do – here company should provide motivation, training and
support to solve the issues.
Company should provide financial incentives for the staff as a
motivation. The staff should be supported with training to adapt to the
new work practices.
Staff should be provided with the new vision or strategies of the
company, so that the staff can understand the goals clearly.
Recruitment and training of existing and new call centre staff Company should recruit new staff and make sure giving training
and support to the new and existing staff on the new work
practices or procedures.
What to do – there should be proper plans about the arrangement
of centralised call centers. Company should have a clear plan
about the training and support.
Training call centre staff on new system – the company should
provide training and support for the new and existing staff.
There will be efficiency and performance problems if failed to
do so.
There should be clear training plan about the vision, new
procedures, and work practices. Company should consider HCI
principles while designing the new system. Company should
make sure that the new systems are taking both human and
technological factors into considerations. Company should be
aware about the TAM principles; ease of use of the new system
and usefulness of the system. Interface design also to be
considered at this stage.
Data migration – this is another issue that the company may face.
Here the basic problem is in re-arranging the data from different
systems into one system.
What to do – company should have a clear policy, again proper change
management is essential at this stage. Managing stakeholders too
important while dealing with the strategies and policies. The new
procedures should be clear and relevant. It is also important to have
good communication between different departments to co-ordinate
the data migration.
Management of call centre and management structures – another issue
is to manage the call centre staff, engineers, supporting staff.
What to do - this is related to the power balance or structure of the
organisation. For example according to the new system the
engineers will be home based, where the control over engineers will
be less. Again, the engineers will be multi-skilled which will improve
the individual performance and the efficiency. Call centre staff will
have to be skilled to deal with different customers and co-ordinate
with the engineers. Again, there should be training and support to use
the new systems, data to performance the job efficiently.
Training of service engineers – according to the new systems the
engineers will have to be multi-skilled. They have to enhance their
knowledge and increase the potential of doing more than one job.
What to do – there should be proper training according to the new
systems. Proper knowledge management system will help the
engineers to access relevant and useful information.
New technologies for service engineers - in the new system the
engineers are going to be home based. Here the
communication and availability of new technologies are very
important for the performance.
What to do - now the engineers are going to be home based so
we have to consider providing them with Mobile support and
communication technologies to accept and coordinate with the
call center staff. It is also necessary to have the technologies
that would allow the engineers to use the information about the
customer product et.c. for example Knowledge Management
systems. Provision of lap top with intranet facility would help
the co-ordination between the call centre staff and the
engineers. It is also helpful to have systems such as GPS
which would help the call centre staff to identify the location of
the engineers.
Knowledge management – this is going to be another problem in the
organisation with the new developments. here problems are about the
sharing of knowledge, use of knowledge e.t.c. The culture of people
and values will be a great issue while sharing the expertise and
knowledge.
What to do – there should be proper training, motivation for the
staff to change according to the new system. Staff should be
provided with motivation to adopt to the new practice. There
can be financial motivation for the staff to accept the new
system. Again, it is important to have the information regarding
the benefits of the new system properly communicated.
Management and control of engineers – the new systems giving
flexibility for the engineers. For example the engineers will
become home based. Again, the new system needs the
engineers to be multi-skilled. For example the engineers will
have to be trained, so here staff resistance can be a problem.
What to do – there should be monitoring systems such as GPS
and intranet to control the engineers.
• Motivations of engineers – this is the next issue the company
may face. The new work practice will change the working
practice of the engineers. The engineers will become home
based and it may affect the social relationships of the
engineers.
• What to do – there should be communication systems to
enhance the relationship between the engineers, and call
centre. There should be timely activities as team so that the
social relationship wont be missing.
Location of spare parts – this is going to be another concern in the
organisation. According to the new work practice the organisation will
have to decide if the spare parts for the service and maintenance should
be kept at the homes of engineers or at central depots.
What to do – here three options can be considered;
1. At homes of engineers
2. Central depot
3. In vehicles
Here decision should be made according to the logistical complexities.
