Management Information Systems For Business Operations – Procter & Gamble Case Study

Discuss about the Management Information Systems for Business Operations.

Technology has been in a state of development since the last decade. The business operations of the company has also been promoted and developed due to the change in information technology (Barel, Paye, & Maibach, 2014). In the present business world there are number of ways by which security of information and data could be managed. Procter & Gamble Company has been selected for developing ways for security of the information system.

This report contributes to the analysis of the different ways the security of information system can help an organization. The methods for securing information system have been shown in this report. The Security of Procter & Gamble Company has enhanced the business sense of the company. Outsourcing and Social networking services has provided platform for getting access to media news and media is capable of trolling the company. Hence it is important for forming policies to prevent security issues.

Security issues of Procter & Gamble

The Security is the most dominant part of information technology management. The security issues of Procter & Gamble Company can be classified into two major causes outsource of information and social sites (Barel, Paye, & Maibach, 2014). Outsourcing has been developed over the years in Procter & Gamble. It has enhanced the business sense of the company. It involves third party for processing the hard core information of the company. Payrolls and call centres act as outsourcing sectors. Procter & Gamble hands over the private and secured data to these sectors. The outsourcing companies store these data over the cloud network. The access may lead to misuse of these confidential and private data (Zhu, et al., 2016). The sensitive information like salary, manufacturing cost, taxes and many more could fall into wrong hand if proper care is not being taken.

Social networking services such as twitter and Facebook has become the major source internet engaging (Achrol & Gundlach, 2014). It has become the source of communication and connections among customers and Procter & Gamble Company. The business operations are at great risk due to the divulging of confidential business information. The organisation has disallowed the social sites from accessing the company’s resources. However the internet has provided platform for getting access to media news and media is capable of trolling the company (Zhu, et al., 2016). It is littered with stories of bullying people. Hence it is important for forming policies to prevent security issues.

Principles of Securities policies

Principles of Securities policies

Procter & Gamble has to form policies and measure for securing their data and information. It is very difficult for forming means to protect and secure data and information from misuse (Achrol & Gundlach, 2014). However, some principles of policies would help Procter & Gamble for forming preventive measures to the security threats. They are availability, confidentiality, and integrity. Availability refers to principle of interrupted access of all the required information within the organization. Confidentiality stands for the fact that all the informational resources must be given access to only one authorised person (Wolf et al., 2015). Integrity means that the authorized person should only be allowed to modify and change the information.

Security issues of an organization can be dealt by understanding each of them on an individual level. They are threats, vulnerabilities and controls (Wolf et al., 2015). Threats are set of situations that could result in harming the operations of the company.  Vulnerabilities are some specific weakness of the company. These weaknesses are flaws in security system, fault in designing and lack or protection. Procter & Gamble would have to deal with each type these faults for forming the best possible security measures of protecting their information and data.

Threats of Information system in Procter & Gamble

Some major threats that have crucial effect on Procter & Gamble are explained below in the table.

Removal Process of threat	Description
Interception	It is the way by which external person gets in the information system of Procter & Gamble. The block in network would deny the entry of person, program, or any system in information system of Procter & Gamble (Lafley & Martin, 2013). However the direct copying or tapping of the information could be done by intercepting the unauthorized entry with the help of fake authentication process.
Modification	It is a progression of the Interception part of threat resolving process. In case of unauthorised entry, the information and data stored could be tampered and changed. As for example, database modification and transmission data could be hacked and changed by the rival company of Procter & Gamble (Konik, Theuer & Venz, 2013).
Interruption	It occurs when Procter & Gamble loose the access to their resources. Hardware theft and program bugging are examples of interruption in information system (Konik, Theuer, & Venz, 2013). The data and information of Procter & Gamble may also be deleted accidentally and it would also result in hindering the progress.
Fabrication	It refers the counterfeit objects within the information system of Procter & Gamble. The malicious programs, bugs and spurious entry in data sheet would hinder the progress of the company. According to Yi, Smith, & Ardwin, (2016), Keystroke logging is also a major cause for affecting the security system of Procter & Gamble.

Table1: Threats that affect Procter & Gamble

(Source: Lafley & Martin, 2013, pp.-8)

Vulnerabilities could be either technological or person dependent. In organizations, the data breach and security breaker are mostly oriented from people. It has been seen that the misuse of the resources of company or deliberate fraud to the company are the major vulnerabilities of the company (Wright, 2014). The technological vulnerabilities of Procter & Gamble could be termed as the flaw in the planning and designing of the security system. It has made getting into the network of the company easy for the external people. Some examples of technological vulnerabilities include buffer overflow and denial of service.

