A Competitive And Strategic Corporate Analysis Marketing Essay

A Competitive And Strategic Corporate Analysis Marketing Essay Introduction The airline industry is one of the most difficult business sectors where competition has proven to be extremely difficult among the many different competing airline services available around the world. Many airline services in the past have experienced disastrous business cycle, timeliness and overcapacity issues. Moreover, the different airline services also complain of their experienced difficulty in differentiating themselves from competition. These airline services also maintain such high-risk profiles because of such high expectations from their customers (Wirt, Heracleous Pangarkar, 2007). Singapore Airlines, one of the strongest and famous airline service providers, remains to be one of the most profitable airline companies in the world today. Several reasons can be attributed to the huge success that Singapore Airlines enjoys today. One is its strong brand management strategies driven mainly by its excellent line-up of top-management and boardroom employees. Singapore Airlines is composed of many dedicated and professional employees both in its front and back-end office who serve as the drivers of its solid brand strategy (Roll, M. 2010). Singapore Airlines is truly a global and diversified organization unified by one aim of delivering excellent quality and service to its customers. What separates this airline from other airline service companies is its heavy investment in building and maintaining its solid brand equity. The Singapore Airlines brand is known for its consistency in delivering its primary message to its consumers which is Singapore Airlines- A great way to fly coupled with its dedicated and honest delivery of that communication message to its consumers (Roll, M. 2010). The brand strategy of the Singapore Airlines is centered on its world-class in-flight experience: the warmth and hospitality of the Singapore Girl, its excellent service and its focus on the customer. Whereas other competing airline services also tried to pursue the path that Singapore Airlines has taken, no other airline has matched Singapore Airlines in terms of its honest commitment and consistency in delivering its brand promise to its consumers (Roll, M. 2010). As a result, the Singapore Airlines brand managed to deliver excellent financial results through its three-fold strategy: a.) Avoiding knee-jerk reactionary behaviors on any price changes and consistently deliver the brand benefits in order to maintain a high revenue b.) Cut down the costs by pursuing ownership of the best yet most cost-efficient aircrafts and properly responding to increases in fuel prices and c.) Remaining true to the brand in terms of consistency in delivering service to drive up profits (Roll, M. 2010). Background This report-based paper on the Competitive and Strategic Corporate Analysis of the Singapore Airlines aims to evaluate the Singapore Airlines actual application of the various analytical and planning tools in Strategic Management. This paper will also discuss the overall strategic posture of Singapore Airlines at the corporate level, that is, whether it is pursuing a global strategy, multi-domestic strategy, international strategy or transnational strategy. Also, this paper will also evaluate whether the companys management structure and philosophy is aligned with its overall strategic posture. Finally, this paper will come up with a list of recommendations with regard to the companys strategic focus. Several recommendations will be presented in order for the company to improve and maintain its competitive position. In order to achieve these objectives, the author of this paper will gather certain company documents such as its annual report in order to evaluate Singapore Airlines current financial position. Then the current growth efforts and focus of the company will be carefully looked into as well, that is, whether the company initiated some organizational and cultural changes in the past decade as part of its growth strategies. Major Sections A. To which extent does the annual report or other company documentation reflect the implicit or explicit  application of analytical and planning tools from the discipline of  strategic management? The 2009 Annual Report of Singapore Airlines reflected the overall financial performance of the company from the year 2008-2009. The financial report indicated a total of $1,062 million net profit which, based on the report, could have been higher and better if not for the global economic crisis that caused the airline to underperform financially on the last quarter of 2009 (SIA Annual Report 2008/09, 2010). Nevertheless, despite these financial challenges that the company experienced in the latter part of 2009, Singapore Airlines still continued to consistently deliver excellent products and services. It managed to build new lie-flat seats in the Business Class section which were designed for medium-haul and regional routes. It also managed to install iPod connectivity in some of its aircrafts (SIA Annual Report 2008/09, 2010). Moreover, the company remained its high focus on cost management to keep its balance sheet strongly stable. But instead of cutting costs when it comes to people development and management efforts, it kept investing on building and improving its internal infrastructures and systems as well as in developing and training its people (SIA Annual Report 2008/09, 2010). To a large extent, the annual report of the Singapore Airlines for 2009 explicitly reflected the various analytical and planning strategic management tools that the company utilized in order to achieve its organizational goals. For one, Singapore Airlines managed to analyze its own strengths and weaknesses vis-à  -vis its competitors and the top management keenly identified which value chain elements are important for the company and which ones are dispensable (Rigby, D. 2009). Despite the financial challenges the company experienced in 2009 such as the fuel price increases brought about by the economic crisis, the company