Strategic Information System for Menulog-Samples for Students

Question: Discuss about th Strategic Information System for Menulog. Answer: Introduction The purpose of this report is to analyze the need of accounting software for a small-scale business in Australia. In recent times, there has been an increase in the online ordering mobile applications in the country (Woodward Tan, 2015). Therefore, this paper is done on Menulog. The organization Menulog is the food delivery service that everyone seems to use. It has a massive catalogue of local restaurants, ranging from the small corner Thai takeaways to the larger venues that also offer sit-down dining. The organization Menulog is a marketplace where different customers can choose among various restaurants and order the food online. The end consumers can either make the order online or they can download the mobile application of Menulog and make their order. The company is heavily dependent on Information Technology to manage its operations. It can be said that the success of the organizations in this sector depends a lot on the available IT infrastructure (Dumas, ROsa, Mendling, Reijers, 2013). One of the key objectives for Menulog is to have a standardized ERP or accounting software package in place that should suffice the accounting needs of the organization. The purpose of this paper is to discuss and analyze the way accounting packages can be used by Menulog to bring efficiency in its business. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part is focused more on the organization, Menulog and the second part is focused more on the accounting industry in Australia and the evolution of accounting industry in Australia. Analysis The various parts of Part 1 can be discussed as below: Current organizational structure of Menulog Menulog is a small-scale organization in the company. It has less than 100 full time employees. The organizations also have some part time employees that manage the business operations of the company. Menulog has a pretty flat organizational structure and people can interact with the people from other department easily. The current organizational structure of Menulog can be demonstrated as: The above diagram suggests that different functional head of Menulog reports to the CEO of the company. The key functions of Menulog are marketing sales, order management or inventory management accounts and finance. In addition to these functions the firm also has various secondary functions like human resource, etc. Operational problems that can exist because of this structure Overall Menulog is a very flexible organization and people from one department can reach out to people from other departments. However, there are certain operational problems that must be solved. The key operational problems that exist or that can occur with the current organizational structure can be discussed as: There could be a difference in the available information for orders receives and the executives who have to deliver the food order because there is no direct communication between the order receiving or inventory management department and the delivery executives. The organization can have the problem of taking excess orders, i.e. taking more number of orders than its executives can actually deliver in a stipulated period of time (Kisakye, 2013). Most likely system acquisition method? There are various ways to develop the required IT infrastructure. The three common methods can be discussed as: Commercial Software: It means to take licenses of any commercial software that are available in the market. Obviously, there would be some sort of customization required to suits the need of Menulog. However, mainly the organization would be using the functionality and features of the external software (Seethamraju, 2015). The commercial software can also be taked in the model of software as a service. Custom Software: It means to hire a company and develop a custom software. With this approach, the IT system would be developed as per the specific need of Menulog. However, the overhead is more in this approach. Moreover, the implementation would take a longer time as everything has to be custom developed for Menulog. ERP implementation: The third option for Menulog is the get a large-scale ERP implemented. The problem with this approach is that it would be an expensive method. Menulog is still a small to mid-size organization and it may not need the end to end functionalities of ERP (Johansson Carlsson, 2013). The suggested solution for Menulog is to use the commercial software with little customization. There are various advantages of commercial software (Johansson, Carsson, 2013). For example, the organization is not required to host anything over its local infrastructure. It can get the services through a cloud platform. There are various organizations in Australia that provides the services to small organizations like Menulog. The organizations like SYSPRO, XERO, MYOB would be a good option for Menulog. System flowchart of the sales procedures The sales procedure starts with the simple food order sheet. External stakeholders can fill this sheet or the internal stakeholders and executives could also fill this sheet (Lim, Perrin, 2014). The detailed flowchart of the sales procedures for Community Chef can be shown as: Control problems in the system and possibility of frauds The company is still a small company and the systems are still under development. There are various support channels to the system that should be developed. At this moment, it appears that there are some leaks in the system that should be fixed (Cassar Ittner, 2015). The possibility of frauds or the control problems in the existing system can be discussed as: There are