Buffer Overflow: In buffer overflow, the attackers target the application that is not multitasking (Carrie & Wilshire, 2013). Hence it becomes easy to overflow the services of the application by attacking that particular application. Security controls are the methods and tools that can be used for mitigating the risk of vulnerabilities. It can be classified as detective, preventive or responsive. The presentive security control acts as a safeguard rather than detection model.

The policies for security of information and data in Procter & Gamble have six essential components. They are objectives, audience, purpose, exceptions, policy, and disciplinary action.

1. Objectives are the clearly stated aims of Procter & Gamble while forming the policies (Wright, 2014). The security of the information is the main reason behind the formation of policies.

2. Audience is used for defining the underlying scope of Procter & Gamble and the audience affected by the policies.

3. Purpose has been used for noting and pointing out the reasons for the existence of policy in Procter & Gamble.

4. Exceptions clearly state the terms and condition when the formed policies would cease to work. In some extreme cases these policies would not be valid for application in Procter & Gamble.

5. Policy defines the actual policy that has been made up to deal with the security issues in Procter & Gamble (Payaud, 2014).

6. Disciplinary actions are the set of action and consequences that one has to face if any of the policies made in Procter & Gamble would be broken.

Understanding the security lax: it is very important for understanding the weakness of the information system (Fang et al., 2014). If the designer does not know the errors of the design, he or she would not be able to protect their system from external hack. Hence understanding the flaws of the security system is very crucial in Procter & Gamble. Prototypes of the information system design should be checked for gathering intelligence on the flaws of the design.

Confidentiality of information: The information system of Procter & Gamble should maintain its confidentiality for operations from external users. The computer system of Procter & Gamble should maintain the protocol of authentication for allowing anyone through the security wall. The authentication process can be divided into two stages identification and authentication (Fang et al., 2014). Identification is the process by which the information system verifies that legitimate user. If anyone else would try to get into the network, the system would not allow the access to information and data. It can be done by deploying password protection and question and answer options.

Business continuity assessment policy: Procter & Gamble can form the business continuity assessment policy for

1. Understanding the impact of interruptions in the company

2. Calculating the tolerance of system down, on system by system basis

3. Priorities of the business at those situations

4. Resource requirements for restoring critical business process (Payaud, 2014)

Sample risk assessment policy of Procter & Gamble for information security

Section P	[Procter & Gamble] Information security	Effective date:
Sub head	Risk assessment of Information security	Change controlling factor #:
Policy	Authentication and Password protection	Approved by:
Objective	To control the security of information, Procter & Gamble would form the authentication and password protection in the company.
Purpose	This policy would ensure that the information system of Procter & Gamble would be limited to authorised use (Union, 2014). The risk of data breach and information infiltration could be minimized.
Audience	It is applicable to all the employees, customers, managers, and stakeholders of Procter & Gamble.
Policy	The information technology team would form designs for increasing the security of the information of Procter & Gamble (Li, 2014). Threats to the information system would be analysed and their probability of occurrence would be reduced. Disaster preparation would anticipate the methods for sorting the problems caused by the data leak and information misuse. Contingency planning would be helpful in forming a surrogate planning when the first plan for implementation fails to procure the desired result (Sittig, Gonzalez & Singh, 2014).
Exceptions	None
Disciplinary actions	Violation of the policy would be dealt with stern and strict actions. Legal prosecution would be taken by Procter & Gamble against such actions under civil and criminal laws (Li, 2014). The employees would be terminated and interns and volunteers would be dismissed from the service.

Table 2: Risk assessment policy of Procter & Gamble

(Source: (Sittig, Gonzalez & Singh, 2014, pp.- 803)

It is important for maintaining the operations of the business without affecting the moral values of the company. Procter & Gamble would have to maintain their information system

Figure 1: Comparison of Moral and Legal activities

(Source: Hubin, 2014, pp.- 89)

The ethics refer to the science of society. It helps people for socializing and surviving among the people. It promotes the survival of culture, society, individuals, civilizations, and business (Hubin, 2014). The ethics of business consist of interactions among the firms, industries, society, individuals, and state. The ethical theory is helpful in sorting out the ethical issues of Procter & Gamble that may be seen in their operations. The ethical issues of a business organization can be dealt by understanding PAPA acronym (Michael & Byner, 2013). PAPA stands for privacy, accuracy, property, and accessibility.