remained true to its prudent fuel hedging strategy. As a result, the company incurred huge losses which the company regained immediately by implementing strict measures in cost management (SIA Annual Report 2008/09, 2010). Nevertheless, the company continued its focus on executing dynamic pricing strategies, providing more value-added promotions and packages which are still designed to earn the loyalty and trust of their customers. All these efforts, being at the core of the strategic management tools Singapore Airlines utilized, is what maintained the strong position of the company in the year 2009. B. Would you encourage the company to focus on growth efforts on emerging markets bearing in mind her organizaton culture and the changes that have occurred in the industry in the last decade? Yes. Singapore Airlines must redirect its growth efforts on emerging markets as it is already an established airline service brand, known around the world for its world-class products and services. In fact, today, this is the strategic route that Singapore Airlines must already be taking. According to Ng, M. (2010), the emerging markets in Asia, for instance, are expected to increase in terms of travel growth in the year 2010. There is a continuously growing opportunity for low-cost airline service brands to tap the increasing demand of emerging Asian markets for low-cost carriers. Given this demand, this is also an opportunity for Singapore Airlines to tap the travel opportunities of the emerging Asian market. In the past five years, the trend is increasingly shifting to practicability in travelling rather than luxury. In fact, the emerging markets need and demand is not really a luxurious means of travelling but more on a practical one, i.e., moving from one destination to another. At most, the needs of the consumers from the emerging markets are safety and comfort that is at par with other high-cost carriers. In tapping this huge number of consumers from the emerging market, Singapore Airlines can introduce its very first low-cost carrier carrying its brand name and its excellent service minus some consumer perks. C. How would you describe the companys strategic posture at the corporate level? Is it pursuing a global strategy, a multi-domestic strategy, an international strategy, or a transnational strategy? Based on the definition provided by Zwass, V. (1998) on what transnational strategy means, an organization which applies transnational strategy is focused both on its domestic/local and the global strategies. The strategies in the local or domestic level are directly tied in or in line with the overall global strategies of the entire organization. An organization which utilizes transnational strategy applies an integration of its global business activities with its domestic or local activities. Currently, the Singapore Airlines is not only focusing its efforts on its global strategies, specifically its vital strategies in maintaining its position in the international scene, but also in its local strategies. Furthermore, Singapore Airlines is also considered a transnational organization because of its consistent adaptation to various environmental and economic situations and its capitalization in knowledge and value-added information (Zwass, V. 1998). Singapore Airlines also entered into several strategic alliances with its suppliers, customers and some business partners like for instance, iPod connectivity which was recently installed in some airbuses of Singapore Airlines. This strategic partnership resulted to value-added services and additional competencies which served as the companys competitive edge versus its competitors. D. Does the companys management structure and philosophy aligned with her overall strategic posture? Singapore Airlines management structure and philosophy are closely aligned with the companys overall strategic posture. As defined by Zwass, V. (1998), transnational strategy is a specific management approach wherein the global business activities of the company are integrated with the domestic strategies. This management approach is applied through maintaining an interdependence and close cooperation with partners, subsidiaries and customers. Moreover, a transnational organization is highly collaborating with other independent, potential partner firms in order to deliver certain services and products in the market. This is what Singapore Airlines is continually trying to achieve when it comes to providing value-adding products and services into the market. For instance, Singapore Airlines is a partner of Star Alliance Network, in order to deliver certain perks and benefits to certain customers which availed of that service. Any Star Alliance Gold Member who rode in Singapore Airlines, will be granted a priority passage, priority waitlisting, priority check-in and boarding, priority airport standby and extra baggage allowance (Singapore Airlines, 2010). The different strategic alliances that the company engages in and the overall management structure that Singapore Airlines currently has is one proof that it is a certified transnational organization that is directly in line with achieving its corporate philosophy. E. Make specific recommendations for the company either to maintain her position or improve her position  without undermining the environmental changes and her competitive position. Singapore Airlines must maintain its current strategic posture, that is, its application of transnational strategies because that is the primary reason for its top position and market leadership in the airline industry. What separates Singapore Airlines from other directly competing airline companies is its responsiveness both in the international or global pressures and the demands of the local and domestic market. In order to improve its current position however, Singapore Airlines must continue to improve its current management structure and make it more flexible so that the facilitation and passing on of critical information from one unit to another is smooth-flowing. Also, Singapore Airlines must focus and redirect its growth efforts into eyeing