Strategic Information System For Business Initiatives: A Review Of MYOB As A Case Study

Strategic Information System and Its Role

Question:

Discuss about the Straetgic Management of MYOB.

The topic presents a literature review to demonstrate the various concepts of a strategic information system to respond to the corporate business initiatives. The strategic objectives are aligned with the information and data and ensure that the company gains a competitive advantage in business with ease and effectiveness. The products and services of the company are offered at lower prices by proper management of strategic information system within MYOB, which has been considered as the case study on this topic. The SIM also allows the organisation to focus n differentiation of products and target various market segments. The Strategic information management or SIM is an effective aspect of the information technology system that allows for categorising, storing, processing and managing transfer and exchange of data and information with ease and effectiveness (Abdelhak, Grostick and Hanken 2014). The SIM also allows for utilisation of analytical tools to the information repositories for identifying growth scopes and opportunities and enhance the efficiency of business operations and processes.

Current organisational structure

The business organisation chosen here as the case study is Myob or Mind Your Own Business, which is an Australian multinational company that delivers tax, accounting and other services to the small and medium sized organisations by using the accounting software packages. There are different types of organisational structure, but here the functional structure has been considered as effective for the organisation. The functional structure has helped the accounting company to manage activities like coordination, supervision and allocation of tasks in an effective manner. This structure also allows for grouping the people altogether and organises the human resources according to their functional abilities (Abhayawansa and Guthrie 2014). Though the drawbacks of this kind of organisational structure include lack of flexible communication, still the operational efficiency can be achieved by making the employees become specialists within the own area of expertise. The Functional structure has helped in making the organisation grouped according to the purpose, ensure that the efficiency of all the departments of accounting is brought with the help of talent and knowledge of its workers, and by supporting own self. Various departments of the organization use the accounting software, and it can help in managing the business operations and processes effectively (Arvidsson, Holmström and Lyytinen 2014).

Operational issues

Few of the operational issues that can be faced by business organisations like Myob include lack of communication, which can result in inaccurate sharing and exchange of information. This reduces coordination between the business functions. The responsibility for gaining profit is present at the top-level only, and due to this, there is a slow adaptation to changes in the business environment. Prior to making decisions, the files consisting of information pass through various phases and very little value is added. Due to the involvement of multiple specialists, it becomes difficult to blame a particular accounting service or operational malfunctioning (Boonstra 2013). The poor communication is another operational issue that reduces flexibility and innovation. When every worker of the organisation manages business operations and functions together, only a certain number of individuals can focus on the strategic direction, which further creates problems while making business decisions. The IT system might want to implement a new computer system whereas the overall objectives of the company are to manage investments in the new services delivered. These are the different operational issues that may be faced by the organization (Bradshaw, Pulakanam and Cragg 2015). 

MYOB as a Case Study

Most effective system acquisition method

Among the other methods such as commercial and custom software, the Enterprise resource planning or ERP has been considered as the most effective for the management of major business operations and processes in real time environment and managed by software and technology. The ERP has been beneficial for shaping the future by looking at the entire operations at various levels and manage reporting and transfer of information and data 24*7, thereby creating enough opportunities for Myob to plan for future approaches to success. The bottom line is increased and creates better scopes and opportunities with the help of ERP software (Cragg, Mills and Suraweera 2013). The ERP software used is MYOB Exo that provides flexibility in creating a while business management solution and maintain easy accounting and GL functions with ease. This software helps in providing support at multiple locations in Australia and all around the world, enables an integrated Customer relationship management or CRM strategy, manage proper project cost functionality, payroll, time and resources along with extensive landed cost and tracking of shipments by ensuring proper flow of processes and checklists (Haux et al. 2013). The MYOB Exo is effective because it provides reliable accounting management solutions as well as enhance the abilities of the company by managing tax properly, billing, invoice delivery, reporting and other financial and accounting services.

Control issues in the system

As Myob is specialised in cloud accounting services, so it is always necessary to manage proper security for the financial and accounting systems, ensure that the strategic information system functions properly, and bring out positive outcomes with ease and effectiveness.  One of the major control issues in the system of Myob include lack of data security, and nearly 50 percent of the survey respondents of Software Advice have considered it as a major problem (Myob.com 2017). This could create complexities and issues and make the online content vulnerable to hackers, fraud activities and other threats such as loss of important data and information (Laudon and Laudon 2016). The system has been unable to become novice-friendly, because of which many employees faced issues in managing the manual accounting processes properly. To overcome these kinds of issues, it is important for Myob to invest heavily on the designing of security architecture and industry practices for securing the user access controls and manage processes of approval effectively. The company must also provide training and development programs to the staffs for making them habituated with the new manual accounting processes and ensure that the limitations of old solutions are reduced (Lin and Wang 2012). Myob has even provided free webinars to the essential users of Myob for making them skilful and knowledge in handling accounting processes with ease and effectiveness. 

