Importance of Generic Strategies and Strategic Information System

Discuss about the Strategic Information System for Star Box.

The generic strategies are extremely important for any organization as they are utilized by the organization to obtain the competitive advantages or benefits. The generic strategies are obtained and made with the help of an information system, known as the strategic information system or SIS (Laudon and Laudon 2016). The business model of any organization is responsible to create, deliver as well as deliver the respective values in various contexts like economy, social and cultural. Strategic information system helps the organization in describing the business model eventually and thus successfully forming the business strategies. The competitiveness of the organizational business model is enhanced with this strategic information system and thus several organizations have acquired this particular type of information system for their business with the sole purpose of gaining success and strategic benefits (Arvidsson, Holmström and Lyytinen 2014). Moreover, the importance of IT or information technology is checked with this strategic information system.

The subsequent literature review will be outlining a brief discussion on the strategic information system as well as accounting information system for a selected organization of Australia. In this case, the selected organization is Star Box. The literature review would be providing the organizational structure, several problems in operations and many others for Star Box. This particular Australian organization also comprises of various extraordinary strategies. All the strategies will be well defined here. Apart from these, the most likely system acquisition method and control problems of Star Box will also be given here. the final part of the literature review deals with the suitable and effective accounting information system for the organization.

Star Box Limited is the best company for any type of wooden box as well as packaging industries. This particular company began its journey in the year 1952 and for all these years, they are claimed to the best organization for packaging or wooden boxes (Starbox.co.nz. 2018). Currently, this organization, i.e. Star Box is one of the major and important organizations for manufacturing wine boxes, cable reels, wooden presentations, pallets and cases in the entire New Zealand as well as Australia. Furthermore, this specific organization produces boxes or crates for the purposes of shipping or display.

During the early years of this organization of Star Box, they started with the manufacture of crates and boxes for only those industries that dealt with military and soft drinks. Today, they are even manufacturing the presentation boxes or bed frames. There are six major kinds of goods or products, which are being manufactured by this organization (Starbox.co.nz. 2018). These six kinds of products are gift boxes, cases and pallets, cable reels, display stands and wine boxes. They are extremely popular amongst their customers, since, they always use materials of the best quality. They use these materials for the products they are delivering. The competitors of this organization are far behind than this organization in respect to the competitive advantages, product quality and excellent services.

Introduction to Star Box

The typical hierarchical arrangement of the communications, duties, rights and responsibilities of any specific organization is known as organizational structure. This type of structure defines the procedure of roles and powers that are eventually assigned to the employees or parts of the organization (Boonstra 2013). The information flows from the various hierarchies of the organizational structure through the three management levels. This type of structure mainly is dependent on the organizational strategies or objectives and the type of organization.

The above provided graph demonstrates the various significant or vital levels of management, which are the top level, middle level and lower level management. The board of directors or the shareholders are the parts of the top level management (Galliers and Leidner 2014). This top level management is responsible for taking all types of decisions. The organizational structure of Star Box is completely centralized and thus the rest of the management levels have to follow the instructions of the top level management. The middle level management comprises of the production departments, technical department, human resources department, financial department and marketing department. The middle level management gets instructions from the top level and they complete their work accordingly (Wu et al. 2013). The final level is the lower level management, which gets orders from the middle level management. Several staff members are present in the lower level and all of them help to fulfil the organizational goals and objectives.

In spite of having various important and significant advantages, Star Box does comprise of some of the most significant operational problems within their systems (Pearlson, Saunders and Galletta 2016). These operational problems are required to be mitigated as soon as possible; else they would be in a major problematic situation. The various operational problems of Star Box are given below:

1. i) The very first problem with the operation of Star Box is that as they are responsible for providing excellent quality materials for the clients, the price of these specific products and services are immensely higher than the rest of the organizations providing similar products and services (Li 2013). Due to the high price, many new customers do not want to buy products and the existing customers do not wish to continue their tenure with their organization of Star Box.
2. ii) The second operational problem of Star Box is that they do not comprise of risks management skills. This lack of risk management becomes major problem for them as they do not know how to manage their risks.

The degrading market shares are the third operational problem within Star Box. They are not being able to continue their top position with the present share market (Whittington 2014). The competitors are slowly acquiring the entire market.

