Revision -06 Sample Question paper

1. Revision -06 Sample Question paper Important Structure to keep in mind.. This is the new syllabus

2. QUESTION 1a) 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; • What is the name of the company? • What is the business of the company?(manufacturing, marketing, software development) • 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. • What are the proposed initiatives/applications/solutions/I.T systems/ I.S systems/proposals e.t.c • Is there any issues related to the new initiatives mentioned.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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; • At homes of engineers • Central depot • 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.

11. 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; • Human relations culture • Internal process culture • Open systems culture • Rational goal culture ( now, draw the diagram as we have seen before;Cooper and Quinn model)

12. Organisational Effect of IS Technology Capabilities Organisational Capabilities O T Culture Skills Systems Values Agendas Infrastructure Technology Functions Applications P Job Content Processes New Applications Organisational Relationships

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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)

18. 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.

19. 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 & Services (outputs) Customer Service Applications Record Keeping MIS and Performance

20. 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.

21. 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)

22. 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…

23. 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