and looking into other market expansion opportunities which provide them the opportunity to expand not only internationally but also domestically. One possible source of market expansion for Singapore Airlines is the increasing travel growth demand in emerging Asian markets. For the past years, Singapore Airlines has been focusing on tapping international markets in Europe but today, it must redirect its efforts into tapping other emerging markets which demand low-cost carriers. Conclusion Singapore Airlines remains to be one of the strongest and most profitable airline service providers in the world today because of a number of reasons. One is its strong brand management strategies mainly driven by its dedicated and professional employees both in its front and back-end office. Another reason is because of the companys unique management structure that is in line with the achievement of its corporate philosophy which is service excellence and consumer focus. The third and possibly the main reason for the companys huge success is its application of the transnational strategy. Defined as the specific management approach wherein the global business activities of the company are integrated with the domestic strategies, Singapore Airlines has so successfully utilized this strategy in order to gain strategic prominence in the airline industry. Because of Singapore Airlines application of this specific management approach, it gained a strong network of alliances and cooperative network of alliances from among various types partner firms, subsidiaries, and even suppliers. As a result of Singapore Airlines openness for collaboration and partnership with other independent firms and suppliers, it was able to successfully deliver certain services and products which became value-adding for their own customers. Merely responding to the needs of the global market is not enough to achieve strategic success and prominence today, without the aid and support of other independent firms and subsidiaries and forming strategic alliances with them, Singapore Airlines could not possibly make it as a truly global leader in the airline industry. Recommendations In order to retain the strong global position and market leadership of Singapore Airlines, the company must fully embrace its application of the transnational strategies. The fact that Singapore Airlines is a transnational organization was the primary reason for its top position and market leadership in the airline industry. Being the transnational organization that Singapore Airlines is now, it gave the company a broader strategic and competitive advantage compared to other directly competing airline service provider that is why it must retain and improve further its application of this specific management approach and strategy. First, Singapore Airlines must continue to improve its current management structure and transform it into a full-blown transnational organization consisting of flexible units/departments and subsidiaries in order to allow a smoother facilitation of critical information which is important for a company occupying the top position. Second, Singapore Airlines must focus and redirect its growth efforts into tapping other market opportunities not only internationally but also domestically. One possible source of this market expansion is the increasing travel growth demand in emerging Asian markets whose demand is centered on practicality over luxury travelling. In order to broaden its existing market, Singapore Airlines must offer low-cost carriers which would cater specifically to the growing and fast-emerging Asian market of travelers.

Coding for Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) Essay -- Coding Heart Failur

Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) is defined as a clinical syndrome in which the heart fails to propel blood forward normally, resulting in congestion in the pulmonary and/or systemic circulation and diminished blood flow to the tissues due to reduced cardiac output. (Berkow, M.D.) The result is that the heart does not pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs. CHF can be caused by a variety of conditions that affect the heart such as: diseases or substances that weaken the heart muscle such as heart attacks, infections, or toxins; diseases that cause stiffening of the heart muscle such as hemochromatosis, amyloidosis, coronary artery disease, and long term hypertension; and diseases that increase the oxygen demand by the body tissue beyond the capability of the heart to deliver oxygen-rich blood as in hyperthyroidism or anemia. (Kulick, M.D., and Shiel Jr., M.D.) CHF can affect many different organs including the heart, lungs, liver, intestines, and subcutaneous tissues. Sy mptoms of CHF are widely varied but may include fatigue, edema especially of the ankles and legs, shortness of breath with minimal exertion, and inability to lay flat due to reduced respiratory capacity. Increased urination may occur, especially at night, and due to accumulations of fluid in the liver and intestines nausea, abdominal pain and decreased appetite may result. (Kulick, M.D., and Shiel Jr., M.D.) Although CHF is an equal opportunity disease, there are some differences noted between men and women, one of which is that women tend to develop CHF later in life than men. Women more frequently develop diastolic heart failure rather than systolic. Women often suffer more noticeable shortness of breath and swelling of the ankles than do men, and in g... ...eases- Clinical Modification. 9th Rev., 6th Ed. 1. USA: Ingenix, 2010. Print. Ingenix, Inc., Staff. "Challenges for Coding Heart Failure." Advance for Health Information Professionals. 22 May 2007: n. page. Web. 20 Nov. 2011. Kulick, M.D., F.A.C.C., F.S.C.A.I., D.L., and W.C. Shiel Jr., M.D., F.A.C.P., F.A.C.R., eds. MedicineNet.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Nov 2011. . Starling, M.D., Randall C. The Cleveland Clinic Guide to Heart Failure. New York, NY: Kaplan, 2009. Print. unknown, . "Need to query for acute CHF lessened, thanks to new Coding Clinic." HC Pro. N.p., 30 Oct 2008. Web. 20 Nov 2011. .