Privacy concerns with the ability for protecting their information from external. Accuracy is the concept of providing and achieving correct values and information in business operations.

Property is the data and information collected by an individual. That individual would be the owner of it (Michael & Byner, 2013). However in case of corporations, the company who has paid for the information could counter claim the property.

Accessibility is process of making data available for all the potential users.

The recent awareness among people for the ethical issues in information system has caused growth of code of ethics or conduct or practice in them. The complete ethical treatment is used for understanding the applications of information system (Union, 2014). The society allows the existence of separate entities for the owners of Procter & Gamble. The economy of the company is huge and it has caused people for expecting large from the company. CSR helps in initiating two fold aspects of strengthening the business and contributing to the society (Brief et al., 2016). Procter & Gamble pursues CSR for reflecting the personal interests of senior executives. In the supply chain model, CSR participates for forming partnership with community groups. The three pronged approach of CSR are

Consolidation of CSR efforts- the time of operations is limited and it is very hard to save them

Understanding the benefit- Spending the time for strategising the approach

Finding the partners- Selecting partners for mutual benefits

Sustainability in Procter & Gamble- Sustainability is very important for Procter & Gamble from operational point of view (Brief et al., 2016). It involves ensuring the resources of the company.

The Chief information officer plays a crucial role for providing leadership in technology implementation and business operations in Procter & Gamble. The management structure of Procter & Gamble can be understood by analysing the four major Information system management structures.

Figure 2: Four major Information system management structures

(Source: Eddy, Gooi & Chen, 2015, pp.- 33)

Figure 3: SWOT analysis of Procter & Gamble

(Source: Lutkenhaus & de Freitas, 2016)

Strength- The strengths of Procter & Gamble have been greatly influenced by the Management Information system (Bull et al., 2016). The use of e-commerce and latest information system has helped them in achieving market position and brand image. However, the security flaws in their information system might cause Procter & Gamble loss of a considerable amount of market name.

Weakness- The information system has helped Procter & Gamble in expanding their scale of operations. It has resulted in slower operations in Procter & Gamble (Bull et al., 2016). Due to the use of latest information system, Procter & Gamble might see data and information theft in their operations. It would cost them large amount of operational costing loss.

Opportunities- The information system used by Procter & Gamble have made it possible for them to grow on a global scale (Gorener, Toker  & Ulucay, 2012). They have acquired many opportunities for acquisitive growth in other markets. However, the diversification of their business market using information system could be hindered due to flaws in their security plans.

Threats- Growth of strong competitors and retailers is the main threat to Procter & Gamble (Gorener, Toker  & Ulucay, 2012). The retailers have started using information system for opposing the market capture of Procter & Gamble.

Figure 5: Pestle Analysis Framework

(Source: Srdjevic, Bajcetic & Srdjevic, 2012, pp.-3392)

Political- The political environment of Australia largely affects Procter & Gamble and its business operations (McGuigan, 2015). The government provides the necessary growth and development opportunities to Procter & Gamble. However, the involvement of government for deciding the prices of its commodities can affect the profit margin of Procter & Gamble.

Economic- Higher unemployment and recession have considerable affects Procter & Gamble. The financial position of Procter & Gamble can decline due to the adverse effect of economic factors such as financial crisis.

Social- Social factors like needs of targeted market and development of employee welfare has considerable effect on Procter & Gamble for sustaining profit (McGuigan, 2015). Procter & Gamble have to take care of their customer’s delights and demand for achieving success in their operations.

Technological- The latest technological equipment have been used by Procter & Gamble in their business operations. It has helped them in increasing the functionality of their operations and getting faster results.

Legal and Environmental- Procter & Gamble have to abide by the laws, rules and regulations set by Australian government. The company has started recycling of their products for supporting to the environment and dealing with their problems and issues.

Conclusion

Hence, it can be concluded from the report that security of Information System plays a vital role for resolving the ethical, moral and law issues of an organization. Procter & Gamble has implemented Business continuation risk assessment policy for dealing with the protecting their information and data. The risk management analysis, SWOT analysis and PESTLE analysis of Procter & Gamble in relation to security issues had shown that security of the strategic management and information system should be followed in an organization. Therefore, the technological development has a crucial role in business development and security operations. The security of Information System has provided different types of facilities in the organization. Hence, for all the operations in any organization, information system plays an important and crucial role for meeting the needs of customer.

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