Enterprise Management System for Managing IT assets in cross-border Companies
Project Specification
1. Outline of the Project Environment
Hong Kong reunified with China on July 1, 1997, this was the end of 156 years of British colonial rule. This reunification took place under the concept of “one country, two systems,” a concept unprecedented in history. Economic integration of Hong Kong and Shenzhen, China started in 1978, when Deng Xiaoping opened the China’s door.
Shenzhen was no more than a tiny fishing village until it won the equivalent of the National Lottery and become Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in 1980. Developers added a stock market, hotels and towering office blocks and the world, as Shenzhen knew it came to an abrupt end. Nowadays, Shenzhen is a big shopping mall for Hong Kong residents (Harper, 2005 pp. 573).
These two different places with entire different culture and custom are now one of the biggest places in terms of trade and industry. Economic ties between these two neighbor economies have always been close. Leveraging on the complementary functions of Shenzhen and Hong Kong enterprises, namely in production and overseas sales and marketing, a strong synergy of cooperation has developed. Both Shenzhen and Hong Kong have a strong technology industry.
The company has two offices located in the said two different places, with different culture and customs. It has 400 staffs in Shenzhen, China. Currently the company is planning to train the said 400 staffs in Shenzhen, China in using inventory system, user support, company newsletter information sharing, knowledge transfer, helpdesk enquiries and remote desktop support using the technology of Enterprise Management System.
2. Presenting Problem to be solved
Due to the fast changing and growth of technology in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, China, as well as the improvement of trading relationship between the said two places, the company have decided to implement the use of Enterprise Management System (EMS) or Information Technology (IT) assets of a business such as desktop computers or application software. However the first attempt failed due to mismanagement of the system due to cultural differences, communication problems, training and maintenance. The said failure resulted to low productivity, loss of the IT inventory as well as loss of important and confidential data. The company now is planning to implement again the said technology by applying the lesson learned from the past.
2.1 Characteristics: affects the overall performance of the company, negative impact to the behaviour of the staffs, causes confusion to the staffs, affects the trade relationship of the different offices of the company from the cross boarder’s offices.
2.2 Context: Difference between the culture and customs of the staffs in the said two places has deterred the implementation of EMS. This is because, the company did not focused on different approach that they should apply in training and informing the staffs. It also affects the communication of the two offices.
2.3 Causes: The cause of the problem is due to the improper management, poor implementation, lack of communication as well as maintenance of their IT resources and EMS.
2.4 Association: IT assets, Inventory Control, Data sharing and administration, Knowledge transfer, helpdesk enquiries, remote desktop support
2.5 Perspective: Due to the fact that the reason for the failure of the first attempt to implement the company’s EMS is due to the cultural differences of the staffs as well as mismanagement of the IT resources, it would be better to use the perspective of the staffs or the employees of the company.
2.6 Effects: the improper management, implementation and maintenance of the EMS have lead to more serious problems than not having it at all. The said mismanagement has lead to loss of important and significant data and information for the company, improper management and imbalance inventory, loss of IT resources. All of the said reasons or dilemma affected the performance of each and every individual staff that led to slow productivity that later affect the performance of the company as a whole.
3. Target
Deployment and implementation of EMS again but this time the company will focus on areas that they find lacking during the first attempt. Focusing on communications, trainings and maintenance as well as team building will also help the company to manage their resources in a more centralize manner. Application of innovative technology to the business functions and other service delivery as well as establishments of data standards for sharing and administration of cross boarder offices that will help to support departmental strategic plan and performance goals, ensures efficient IT investments and cost effective and properly managed IT-based system based from the corporate perspective.
4. Project Outcome
The project will produce a correction and re-launch plan of the first used and implement EMS in the businesses in the cross-border offices in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, China. This will include the actions and activities that should be done to improve the use of EMS. The plan will include recommendations on areas that EMS should re-defined, such as policies in managing desktop computers, policies in application software, schedule of re-launching the solution and managing the security of the EMS. This will also focus to the centralization of network architecture and software architecture.
The outcome of the study will focus on the problem of data losses that is due to the non-effective and mismanagement of the IT business systems and strategies. It will produce a user guide to data criticality or user guide for the access level of a given data. By doing this, it will be easy to set some rules with regards to the level of importance of data as well as who should and when it should be access. It can help to maintain the confidentiality of the different information or data.
4.1 Actor
The user guide to data criticality or access level will be used by the users of the EMS and other IT-based systems or the staffs of the company in order to maintain the security level or the efficiency and reliability of the company’s confidential and important information but the information and the outcome of the study will be a great help for the IT manager of the company in order to maintain the confidentiality of the data and information of the company by using EMS and other IT-based systems.