Management Information System Essay

Maxis Berhad is a leading telecommunication company in Malaysia with more than 11.4 million mobile subscribers, Maxis has been providing a full suite of services on multiple platforms to fulfill the telecommunication needs of individual consumers, SMEs and large corporations in Malaysia. Other than that, Maxis Berhad is offering on postpaid services under the Maxis brand and via prepaid formast under the Hotlink. It uses the dialling prefix identifier of â€Å"012†, â€Å"014† and â€Å"017†. The uses of different brands are to support each other by synergy value. It helps Maxis Berhad to maintain and develop prepaid businesses while keep on maintaining their growth in postpaid field. Maxis Berhad is the first telecommunication company who build up integrated communication service and launched 4G LTE which is the highest internet speed in Malaysia. Besides that, Maxis Berhad is a trendy company that brings in iPhone, BlackBerry and Samsung Galaxy to the local mar ket compare to the other telecommunication companies, it helps local users to catch up their technology knowledge with other countries. In addition, Maxis Berhad is having customer service center throughout the countries, which provides conveniences to the customers for paying bills, signing up, and reporting problems. Customers are now able to reach Maxis service representatives via telephone, web and social media platforms. Maxis Berhad had significant growth and strong track record of bringing innovation and excellent customer service. Maxis Call Centre was awarded the ‘Best of the Best’ honor at the 2012 Customer Relationship Management and Contact Centre (CCAM) Annual Awards. They are the only service provider that awards scholarships to children of their own postpaid customers. Maxis Berhad had awarded as Malaysia’s Top Ten Companies: Ranked 1 – Asia’s 200 Most Admired Companies, The Wall Street Journal Asia in 2006. Morten Lundal was appointed as a Director of Maxis on 1 October 2013. Maxis Berhad currently is streamlining its organisational structure into four business areas, each with its respective head in order to strengthen their core business areas for future growth. The first area, enterprise solutions, it manages the company’s enterprise, government and SME business. For the second area is about consumer business. It is responsible for the end-to-end management of all mobile and fixed business for the consumer segment. Sales and service, the third area, focuses on customer service and channel and  supply chain management while the fourth, digital services, oversees the development of Maxis’ innovative digital media and cloud-based services including mobile apps. The four business areas will be supported in their day-to-day operations by the information services, network, finance, human resources, corporate affairs, regulatory & government affairs and legal divisions. In telecommunication industry, there are many companies to choose with, but finally our group end up with Maxis Berhad because we found that it is perform better when compared to its competitors. The primary reason that we choose Maxis Berhad as our company is due to Maxis Berhad has maintained their leadership among the telecommunication companies. They have approximately 13 million of customer during the year end 2013. They were also the first company that launched 4G LTE which is the highest internet speed in Malaysia. They always seek for new ideas and innovations by putting a lot of effort and capital on the R&D investment. Next, Maxis Berhad has achieves many awards and recognitions throughout its operations period. There are two awards we have to emphasize here due to these achievements have truly lead them to be more well known. Maxis Berhad has won the prestigious 2011 Global Telecoms Business Innovation Award for the Missed SMS Notification service in the Wireless Network Infrastructure Innovation, SMS network innovation category. Maxis is the first in the world to provide this service in partnership with Acision. Besides, Maxis Berhad has received the award, â€Å"Asia’s Best Employer Brand Award at the second Asia’s Best Employer Brand Awards year 2011† which was hosted by the Employer Branding Institute of Singapore. It succeeds in creating a culture of contribution and innovation at work and its belief in consistent improvements in Human Resources policies. Maxis was also recognised for its role in developing future leader. Part 2: Types of e-commerce used Electric commerce is commonly known as e-commerce, and it is defined as the exchange of goods, services, and money through electronic mediation using Internet technology. There are seven types of e-commerce we learnt, which are business to consumer (B2C), business to business (B2B), consumer to consumer (C2C), consumer to business (C2B), government to business (G2B), government to government (G2G), and government to consumer (G2C). First and foremost, one of the types of e-commerce used by the Maxis Berhad is the business to consumer (B2C) e-commerce. Based on the research made, there is a 80% of the internet user has looked for the goods and services to purchase in the internet, however, only 30% of them has really purchased the goods the services online as they may worry about the security system of the online payment. This trend has been observed by the Maxis Berhad and thus, the company has made a strategic decision to have collaboration with the PayPal, a popular online payment platform, to ensure that their consumers (customers) can easily and safely shop online. This will provide the convenience to their customers as the collaboration between the Maxis Berhad and the Paypal will simplify the process of the online shopping today which require the customers to repeatedly fill in payment card and contact details for each transaction or merchant. The customers can enjoy the speed of the online payment with the Maxis-PayPal account. They just need to log in with their Maxis PayPal credentials as well as their phone number to make the payment and the payment option is available online and in all major smartphone platforms, such as iPhone, Android and Blueberry. The most important thing is the customers do not need to worry about their financial details such as credit card number will be exposed to others as the process of the payment is highly secure. Besides, the business to business (B2B) e-commerce is used by the Maxis Berhad. Maxis Berhad offer an online business partnership application to those who are interested in on their main website, https://www.maxis.com.my/en/about-maxis/partnerships/business-partnership.html. On the website, the company show the brief introduction of their business partner, job description and partnership criteria to make the internet users