1. iv) The fourth operational problem with Star Box is the erroneous strategies. These erroneous strategies were extremely dangerous for the organization as they have only brought problems for them.
2. v) The fifth operational problem of this particular organization is that they are not advanced with technology. The strategies they have undertaken within their system are not up to the mark for the changes in technologies. In today’s world, each and every organization should be extremely upgraded with their technologies for being successful (Willcocks 2013). This is another reason for their downfall in shares. The systems should be eventually upgraded regularly to be advanced with the technological world.
3. vi) The next significant operational problem includes the changes that are occurring in the market trends. This type of change is not easily acceptable by the organization as they are not being able to cope up with the changes. Due to this constant changing, the organization is facing major problems.

The conflicts amongst the three levels of management are another vital problem within the organization of Star Box (Bernus, Mertins and Schmidt 2013). This type of conflicts should be checked and mitigated as soon as possible. If these conflicts will not be resolved, the organization might be facing serious issues in future.

The graph given above has shown the sharp degradation of the shares within the organization of Star Box. During the year 2010, their shares were more than 30% of the total shares. However, during 2012, this share percentage has degraded to 5%, which is extremely harmful for the company (Altameem, Aldrees and Alsaeed 2014). The shareholders as well as the shareholders of Star Box are in grave danger due to this.

Organizational Structure of Star Box

An organizational strategy of any specific organization refers to the summation of the activities that the organization has decided to take for achieving all the long term and short term goals. When all these activities are added up, they become the strategic plan of than organization. The minimum time for a strategic plan to become completed is one year and it involves all the three management levels.

The organizational strategies of Star Box are unique in their terms. This is eventually because the organization is much older and the management bodies are much experienced than the other organizational or management bodies (Bajdor and Grabara 2014). Following are the various strategies of this organization that are helping to be on top throughout their tenure.

1. i) Market Link Strong: They have tried to keep their market links absolutely strong in comparison to other organizations. This is extremely important as they are manufacturers and a constant supply of raw materials is required by them.
2. ii) Following Finance related Strategies: They follow strict discipline in all the finance related matters and they are able to mitigate the problems substantially (Therivel et al. 2013).

Good Approach for Investment: The next significant strategy of Star Box is that it follows a strict and good approach for investments. They make sure that the investments are proper and there is no problem for them.

1. iv) Exporting Products in Market: This particular strategy they have taken recently (Uçaktürk and Villard 2013). They are not any more restricted to domestic market and now they have started exporting their products to the international market as well.
2. v) Providing Flexibility to the Labours: The final strategy for the organization of Star Box is that they provide utmost flexibility to their labours. For this flexibility, they are providing, the labours are extremely happy with their work and does not want leave the organization.

The organization of Star Box Limited has acquired a system for the purpose of system acquisition within the organization. They are thus following ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning for their organization. It is the sole ability for delivering the integration of all types of business applications. The tools of ERP substantially share the common procedure and even a data model, thus covering the basic operational processes for properly integration (Worrell, Wasko and Johnston 2013). The scalability and the flexibility of the business are eventually enhanced with this ERP. Star Box decided to integrate their business processes or operations and thus chose enterprise resource planning. Since, they are manufacturers; they have to manage several things like finance, raw materials, finance, logistics and many more. Thus, they require ERP for this purpose.

The flowchart starts with the requirement of the product. The design of the product is then explained here. The other step is the definition of the problem. Next, it is being analyzed properly. Synthesis and the optimization are done in the respective steps (Belfo and Trigo 2013). Once, the analysis is done, the product designing is completed and the evaluation of prototype is done. Then manufacturing as well refinement are done and finally the final product is completed.

The problems within Star Box are mainly because of the erroneous strategies of the organization. The shareholders are in trouble for their investment in the business and as the market trends are altering, they are not being able to cope up with the new trends and new advancements of technology (Demski 2013). Since Star Box is considered as the best company, they should advertise their products properly, so that the customers get an idea about them. However, the marketing team is much inactive in comparison to others. Moreover, conflicts resolution should also be maintained properly.

Operational Problems of Star Box

The accounting software packages help the company to properly execute the accounting related processes and also proper financial advantages from them. There are various accounting software packages in market and Star Box has implemented the package of Xero amongst them (Xero Accounting Software. 2018). It helps them to obtain all advantages of cloud and support to the clients. Moreover, it is extremely fast and thus is implemented by Star Box. The threats or issues are extremely reduced with this particular accounting software.

The market size of the organization of Star Box is degrading with the advancement of technology within this organization (Simkin, Norman and Rose 2014). The new strategies that they have for the business are being utilized by them. Furthermore, the accounting software, Xero is providing major competitive advantages to the business and slowing they are coming back to top. Customer relationship management is another significant strategy for them to regain their position (Galliers and Leidner 2014). The reduction of product prices would also be helpful for them.