4.2 Activity and Data Spotlight
Since the study will focus on the user guide to the data criticality as an outcome, the study will analyze the different position or management level of the company and accompaniment it with their demands and needs for a particular data and information and create a guidelines or a business rule that will set the different level of system’s users and their accessibility rights. It will also focus on the past activities and tasks that have been implemented by the company and what are those factors that had affect the implementation of the EMS.
5. Research Constraints
5.1 Primary Data
5.1.1 Access to Data: Data will be gathered from the staffs of the company particularly from the 400 staffs that belong to the office in Shenzhen, China. Sometimes, there are some respondents that will not answer the questionnaire based on what they really observe or feel. Their mood, feelings and positions can affect their answers or response to the questionnaires and interviews. It will also focus on the different records of the company from the day of the first planning of the EMS implementation up to the implementation and the maintenance activities.
5.2 Secondary Data
5.2.1 Access to Data: Sometimes it’s really hard to search and gather related information about particular problems; this is no matter how hard you tried to search to every physical and electronic library. Another thing is that, there are some information that can be found in the electronic resources or the Internet that are not reliable and there are also some helpful information in books, journals and other research materials but can be considered as outmoded or outdated. All of the said reasons or factors can affect the reliability of the result of the study.
All of the data that will be use in the study is based on the historical record of the company with regards to the implementation of the EMS as well as those factors and aspects that has a connection to the said application or system.
6. Research Question
What (interrogative) are the details that can be added to the Data Criticality User’s Guide (outcome) that can be developed and implemented by reviewing the different positions, management levels of the company staffs as well as their different needs and demands for different data and information (spotlight) that can be used by the IT managers (actor) in order to deal with the data loss due to non-effective and mismanagement of the IT business systems and strategies (problem) in order to establish data standard for sharing and administration of cross boarders offices of the company (target)?
7. Breakdown of Task
7.1 Literature: This task will be done by gathering and searching different past studies regarding to the different ideas, theories and applications of EMS and other IT-based systems that tackles different issues on how these technologies might prevent data loss and improve efficiency and security in data sharing and confidentiality. It must also use different previous writings about the advantages and disadvantages of the said technologies as well as the successful and unsuccessful application of EMS that can help to compare different ideas, theories and situations.
The use of different journals, research studies and even case studies during the past 5 years can also help to analyze the transition and development of the usage of EMS and IT-based systems in different businesses.
Fig 1 Timeline of Literature Search
Dates are Mondays
November 2007
Events
5
12
19
26
Literature search, Athens e-library
Journals and Other related researches
Construction of Literature Review
7.2 Problem Scenario: This task can be done by acting together or communicating with the staffs of the company as well as observing and analyzing their current situation. It can be done by creating different categories, groups or levels that will serve as a basis for the further details of their needs and demands to a particular data as well as their rights or position to access or to handle a particular data and information. Aside from the reaction or response of the actors who are involved it will also focus on the other entities who are involved in the overall process and the interaction and processes between them.
Fig 2 Timeline of Problem Scenario
Dates Are Mondays
December 2007
Events
3
10
17
24
31
Observation on existing problem
Question to people involved
Inquire for people involved
Analyzing the different historical data
7.3 Preparation of Domain: The preparation of data is divided into two different tasks which are the preparation of primary data and the preparation of research instruments.
7.3.1 Preparation of collection of primary data: The actual size of the respondents that the study will be needed will be based on the total number of staffs of the company which is 400. In order to get the required result of the study, there will be 320 respondents that will be chosen randomly who will join the study by answering some sets of questions as well as interviews. Primary data will also be collected from the past records of the different activities and tasks that have been implemented by the company as well as its different reaction or the response of the overall performance and productivity.
7.3.2 Preparation of research instruments: This task will be done by preparing different research tools that can help to start the study such as different letters and memo as well as structure of questionnaire.
Fig 3 Timeline of Preparation of Domain
Dates Are Mondays
December 2007
Events
3
10
17
24
31
Preparation of collection of primary data
Preparation of research instrument
7.4 Practical Access to Tools – The study will use different software or applications that can help to store, maintain and analyze the result of the data gathering activities. MS Word will be used in order to create different letters and memos as well as to create the sets of questionnaires. MS Excel can also help to analyze the quantitative data that have been gathered from the interviews and questionnaires. The study will also use the Internet for some reliable electronic resources as well as other electronic libraries and journal database.
7.5 Practical Access to Skills – The use of interpersonal skill is also necessary in gathering data from the different entity that are related to the problems as well as gathering information and data that will be important in the study. The knowledge in business research is also a must, because this will be useful in analyzing and documentation of data. The data that have been gathered using the personal interviews will be tally and analyze in order to convert the data into information.
7.6 Practical Documentation – The use of format of formal proposal and presentation will be used in the documentation of this study. Primary data that are collected will be presented using graphs, tables and figures. The secondary data that will be gathered will be written in a formal writing style. This documentation will serve as a diary of the project. It will show the different task that have done and not have done yet.