more familiar with the business partnership which the company looks for. There are 3 types of select partners that the company desires, which are application solution provider, content provider as well as system integrator. Furthermore, the types of alliance displayed on the website are technology partners, device and hardware partners, and the consulting partners. As the appliers has been successfully selected, Maxis Berhad will collaborate with the selected business partner (applier) to create a variety of mobile services for the applier’s enterprise. Moreover, the collaboration  will generate repeatable and market-impacting mobility solutions for the selected business partners, within selected industries. There are also some benefits that the selected business partner will gain such as the leverage on the Maxis’s strong branding, leverage on Maxis’s global communications alliances, leverage on Maxis’s communications technology expertise & technology roadmap and so on. Part 3: Identify of the Information System The Information System is explained by the BusinessDictionary.com as a combination of hardware, software, data, telecommunications and trained personnel organized to facilitate planning, control, coordination and decision making in an organization. According to Valacich and Schneider (2014), Information System allows an organization to be more productive and profitable. It also helps the organization to gain competitive advantage towards the competitor in the industry. Most importantly is reaching out to more customers and improve the organization service to their customers. Maxis Berhad as one of the main organizations in Malaysia telecommunications industry, its business nature will generate a huge amount of transactions, each of the transaction contains a specified subscriber’s activity such as phone calls, SMS and data roaming. Maxis Berhad has to use the various information system to help its organization to deal with their customers correctly. 1) Transaction Processing System While any transaction occurs by the subscriber, Maxis Berhad is recording those transactions and encoded into various format. The recorded transactions is called Call Data Records (CDR). The CDRs could be encoded by various formats and protocols, for examples ASN.1, XML and CSV. To allow Maxis’s Transaction processing system to function, first those encoded transaction data will be separated into batches and periodically transfer to the position where this system can process it. The Transaction Processing System is arranged and grouped into batches and periodically to check all the new transactions data batch. The TPS uses standard network protocols to transfer the CDR batch file to the TPS. TPS is responsible in ensuring the integrity of each file transferred, ensuring that no IP network errors renders the file corruption. Other than that, it also ensures the  transaction data are not corrupt and not process more than once. After the error checking complete, those subscriber’s transaction data will back up in a long term memory for future use. Some Governments require that a record of every transaction need to be stored infinitely in its raw format. Once the Maxis Transaction Processing System gathers the batch of transaction data, it will decode the data into human readable format. Followed by, enhances the information within the transaction data regarding the subscriber’s activity and have a duplicate checking. After all the transaction has been processed, it will load into a particular datastore. The decoded CDR batches are then checked for duplicate records. While the intermediate processing on the CDR batches have completed, the CDR will loaded into the specific data store, the Transaction Processing System will summarize the important detail of the CDR and ready to present those details to the Maxis management in order for Maxis management to assess the performance of Maxis Berhad. Lastly, the Transaction Processing System enables Maxis Berhad to present its company performance through the annual report to the shareholder regarding the daily operation. 2) Management Information System According to BusinessDictionary.com, Managing Information System (MIS) is refers to an organized method to understand the information needs of an organization’s management at every level in making operational, tactical, and strategic decisions. This system objective is to design and implement procedures, processes, and routines that provide suitably detailed reports in an accurate, consistent, and timely manner. In management information system, modern, computerized systems continuously gather relevant data, both from inside and outside an organization. This data is then processed, integrated, and stored in a centralized database (or data warehouse) where it is constantly updated and made available to all who have the authority to access it, in a form that suits their purpose. Managing Information System (MIS) is one of the commonly used information system by Maxis to verify the customers, recover pending bills, and distribute the bills to their customers. The information prov ided by MIS enable managers to plan and control the different strategies of Maxis in order to make better decision for the business. The purpose of MIS is to meet information needs for decision-making of all the managers in Maxis. The next objectives of MIS is  provide and set strategies and goals. Those processed data received will be used for different purposes in Maxis. Computer based MIS helps Maxis to gather process and information efficiently. Maxis using the concept of information technology to improve their overall performance and working capacity. Normally MIS is used by Maxis to process their data and present the output in different types of reports used at regular intervals. Different level of managers of Maxis is using the information to recognize the purpose of the organization, its policies, programs, plans and goals. Maxis mainly focus in Customer Verification, Recovery and Bill Distribution. Without using MIS, Maxis will face problems to check the status of customer verification, recovery or bill distributed to the customer. While using the concept of MIS, Maxis can easily determine the status and situation stated above. By developing TAT (Time Allocation Table) in MIS, the MIS executive gives predefine time to each customer verification executive to complete the case. The TAT will complete the verification case by showing the case, assigned executive, date of case allocated to executive and date limit. By using such TAT, the MIS executive or manager is able to check the status of performance of verification easily. In conclusion, MIS is one of the effective systems for collecting and managing the data for Maxis. The development of MIS for