chances that the mobile application of Menulog takes more order than it can actually deliver. There is only a limited capacity with which the organization can work. Anything beyond that limited capacity would be a control problem for the company (Stewart Kent, 2015). There are chances that the communication between the organization, Menulog and restaurants is not on real time. It can happen that customers order for some food items is approved but restaurants do not have those items in stock (Dumas Rosa, 2013). There could also be chances of frauds and errors in reporting as some employees or staff can involve in wrong practices. The objective of this part is to discuss the accounting software industry and Australia and the evolution of industry. This part would also discuss the best suited accounting software vendor for Menulog. The various subparts can be discussed as: Development and adoption of the accounting software packages There are various players in the accounting software industry in Australia. The history of progress of accounting software packages dated back to 1980s when Teleware has developed one such software. In the current time the competition is really huge in the market. There are various players in the market. The market is divided into large players and small players. The large players or the large companies like SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, etc. caters to the need of large organizations (Scholtz, calitz, Cilliers, 2013). The small or the med level companies cater to the needs of small and mid-size players. These are the companies like Intuit, MYOB, SYSPRO, etc. (Hossack, 2015). In future, there could be more players that can make their way in the Australian market as the industry is profitable. Current market size in Australia The current market size of accounting software industry in Australia is huge. The accounting software industry is a million-dollar industry in Australia. The accounting software package industry has seen an exponential growth rate due to advancements in technology and Internet. The expansion in Information Technology has been good for accounting software industry. Today, the focus of organizations is to have an integrated ERP in place that can have a string module for accounting and finance (Woodward, Tan, 2015). With the penetration of products like cloud computing, mobile web, there would be further push to Information Technology and accounting software packages. Leaders in the market and the reasons for their competitive edge It is very difficult to answer the question of leadership in the market. In the current time the competition is really huge in the market. There are various players in the market. The market is divided into large players and small players. The large players or the large companies like SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, etc. caters to the need of large organizations (Zhang, Nan, Tan, 2016). If the market is to be divided into large players and small players, then Miocrosoft and SAP would be the market leader for large scale implementation. However, the leadership position in small scale market is very dynamic. The players like XERO, MYOB, SYSPRO, INTUIT would fight among themselves to increase market share. There are various advantages of these players that makes them the market leader. For example, XERO has probably the best after sales support and MYOB has probably the best reporting capabilities. Current gaps encountered by users/ customers of accounting packages The accounting software industry has evolved a lot. However, there are certain gaps that should be fulfilled. For example, there is a scope of improvement in the reporting capabilities of these software. (Linnenluecke Birt, 2017). Almost all the companies provide dashboard and reporting capabilities. However, the dahsboards can be optimized further. It is important that the ERP or accounting software vendors should give a holistic view or complete vision of the current business operations. Another gap could be in terms of support for third party integration. It is important that the accounting software packages can be integrated with other third party software. In the current form, this support exists but in limited manner. There is certainly a need to improve the integration with third party vendors. It would actually add the real value of the implementation of accounting software packages. Conclusion The above paper discusses the need of accounting software package for Menulog. The organization, Menulog is a small business player in Australia. The good thing for Menulog is that it has been able to develop a platform or marketplace where consumers and restaurants can come together. Based on the above analysis and discusses the recoemnded accounting software package for Menulog is MYOB. There are various advanatges of MYOB that sets it apart from its competitors. It can be said that MYOB is well suited for the requirements of small scale online marketplace businesses like Menulog as it has some of the best dashboard functionalities. Moreover. MYOB is ready to provide custom solution to small organizations. Menulog would buy a commercial software only. However, that commercial software from MYOB would be further customized a bit to suits the exact requirements of Menulog. It is recommended that menulog should focus on cloud based implementation and should use the model of software a s a service. References Cassar, G., Ittner, C.D. and Cavalluzzo, K.S., 2015. Alternative information sources and information asymmetry reduction: Evidence from small business debt.Journal of Accounting and Economics,59(2), pp.242-263. Dumas, M., La Rosa, M., Mendling, J., Reijers, H. 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