Strategic Analysis Of MCG Computer – IT Support Company Melbourne

Part A

Strategic management refers to the process of planning, implementation and evaluation of the strategy of an organisation (Bryson, 2018). In today’s world, the competition and sustainability of a company in the business market is all about its competitive strategic advantage. MCG Computer, founded in the year 1991, is one of the longest serving IT support company in Melbourne, Australia. This report will elaborate on making a strategic analysis of it and shall assess its business procedure, the type of industry that it belongs to along with presenting a general environmental analysis for it. It shall also use some tool in order to assess its external environment such as PESTLE, Porter’s Five Forces. Furthermore, the paper would also shed light on the competitive environment of it and the opportunities and threats that are present for it. With the same, it shall present a brief analysis of its internal analysis including its resources along with its capabilities and core competencies. Lastly, the paper would propose a suitable information system solution that would meet the needs of this company and would evaluate the proposed system and provide recommendations.

MCG Computer is an IT Support Company based in Melbourne of Australia. It was founded in the year 1991 and it focuses on delivering best IT support services that drive the real business value like cloud computing, data centre, IT infrastructure management, network services, managed IT and IT consulting (MCG Computer, 2018). It provides the managed IT services for trouble free IT operations and low cost along with On-site remote business support for the fast solutions to the problems related to Information Technology. Along with this it also provides IT business solution for the legal and accountancy firms all across Australia. Its IT service is highly flexible as one could chose the management of different components of his or her IT infrastructure.

MCG Computer belongs from the IT industry. This industry is going rapid evaluation and is at the same time, changing the shape of the Australian business standards. It includes software management, business process outsourcing, software management etc.

Political	Economical Save Time On Research and Writing Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper. Get My Paper
1.     Implementation of the stringent VISA policies on the company as its business model is based on outsourcing (Crane and Matten, 2016). 2.     Impact of Brexit in the Australian market effect the cost of operation and the revenue of MCG Computers.	1.     Impact of the delocalisation on the cost of employees 2.     Invisibility of the trade policies and the economic reforms (Sugihara, 2017)
Social	Technological
1.     The increasing trend of digitalisation in the Australian market helps the company in increasing its sales (Mathews et al., 2016) 2.     There is a very strong employee culture with an emphasis on the diversity and training.	1.     Automation 2.     The products and platforms are suspected to be the future growth drivers. 3.     Impact of technology on the product offerings
Legal	Environmental
1.     Discrimination law 2.     Health and safety law 3.     Data Protection 4.     Employment law 5.     Consumer protection and the e-commerce 6.     Anti-trust law	1.     Green IT infrastructure and sustainability initiatives (Albino, Berardi & Dangelico, 2015) 2.     Recycling

Threats of new entrants- Moderate. In the highly commoditised IT services, there is a presence of very little threat of new entrants (Li & Tan, 2017). It is relatively attractive to the newcomers due to its appealing customer base and rapid growth but it is also unattractive to many because of the cost advantage large scale incumbents possess, the major established brands that are already present in the industry and the amount of capital that a new company would require. There are many new companies try to enter into this industry but only few of them could give establish names a real run for the money.

Industry Rivalry- High to moderate. IT industry is widely known for its rapid development, growth and competition. The primary reason behind why most of the new entrants fail is because of the intensive rivalry present in the sector in between the existing players. The products of this industry are valuable and well branded. They tend to have a very powerful customer bases as well. The Australian market share is very evenly distributed among these existing players who are in different kinds of advertising and legal battles with each other (Eriksson et al., 2015).

Business Background

Bargaining Power of the Suppliers- Low to moderate. The bargaining power of the suppliers is weak. The inputs in this industry are standards along with differences being memory and speed etc. (Timmer et al., 2015). As the inputs are standards, the new firms find it quite difficult for entering into this industry as a supplier as of the prevailing relationships in between the IT firms and the current suppliers, the changing and continuously improving technologies and intensive rivalry in between the players.