organization enables Maxis to find several types of report like pendency at executive level, pendency at agency level, the overall performance of Maxis in an effective way. 3) Electronic Commerce system According to Valacich and Schneider (2014), Electronic Commerce is defined as the exchange of goods, service and money among firms and their customers, and between customers, supported by communication technologies such as the Internet. From the previous study given, the business to customer e-commerce system (B2C) is used by Maxis Berhad. Maxis Berhad has made a world first strategic collaboration with the PayPal, the the world’s leading online payment solution provider to provide their customer a better and efficient online service. With a Maxis PayPal account, the customers can carry out the online payment faster and conveniently. They did not need to go to the Maxis store/department purposely to set off the payment, but instead, they just need to log in with their Maxis PayPal credentials or  their phone number to make the payment and this changes will provide the convenience and save the time of the customers. Besides, there are major smartphone platforms where the payment option is available, such as as iPhone, Android and Blueberry. Furthermore, the customers do not need to have the security concerns about the system and their financial details such as credit card number will be protected under the system as the process of the payment is highly secure. Morever, the business to business e-commerce system (B2B) is also implemented by the Maxis Berhad to ‘communicate’ with the potential partner. Maxis Berhad has created their own website and in the website, there is a webpage of online business partnership application which is used to attract the potential partner. The potential partner (webpage viewer) can get the enough information and details about the partnership in the webpage through the B2B system, thus, it will make them to be more confident in doing the business with the Maxis Berhad. Part 4: S W O T Analysis Strength (a) Quality of Internal and External Communications A good information system must be supported by electronic data communication network systems which are the extranet and intranet. With the proper application of intranet and extranet for their company communication management, both inside and outside party of the company especially among the staffs, customers and suppliers can exchange information more effectively and efficiently. By now, Maxis is no longer relied on papers, telephone and faxes to further convey their information to the public. (b) Quality of Planning Planning is an essential process for every business. Maxis use Management Information System (MIS) which is a computer systems used for data managing to make searching, analysing data and spring information easier. MIS are widely used by Maxis to analyse and facilitate strategic and operational activities to generate information to improve efficiency and effectiveness of decision making. (c) Quality Control and Supervision Maxis with the Transaction Processing System (TPS) and Management Information System (MIS) are built and maintained properly in their management, the activities within the business environment are constantly monitored. This is because monitoring is certainly an impact on improving control over every procedure and activities occurring within the company. By this, Maxis is able to reduce the loss of information and keep a better record of the management. (d) Quality and Responsiveness of the Competitors’ Condition Aspect of business intelligence is very important since a long time with a variety of formats and needs. Maxis in order to reach the point of rapid and appropriate response on the dynamics of the competition, they rely on the Management Information System (MIS) to require, collect, analyze and compile the information needed by decision makers in the company. With the help of information system, Maxis is able to grow and remain competitive in the telecommunication industry. (e) Customers’ Satisfaction Maxis able to easily detect the activities and behaviour of their customers with the help of Transaction Processing System. Besides, Transaction Processing System (TPI) will speed up the process so that, the time required to serve a customer can be faster. This not only helps to improve the effectiveness and efficiency in operation but also increases their customers’ satisfaction of their services. Weaknesses (a) High Maintenance Fees Information Systems such as Transactional Processing System (TPS) and Management Information System (MIS) need a high cost to maintain its operation from day to day as the company need to hire maintenance team for the maintenance to run the system smoothly. Maxis Berhad has to hire employees or technical who can accurately maintain the operation of computers, company website, and other Information Systems as well. It means that Maxis Berhad has a huge budget on the wages and maintenance fees. For example, the organisation has to hire expert technical with high wage to monitor the systems and repair it when it is broke down. This would lead to the increasing of the labour cost and directly increase the company expenses. (b) Lack of internal securities control Information outflow is one of the serious problems faced by Maxis Berhad. Customers’ information is the top priority needed to secure for the telecommunication company. Maxis Berhad has approximately 13 million of customer during the year end 2013. For example, the outflow of confidential information of Management Information System (MIS) will cause the competitors to gain competitive advantages over Maxis and directly lead to the loss of the profit. The existing of the information outflow for Maxis Berhad are when their database system attacked by the outsider or taken from the inside employees. It is because the price for the information is very high. Besides, this is a very strong weapon for the competitors. (c) Unstable Services of the Information System Maxis Berhad has launched 4G LTE, which is the highest internet speed in Malaysia. However, Maxis Berhad has received some complaints from the customers about its 4G and 3G services. Even though the quality of Maxis service has been deemed to excellent in Malaysia, but, the services is yet to be enough stable to reach the customers expectation. The network service of Maxis often drops to edge, and sometimes is very slow and even has no connection. The 3G service still has not fully cover in the Malaysia and for the new 4G service; it only covers for the few particular place. Besides, information system may not be always function perfectly. It may cause by system break down, operations interruptions and so on. (d) Poor customer services Although the distribution