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FINAL ASSESSMENT Student Number: (enter on the line below) Student Name: (enter on the line below) hc1041 Information Technology for Business final assessmeNt Trimester 1, 2022 Assessment Weight: 50 total marks Instructions: · All questions must be answered by using the answer boxes provided in this paper. · Completed answers must be submitted to Blackboard by the published due date and time. Please ensure you follow the submission instructions at the end of this paper. Purpose: This assessment consists of six (6) questions and is designed to assess your level of knowledge of the key topics covered in this unit. HC1041 Final Assessment T1 2022 Question 1(7 marks) Your new company XYZ Marketing Limited needs a high-speed internet provider. For this purpose, you are required to prepare a report for the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of your company. In particular, your report should include (1) a comparison of the services provided by the internet providers and (2) a recommendation to pick one company out of companies A and B. Here are the details of the services. The two companies have provided you with different terms of service. Your organisation downloads at least 100 GB per month and uploads no more than 50 GB per month. Company A: Download charges: $50 per 10 GB. Upload Charges: Free of charge. Admin Fee: $20 per month. Equipment Charges: $300. Industry Rating for customer service and performance: 2 Starts. Company B: Download charges: $60 per 10 GB. Upload Charges: $5 per 10 GB. Admin Fee: $100 one-time fee. Equipment Charges: $300. Industry Rating for customer service and performance: 5 Starts. [7 Marks. Word Limit: Up to 200 words] Note: You may construct a table to help illustrate your comparison. However, you must justify your answer. ANSWER: ** Answer box will enlarge as you type Question 2 (11 marks) The HC1041Q2 Limited Company is considering implementing a new information system to automate sales processing, cash receipts, accounts payable, and cash disbursement procedures. The company's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) sent an announcement letter to the HC1041Q2 community. In the letter, the CEO said: "I have contracted with XYZ Consulting Group to do the needs analysis, system selection, and design work. The programming and implementation will be performed in-house using existing IT department staff. The development process will be unobtrusive to user departments because XYZ knows what needs to be done. They will work independently in the background and not disrupt departmental and internal audit workflow with time-consuming interviews, surveys, and questionnaires. This promises to be an efficient process that will produce a system that all users will appreciate. Required: As a director of the internal audit department, write a response to the CEO's letter. [11 Marks. Word Limit: Up to 250 words] ANSWER: Question 3 (11 marks) Read the following case and answer the question at the end of the case. We have discussed this case in detail interactive tutorials. Sometimes, the best is the worst enemy of the good. In software, too much sophistication may alienate customers instead of improving service. Managers at one successful business learned this the hard way. Citizens National Bank of Texas has a long history. It was established in Waxahachie, Texas, in 1868 and is still privately held. The bank has 16 offices. It does not try to compete with big banks but rather caters to small communities of 500–25,000 and emphasises friendly customer service. The extra care has paid off: the bank enjoys two to two and a half cross-sales per customer, a ratio considered high in banking. On average, each customer has purchased more than two products, such as a checking account, savings account, or home loan. Banks' profitability is highly related to the number of services the same customer purchases. Citizens' best customers use six or seven products. For many years the bank tracked customer contacts manually. As the bank's salespeople are called, relationship bankers write down the details of contacts on paper. Every Monday, management received a sales report covering the previous week and the calls each banker would make that week. With 50,000 customers and many prospective ones, this information soon became reams of paper. The documents contained good information, but the information was difficult to glean and manage. In 2001, management decided to install a customer relationship management (CRM) system. The product chosen was a CRM package from Siebel Systems (which was later acquired by Oracle). Citizens National hoped to enable the CEO and the 16 relationship bankers to improve tracking of prospective customers and increase the number of contacts the bankers made. The bank hired a local consulting firm specialising in installing software for small businesses. The cost of the new software was $150,000. Installing it and adapting it to the bankers' needs cost another $350,000. Siebel's CRM software is recognised as very good, but it was overkill for the bankers, who were typically old-fashioned salespeople not keen on using technology. The system has many features that the bankers did not need and lacked simple features that they did need. It was too sophisticated