8. Problem Solving Approach
8.1 Primary Data: The primary data of the study will focus on the reaction or response of the involved staffs of the company. It will give emphasize on the different categories, positions and levels of the company’s staffs and their needs and demands for a particular data or information. The different historical information about the company will also be included, together with the current business rules of the company.
8.2 Research Method: The method that will be using in the study is the case study. Case study will be useful in understanding the complex and profound situation or event (Yin 2003, p.2). It will also be helpful because it will focus on the holistic and in-depth investigation of the current problem or scenario. Another thing is that it will be helpful in gathering data and information from the different resources therefore; it can lessen the effects of contradiction of data. Using the said methodology, it will be easy to target the problem about the first implementation of the EMS and what are the factors that have affected it as well as the in-depth study about the business rules of the company and how it can be applied, together with the lesson learned, in implementing the new propose system.
8.3 Research Approach: The inductive approach will be used in this study, this will be done by detailed observations and use those data to develop and generalize conclusions, generalizations and relationships. The researcher will use rich picture to illustrate the connection of the problematic situation and how it can be improved. The advantage of rich picture is that it can be written or illustrated in any way and it can be understand by anyone
8.4 Research Style: The study will use survey as its research style and will use two types of tools or method under the said style which are the survey interviews and survey questionnaires. This style will show different analysis of different categories and levels of users and their situations. It will focus mainly on the percentage of the perspective of the staffs of the company and shows different tables regarding the accumulative percentage of the answers of the staffs regarding the different questions in the survey. Aside from survey, it will also use some historical data and information about the past performance of the company with regards or connection to the performance of the company as a whole during the first implementation of the EMS. It will also focus on the different business rules and policies that can help to balance the result of the study.
8.5 Data Locations: There are about 400 staffs of the company that are located in Shenzhen, China, this study will get 80 percent of the staffs to be its respondents, so it will have a total of 320 respondents. 320 sets of questionnaire will be distributed in random sampling. Interviews will also be done in order to get more detailed and thorough data from the respondents. It will also gather the different information about the operation of the company during the span of implementation of the EMS as well as other information with the connection to the problem area. This is the reason why the case study methodology is applicable for the study, because it is dependent to the historical data that will serve as complementary information that can help to decide or analyze the situation in simpler and profound way.
8.6 Primary Data Collection Protocol
8.6.1 Access to Data: Data will be gathered from the staffs of the company particularly from the 400 staffs that belong to the office in Shenzhen, China. The historical data will be gathered from the records of the company about their performance. The company policies and rules will be based on current business rules and policy of the company. The business rules of the company are important because it will serve as base information for the data criticality user’s guide.
8.6.2 Vehicle: The primary mechanism that will be used to the study is interview, questionnaire, document searching and observation. All of the said vehicle or technique will be useful in order to gather information with regards to the level of the accessibility of different data and information that will be useful in doing the user’s guide of criticality of data. Record tracking is also an important mechanism that will be using in order to balance the data that have been gathered from the respondents of the study. It can also help to clarify as well as to get to know the root of the problem that can help to produce the result and eventually a recommendation and solution.
8.6.3 Recording Profile: All the data that have been gathered will be recorded using the written report but there can be some important details that can be missed using this traditional recording technique that is why, the study will also deploy video and sound recording. The study will also look in the previous records or documents of the company that has a connection to the data accessibility levels such as the business rules and company policies. All of the said gathered information will be logged to the computer to be analyzed. Each interview will be done in a room that is free from any noise or interference that might affect his or her mood and therefore might affect his or her response to the interview questions.
8.6.4 Sample Criteria: The study will follow the organizational structure of the company and how those personnel or staffs are connected to the IT-based systems or to the important and confidential information and data of the company.
8.6.5 Permission: All of the information will be based on the policy of the company as well as based on the experience and reaction of the staffs.
8.6.6 Ethical Profile: All of the information that has gathered during the duration of the study will remain private. The name of the staffs and other personal information such as age and address will not be used in any other study except this one. All of the confidential information about the historical data of the company will remain confidential.
8.7 Purpose of the Study in a Nutshell
The main purpose of the study is to develop a data criticality or data accessibility user’s guide using the different information from the questionnaires and interviews of the staffs from different managerial levels and the existing or current business rule of the company.
8.8 Pre processing Primary Raw Data
The study will use a pre-processing technique where in, it will wait to gather all of the important information, data as well as documents in order to create or build the outcome. By doing this, there will be no need to look back again and again and thus all of the data can be analyzed and balanced at the same time.
Figure 4 shows the processing of primary data processing of the study. The data that have been gathered from the interviews and the questionnaires will result four categories of primary data such as the project objectives, positions and levels of the staffs, categorizations of data and the needs and demands for a specific data. The interim data can be derived using all of the said categories of primary data and can be used in order to get the assessments of demands of data, the different types of the sensitive data and the criteria of data and information.