of the Maxis outlet is very wide and available in many places, but, not all the Maxis outlet is able to provide the sufficient customer service. For example, some of the Maxis centre is only able to let customer make the payment and deal with some small case, and customers need to travel to urban areas to get further services. For example, the small Maxis firm is unable to help the customer if the customer has loss his simcard and want and get back the number, he might need to go to the Maxis centre in order to get this service. The most important thing is the customer even need to pay for the services. Opportunities (a) Increasing Visibility to Outsider By using the e-commerce system, the message regarding to the sales can be  transmitted to the public by Maxis Berhad more effectively compared to the other communication companies. In that case, the customers can get the latest sales information of Maxis Berhad all the time through their website, those users able to get most accurate data whenever they need. E-commerce system offers different ways to present data. Therefore, Maxis Berhad is more user-friendly when it adding more features to their website. (b) Decision Making of Investment Decision making of investing Maxis Berhad can be made through the reports provided by the Managing Information System (MIS) of Maxis Berhad. Decision supported with faultless information combined with the intelligence of the company’s directors can lead to unexpected opportunities. Maxis Berhad provides their financial report to the public, so their potential investor will make decision whether to invest Maxis Berhad. (c) Speed time-to-market for new products B2C e-commerce of Maxis can introduce their new telecommunication plans more efficient in the market. When Maxis publishes their plans online, it is faster for the information to reach their customers in the market because it eliminated the time consuming processes such as printing and distributing the hard copies, flyers, leaflet and brochures to the customers. In order to compete with other potential competitors like DiGI and Celcom, Maxis have to be first letting the information of their products reach the customers. This way can lead them to have competitive advantage. (d) Focus on Market Segment Using Managing Information Systems (MIS) enable Maxis Berhad to analyse specified market, and narrow the target market in the telecommunication industry. This Managing Information Systems help organization to analyse consumers’ buying behaviour so that Maxis Berhad can efficiently advertising and marketing their business plans to the target market. (e) Lower procurement and distribution costs When there is a direct online interaction between Maxis and its customers, so this company able to understand the market better. The formation of  relationship with the customers will lead to subscribe services or purchase electronic devices from Maxis directly. As a result Maxis can get rid of the middleman; it will result in reduction in cost. At the same time, customer of Maxis will be beneficial from the reasonable price. Threats (a) Strong Competitors In telecommunication industries, there are a lot of other strong competitors such as DiGi, U-Mobile, Celcom and so on. Strong competitor is one of the threats that almost all firms will experienced. Strong competitors will offer much more benefits to the consumers which might influence Maxis’ customer choices. This will cause Maxis to suffer loss on their sales and customer. For example, consumers will prefer a lower cost telecommunication network in order to save more expenses. (b) Malicious Emails Electronic messages enable easy communications between Maxis and their customers in B2C e-commerce but most of the electronic messages today cannot be easily trusted. This is because most of the emails were sent by anonymous and they might attach some phishing links in the messages. With an accidently click of the phishing link will lead Maxis’ computer software defects bugs which will automatically infect computers without further action. (c) Identity Theft and Internet Frauds The bigger the size of the organizations and the more advance information systems used, therefore Maxis will expose to more risk regarding the frauds on the Internet. For example, Maxis will face loss of important information if they fall into the trap of identity theft that uses false credentials to obtain information, services and credit while Maxis using Transaction Processing System (TPS). When TPS is processing the transaction data, the data might be alter and be stole in the process of encoding and decoding. Leak out of important information will give a big impact to Maxis as they might lose the competitive advantages in the telecommunication industry. (d) Blended Attacks Blended attack happens when the criminals use multiple methods to beat even the best security in order to get the confidential information of a company.  Since the competitive advantages are so strong in the telecommunication industry, the hackers might hack into the Managing Information System (MIS) to obtain Maxis’ various confidential reports, Maxis will be the next victim to be hacked as the criminals leak their company’s confidential information to the competitors. Maxis will face losses of their confidential information which might affect the company’s future performance and shareholders’ confidence in their company. (e) Delivery Risk Business to Customer (B2C) as one of the e-commerce using by Maxis. While having online businesses, Maxis facing a very important issue which is how this company deliver the electronic devices. Company must be very careful in choosing the delivery methods to ensure the product reach the customer in time and no damage should be found or to minimize the damages that can be caused. For example, when Maxis deliver handphone device like Apple or Samsung to the customers, they have to ensure the deliver cost be minimized including the damages that might happen in the process of delivery. Part 5: Recommendation Weakness (a) High Maintenance Fees In the telecommunication services market, it is hard to reduce the production costs to set lower price in order to pay for the maintenances fees and compete with the others competitors such as Digi, Celcom, and U-mobile. Maxis Berhad may concentrate to focus on the product innovation and product features in order to fulfill the customer needs. For example, the launched of the 4G LTE services have huge increases in their profit. Besides, Maxis Berhad can apply for funds, discount or allowance from the government to minimize their maintenance fees. (b) Lack of internal securities control Maxis Berhad need to always update and improve their securities system in order to prevent attacked by the hackers and viruses. Maxis