IT Management Assignment: Implementation of Online Sales Management System At Globex Corporation

Question

Task: Write a business report on IT management assignment based on the following:
A new business, Globex Corporation has been created as the result of merging two large regional business, Riverina Precision Farming, and B T & Sons Farming Equipment. Globex Corp is primarily located in the Riverina Region of NSW and has three locations, Albury, Griffith and WaggaWagga. Within Globex there are two arms to the business (Precision Farming & Farming Equipment), each of which is represented at each location.
The Globex Farming Equipment head office is located in WaggaWagga, while the Globex Precision Farming head office is located in Griffith. Parts and Services for both arms as well as administration support are coordinated from the Albury office.
Globex Corporation strives to supply agricultural solutions that achieve the following objectives:
Fulfill unmet market needs
Exceed the standards for quality, effectiveness and value of its competitors

Delivered on time
Supported with expert technical service and advice
Environmentally responsible and beneficial
Senior management has finalised on the following decisions:

1. Globex will retain all existing staff, stock and infrastructure from the merged businesses. B T & Sons aging systems are to be merged into the Riverina Precision Farming systems.
2. Globex have decided to invest in the development of an Online Sales Management System (OSMS), replacing all manual processes, allowing clients to order and pay for equipment online.
3. You are required to provide any two suitable business processes or solutions that could be employed to enhance this model. You should substantiate this process or solution with relevant references to literature.
4. Suggest how social media could play a role in promoting the OSMS to customers - giving suitable approaches from literature. Write a business report outlining the above case, stating assumptions you make at the beginning of your report. Provide critique into the management decisions substantiating with reference to literature. In your report, make the difference between Information Systems (IS) and Information Technology (IT) issues and how it will affect customer choice, continued patronage, brand loyalty, and so on.

Answer

Executive Summary
The IT management assignment report has been written for Globex Corporation that is looking to implement an online sales management system. There are additional business processes that will be needed to make sure that the system is successfully implemented. The details of inventory management and customer relationship management are included as the two business processes. Social media will be an important aspect and its role is explained in the report. There are some of the additional recommendations that are provided and shall be followed by Globex Corp. These include the focus and maintenance on information security and privacy. The trainings to the employees shall also be provided to make sure that the resistance to the changes is avoided. The proper and detailed plans must be developed and implemented.

Introduction
Globex Corporation is an organization that has been formed with the merger of Riverina Precision Farming and BT & Sons Farming Equipment. The company currently has two major divisions as precision farming and farming equipment. The headquarters of the former is in Griffith and the latter has its headquarters in WaggaWagga. One of the offices has been established in Albury as well. The organization combines technology with agriculture to ensure that the enhanced farming and agricultural solutions can be provided (Djatmiko et al., 2018).

The merger of the two organizations has resulted in the development of Globex Corp. It is necessary that the changes that occur with the merger are properly handled. It is also required that the replacement of the manual processes is done with the automated systems. There will be significant use of technology that will be required to implement all of the modifications successfully. Online Sales Management Systems

The decisions that have been taken by the senior management at Globex Corp will be implemented with an adequate e-commerce system in place. These systems will require the adequate combination of information technology and the information systems. The technology aspect will make sure that the management of the data associated with Globex Corp is effectively handled. The systems aspect will combine the technology with the business flow, logic, and the end-users.

The e-commerce system will be essential to be established by Globex Corp and it is assumed that there will not be any major technical issues and errors that would arise in the process. The e-commerce system will be required to have the effective combination of the functional and the non-functional aspects (Kuruzovich, 2015). On the functional side, it must be ensured that the details of the agricultural solutions and services provided by Globex Corp can be viewed on the system. The customers shall be able to make bookings for the discussions and recommendations and shall also be able to place the respective orders using the system. The invoicing and payment gateways shall be synced as well. The tracking of the sales details, sales reports extraction, customer feedback, etc. will be the other functions that shall be included.

The non-functional aspects shall also be focussed upon and it shall include the aspects on the non-stop availability of the system to the end-users, enhanced reliability of the system and its data, security of the information and the data sets and the overall quality of the system.

The will be some of the business processes and technological aspects that will be required to be considered while implementing the online sales management system for Globex Corp.

Business Processes & Solutions
Inventory Management
The model that has been included involves the conversion of the manual processes with the automated counterparts. To ensure that all of the business flows are automated and effectively implemented, there will be a few business processes that will be extremely significant and the implementation of the automated systems for such processes will be essential. One of these will be the inventory management system (Mirzazadeh&Mohammadzadeh, 2018).