In spite of being on top amongst the organizations of packaging and wooden boxes, few more organizations are present, who are slowly coming into limelight. Following is the comparison between the other organizations and Star Box in respect to shares.

The above graph clearly stated the position of Star Box and other organizations in respect to shares in share market (Starbox.co.nz. 2018). The main competitor is Sydney Crates and the other competitors are The Wooden Box Factory and ABC Crates.

The recommendations for Star Box mainly include reducing the costs of the products, since their prices are extremely high. The second problem is that they are not advertising their products properly and the customers are not getting any information about them. The recommendation is that they should advertise their products more often with a more effective team for marketing.

Conclusion

Therefore, conclusion can be drawn that strategic information system is defined as the type of information system, which is responsible for the successful creation and enhancing the competitive advantages or alterations within the systems of any specific organization. This is a type of information system that helps to take or make important and significant strategies for the betterment of the organization. The other types of information systems like transaction processing systems, management information systems, decision support systems, enterprise information systems, online automated systems, enterprise resource planning and many more could be utilized with the strategic information system. The organization that has implemented the strategic information system within their business is likely to become more successful than others. The products, services and various capabilities, which eventually provide competitive advantages to the organization, are obtained by the SIS. Moreover, the errors of the system are reduced with this and the system or business operations become completely error free. Decision making is also enabled with this system and hence it is extremely popular. The above literature review has provided a detailed discussion on the strategic information system and accounting information system for the popular organization of Australia, Star Box. It is the most popular organization for packaging and wooden boxes. The review comprises of the complete structure of the organization and the various problems in their business operations. Moreover, the system acquisition method and the implementation of accounting software packages are also provided here. The market position of Star Box with proper suggestions is also given in the review.

References

Altameem, A.A., Aldrees, A.I. and Alsaeed, N.A., 2014, October. Strategic information systems planning (SISP). In Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science (Vol. 1).

Arvidsson, V., Holmström, J. and Lyytinen, K., 2014. Information systems use as strategy practice: A multi-dimensional view of strategic information system implementation and use. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 23(1), pp.45-61.

Bajdor, P. and Grabara, I., 2014. The Role of Information System Flows in Fulfilling Customers’ Individual Orders. Journal of Studies in Social Sciences, 7(2).

Belfo, F. and Trigo, A., 2013. Accounting information systems: Tradition and future directions. Procedia Technology, 9, pp.536-546.

Bernus, P., Mertins, K. and Schmidt, G. eds., 2013. Handbook on architectures of information systems. Springer Science & Business Media.

Boonstra, A., 2013. How do top managers support strategic information system projects and why do they sometimes withhold this support?. International Journal of Project Management, 31(4), pp.498-512.

Demski, J., 2013. Managerial uses of accounting information. Springer Science & Business Media.

Galliers, R.D. and Leidner, D.E. eds., 2014. Strategic information management: challenges and strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.

Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2016. Management information system. Pearson Education India.

Li, C.Y., 2013. Persuasive messages on information system acceptance: A theoretical extension of elaboration likelihood model and social influence theory. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(1), pp.264-275.

Pearlson, K.E., Saunders, C.S. and Galletta, D.F., 2016. Managing and Using Information Systems, Binder Ready Version: A Strategic Approach. John Wiley & Sons.

Simkin, M.G., Norman, C.S. and Rose, J.M., 2014. Core concepts of accounting information systems. John Wiley & Sons.

Starbox.co.nz. 2018. Wooden Boxes & Packaging Auckland | Starbox. [online] Available at: https://www.starbox.co.nz/  [Accessed 26 Apr. 2018].

Therivel, R., Wilson, E., Heaney, D. and Thompson, S., 2013. Strategic environmental assessment. Routledge.

Uçaktürk, A. and Villard, M., 2013. The effects of management information and ERP systems on strategic knowledge management and decision-making. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 99, pp.1035-1043.

Whittington, R., 2014. Information systems strategy and strategy-as-practice: a joint agenda. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 23(1), pp.87-91.

Willcocks, L., 2013. Information management: the evaluation of information systems investments. Springer.

Worrell, J., Wasko, M. and Johnston, A., 2013. Social network analysis in accounting information systems research. International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, 14(2), pp.127-137.

Wu, Y., Cegielski, C.G., Hazen, B.T. and Hall, D.J., 2013. Cloud computing in support of supply chain information system infrastructure: understanding when to go to the cloud. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 49(3), pp.25-41.

Xero Accounting Software. 2018. Online Accounting Software – Free Trial, Free Support | Xero. [online] Available at: https://www.xero.com/  [Accessed 26 Apr. 2018].