for Citizens' simple handling of customers. Much of the adaptation time was spent turning off unused features. Large companies often use CRM systems to set up customer support cases, which are files with details of complaints and how they were resolved, from beginning to end. The bank did not need this function. When customers call to complain, the call centre handles the complaint immediately or channels it to the appropriate officer for immediate resolution. If a customer needs a new chequebook, the call centre sends an email message to the proper bank worker who handles chequebook orders. The request for the activity is scheduled, and the bank worker handles such requests in the order in which they come in. The new system did not support this simple way of operation. The bankers found navigating the new system challenging. Moving from one window to another relevant window was not intuitive, and the bankers wasted much time. They expected to see the typical opportunities to sell more services to a customer listed in the record of the customer. For example, they expected to see an opportunity to offer the customer a business loan listed. However, such opportunities must be entered by the system's users when the customer record is set up. Different relationships with the same customer might be on different screens. The bankers were confused and could not get a good sense of all the relationships a customer might have with the bank (such as which services the customer used or a history of customer complaints). They had to flip screens constantly. The relationships were organised in a manner inconvenient to the bankers. A consultant that specialises in CRM systems observed that Siebel's system had everything, which is typically too much for small businesses. These clients, he said, usually lose the forest for the trees. Another challenge was integrating Siebel's software with Citizens' banking software. Like many small and medium-sized banks, it uses Kirchman Bankway. The software helps process and track deposits, loans, and trust accounts. While the Kirchman software keeps customers last and first names in a single field in its database, Siebel's systems keep them in two separate fields. This and other differences made integration of the systems time-consuming. The bankers did not expect the integration time to be so long. After three years, Citizens management decided to abandon Siebel's system. The bank's consulting firm was committed to automating CRM at the bank. The previous example shows that information technology is not always a successful initiative for business organisations. The goal of customer relationship management software (CRM) is to find, attract, and convert prospects to business customers of an organisation. In addition, it must be able to retain its current customers and attempt to win back customers it may have lost. Ultimately, this software application can leverage its functionality to achieve its goal while reducing marketing costs and maintaining quality customer service. Investments in information technology for effective customer relationship management must focus on its ability to target the right customers to prospect and encourage these customers to adopt a set of principles and actions to retain them for a lifecycle of profitability. Notice that it is not simply to "win" customers but to gain profitable customers. An intensive approach to gaining these customers is imperative. Research has shown that customers will open 73 per cent of their accounts within the first 90 days of the relationship. To gain wallet share and customer loyalty, it is essential to tailor the "pitch" based on their expectations. An effective CRM will provide that guidance to offer the best products to a prospective customer at the correct time. An article focused on information technology solutions for financial institutions (credit unions) suggests three critical considerations for CRM implementations: 1) The solution must fit your banking-specific needs. 2) The software must be easy to use. 3) The software should be integrated with your core system. The article states that businesses are set in an environment exhibiting constant change. CRM software and sales force automation software are evolving along with business strategy and operations changes. The suggestions above provide insight that the software solution must allow customisation to the business needs. While the goal of CRM is to maximise the wallet and market share, a complex or challenging system will not achieve its purpose. The human factor associated with the ability to use the system is always a significant factor in how its users interact with a new system. The data maintained by CRM systems need to keep a "360-degree view" of your relationship with your customers. Ultimately, data gathered from third-party sources and your core information system must all remain synchronised and integrated for your employees to develop an accurate relationship with customers. Required: Technology adoption is often called "leading edge" or "bleeding edge." Do you believe that the technology implemented by the Citizens National Bank of Texas had any benefit to the organisation? Or was it an inefficient use of funds and resources? [11 Marks. Word Limit: Up to 250 words] ANSWER: Question 4(7 marks)