Assignment 1: Industry Analysis and Report
Submission: Please submit this assignment to provided links in Canvas
Type: Individual
Value: 30% of the total mark
Due Date: • Week 6, Friday 10 September 2021, 11:59 pm AEST
Word Limit 2500 ± 10% words (excluding references)
Aim:
The assignment is designed to demonstrate your:
• understanding and knowledge of enterprise systems principles
• understanding of issues that contribute to current debates in enterprise systems
• use of analytical skills in reviewing academic and practitioners’ sources
• ability to draw meaningful conclusions from your research
Industry Research and Analysis
Read the following case study about the Southern Cross Travel Agency (SCTA) company.
You are required to:
1. Analyse the case study, identify the problems and opportunities for the company in the case study and create a needs assessment.
2. Market Assessment: Critically review some possible and suitable Cloud ERP solutions. Collect data about different Cloud ERP vendors (8-10) that you believe could be suitable for the company in the case study and research their ERP products. You may base your argument on following criteria:
o Point(s) of difference (how is the product different from other vendors?) o Niche market (if any, and do they target a particular market?) o ERP services (what ERP services does the suite offer?) o What sized organisations are supported by this suite/solution?
o Business Continuity (does the vendor offer any plan for business continuity during a crisis (for example, during the COVID-19 pandemic)?
o Analytics (does the product provide Analytics features or services?) o And other dimensions/criteria that you could use in order to make your argument richer
3. Recommendation: Recommend the product that is the most suitable for the company to address its challenges and requirements. Clearly explain how the selected product does this. You should draw on your analysis in step 2 to help justify and support your recommendation.
In your report, you need to use quality references to argue that your choice of ERP is a suitable solution(s) for problems identified in the case study.
Your arguments should make explicit links between the technological and organisational solutions of the ERP of your choice, and the short and long-term requirements of SCTA. For instance, issues like the efficiency of the business processes, business continuity, security, and running costs are important issues to be considered. At the end of your report, you should offer relevant recommendations to SCTA. You can also make assumptions wherever needed, for prices, after-sales support, etc.
Case Study: Travelling in the time of the global pandemic
The international tourism industry is taking a major hit as COVID-19 circulates into more countries – and fear about it – spreads across the world. Governments around the world have warned and continue warning would-be travelers to stay away from outbreak hotspots, and in some cases, enacting travel bans to forbid travelers from going to high-risk areas. Photos of empty tourist destinations around the world, emptied-out festivals, vacant churches and temples, and quarantined luxury hotels – show the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on the tourism industry has been devastating.
A new report from consulting firm Tourism Economics has put some estimated numbers to this ravaging situation. The report suggests that for example, it expects the US economy to lose over 3.5 million visitors from Asian countries, translating to a 38% drop for 2020. The report also estimates that around the same number of tourists will not be visiting countries like Australia and New Zealand. The report tallied expected losses from the Asian visitors spending at $US35.7 billion – more than half of which are expected to occur this year.
Venice Carnival was cancelled because of the coronavirus. Venice, Italy, February 23, 2020. Source: Reuters.
In such a tough and uncertain business climate, many companies who are involved in tourism are seeking reliable ways of accessing accurate information about their operation and the state of COVID-19 and its impact around the world. Many of them are exploring new ways to redesign their business processes and make them more efficient and cheaper. One of the Australian based companies that also has been affected by the spreads of the coronavirus is the Southern Cross Travel Agency (SCTA) company.
Empty streets of the Naviglio Grande canal in Milan, Italy, on February 24, 2020.
Source: AP
SCTA was established in 2002 and since then has enjoyed steady growth in Australia and the neighbouring countries. As a result, currently, the company has multiple offices across the Australasia region. Its corporate headquarters are in Melbourne but it has more than 10 offices across Australia and 5 in China, 2 in Vietnams, 2 in New Zealand, 2 in Indonesia, 2 in Thailand, 2 in Malaysia and 1 in Nepal. It employs 400 employees and annual sales of $240 million. The company’s administrative structure consists of departments for Sales and Marketing, Human Resource Management, Operations, IT, Research and Development,
Accounting and Finance, and Public Relations. SCTA offers first-class and affordable holiday
5
experiences, mostly to international students and their families. SCTA initially had a manual booking system in each office, but changes and advances in technology have enabled SCTA to transform its business by using an online booking and communication system in 2010. However, the current system can only perform basic functionalities of maintaining current listings of the resorts (uploaded as a PDF file) and student enquiries. Further, during the upgrade the company experienced project delayed and budget overturn. This experience made the company’s board of director hesitate to implement new system.
However, the general manager of SCTA is aware that the company needs to have a better comprehension of the current business environment and it is clear that the existing system does not provide them with necessary functionalities that enable them to capture and analyse different types of information from their geographically distributed offices. At the moment, different departments in order to satisfy their own needs, tried to develop their own systems or databases to facilitate their work- this is known as “feral or shadow systems”. A lack of trust in the ERP, ineffective training methods and complexity in extracting the data from the ERP were identified as a problem which lead to the development of “Feral Systems” (Kerr, 2007). This causes reductions in the effectiveness and accuracy of business analytics such as data mining and forecasting.
Furthermore, SCTA not only needs to enhance their current system to promote their business but also needs to inform their clients and partners (resorts, airlines, hotels, Airbnb) about the latest developments concerned with the spread of COVID-19. In a recent board meeting, it was discussed that different types of information should be gathered, analysed, and shared with clients and partners to enhance the travel safety and experience of their clients before, during and after the trip.
In addition, at this stage, SCTA‘s main clients are international students. However, with the emergence of new challenges, SCTA has to diversify its clients and offer new services. This change demands the provision of further information to different groups of new stakeholders. The current system does not provide expandable functionalities for making timely and multi-way communications with new clients and partners during and after trips.
SCTA also wants its partners to be able to update all their information online.
(End of the case study)
Some guidelines
The report is to be written to reflect your understanding of enterprise systems. It is up to you as to what aspects, issues or arguments you put forward, but they must be relevant to the enterprise systems field, and they must be grounded in current literature. The report is a piece of academic writing, and all claims and assertions must be adequately substantiated with appropriate evidence. Thus, you are expected to use other literature and references, preferably from other journal papers, to substantiate and justify your arguments.
All sources used in the report must be appropriately cited and referenced. The research report must be critical and relevant academically, and where appropriate, it should indicate implications for practice. If you are unsure how to write a report, please consult with the resources that are available in the library.
Please be aware of the plagiarism and collusion policies established by Swinburne University.
Submission Requirement:
All students must agree to the Declaration and Statement of Authorship. In addition, students should also be aware of the plagiarism and collusion policies established by FBL and Swinburne University of Technology. Links to this policy are in the Unit Outline.
Extensions:
Links to the extension policy are in the Unit Outline. Please note that any request for an extension on or after the due dates will not be considered.
Assessments
A detailed assessment guide will be available on Canvas. In general, the assessment criteria will be based on
• The originality of the work
• Clarity of the analysis
• Ability to synthesise ideas and literature, and reflect on relevant issues in enterprise systems
• Depth and breadth of your analysis and reflections
• Use of current literature
• Relevance of references
• Layout, structure, spelling, etc. and adherence to style guides
• Adherence to citation and reference standards