IFSM Project

Background and Organizational Analysis

Introduction

Chesapeake IT Consultants (CIC) is an IT consulting company that has been able to achieve a considerable amount of success in its work. The company serves small to mid-sized companies, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. With annual gross revenue of $80,000,000 the company strongly believes that it has been able to achieve its success because of the effort that its employees have been putting in. The company demonstrates great value for its employees and hopes to develop its personnel further in the future. The company plans on growing in the future by increasing its clientele and building its human resources. However, the company has been experiencing some challenges in relation to its hiring process. CIC is expecting to sign two big contracts that will require the employment of 75 new IT consultants within a short period of time. The company currently uses a manual technique of recruitment but the company’s top officials have been concerned that the usual hiring process will not work for the employment of the required 75 new employees given the short period of time that is available. In addition, the company hopes to expand its hiring activities to other countries but it cannot achieve that will the current system of employment. Therefore, the company requires the implementation of new technology systems that will help to improve the hiring process and enable the company to satisfy the needs of its customers. This chapter analyses the organization’s strategy and introduces the components that will make up the company’s new information system. Comment by Jennifer Carter: Excellent introduction!

Organizational Strategy

CIC’s strategy that has enabled it to achieve success and growth in the time that it has been in operation is the building of well skilled IT personnel. CIC has a clear business strategy that it intends to apply in the future to enable the achievement of its strategic goals and objectives. Part of the company’s strategy is to hire IT professionals from international markets so that they can have a wider range of research and information on technology solutions and the trends in the subject from various places around the world. The company also has the strategy to develop its business by winning more contracts in the area of technology consulting, and being able to assign professional IT professionals to the new companies that will join the company. Comment by Jennifer Carter: Be careful of your grammar. Your point here is not clear.

Implementing a new software system that improves the company’s hiring process can help it to achieve each of its strategies. The software will make it easier for the company to reach a wider range of qualified IT professionals beyond borders and make the recruitment process much simpler; hence, enabling the company to find the best employees within the shortest amount of time and with limited usage of resources. Comment by Jennifer Carter: Also, it supports the strategy you mentioned above for winning more contracts because they will be able to more quickly fill positions for new work. Previously they would have had to limit growth because of the slow rate of hiring.

Components of an Information System

An information system is made up of an integrated set of components that work together to help the system to perform its roles. The interaction of the different components of the information system will enable CIC to reach its goal of improving its recruitment process.

People and Technology

For an information system to be developed, people and technology must interact. The information system cannot do without either of the two components (Peppard& Ward, 2016). The following is an analysis of how the recruitment software will improve the work of various officials at CIC. Comment by Jennifer Carter: Good use of your reference.

CEO Comment by Jennifer Carter: You make some good points, but this section was intended to describe what the interests or needs as described by each individual stakeholder.

The new software will enable the CEO to be confident that his new clients can get good quality services due to the presence of the qualified staff. He will be able to acquire the staff members as fast as possible when the software is implemented.

CFO

The new software will help the CFO to achieve a cost-effective recruitment process. A single system will be used to manage all the employee relations hence saving the company a lot of funds. Comment by Jennifer Carter: The CFO is interested in considering the total cost of new technology and long term solutions. He/She thinks the company needs the ability to track skills and certifications of staff and the ability to export data.

CIO

The new software will have a high quality security system that will prevent any breaches into the company’s systems as this is a great concern for the CIO. The software development will take into consideration all possible security issues and have quality mitigation strategies. Comment by Jennifer Carter: The CIO wants to ensure new systems are compatible with existing architecture and systems. The CIO wants to buy not make systems, specifically buying software as a service (SaaS). The systems should support mobility, provide a global solution, and be secure.

Director of Human Resources

The system will enable the HR to meet the company’s hiring requirements easily by simplifying the processes. He will not have to deal with the manual process that has become cumbersome due to the company’s increasing recruitment requirements.

Manager of Recruiting

The new software will simplify the work of the manager of recruiting by helping to recruit more employees within a shorter period of time.

Recruiters

The software will make the job of comparing resumes and checking the applicants’ information much easier because they will have all information computerized within a single system. Comment by Jennifer Carter: Recruiters also want the system to provide resume screening, automated scheduling for interview coordination, easier transfer/access to resumes (not lost in mail or email), an electronic dashboard to see status of improved efficiency for handling hiring manager requisitions.

Administrative Assistant

The software will help to make all the processes performed by the administrative assistant much easier. All the important information will be available in one system hence he will not have to deal with excess paperwork as usual. Comment by Jennifer Carter: Interested in the ability to route applications to hiring manager for feedback to setup interviews and interview teams, inform recruiter of interview results, simplified status tracking, reduce paperwork of resumes, coordinate paperwork for new hire with HR and payroll after job offer.

Hiring Manager

This software will simplify the work of the hiring manager, enabling him to be more efficient in all the responsibilities that he has. The current manual system makes it hard to focus on all areas of the job effectively. Comment by Jennifer Carter: The primary interests are a faster hiring process, electronic dashboard with status, and electronic scheduling for interviews. The system should Impress candidates with technology and efficiency, be easy to ese, require little training and enable matching key skills to proposals.

Processes

For information systems to work efficiently there are a number of processes that usually take place (Laudon&Laudon, 2016). CIC currently uses a manual system of recruitment that involves manual analysis of the applicants’ information and determining the best candidates for the job. The company uses recruiters to perform the role but since the process is not computerized. It tends to be bulky and takes a lot of time. The following table represents the current recruitment process that is used by CIC to find new talent.

Data

Information systems are also made up of data and databases. A database is a collection of related data that enables the process of data retrieval within an organization to be much simpler (Pearlson& Saunders, 2009). The entire information system involves the transmission of various sets of data from one server to another. The following are some data elements that will be available in the recruitment software to be developed for CIC.

References Comment by Jennifer Carter: Excellent use of references.

Laudon, K. C., Laudon, J. P., Brabston, M. E., Chaney, M., Hawkins, L., & Gaskin, S. (2012). Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm, Seventh Canadian Edition (7th. Pearson.

Laudon, K. C., &Laudon, J. P. (2016). Management information system.Pearson Education India.

Pearlson, K. E., & Saunders, C. S. (2009).Strategic management of information systems.

Peppard, J., & Ward, J. (2016). The strategic management of information systems: Building a digital strategy. John Wiley & Sons.