KY Logistic & Distribution Company IT Decision Paper

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KY Logistics and Distribution Company (KYLOD)

IT Strategic Plan for KY Logistics and Distribution Company

Nambo Francis

IFSM 301

Running head: IT STRATEGIC PLAN

IT STRATEGIC PLAN 2

June 20, 2019

IT strategic plan for KY Logistics and Distribution Company

1. Business Declaration

KY Logistics and Distribution Company (KYLOD) is a zonal company which has been offering transportation and services for the past four decades. The company provides its services to major cities in the Midwest region of the United States. Their headquarters is located in Chicago, Illinois. They have a total staff of 700 employees, including all the truck drivers. They have several distribution terminals which are located in Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Fort Wayne Indianapolis, and Grand Rapids, which help to fuse shipping, they also have vehicles including 40 tractors, 80 box trucks, and 80-panel vans. The company’s line of business is highly competitive, and they have shown slow growth due to a sluggish economy. Kevin, the company president, aspires, to see an increase in the rate of 6% per year. They work 24/7, with their salespersons visiting everywhere to market the company and make quotations. A dispatcher at terminal makes a list of freight pickups and drives and follows the routes making the drops at the respective stoppages. The company is reliable and competent in all their transport and distributive endeavors.

2. Business Strategic Objectives

KYLDO has three specific ideas which it aims to pursue and discover accomplishment in the subsequent business venture year strategically and offer the best services to the customers. The main concepts in KYLOD are explained in the following points.

Business Strategic Objective 1:

Provide Warehouse Services; this is targeting them for customers who want to the duration taken by the customers to receive their orders by availing the products locally.

Business Strategic Objective 2:

Progress the percent of covered distance in their fleet to reduce expenses by coordinating a synchronous pickup and delivery of merchandise at the same schedule for stations in the same geographical location.

Business Strategic Objective 3:

Track the whereabouts of freight both in the terminals and on the trucks to provide customers with accurate delivery dates and times

3. IT Vision and IT Mission objectives-

IT Mission objective – The mission of IT Company is to save time, dependable distributors, delivery the unsurpassed quality of merchandise in the section with the aid of the most convenience Technology.

IT Vision objective – The Vision is achieved both cost, evolution, and mission objectives accompanied by a single delivery system. Using Technology in the delivery of commodities across the universe (SHRM, 2018).

Governance: The Company’s organization entails the President, Vice President in charge of Operations, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Chief Information Officer (CIO) Sales Manager and a Fleet Manager who is in cost of maintaining safety. The senior officers of the company meet every single week to discuss important company matters and look for amicable solutions. The company IT department is now going to be headed by Jenny, who is the CIO. It is made up of seven programmers who develop and integrates all the company systems, six helpdesk personnel who oversee the six terminals (Stank, Daugherty & Gustin, 1994). The team also includes two network engineers and a financial systems specialist who ensures accurate financial reporting. IT staff support multiple locations. There are 15 servers in the Chicago headquarters which contain all software and data, and a backup unit for all the company information.

Under the able leadership of Jenny as the CIO, the company's IT department is going milestones. Though they are still awaiting the updating of the older technology that they are currently using, they have been able accurately to make the financial reports without any hiccups whatsoever (Daugherty, Chen & Ferrin, 2011). They have been able to track the freight by locating the first and last destinations. However, they are willing to have something more current, which will enable them to see all freights during all the hours of transportation. They are also doing prodigious fleet management with the current technology that they have. The only challenge that they are having is to maintain the freight scheduling to be reliable to all their customers, which hopefully they will manage if they get a current and Up-to-date technology. The company is going to prioritize, considering customer satisfaction.