Globex Corp is the organization that aims to provide the enhanced agricultural solutions to the customers. It will only be possible when the inventory management is effectively done. The use and implementation of the automated inventory management system will automatically streamline the supply chains, distribution, and the sales. There is a lot of data that is currently associated with the existing supply chains. There have been instances wherein some of these data sets have been misplaced or replicated. The use of the automated inventory management system will effectively map the data associated with each of these supply chains. There will also be market analysis that will be made to control and regulate the demand and supply as per the market conditions. The warehouse operations and the transportation procedures will also be regulated accordingly.

As a result, the implementation of the inventory management system will make sure that all of the operations associated with the inbound and outbound logistics and supply chains associated with Globex Corp are effectively handled(May et al., 2017). With the streamlining of all of these processes, there will be positive impacts on the sales. This is because the customers will be provided with the expected set of products and services with the timely delivery of the same. The customer trust on Globex Corp will significantly improve. There will also be improvements that will be witnessed in the reputation of Globex Corp in the market.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
The customers that are associated with Globex Corp are extremely important for the organization. The recent merger of the two organizations may lead to loss of customer engagement if the quality of the products and services is not maintained by Globex Corp.

In order to ensure the same, it will be necessary that the use of customer relationship management system is done. The automated system will keep a track of all the customer relations and the business plans will also be based on the customer information. The customer oriented and data-driven decisions will allow Globex Corp to meet the specific customer requirements (Nihalani, 2019). The customer data will include the details of the purchase made by the customers, specific queries raised by the customer, business provided by the customers to the organization, and likewise. The combination of all of these data sets will be massive and the manual handling of such data will not be possible. The CRM system will make use of the databases to store the information and the application of the automated analytical tools will be done to analyse the data sets. The analysis of the data will provide the details of numerous trends and patterns. For instance, a particular agricultural solution provided by Globex Corp may have varied response in the market. The consumer analytics will provide the details of the factors leading to the higher demands of the product. It will also provide the information on the customers interested in the product and the associated factors with the customers (Elfarmawi, 2019).

It would be necessary for Globex Corp to identify the target markets and carry out the customer segmentation of the basis of the same. The use of the CRM system with the business analytics capabilities will assist in carrying out all of these procedures and operations for Globex Corp. It will result in the effective management of the information. Also, it will be possible for Globex Corp to enhance and streamline its sales procedures. The customer demands and expectations will be met as per the results of the datasets analysed.

Role of Social Media
Social media will have a major role to play in the promotion of the online sales management system among the customers of Globex Corp. The online sales management system is being implemented in Globex Corp as first of such systems being used. The existing customers of the organization will not be aware of the possible benefits that they may experience with the incorporation of such a system. It will be necessary that there are proper communications carried out to ensure that the customers have the information on the benefits that OSMS will provide (Carter, 2015). There are different forms of networking and communication that are now possible. One of the easiest out of all is the social media. Also, the customer reachability with the social media platforms will be considerably high.

There will be two aspects associated with the use of social media by Globex Corp for the promotion of OSMS. The first will be for the customers that are already associated with the organization. Globex Corp has been formed with the merger of two organizations. As a result, the organization has a decent customer base. The use of social media will be done to share the information about the implementation of OSMS in the company. There are posts that can be shared across the social media channels informing the existing customers about the benefits that can be achieved (Beier& Wagner, 2014). There are Live sessions that Globex Corp can plan and conduct on the social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram. These live sessions will allow the organization to connect with the customers in real-time and the specific queries will also be answered and resolved in the real-time. This will lead to the enhancement of the customer interest in OSMS and will add to the popularity of the system among the customers. The daily posts and updates shall be shared in the form of videos and textual content informing the customers on the benefits, changes, and the outcomes.

The second aspect is associated with the engagement of the new and potential customers using the social media. Technology is one of the effective tools and the customers in the present times are usually interested in the organizations that have technological edge. The implementation of OSMS is one step forward towards the technology. The marketing and promotions can be conducted using the social media channels to attract the new customers. The customer-oriented benefits shall be showcased so that the new customers explore the options provided to them.

There is a lot of competition in the agriculture and farming sector. All of the companies wish to stay ahead of the competitors and there are different techniques that are adopted for this purpose. Social media will allow Globex Corp in keeping a track of the measures and steps taken by the competitors. This will enable them to make the necessary changes in the implementation strategy of OSMS. The communications conducted with the customers and the stakeholders will also be developed and modified as per the results. The use of social media will allow the development of interests of the customers for OSMS and will also make sure that the organization gains competitive edge with such changes.

