Management information strategy for Ski, Surf, and Skate company

¶ … Ski, Surf, Skate) is a company specializing in selling the retail brick and mortar sports equipment and clothing at Whittier. Doc Kahuna ("DK"), a founder of the company is a visionary leader whose strategic goal is to make the company becoming a global leader in the high-end equipment, accessories and clothing. Typically, DK focuses on three interrelated goals:

To design and sell branded products,

To launch the company products internationally,

To significantly increase the company sales and revenues.

Despite DK's strategic goal, DK lacks the it (information technology) skills to recognize that it tools are critical for the company to become a top innovative and successful sport equipment and apparels business.

Fundamental objective of this paper is to develop management information strategy to assist the company to become an innovative and global leader in the sport equipment and apparels business.

Project Development

Porter (1985) argues that the information technology is a powerful tool that organizations could employ to achieve competitive market advantages. Porter further points out that adoption of information technology will assist firms to lower operation costs and be ahead of competitors within the competitive market environment. Despite the importance of technology in enhancing firms' competitive advantages, firms needs to identify appropriate technology to be used in order to enhance firms' strategic objective. (Ahmed & Sharma 2006).

This paper identifies the following it tools for S3 (Ski, Surf, and Skate):

Development of company website using internet technology to assist the company to become a global leader in the sport equipment business.

To assist the company to derive advantages from the internet technology, the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) process will be used to develop the company website to assist the company to achieve the project productivity. SDLC outlines the process of system engineering activities to produce correct, efficient and consistence system development.

The goal of S3 (Ski, Surf, Skate) is to increase the company net profit to $6 Million and achieving the net profit of $1.7 Million at the end 2012 fiscal year. Moreover, the company intends to reach the revenue of $8 Million and net profit of $2.5 Million at the end of 2013 fiscal year, which represents 31% increase in the net profit. However, the company will realize its goals if the company wisely integrates MIS.

S3 (Ski, Surf, Skate) will need to design the it architecture that will be used to develop its it application. The SDLC provides the structured and standardize process for it project and the company will use SDLC process, which is divided in 8 phases to develop its project. Fig 1 provides the detail phases of SDLC using the flow diagram to illustrate the require inputs, expected outputs, process controls, roles and responsibilities and other critical information in the system development.

Concept Phase: The system development will design and develop the company website that will assist the company to launch its products worldwide taking the advantage of e-commerce. Typically, the website will be designed in such a way to market the company product worldwide using the internet technology for the system development. The company will required approximately $50,000 for the system design, system development and training. The cost will also cover the website maintenance.

Design Phase

The Microsoft WebMatrix 2 software will be used to design the website. WebMatrix 2 is a free lightweight web development tool that will assist the company to design, create and publish the company website. Added to WebMatrix 2, the company will also use the combination of PHP, ASP.NET, and HTML5 templates to design the website. The CSS3 will also be used to create dynamic website for the company. (Brinck, et al. 2002).

Development Phase

At this phase, the company will develop code library that will be used to develop the website. The code library will consist of PHP code, HTML code, and CSS code. Combination of these codes will be used to develop the website. At this phase, the company will need to integrate security platform to protect the company website from external intruder. The integration of firewall will be needed to protect the website from unwanted network traffic. Encryption security system will also be integrated into the website to protect the company data as well as enhancing data confidentiality. The company policy will be written at this stage. The policy will provide the detailed guideline that all staff must follow in the management of website. After this phase, the system is sent to testing.

Testing Phase; Testing of the website is critical to ensure that the system function as planned. At this phase, the company will test the network, hardware and software components. All the errors found during testing will be removed. The major goal for carrying out the testing is to ensure that the website performs its intended function. The system will also undergone the user acceptance testing to ensure that the website satisfies the privacy, security and other requirements. After testing, the system will be ready to use once management configuration has been successfully executed.

Deployment Phase: At this phase, the website will be officially deployed for production and approve for release.

Operations Phase: After the website has been deployed for operation, the company will need to offer a continuous support in order to create performances review as well as ensuring that security system remains intact.

Retirement Phase: If the company believes that the website is no more providing its intended goals in the future, the system will be deactivated, and disassembled to allow the company to create another website or replace the existing website.

Conclusion

This paper discusses the system development process that S3 (Ski, Surf, Skate) will use for its e-commerce. In the contemporary business environment, the e-commerce has become a potent tool that firms employ to launch its product globally. Thus, S3 (Ski, Surf, Skate) will take the advantage of e-commerce to become a global leader in the sporting equipment business. The paper identifies SDLC process as a dynamic tool to assist the company in the development of the website and SDLC is in 8 phases. By following all these phases, the company will be able to create a dynamic website for its global business.