Inventory of the Current IT System

Present	Purpose/	The strategic	Business	Business	IT
	Description	objective	Category/	Paybacks	Resources
System		associated	Branch		(human,
		with			apparatus)
40 Personal	Accounting	Accounting,	IT	A successful	40 people
computers		Management.	infrastructure	organization,
			and	accounting, and
			administration	synchronization
			unit and all
			end stations
	Networking,	Record	Chicago	Provided	8 Database
	database, and	keeping and	headquarters	information	Administrators.
	recovery	data		safety over four
		management		Decades.
Marketing	It is used in all	To increase		It gives the
	fields of	the sales in the		customers fleet
Smartphone	Marketing.	Transport filed.		Updates.
application

IT Strategies

IT Strategy	Strategic Objective, then Explanation of Alignment of the IT Strategy to Business Objective.	Internal/Business-
		Enabling (state
		the words
		“Internal” or
		“Business
		Enabling”)
Improving And Upgrading Systems including IT equipment	Schemes upgrade,
	By carrying out a system upgrade, including the IT equipment. Systems will be brought to newer, better, and up-to-date versions which are complaint with the latest technologies in the market.
	This will significantly improve the computing time and processing of large and different formats of data faster and overall productivity of the system developers.
		Internal
	For a business to run smoothly and perform at its optimum peak, fast and responsive systems plus a reliable, fast and a secure network resource should be put in place as the play a significant role in the overall performance
	.
Expert	Expert Support Team,
Technical	Having a competent help desk and support teams improves better communication with customers.
Support
	Currently, they are many technologies that have emerged; most are powered by advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, AI.
		Business Enabling
	Problems do happen unpredictably, and it requires better management and excellent communication to fast track the problem and how best can it be solved
	.
	A well-structured IT support management makes it easy to streamline multiple queries, help to expert care for all technical support needs.
	This improves availability, resolve issues quickly to reduces outages, and minimize system downtime
	.
Accurate	Financial Reporting, reporting took the labor-intensive process, and
Financial	system information was not readily available. The finance management
Reporting	team need to access the finance data any time and efficiently, and the
	new system must substitute the present finance and accounting system.
	Upon implementation of this Precise Financial Report, it will make	Internal
	financial reporting a less tedious task and will enable the ability to meet
	compliance requirements, also tracking of any financial errors and
	ledgers will be more comfortable and there will be an estimated overall
	business improvement.
Automated	Smart Data Input, as cited in the Case Study, bookkeepers,
and Smart	accountants, and dispatchers, have an enormous tedious task. Inputting
Data Entry	of data into the systems is done manually; this means accuracy is a
Techniques	problem and performing a repetitive task.
	Automated and Smart Data Entry Techniques can work faster and are
	more reliable as compared to a human. Data is converted more quickly
	from a hardcopy format to softy format and stored by the computer	Business Enabling
	which is easy to manipulate. This Smart system can generate electronic
	documents.
	By implementing this strategy, it put the business in line with other
	company in the market, and overall performance of the business is
	greatly improved as it can more handle the workload from its
	customers, thus increasing revenue generated annually.

Proposed Project

Automated Shipment Tracking System

From the Case Study, most felt that there was some space, but tracking of the shipments might be a problem. A proposed Automated Shipment Tracking System is targeted to solve this problem by making it easy to keep track of the purchase in and out of the warehouse. This will keep records up to date on the status of the purchase, delivery forecast, and pickups destinations. This system is aimed to provide a single beautiful interface to keep track of the investments and offer better convenience.

Current techniques have a high level of inefficiency, mostly is gives the dispatchers and the bookkeepers a hard time keeping track of all the records and shipments in and out of the warehouse. Their chief objective is to get loads in and out of the stations within the shortest duration. Distribution duration is restrained as one of the company’s performance objective, and this improves their credit score. The proposed project will require a program writer and a web specialist in system design. It is aimed to take a maximum of two months.

Risk Management

Risks to be aware of before the execution of the business plan include the following:

1. All technology always run the risk of being considered outdated once newer technology is released. This is a risk that should be considered for the hardware, software, mobile applications, and system integrations

2. IT project management if fraught with risk just like any other venture, and this plays a huge role, since any setback or hazard experienced along the way will have an effect on the time, budget and outcome of the project.

3. IT is a competitive field, and managing to land experienced talent to be utilized in risk management while great, it will nonetheless be necessary to ensure they have other skills like the ability to effectively communicate with others in aid of their assigned responsibilities (Bridges, 2019).

Risk management methods she can use for each one to try to avert or alleviate.

· Business impact analysis: this steps involves the identification of business-critical functions and what impact their absence would have on operations of the company.

· Recovery: with the business critical functions identified, next is coming up with a plan on how to recover them.

· Organization: the success of the business continuity plan will for a huge part depend on the team selected to carry it out, hence the need to have a capable team.