The use of the social media data posted by the customers, potential customers, and the competitors can also be used by Globex Corp to conduct data analytics. There is predictive analytics that can be done using the data to understand the future consumer trends and patterns. The business insights can also be easily obtained with analysis of the data sets. The implementation of OSMS will be considered successful only when all the associated stakeholders with Globex Corp are satisfied with the implementation of the system (Haller et al., 2019). Social media will have a huge role to ensure the same. Also, the tracking of the information will be made easy with the use of the social media. The real-time customer interactions will be useful in ensuring that the interest and engagement does not drop at any instance.

Conclusion
In the case of a major or minor change in the business organization, it is extremely necessary that the use of effective plans and strategies is done to manage the changes. The Globex Corp has decided to implement the online sales management system and the move will bring in a lot many changes for the organization and its stakeholders. There are steps that will be essential to make sure that the implementation is successful and the changes are properly managed. The use of some of the business processes shall be done so that the use of automated procedures is effectively done. Two business processes that are currently manual and must be replaced with the automated systems are inventory management and customer relationship management. Apart from these business processes, it will also be necessary that the customers are continually informed about the changes and the advancements being done. The use of social media can be one of the effective tools that may be used to interact with the customers. The real-time communications will make sure that the customer interest is maintained. Also, the insight to the customer requirements and expectations will be obtained with social media analytics.

Recommendations
There are a few additional requirements that are provided to ensure that OSMS is successfully implemented and used by Globex Corp. • The transition from the manual to the automated systems usually bring along numerous information security and privacy concerns. With the occurrence of such issues, the chances of successful transition reduce. The use of automated security controls with regular information security reviews and technical inspections shall be done.

• The existing employees of the organization may be resistant with the implementation of the changes. It is recommended that the existing employees are provided with the adequate information on the benefits that they will achieve with the transition of the manual processes with the automated counterparts. It shall be ensured that the use of trainings on the aspects of quality and security is done all throughout.
• Planning is an essential aspect that must always be followed from the very beginning. The plans around schedule, risks, costs, and resources along with communications and stakeholders shall be developed in advance and in proper detail. The plans shall also be developed in the area of marketing and promotion. Apart from social media, there are several other marketing channels that are available. The use of these channels, allotment of the roles, scheduling of the activities, etc. shall be done well in advance so that all of the processes are streamlined.

References
Beier, M., & Wagner, K. (2014). Individual and Corporate Decisions to Adopt Social Media: Perception of Risks and Benefits in Small Firms. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2384900 Carter, J. (2015). Who’s Trending in Agriculture? A Look at Social Media.Natural Sciences Education, 42(1), 33. https://doi.org/10.4195/nse.2013.0003se

Djatmiko, M. B., Husain, A., Maulani, G., &Nirmalasari, L. (2018). Analyze and Record a Series of Corporate Sales Transactions On Web Based Accounting Online System. Aptisi Transactions on Management (ATM), 1(2), 103–115. https://doi.org/10.33050/atm.v1i2.691 Elfarmawi, W. (2019). Correlation Between Customer Relationship Management System Usage, Product Innovation, And Customer Satisfaction. Foundations of Management, 11(1), 23–32. https://doi.org/10.2478/fman-2019-0002

Haller, L., Specht, A. R., & Buck, E. B. (2019).Exploring the Impact of Ohio Agricultural Organizations’ Social Media Use on Traditional Media Coverage of Agriculture.Journal of Applied Communications, 103(4). https://doi.org/10.4148/1051-0834.2264

Kuruzovich, J. (2015). Sales Technologies, Sales Force Management, and Online Infomediaries.Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 33(2), 211–224. https://doi.org/10.2753/pss0885-3134330205

May, B. I., Atkinson, M. P., &Ferrer, G. (2017).Applying inventory classification to a large inventory management system.IT management assignmentJournal of Operations and Supply Chain Management, 10(1), 68. https://doi.org/10.12660/joscmv10n1p68-86

Mirzazadeh, A., &Mohammadzadeh, M. (2018). A production-inventory model in vendor managed inventory system with deteriorating items and pricing in fuzzy environment. International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 29(3), 296.https://doi.org/10.1504/ijlsm.2018.10010412

Nihalani, M. (2019).Customer Relationship Management CRM.SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3484330