Operational Issues Faced by MYOB

Development and adoption of the accounting software packages

One of the major effective software package adopted by the organisation includes MYOB Exo, which offers extensive financial and business management solutions. The software package has been adopted because of its flexible design that helps in developing solutions as well as satisfies the needs of business ranging from financial management, customer relationship management, management of business operations and processes, management of supply chain and distribution (Myob.com 2017). It also facilitates the efficiency of other business management solutions such as costing of job, management of stocks, payroll and human resource management activities, business intelligence, etc. Another reason for adopting the software package is its ability to create a big picture that allows for further decision making in business. The software package is also intuitive, innovative and can be customised that further allows for gaining a unified solution to monitor the performance and manage the business in a well-organised manner (Pearlson, Saunders and Galletta 2016). 

The accounting software package has been developed within a SQL database that is flexible and includes various management solutions to deliver a solution and create convenience for the business administrator. The accounting software packages that are custom-made can help in delivering real time business process integration as well as enhance the ways of managing the financial assets with ease and effectiveness. The accounting software package can help Myob to handle various accounting areas including payable accounts, receivable accounts, billing, expense, management of payroll, reports, timesheets and general ledger too (Peppard and Ward 2016). The accounts payable indicate the area where the company provides its bills while the accounts receivable can help in determining the area the company provides finance that has been owed. These are all the modules that have been present in the accounting software package. It boasts of a specialised solution that considers all the business features while strong protection algorithms are used for reducing chances of any theft or misuse of information. The software package has a clear and simple interface that can help to focus on individual work and reduce the costs of training and development too (Spraakman et al. 2015).

The current size of market

In the present days, the organisation has invested huge amounts of money to utilise the cloud computing for the management of business accounting. The accounting software package has helped in creating a sustainable place in the Australian Securities Exchange, and investors have managed to purchase much over the offer price that was placed earlier. The market debut has experienced a huge rise in the shares of MYOB, Australia. The value of the initiative was $3.65 a share price that further raised more than $800 million (Willcocks 2013). The stocks of Myob kept increasing as high as $3.90 as it opened its trade. According to the initial price of shares, the market size is huge for Myob and the business worth more than $2.5 billion (Myob.com 2017).

Technologies for Addressing Operational Issues

Leaders in market and what allowed them to gain competitive advantage

There are other leaders within the financial accounting business industry such as Medibank, Archer Capital and Bain capital. It is one of the major investment firms in Australia and includes a total number of assets of $75 billion that has created a long lasting positive effect on the investors, teams, business as well as the communities. The company has managed to create value by developing effective teams through the management of private equity, public equity, investments of a capital venture, fixed income and credit, etc. across various business sectors and industries (Wu et al. 2013). The company has maintained a lower cost of production and a better mix of customers that has helped in creating a huge market share of the industry’s economic profit. The scale of business often brings competitive benefits and Myob has successfully managed to focus on the scales of building to spread the costs over a wide base and influence the market conditions, thereby gaining competitive benefits from most of the experiences with ease and effectiveness. Myob Finance has acquired the accounting solutions provider named BankLink at the cost of more than $136m (Myob.com 2017). This effective deal helped the organisation to develop a strategic move to expand its business offerings and furthermore deliver enhanced accounting services to people with ease and efficiency (Yigitbasioglu, Mackenzie and Low 2013). Due to the acquisition, the financial position of the company has been strengthened which has generated good revenue, stable EBITDA margins and management of the good flow of cash. The synergy between quality services of MYOB and the secure, appropriate and reliable bank feeds has influenced the company’s efficiency to deliver superior cloud offerings (Abdelhak, Grostick and Hanken 2014).