All of the said interim data can be used in order to get the details that are needed in order to come up with the outcome of the study which is the data criticality user’s guide. All of the data can help to establish the aims and objectives of the study, the user’s access level, the request handling, the data information allocation, measurement and control and confidentiality agreement. All of the said details will help the IT manager to create a complete and useful user’s guide about data access.
Figure 4 Primary Data Processing
9. Outline of Literature Review
9.1 Keywords: EMS, architecture, centralized network architecture, software distributed network architecture.
9.2 Basic Definition of Terms: for clarity purposes it is best way to define the following term due to regular use of these terms: EMS architecture and network.
EMS – Management of asset items
Centralized Network Architecture – The network architecture describe how the EMS is deployed
Software Distributed Network Architecture – The software architecture describe the EMS internal construction. This architecture included the information model that is the software representation of the managed resources and the functional capabilities of the network management system.
9.3 Primary Sources:
Brennan, J & Khromer, J 2006, Principles of EMS System, Jones and Bartlett Publishers
Lewis, L 2002, Managing Business and Service Networks, Springer
Oberst J. ‘Enterprise Systems Management Princeton University, viewed 29 August, 2007, http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0127.pdf
Robson, W 1997 Strategic Management and Information Systems: An Integrated Approach, 2nd Edition, London, UK: Finance Times. “IS redraws competitive Boundaries,” Harvard Business Review, march-April 1985, p.134
Saunders, M.et al 2002, Research Methods for business Students, 3rd edition. FT Prentice Hall Congress. 726-733
So, A, Lin, N & Poston, D 2001, The Chinese Triangle of Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, Greenwood Press
Sturvant, C 2004, Enterprise Management Systems Finally Working, viewed 29 August, 2007, http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1446782,00.asp
Sy, A. 2006, The Hong Kong Economy: Some popular perceptions vs. the reality’. Hong Kong Digest, viewed 29 August, 2007, http://www.hketousa.gov.hk/ny/e-newsletter/06april/government-economist.htm
Walz, B 2001, Introduction to EMS Systems, Thomson Delmar Learning
Thomas G., Vembu, S. & Ramasamy, J. 2002, April. ‘Enterprise Management Systems Part I: Architectures and Standards’. Sun, viewed 29 August, 2007, http://www.sun.com/blueprints/0402/ems 1.pdf
Thomas G., Vembu, S. & Ramasamy, J. 2002, April. ‘Enterprise Management Systems Part 2: Enterprise Quality of Service (QoS)’. Sun, viewed 29 August, 2007, http://www.sun.com/blueprints/0402/ems 1.pdf
9.4 Map of Important Ideas
The structure of this literature review will be:
9.4.1 The list definition of keywords and their meaning will serve as an introduction for the different topic areas as a foundation of the study.
9.4.2 The recent studies and theories regarding the advantages and benefits of application of the EMS and all the attributes regarding the use of the said technology.
9.4.3 The hardware and software that are needed in able for the organizations to take advantage the EMS technologies and the architectures that are involved in deployment of the system.
9.4.4 The IT infrastructures that are needed in order to support the overall operation of the company with the use of EMS.
9.4.5 The total cost as well as the different features and functionality of the whole system.
9.4.6 The processes and activities that are needed to implement after applying the system such as training, maintenance and update or enhancement.
9.4.7 The different theories about security of data and information.
10 Originality
There are many reasons why systems failed. One of the main reasons is the lack of communication between the company and the employees or if there are other branches and offices, lack of communication between the head office and the branches. Communication is very important in any system implementation because it will serve as a link between the company, the employees and other external entities such as external IT professionals. Communication is vital aspect of any company but it is not easy to implement especially if the company is running in a multicultural system. Spreading information regarding any change that might happen in the company is also important, if employees are not properly well versed regarding implementation of any system, there is a big chance that they behave unacceptably because of refusal to change.
The most important thing in implementing system is the maintenance. It is important because it will serve as prevention to any problem that might occur in the system. Improper maintenance of system may cause chaos and dilemma in the future use of the system.
Training is also as important of maintenance. Properly trained employees will prevent refusal to technology and change since all of their questions regarding the technology will be answered and therefore help them to gain self-confidence regarding the use of the technology. Training will also help the employees to complement to the performance of the system.
Data criticality is important in any company because it will serve as a bible for the company about how important a data to a particular user as well as it’s impact to the overall operation of the company.
11 Review Conclusion
Based on the ideas of the originality it appears that the best way to end this study and state my conclusion is the show that the best way to correct the past failure of implementing the system is to focus mainly to the interest and performance of the staffs in two different offices in Hong Kong and Shenzhen China.
Reference:
Yin, R 2003, Case Study Research: Design and Methods, SAGE
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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