Case Study on Information Systems

"Study In Queensland" (SIQ) is a boutique Education Recruitment firm operated by Ms Hui Chia located in Brisbane's Central Business District (CBD). The firm specializes in recruiting international students from overseas for admission into various universities, TAFEs and private colleges in Queensland.

Five years ago, after graduating from Central Queensland University, Hui and a group of her friends started this company from their small unit in Windsor. The business grew successfully, as Hui and her friends were well aware of the requirements for new students and how students should appropriately address these requirements. Hence, in 2010 Hui rented a small office in Brisbane CBD and hired an administrative assistant - Thia.

SIQ began operating as a boutique student recruitment firm with Hui and Thia undertaking most of the work. The business model was simple; obtain a service fee from the education provider for securing the student, but do not charge the student a service fee for matching them to an education provider. At the stage of start-up, Hui's technical capability included a laptop computer and a multifunctional device (printer, scanner & copier) from her time as a student.

SIQ business processes were manual and included; recording student details, filling out forms for letters of offer, tracking letters of offer and confirmation of enrolment, processing payments and issuing receipts for fee deposits on behalf of education providers. Student data was maintained using a spread sheet, and appointments were organised in Microsoft Outlook. Initially, these processes were carried out effectively using the existing technology due to the small student base.

At this initial stage, all student files were paper-based and staff would often need to spend time searching for a particular file. Once the student file was found, additional time was spent looking for documents within a particular file. Sometimes files would go missing and then reappear after a few days. The misplacement of files often caused staff to appear unprofessional in front of the students, creating stress for both the staff member and the student. Hui soon realised that valuable time was being wasted locating and managing files and she was losing business to more professional and well organised agents.

In Addition SIQ recognised that most of their competitors, who handled a high volume of student admissions, had an online web presence, engaged in advertising on social media, and ranked highly on search engines results. Many competitors also provided an online facility for students to track the progress of their applications.

In 2012, Hui was joined by an experienced marketing graduate - Andrew, who convinced Hui that for SIQ to grow, it must open offices at the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Toowoomba and Sunnybank. Hui agreed with Andrew's proposal, recognising it as an opportunity for growth into a rapidly expanding area with high potential. However, Hui was apprehensive about how she would manage the increase in locations, particularly considering SIQ's current manual processes and systems.

For example, Hui manually managed staff leave requests, payroll and timesheets at the Brisbane office however, duplicating these processes in other locations presented a challenge. Hui was also concerned about sharing student information across sites, and managing the movement of student files from one site to another. She was aware that she would need to have regular meetings with staff to ensure that a high level of customer service was maintained at SIQ.

These issues needed to be considered from a strategic point of view as Hui faced the complex challenge of expanding the workforce and increasing the number of locations, while at the same time maintaining effective business processes and ensuring a high standard of ethics and security in information sharing.

Andrew convinces Hui to engage you as an IT consultant. Your job is to provide SIQ with solutions that address the following issues and provide advice on what SIQ needs to implement to secure a successful future.

Case Study Questions:

1. In order to help SIQ management, define what information systems are and briefly explain how information systems are important to future operations at SIQ. While answering this question, explore the different kinds of information systems that could be beneficial to any small business.

2. Identify and discuss the problems faced by SIQ and list these problems in order of priority.

3. What are the business requirements of SIQ? Which business processes should SIQ computerise and what benefits would that bring about for SIQ?

4. Which types of information system/s can help SIQ manage its business issues and fulfil business requirements? Explain in detail, how each information system that you propose will assist SIQ's efficiency and contribute to the firm's competitive advantage.

5. How can business decision making be improved as a result of the information systems / technologies that you are proposing?

6. How can the proposed new locations for SIQ connect effectively to each other? Explain how SIQ may utilise technologies such as the intranet, extranet, internet and mobile applications to communicate with SIQ's key stakeholders.

7. What are the possible security, ethical and privacy issues that all stakeholders of SIQ need to be aware of? What systems could be implemented to address these issues?

8. What change related issues is SIQ likely to encounter? How should SIQ manage this change process?