· Training: the team once selected will then embark on being trained on how to manage their process, with simulations and drills being utilized to ensure they can effectively understand their roles and responsibilities in the process

Some other key components of a business continuity plan is the maintenance of up to date information as regards the plan. This will include the necessary resources for the process, the location of backup data and the procedures to handle it, and the entire team of personnel involved, along with their up to date contact information (Wifihackers).

They are involved in its development and their roles in the BCP.

A Committee that can guarantee higher administration obligations, they are accountable for the error, commencement, preparation, endorsement, testing, and inspection of the organization continuity strategy. A Business Continuity Plan will identify the following individuals along with their roles.

· Executive sponsor – they are the ultimately responsible party for the BCP process, and have to seek out funding and requirements from the company management.

· BCP coordinator – they are responsible for representing the interests of the company’s senior management on the team, sending out to them progress on the process and providing input on the finances of the project. They will develop the BCP strategy and provide for growth in a manner that will make sustainable for the organization in the long term.

· Security officer – working in conjunction with the BCP coordinator, the security officer will seek out effective security solutions for the project.

· Chief Information Officer (CIO) – with the team of IT professional working under them, the CIO will work with the BCP coordinator to develop a strategy for the efficient utilization of information technology resources in the project.

· Business unit representatives – representing the various departments of the company, they will provide their department-specific input as regards the business impact analysis and provide assistance on appropriate measures (Dunia, 2014).

Also, from the Case Study, identify what you consider the three most essential systems currently in use at KYLOD along with justification of your choices.

1. Routing systems – these current routing systems utilize local maps to pinpoint the location of trucks in real time. Using this information, the truck nearest to freight that needs to be picked will be routed to that freight, with an order sequence used in the case where there are many trucks in a particular ZIP code.

2. The fleet maintenance system – this is an especially helpful tool that provides real time information on all and specific trucks in the company’s fleet. From this centralized portal, it can be found from basic information like the identification details of the individual vehicles, to more specific details like the state and schedule of their maintenance activities, and a detailed inventory of their readily available parts to identify what might need acquiring externally.

3. Financial Systems, accountant, and use this system to perform updates on ledgers, filter data, or perform an audit of the business.

Based on the three systems chose in 3, explain the specific steps Jenny can take to ensure those systems continue to be available for KYLOD in the event of a local catastrophe.

1. Route optimization and tracking system, proper resource utilization should be optimized, and the personnel operating the system should be free from stress and available all time and should be motivated. A new backup of the system should be put in place in case the unprecedented happens, also additional personnel to take a shift for optimum performance of the business.

2. The Fleet maintenance system, this contains information of a fleet and should be readily available to the concerned personnel such as the mechanics, dispatcher. This boost early planning and relieves a lot of frictions in the event or problem.

3. Financial System, this is one of the major areas in business structure, and a well and efficient financial system in place boost productivity by a higher degree. Making sure data is available readily whenever it is needed, and considering the integrity and security of the information is of great importance.

References

Daugherty, P., Chen, H., & Ferrin, B. (2011). Organizational structure and logistics service innovation. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 22(1), 26-51.

Dunia, P. D. (2014). Business Continuity Planning. Retrieved June 30, 2019, from http://blog.dayaciptamandiri.com/2014/10/perubahan-dalam-dunia-business.html

firstgroupplc.com. (2014). Strategic objectives. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.firstgroupplc.com/investors/strategy/strategic-priorities.aspx

KYLOD Case Study (31 May 2019). IFSM 301, foundations of information systems Management. Retrieved from https://learn.umuc.edu/d2l/le/content/325948/Home

Bridges, J. (2019, March 19). IT Risk Management Strategies and Best Practices. Retrieved June 30, 2019, from https://www.projectmanager.com/training/it-risk-management-strategies

SHRM. (2018). Mission & Vision Statements: What is the difference between mission, vision, and values statements. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/Pages/Custom404.aspx?requestUrl=https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools

Stank, T., Daugherty, P., & Gustin, C. (1994). Organizational Structure: Influence on Logistics Integration, Costs, and Information System Performance. The International Journal Of Logistics Management, 5(2), 41-52.

Wifihackers. (n.d.). Business Continuity Management A Critical Management. Retrieved June 30, 2019, from https://www.wifihackers.org/file-ready/business-continuity-management-a-critical-management