In all these cases we have seen issues and methods to success. Again
we will have to consider the HCI principles, TAM and Interface
design concepts to analyse the acceptance of technology by users.
In all above mentioned situations we will have to think about the
cultural problems, personal attitude problems, technological
problems e.t.c.
Again, it is important to have proper change management and clear
policies and targets so that the new procedures and process will be
effective. It is also important to facilitate training, support and
incentives to motivate the staff.
Critically discuss the main People, Technology and
Organisational factors that need to be considered in relation to
the proposals detailed above.
In the case study we analyse the proposals and related issues at WeFix
company. In all proposals we are able to identify three important
factors such as People, Technology and Organisations.
( now use the diagram)
When analysing the factors related to the people in the organisation, we
will have to understand the values of people, personal agendas and
interests. The people in the organisation will accept or reject any
technology according to the cultural values. All the organisations will
have different cultures as mentioned below;
1. Human relations culture
2. Internal process culture
3. Open systems culture
4. Rational goal culture
( now, draw the diagram as we have seen before;Cooper and Quinn
model)
Organisational Effect of IS
Technology
Capabilities
Infrastructure
Technology
Functions
Applications
O
T
Organisational
Capabilities
Culture
Skills
Systems
Values
Agendas
P
Job Content
Processes
New Applications
Organisational Relationships
For example, in the given case study we see the new systems
and procedures such as integrating different departments into
one with call centre, engineers becoming home based, sharing
of knowledge and experience and customer details, and making
a data base et.c.
In all these initiatives we find elements of culture, values.
People accept technology according to personal values and
interests. If the technology empowers the staff, they would
accept it. But, if technology minimising the power they would
resist such change.
Here training, motivation becomes important for the organisation
to deal with the issues. The benefits of the new systems and
procedures must be clearly communicated with the staff.
Another area to look into is about the organisation itself, here we
may see the issues related to the power and structure. The
new proposals such as knowledge base systems, central call
centre, multi-skilling of the engineering staff will have issues in
the organisation.
Here acceptance will decide the culture, power and interests of
people in the organisation.
Technological factors too will become important as K.M,
CRM, and related technologies are introduced.
Organisation should consider about the HCI, TAM,
Interface Design principles here. ( please xplain three of
them here)
Another issue is related to the changes in the work
practices. The engineers in the company will have home
based pattern of work. This will create social relationship
problems between the employees and monitoring
problems for the management.
Finally, stakeholders management too become important.
Different stakeholders are having different interests,
power so it is a must to identify and influence them for
the better results.
People, procedures and the way in which they are organised provide the
organisational context for information systems. Consider proposals 2
and 4 and consider how the contexts within the company will change if
these proposals are carried out.
The organisation or the arrangement of people and procedures
in an organisation is providing the context for information
systems. For example the centralised call centre will make the
organisation a centralised decision making unit. Again the new
work practice of engineers; home based will have impact too.
In this case mobile, monitoring and knowledge sharing
information technologies are important for the organisation to
make sure the efficiency and performance.
In the given case study proposal 2 is to have a centre call centre
with CRM, where customer details, product details and fault
information is stored. To implement this proposal organisation
should think about the location for the centre call centre.
Which would affect the staff of the call centre.
Again, the new information system; K.M will also have impact on
people. For example sharing information, communication will
become important in performance.
Here we have to consider the culture of the organisation, politics
in the organisation and difference in vales.
People accept the technology that support their power nd reject
the one that reduces their power. Again, people will accept any
technology that improves their performance.
The proposal 4 is engineers becoming home based. Here a
major change happens in the arrangement of resources, when
engineers becoming home based, the proposal may be
acceptable for the engineers. Still multi-skilling becomes an
issue. Here culture and personal agendas will become
relevant.
Organisation should consider financial motivations for the staff to
adopt the change. Again, communication and social
relationship between employees also will become important.
Please draw the diagram page 18 of the text book
Discuss how new and evolving information technology is changing
the nature and content of work within WeFix. Using examples,
from the examination case study or elsewhere, illustrate
THREE areas where you think the changes are particularly
important.
