Mary’s MediBracelets Final Report

Mary’s Medibraclets

Derrick Hobbs

David Conway

Information Systems

A description of the relationship between business processes and information systems

Business processes refers to the logical set of activities that are related which defines how the specific activities in a business are performed. They can also be said to be ways in which organizations coordinate and also organize work activities, knowledge and information so that they can produce valuable products and services. Information systems are related to the business processes in that they automate the manual business processes and increase the efficiency in a business. Through the information systems, the customers can now be in a position to order the bracelets online because the manual steps have already been automated. Information systems also enhances the business processes in that they eliminate the delays in the process of decision making, changes the information flow and also replaces the sequential steps that needs to be followed when making orders manually with the parallel steps. Lastly, information system speeds up the completion of the business processes and also acts as a drive to new business models that cannot be employed without the help of technology (Heinrich, 2014).

A flowchart for handling an online order

The flow chart below depicts the process of handling an online order when a potential client goes through the purchasing process. From the flowchart, a client is first required to complete the purchase requisition form and if it is approved, he or she chooses the method of payment which can be either cash or the credit card. If it is not approved, the order is taken back to the purchase requisition step. If one opts for cash payments, if they are an independent contractor, the IC’s agreement is filled out and if they are not an independent contractor, they directly go ahead and obtain a P.O from the controller just like the independent contractors. After this, they obtain an invoice which is sent to the controller for approval. On the other hand if the client is paying via a credit card, they are first required to fill out CCPR, then the invoice CCPR and later the documents are sent for approval by the controller.

Areas for Information Systems (IS) use and security concerns

Information system has proved to be very useful to many businesses operating in the various industries such as Google, EBay and Facebook among others. However, the use of information system in an improper manner can raise security concerns in a business. When criminals try to gain access to the credit card information of the clients, the business can incur great financial losses and also the clients who are the owners of the cards and can also compromise their private information. One of the security concerns that are posed by information systems is the cyber-crimes. This refers to the use of the information systems in committing crimes. This can result to huge financial losses and also the loss of human life. It has been on the rise due to the increased use of the smartphones and the high end mobile devices which has increased the ability of the people to access the internet (Vacca, 2009).

A list of areas of concern for ethical handling of customers' private information

Businesses are required to exercise caution and practice ethicality while handling the private information for their customers. Due to the advancement in the internet technology, it has become easy for businesses and individuals to gather assemble and also circulate customer’s information. This has led to the fear on the proper use of the customer’s data and also on the protection of the people’s privacy especially in the buying and the selling of the customer’s private information. The following is a list of concerns when handling customer’s private information;

· Ensure that the customers data that is collected do not land on the hands of unauthorized individuals

· Engage with other companies to keep the customers data private and protected

· Avoid selling customers information without the knowledge of the clients and if this is done, the business should ensure that its aware of the individual purchasing the data and the reason behind this.

References

Heinrich, R. (2014). Aligning business processes and information systems : new approaches to continuous quality engineering. Wiesbaden: Springer Vieweg.

Vacca, J. (2009). Computer and information security handbook. Amsterdam Boston Burlington, MA: Elsevier Morgan Kaufmann.