Major gaps or challenges faced by customers of accounting software

There are major challenges faced by customers of accounting software such as lack of security though there is the presence of a firewall. The reporting services are weaker which prevent many cases where data is needed to be imported or retrieved. The lack of data appropriateness, efficiency and reliability often are experienced due to the outdated software packages that can even slow down the system and create errors. The accounting software packages offer fewer features at a high price, which is a major issue faced by the customers. The absence of bank reconciliation feature prevents bank and credit card accounts reconciliation and may even reduce the capabilities of business to identify errors including duplication of data, wrong assumptions made, etc (Abhayawansa and Guthrie 2014). The Customer Relationship Management is also weak, and the accounting software package may not be compatible with different systems as well. There is no 24/7 technical support, which also results in facing challenges to fix the accounting software issues and the services are not even provided timely. Therefore, these are the issues that may be experienced by customers of accounting software (Boonstra 2013).

Accounting Software Packages

To overcome these challenges, it is recommended to manage passwords to protect the computer system and the files of the company. A firewall needs to be installed for preventing internet intruders while Windows User Account Control must be enabled for protecting the computer system from viruses and malwares and furthermore reduce the risks of installing unauthorised software packages within the company’s computer systems (Bradshaw, Pulakanam and Cragg 2015).

Conclusion

The research topic focused on the management of a strategic information system considering the business organization MYOB in Australia. A literature review has been presented for demonstrating the use of accounting software packages and how it has benefited the company by gaining more profit and competitive advantage in business. The company followed the present structure of the organisation, i.e., the functional organisational structure while ERP was considered as one of the most effective system acquisition methods. The issues faced while managing business operations, system flowchart of sales and control issues had been included in this topic. The ways of developing and necessity of adopting a good accounting based on the size of the market for Myob was illustrated her as well. The current leaders in the market and ways of gaining competitive advantage as well as the issues experienced by users of accounting software packages had been included here too.

References

Abdelhak, M., Grostick, S. and Hanken, M.A., 2014. Health Information-E-Book: Management of a Strategic Resource. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Abhayawansa, S. and Guthrie, J., 2014. Importance of intellectual capital information: a study of Australian analyst reports. Australian Accounting Review, 24(1), pp.66-83.

Arvidsson, V., Holmström, J. and Lyytinen, K., 2014. Information systems use as strategy practice: A multi-dimensional view of strategic information system implementation and use. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 23(1), pp.45-61.

Boonstra, A., 2013. How do top managers support strategic information system projects and why do they sometimes withhold this support?. International Journal of Project Management, 31(4), pp.498-512.

Bradshaw, A., Pulakanam, V. and Cragg, P., 2015. Knowledge Sharing in IT Consultant and SME Interactions. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 19.

Cragg, P., Mills, A. and Suraweera, T., 2013. The Influence of IT management sophistication and IT support on IT success in small and medium?sized enterprises. Journal of Small Business Management, 51(4), pp.617-636.

Haux, R., Winter, A., Ammenwerth, E. and Brigl, B., 2013. Strategic information management in hospitals: an introduction to hospital information systems. Springer Science & Business Media.

Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2016. Management information system. Pearson Education India.

Lin, W.S. and Wang, C.H., 2012. Antecedences to continued intentions of adopting e-learning system in blended learning instruction: A contingency framework based on models of information system success and task-technology fit. Computers & Education, 58(1), pp.88-99.

Myob.com. (2017). Accounting Software & Online Business Solutions | MYOB Australia. [online] Available at: https://www.myob.com [Accessed 22 Aug. 2017].

Pearlson, K.E., Saunders, C.S. and Galletta, D.F., 2016. Managing and Using Information Systems, Binder Ready Version: A Strategic Approach. John Wiley & Sons.

Peppard, J. and Ward, J., 2016. The strategic management of information systems: Building a digital strategy. John Wiley & Sons.

Spraakman, G., O’Grady, W., Askarany, D. and Akroyd, C., 2015. Employers’ Perceptions of information technology competency requirements for management accounting graduates. Accounting Education, 24(5), pp.403-422.

Willcocks, L., 2013. Information management: the evaluation of information systems investments. Springer.

Wu, Y., Cegielski, C.G., Hazen, B.T. and Hall, D.J., 2013. Cloud computing in support of supply chain information system infrastructure: understanding when to go to the cloud. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 49(3), pp.25-41.

Yigitbasioglu, O., Mackenzie, K. and Low, R., 2013. Cloud Computing: How does it differ from IT outsourcing and what are the implications for practice and research?. The International Journal of Digital Accounting Research, 13, pp.99-121.