Written Project Plan

Project Deliverable 1: Project Plan Inception

Patrick B. Magee

Information Systems Capstone (CIS-499)

Mark O’Connell, Professor

January 11, 2015

I have recently being appointed as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for a $25 million data collection and analysis Company. I am charged with the task of documenting and implementing an information technology infrastructure. The company is currently worth $25 million and has been in operation for the last two years, there are 20 employees with four of them including myself being fully attached to the IT department. There is enormous potential that the company will grow and is expected to grow by 60% in the next 18 months. Therefore, as the CIO, I have a greater responsibility to ensure that I implement an information technology infrastructure that will have the ability to cope, adapt and compliment the rapid growth of the firm. The company is currently collecting data through web analytics and then combines it with operational systems data.

Web analytics are critical for today’s business owners, analysts, webmasters, as well as marketing professionals. Web analytics are critical because they enhance the evaluation and analysis of the activities of a business’s online users. The company should therefore utilize web analytics to develop a greater understanding of its online users. Web analytics also allow for the preservation as well as the development of the company’s online performance as it relates to its organizational goals (Jansen, 2013).

Web analytics aim at understanding the online users of a company’s online services, E-commerce companies utilize web analytics in evaluating the number of sites clicks, what was the intentions of the visitors of their portals, how the users got into their site, what search words are mostly searched that lead most visitors to their sites, average time spent by most users on the site, what links the users clicked during their time on the site, and much more metadata. A company then utilizes this metadata for analysis so as to mitigate ways for better service delivery (Jansen, 2013).

The information obtained from web analytics may also be utilized to understand which site pages are being visited and which should be improved in order to increase traffic. The information can then be utilized in building a site with an improved user experience. Web analytics should therefore be one of the important marketing strategies for this company; thereby becoming a major online tool that the organization utilizes to interact with its clients.

Many companies today utilize web analytics in re-examining their online presence and to discover ways to gain more influence and control over the internet platform. Web analytics is generally confused with web data measurement which involves the work of collecting data on the internet while web analytics actually means interpreting the data with the goals of improving a business online presence and control. Thus, web analytics is critical for the future of this company and I would do anything at my disposal to ascertain that it is fully realized in all measures.

Business solution outsourcing has been one of the most debated public policy in the last few years; business analysts and economists have demonstrated strong economic justifications for outsourcing. Outsourcing involves the practice of subcontracting business processes to an outside supplier with the primary goals of reducing operating, administrative, as well as transaction costs. In the process of outsourcing, organizations examine their complete structures and workflows which is an important byproduct of outsourcing and off-shoring decision making process.

The global application of outsourcing is off-shoring which potentially offers greater and wider benefits. At its initial inception, the focus of off-shoring was taking advantage of lowering cost. The term off-shoring doesn’t necessary mean that the tasks will only be performed abroad; complex strategies which involve bringing foreign professional to the domestic shores to undertake the tasks are also possible.

Mainly, outsourced processes are handed off to the third-party vendors while off-shored processes can be handed off to the third-party vendors or may remain in-house. Currently, the company is not outsourcing or off-shoring any of its business processes but as it expands it will definitely have to outsource or off-shore some of its business processes especially the ones that requires advanced expertise or technologies.

The following are the current skilled information systems personnel:

Chief Information Officer (CIO): Oversees the IT department and ensures the strategic alignment of the organization IT with its business goals and objectives.

Chief Technology Officer (CTO): Responsible for ensuring the maximum throughput, speed, accuracy, availability, confidentiality, and reliability of all IT related activities as well as in communication systems.

Chief Security Officer (CSO): Responsible for ensuring the security of IT systems as well as ensuring secure information exchange.

Chief Privacy Officer (CPO): Responsible for ensuring ethical as well as legal guidelines are followed in the use of organizational information.

The company collects both quantitative as well as qualitative data; quantitative data includes how many visitors have visited the online portal while qualitative data includes what value the visitors brings to the company in terms of sales and other business aspects.

The company utilizes the Linux platform which offers various desktop alternatives, the most popular desktop alternatives includes KDE and GNOME. These are better environments since they provide a large collection of desktop programs as compared to the Windows environments such as FVWM which are just bare bone Window managers. The Linux platforms provide a GUI with desktop metaphor, this allows the user to set personal preferences as well as perform common system management tasks.

The company utilizes a Mifos database which is simple and easy to navigate, offers robust security measures and fraud protection. The database has a configurable workflow-automatic flow feature. Mifos is flexible since it can provide beneficial services to a variety of industries. There are many different databases within the Mifos software which can be aligned to increase effectiveness in the business operations.

Predictive analytics and cloud computing technologies are sizzling issues in business today. The company will focus on predictive analytics so as to improve business performance with analytics while cloud based technologies will be the default option for purchasing and deploying software, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is the preferred option since it helps elevate user acceptance and overall customer service (Menken, 2012).

Security in a computer system can be defined as the provision made in an underlying computer network infrastructure that the data exchanged and the network resources would be protected from malicious groups. Security in this company would be ensured through the policies that would be adopted by the organization so as to protect the network and the network resources from unauthorized access and any malicious groups (Perez, 2014).

As the CIO of this company I will ensure protection at the boundaries of the organization by keeping intruders away through the use of Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) as well as Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) which will help detect and inhibit malwares. I will also ensure that the company trains its employees on security issues and will also implement firewall equipment and install the best anti-virus software (Perez, 2014).

References

Jansen, B. J. (2013). Understanding user-Web interactions via Web analytics. San Rafael, Calif.:

Morgan & Claypool Publishers.

Taylor, J. (2009). Managing information technology projects: Applying project management

strategies to software, hardware, and integration initiatives. New York: American

Management Association.

Menken, I. (2012). Cloud computing: Software as a service (SaaS) specialist level complete

certification kit - study guide book and online course. Dayboro: Emereo Pub.

Perez, A. (2014). Network Security. London: ISTE.