( we have seen the same before, please refer to 2011 December,
September models for reference)
Main points
Engineers use of laptop databases, (ii)Knowledge management
by Technical support Engineers in the call centres, (iii) Call
Management software and/o rCRM used by Call Centre
Staff...(iv) Use of software for management of 'virtual' and
mobile workers... or others, possibly that students introduce
(GPS applications to track Engineers for example)
b)
Until now, customers have been used to calling specialist
companies for their maintenance needs. In what ways can
WeFix use evolving technologies to develop their customer
relationships?
( this answer is directly linked to NCC slide 10, so you can get
more ideas from there)
We Fix company was having different specialist departments or
units for different service and maintainance requirements. The
new arrangement is about introducing new technologies to
serve the customer better.
According to the proposal we have seen new technologies such
as;
CRM linked software package
Knowledge management system for the operation
Web based or internet customer management
These new technologies are aimed at providing better customer
service.
Evolving technologies will help organisations in sales, marketing,
operation, record keeping, monitoring e.t.c.
It will help the customers to get better customer service,
satisfaction, cost and flexibility and saves the time of the
customer. ( please refer page 172, 173 of the text book)
Part of CRM
Products
Customer
& Services
Service
(outputs)
Applications
Record Keeping
MIS and Performance
The new web-based customer management will allow the customers to
manage the service calls online. For example arrangements for
maintenance, service can be done online. Any cancellations also can be
done in the same way. This will improve the customer satisfaction,
because it is giving maximum flexibility to the customer.
According to the new CRM linked software customer details are stored,
product details such as fault history is kept, it would allow the
company to give better service.
Web-based customer management would save the customer’s time and
cost by connecting to the CRM software directly .
The product information related to the CRM will help the customers to
have product details and fault information related to the systems,
which will help them to identify the spare parts required and order in
advance.
Customer transactions payment, billing will become online, it will
increase the customer satisfaction.
Since CRM software is enabled with a data base the customer
satisfaction can be monitored and thereby increase customer service.
Now go to the text book page 50, 51 please draw the diagram on
page 51 and explain shortly.
• Cooper(1994) and Quinn (2003) associated particular organisational
cultural types with the type of information system that were likely to
be used most effectively. Consider EACH of organisational cultural
type and illustrate their relevance to aspects of WeFix's evolving
business.
The proposals will still result in a strong emphasis in this area, but with
movements towards both the 'Human Relations' type (multi skilling,
knowledge management) and the 'Rational Goal' types(use of
information systems for control and monitoring and interaction with
customers).
In what ways are I.T. implementations within organisations changing,
and how does this affect the way such implementations are
managed. Illustrate your discussion with examples taken from the
examination case.(we have seen the same for more than 4 Past
papers please answer this)
Critique the multi-skilling proposals. In what way are they
beneficial and in what way problematic? How can problems be
overcome?
Refer to slide 8
Main points
Multi skilling improve the quality of the job. For example when
engineers We Fix able to do multiple jobs, it will crease their
skills and knowledge.
Multi-skilling will create a sense of completeness among the staff.
For example the engineers will feel the job satisfying.
Multi- skilling will avoid boredom towards the job. For example
repetitive jobs for engineers will be boring, where multi-skilling
gives the opportunity for doing different jobs.
Multi-skilling will increase the flexibility of the staff.
Problems – cultural problems, problems in training and support,
problems in learning something new, time wasting in teaching
something new, danger of staff redundancies…
Critically discuss why automation of information provision is key to providing
customer service in the modern world.
The changes of working practices due to the technology.
Start with e-Business, CRM, e-Commerce and explain the payment,
contracting, scheduling all going online or technology based in modern
world.
It is changing the procedures/processes and working practices.
Another point to explain is organisational issues with new technology ;
Change of working practices
Change in organisational structure
Change in the job role and content
Negatives
Social problems
Too much of flexibility can lead to misuse
Server problems can affect the reputation of the organisation
Cost issues
User acceptance problems
Training requirements