Bargaining Power of the buyers- Moderate to high. The bargaining power of the buyers are very strong within the IT industry. There are several choices for the buyers and there is a presence of minimal switching costs and therefore, the customers are not typically stick to only a single firm. Furthermore, due to lot of IT sales from different firms which make huge purchases, such companies are important and powerful to the Information Technology firms (Tayeh, Al-Jarrah & Tarhini, 2015). The customers are very price sensitive but the IT goods and products are/ very essential for the success of businesses and therefore they willingly spend their money to get these products.

Threat of substitutes- Moderate to high. There is moderate threats of substitute in the industry and the majority of them are because they are not the substitutes in true terms. Today, people live in a digitalised world and every one depends on the Information Technology in order to run their businesses and lives (Zuboff, 2015). However, one of the best substitute to mention would be of a scientific calculator, but in order to make a comparison in between the two, it is a stretch.

As it is stated earlier, the IT industry is highly known for its rapid development, growth and the competition present within the sector. Although there are many new companies try to enter into this industry but only some of them could give struggle to establish names a real run for the money. This brings in the threat of blurring of the firms from the market. As more number of players within the industry are gaining more experience in building more reliable products, the mots tough the competition is becoming to survive. MCG Computer- IT Support Company Melbourne has numerous potential competitors present in its business market. Some of the major competitors are C1 Computer, Mr Fixit Computers, Geeks2U and Landmark Computers.

Threats	Opportunities
§  Threats to network and data security §  More players within the industry are gaining more experience in building more reliable products (Porter & Heppelmann, 2015)	§  Advancements in computer technology §  Cloud computing is creating opportunities of the small businesses in order to secure high volume repair contracts (Han et al., 2015)

The tangible assets of the company are its land, equipment, machineries and the capital. It is to note that MCG computers is a small firm and it does not own any physical property. However, it has its own machineries and other equipment. Hence, it has strong tangible asset. The intangible assets of the company are its physical resources and its brand reputation. MCG has a very strong brand reputation in Melbourne as it is operating its business since 25 long years and has created a good and strong customer base.

Strengths	Weaknesses
§  Good customer base §  Product and service portfolio breadth §  Very strong reputation in the market §  Friendly and professional support service §  Supply chain and cost structure §  24/12/365 available service	§  Depth of product portfolio §  Lacks in strong global service §  Limited to Australian market §  The channel program is in its infancy

MCG computers has been serving the Australian market since past 25 years. It has been simplifying the IT related issues and has been increasing the uptime from the small and the medium sized businesses since its emergence. The core competencies of it are as follows:

1. It provides lowest cost and guaranteed IT outsourcing service in the Melbourne area.
2. It provides all latest available data security, security and communication security solutions
3. It makes use of industry leading quality control processes
4. It maximises the IT performance of the business at lowest cost (MCG Computer, 2018)
5. The adage of MCG computers is- “Service means Service is your guarantee of satisfaction”.

Industry

In order to meet the needs of the MCG-Computers, Management Information System (MIS) would be suitable solution (Gholami et al., 2016). As MCG-Computers have not expanded its business to much area, hence, it should be working towards making its management process effective and productive. MIS works with the people, technology, relationships and organisations that are affecting the company. It means that if it is properly implemented in the business, it could help in achieving a higher level of efficiency in the management operations of the company. The MIS solutions builds, recommends and supports the IT solutions which make it easier for the customers to do business all over the Context Exchange Networks like the email, web and the wireless (Benaben et al., 2015). The comprehensive development and design services make sure that the online presence is increased and the reputation is boosted. The MIS solution tailors the solution for delivering the needs of the customers with a strong support offering. A well-designed MIS solutions would collect all the data and information without any inputs from the employees. All this would help MCG- Computers in strengthening its competitive advantage by assisting it in running more efficient business by means of eliminating and reducing the weaknesses of itself and the non-performing areas. This would help in increasing its competitive advantage over its rivals. Overall, it would be helping the company in doing its business in better manner.