Berhad can hire security agencies to monitor and protect their system all the time. Besides, Maxis Berhad has to strengthen internal control policies, processes and procedures as well as monitor their employees which are responsible for the customer’s information to prevent information outflow. The information of  the customer needed to fully secure to protect the company’s image. (c) Unstable Services of the Information System Maxis has to concern about the unstable services. Most importantly, Maxis must spend for the regular upgrade and maintenance for the unstable services although the cost is very high. Besides, 3G and 4G services available place should be expanded in order to get more customers who stay at rural areas. It is because nowadays the 3G and 4G is very important, customers tend connect to internet wherever and whenever by using the services, so, the stability of 3G and 4G will be the important criteria for customers in choosing the telecommunication service. With a better 3G and 4G services and wider coverage, Maxis will have the competence to compete with the strong competitors, for example P1 wimax is a competitor of Maxis who offers cheaper packages. (d) Poor customer services Customer service plays an important role in the business especially in the telecommunication industry, with good customer service, it’s able to retain the existing customers and attract more potential customers to subscribe the Maxis services. Maxis has to make the Maxis centre become one-stop service in order to facilitate the customers and make them to be more satisfied with the Maxis service. Besides, Maxis has to promote their services and offer free services to the customer in order to attract more customers and improve company’s image. Threats (a) Strong Competitors The business nature of Maxis Berhad is oligopoly competition, which is a type of market form in which the industry (telecommunication) is dominated by a small number of sellers. Competitive relationship between the Maxis berhad and other companies is strong. Therefore, the Maxis Berhad have to aware of the actions of others and make the most suitable decision based on the decision of other company. Thus, we will recommend that the Maxis Berhad could implement the market research and analysis system to investigate their competitors as well as deploy the job costing system to control and minimize the cost of production, and indirectly, they could adjust and lower their pricing in order to gain the competitive advantage. (b) Malicious Emails The other threat is the malicious emails. In this case, we would recommend that the Maxis Berhad could create their own unique symbol or signature on the email they sent to the customers in the B2C ecommerce transaction in order to differentiate it with the malicious emails. (c) Identity Theft and Internet Frauds The identity thief and internet fraud is also one of the threats the Maxis Berhad faces. In our opinion, the company could deploy the information security management system (ISMS) to provide an additional protection on the company information to make it secure. (d) Blended Attacks The other threat is the blended attack. In order to manage the blended attack, we will recommend that the Maxis Berhad should master the urge network administrators to make it more vigilant about patch management, employ server software to detect the malware and keep updating and using the firewall products. (e) Delivery Risk The delivery risk is also a threat the Maxis Berhad needs to concern about. In our opinion, the Maxis Berhad should implement the service delivery risk management (SDRM) to enable the Maxis having a better understanding on their client profitability, cost and revenue drivers, and exception management and governance process. Part 6: Conclusion In the beginning, our group decide to choose Maxis Berhad based the company’s performance and its achievement. From the part of the type of e-commerce used by Maxis, our group found that there are two type of it which is business to consumer (B2C) and business to business (B2B). There are three type of information system used by Maxis which is transaction processing system (TPS), process all the routine transactions in the business which is necessary and able to track consumer behaviour at the same time; Managing Information System (MIS), system that produce detailed information to help manage the firm; electronic commerce system (ECS), system enable customers to buy goods and service from Maxis. From SWOT analysis above we recognise the strength part include Quality of Internal and External Communications,  Quality of Planning, Quality Control and Supervision, Quality and Responsiveness of the Competitors’ Condition and Customers’ Satisfaction. As the weakness part of the information system brings to Maxis which is High Maintenance Fees, Lack of internal securities control, and Unstable Services of the Information System and Poor customer services. The opportunities are Increasing Visibility to Outsider, Decision Making of Investment, Speed time-to-market for new products, Focus on Market Segment and Lower procurement and distribution costs. In addition, there are also five threats of the information system assist Maxis which Strong Competition, Malicious Emails, Identity Theft and Internet Frauds, Blended Attacks and Delivery Risk. Reference Artem Evgenovich Babenko, h. (2014). E-commerce Systems. ITSource. It-source.net., from http://it-source.net/en/E-commerce/ Khurana,. (2014). Is Ecommerce Right for Your Business? 36 Pros and Cons. About., from http://ecommerce.about.com/od/eCommerce-Basics/tp/Advantages-And-Disadvantages-Of-Ecommerce.htm MalaysianWireless,. (2011). Maxis won Asiaà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s Best Employer Brand Award., from http://www.malaysianwireless.com/2011/08/maxis-asias-best-employer-brand-award/ Role of Management Information System in Telecom Agency. (2012). International Journal Of Computer Applications & Information Technology, 1(1). Themalaysianinsider.com,. (2014). Maxis streamlines organisation structure into four areas – The Malaysian Insider., from http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/maxis-streamlines-organisation-structure-into-four-areas TRANSACTION PROCESSING SYSTEMS,. (2014). PROS AND CONS., from http://transactionprocessingsystem.weebly.com/pros-and-cons.html Valacic h, J., Schneider, C., & Jessup, L. (2010). Information systems today. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall. Winksite.mobi,. (2014). Maxis Wins Best In Consumer Innovation Award | Happenings | eNEWS July. from http://winksite.mobi/xhtml/ms_fo_pg_v?fid=34148&id=24628&susid=39495&s=1&s2=1

Questioning the Truth of the News Essays - 4176 Words

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