1. Designing and determining a perfect policy for develop the MIS in the MCG-computers is important. In order to do this, the company should take the required measurements.
2. The company should work on identifying the primary barriers within it in order to use this solution in better ways. With the same, it should also approach the academic centres for seeking help from them in order to execute the solutions.
3. During the process of designing, establishing and applying MIS in the company, the managers of the company should take into consideration all the behavioural aspects of the working employees towards the implementation of the solution, namely the system directors and then encourage them in participating in the system creation process
4. The mangers of the company have very important role to play in the MIS as compared to the directors and the designers. Change in their attitude towards the computer, the information systems, namely the MIS is recommended. In order to do this, the managers should develop a positive attitude towards the change within a short period of time among the employees.
5. Providing a very comprehensive plan is very important for making use of the information systems in MCG- Computers, before making use of MIS.
6. Absorption of skilful and efficient employees and at the same time, creating proper motivations for the sustainability of the prevailing employees in the company is very important.
7. The company must form a MIS directing committee and MIS council from the initial stages of the MIS project.

Conclusion

Hence, from the above discussion it can be said that MCG-Computers develops every application and embrace every challenge in order to operate its business successfully in the business environment. It is dedicatedly working towards its goal and its effective employee segment is helping it is constantly moving forward in order to achieve its mission. It is achieving them by focusing on the intersection of the emerging needs and diversified requirements of the customers as well as the technological change and acceleration of the business. However, MIS could play an important role in providing many streamlined options for the company and the decision makers of the company would be capable of making their preferred choices as well.

References:

About Melbourne IT Services | MCG Computer. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.mcgcomputer.com.au/about-us

Albino, V., Berardi, U., & Dangelico, R. M. (2015). Smart cities: Definitions, dimensions, performance, and initiatives. Journal of Urban Technology, 22(1), 3-21.

Benaben, F., Mu, W., Boissel-Dallier, N., Barthe-Delanoe, A. M., Zribi, S., & Pingaud, H. (2015). Supporting interoperability of collaborative networks through engineering of a service-based Mediation Information System (MISE 2.0). Enterprise Information Systems, 9(5-6), 556-582.

Bryson, J. M. (2018). Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement. John Wiley & Sons.

Crane, A. and Matten, D., 2016. Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.

Eriksson, K., Johanson, J., Majkgård, A., & Sharma, D. D. (2015). Experiential knowledge and cost in the internationalization process. In Knowledge, Networks and Power (pp. 41-63). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Gholami, R., Watson, R. T., Molla, A., Hasan, H., & Bjørn-Andersen, N. (2016). Information systems solutions for environmental sustainability: How can we do more?. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 17(8), 521.

Han, B., Gopalakrishnan, V., Ji, L., & Lee, S. (2015). Network function virtualization: Challenges and opportunities for innovations. IEEE Communications Magazine, 53(2), 90-97.

Li, H. H. J. K., & Tan, K. H. (2017). Transformative innovation: turning commoditised products into radically high-valued products. Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, 1-14.

Mathews, S., Bianchi, C., Perks, K. J., Healy, M., & Wickramasekera, R. (2016). Internet marketing capabilities and international market growth. International Business Review, 25(4), 820-830.

Porter, M. E., & Heppelmann, J. E. (2015). How smart, connected products are transforming companies. Harvard Business Review, 93(10), 96-114.

Small Business IT Support Company Melbourne | Computer Support Melbourne | Effective Business Support since 1991 | MCG Computer. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.mcgcomputer.com.au/

Sugihara, K. (2017). The European Miracle and the East Asian Miracle: Towards a New Global Economic History (1). In The Pacific in the Age of Early Industrialization (pp. 1-21).

Tayeh, M., Al-Jarrah, I. M., & Tarhini, A. (2015). Accounting vs. market-based measures of firm performance related to information technology investments. International Review of Social Sciences and Humanities, 9(1), 129-145.

Timmer, M. P., Dietzenbacher, E., Los, B., Stehrer, R., & De Vries, G. J. (2015). An illustrated user guide to the world input–output database: the case of global automotive production. Review of International Economics, 23(3), 575-605.

Zuboff, S. (2015). Big other: surveillance capitalism and the prospects of an information civilization. Journal of Information Technology, 30(1), 75-89.